Guild Wars 2

Hello, I have been playing GW2 since 2012, and recently I have been thinking about quitting because Arenanet has broken its promise, which you can see in those old trailers
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1JUwPqzQY
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oit0gBEWHo

When the game first came out most of what they promise was there, and it was their job to improve on those systems, not abandon them. For example, the living story season 1 made the world feel more life be adding new Dynamic events that affected the world in significant ways. Where the new seasons add maps that you do once and never again, unless if you need to farm/grind for some materials or items. One of the problems that season 1 had is that it only takes place once every two weeks, and you can never repeat the old episodes, but that problem was easy to fix. What Arenanet should have done is allow people access the story instance of past episodes by the “Story Journal,” and yes they’ll not have the same exact experience as when the event was taking place, but they would still experience it to some degree.

Edit addition: I don’t care so much about season 1 more about the big events that came with it, which affected the world of GW2 in a significant matter. Unlike the new seasons which add mini maps that are meant to be farmed, and doesn’t impact the world of GW2 in any significant ways.

My firm belief on why Arenanet has abandoned it is vision is due to what I call “The traditional MMO players,” which are in need of “Heart Quests.” This system wasn’t originally part of GW2; it got added because those players couldn’t understand how the event system worked. Even today those players defend this lame system and say it is necessary to waste time on. Arenanet listened and even added a repetitive daily Heart Quests to their new maps, instead of finding a better way to improve on their dynamic event system. So, what is GW2 of today? Well, it is as follow.

1) HoT, farming/grinding the same maps over again, and again “Swimming your sword” along with bosses that keep responding every hour and “It doesn’t care that your there.”

2) empty maps with uninteresting events/Heart Quests along with a static world that stopped changing.

3) A gated crafting to waste more of players time.

Now, I’m not against the idea of expansions, but I think they had the wrong vision when they implemented Heart of Thrones. Also, I’m not against the addition of raids. However, I can’t help but feel that GW2 is becoming just like any other repetitive MMO. I originally was sold on the idea of GW2 be the trailers above, and yes I know that they are Just trailers to sell the game, but that is not an excuse. Perhaps I was naive at the time, but still…

You may want to look further into what they were referring to in those trailers.

Should ArenaNet listen to you, and others that preferred the old system, or listen to others, that did not care for Living World Season One’s system of never being able to repeat content? Me, I preferred the old system, but was much, much in the minority at the time.

To me, it seems many of the systems we see added to the game, such as Renown Hearts in the new maps, are things I’ve seen requested often on the forums.

I’m sure it is difficult to please everyone that plays an MMO, as everyone has their favorites and things they dislike.

Ah, those old video’s, especially the MMO manifesto, make me nostalgic for vanilla GW2, one of the best games I ever played. For me the issue never was “heart” quests. I had a problem with the addition of vertical progression to the game something they said was not to be part of the GW2 experience, we weren’t going to ever “prepare” to have fun. Was that a broken promise? Technically, by definition, yes. But, I don’t hold it that way as I believe they are free to evolve the game as they see fit. I’m just sad for the early inclusion of VP though they haven’t allowed it to have its traditional impact in the game.

Of course I have a problem with HoT. I always knew the early success of jumping puzzles posed a risk. But Anet said that they would always be there if you wanted to do them, but would never be required to advance the game. Of course that was a promise broken as well—HoT is nothing but a massive extended jumping puzzle.

I do wish they had hung onto their original vision because the idea’s, maybe not entirely new, were revolutionary and the game was beautiful. It has been difficult to watch them manage it over time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

What did they promise? What did they actually deliver.

All I can see from the original post is that the OP preferred the original premise of GW2 (as did I) over the current implementation. That doesn’t mean that ANet broke any promises; it just means that they have adapted to the community’s interests & needs.

I liked the old two week cadence and the immediacy of needing to be online often to learn about & participate in the current events, even though it meant that I’d miss out if RL intervened. I liked non-repeatable content. I liked having only 2-4 weeks to figure out how to complete major events and achievements & collections.

However, as we can see from forum (and reddit) history, that’s a minority view. Even today, people are very unhappy that they can’t see Living Story 1 (let alone play it). Lots of people prefer being able to gradually build up local currency. And many wanted to see hearts in high level zones. I like it better before; that doesn’t mean ANet promised things would remain the same.

Importantly (possibly more importantly), the old system was exhausting for ANet. It put them on a tight schedule, gave them little wiggle room for things going wrong or adjustments, and was probably unsustainable in the long run.

tl;dr I like the old system better, too. All the same, I recognize that the new one fits better the community better

I understand completely where you are coming from and I totally agree with your assessment however at this point I realistically don’t feel they will make the necessary changes particularly because much of the design team that started off are no longer with the company and there’s not enough money from normal store sales.

I would say that if they were to make major changes as you proposed it would have to be during the building of another expansion because then they’d have money to do those changes properly.

I am happier with the current implementation of living story.
Sure, it doesn’t come as fast, but that’s not an issue. Knowing that I have time to do it let me enjoy other content of the game, and other games in the general.

Sure, the maps are pretty much abandoned when a new one come out… and I don’t think that’s necessarily an issue. When new content comes out you still get the excitement of new content, lots of players around talking about it etc. It’s still there, the only difference is that players who are late into the game can still come back to it later on. Not a big deal.

Also non repeatable content is a nightmare for any completionist or AP hunter. It’s definitely a strong argument for them (myself included) to leave the game if something just stop being doable. I don’t mind them asking you to pay for living story you missed, but everyone should be able to catch up on the previous content and AP, otherwise an achievement score makes no sense.

My big issue however is the fact they abandoned dungeons. I do like fractals, they’re fast dungeons and they’re cool, but dungeons had (still have) so much potential, as demonstrated by the aetherblade path. I would love for them to slowly rework them one by one and offer a new challenging experience for 5 players. Raids are very nice, but the game is missing more content like Nightmare CM, stuff that can be done with only a small group of friends.

Played GW since 2006. Enjoyed a lot.
Played GW2 on release. It was just bland and lacking a lot, quit before hitting lvl 80. But I had great time with 4 toons.
Back for LS1. Piece of trash, zerging, no endgame content. Lvled every toon to 80. Quit.
Returned at the end of LS2, better, way better. At this moment this was looking more like a solid game that trash MMO zerging.
LS3 quality improvement, GW2 made me fanboy once again. Yes it is different game from what was promised. But, man, I do not want play GW1 or manifesto GW2 in 2017. As long as they developing lore and the game is good, I’m ok with it.

3) A gated crafting to waste more of players time.

Have you ever crafted full ascended weapon set for warrior and at least two armor sets?
Well great news for you at the moment when you would get enough mats and/or gold for them you would craft all time gated mats.
There is only one really annoying time gated thing: charged quartz crystals

Personally I don’t give a kitten what they promised or not, I’ll play the game as long as I enjoy it, and when I don’t, I move on. I’ve enjoyed it for a long time, and currently it looks like it’s not going to change anytime soon.

While I liked GW2 better at launch than I do now, that has little to do with deviation from the game design philosophy statements made in those videos. I offer the following food for thought:

• Statements made as to game philosophy are not promises. At best they are wishes.
• Either the ToS or UA contains a phrase wherein consumers acknowledge that game conditions may change at any time and without notice. I suspect that a lot of people either did not read that clause, or have forgotten it.
• Game developers are caught between different consumer demographics. While it would be nice if they could please everyone, that is impossible when different people want diametrically opposed things.
• No developer can produce an MMO which does not at least offer repetition. MMO Developers need to use goals which require repetition to entice players to come back time after time. The MMO business model does not work unless they do.

3) A gated crafting to waste more of players time.

Have you ever crafted full ascended weapon set for warrior and at least two armor sets?
Well great news for you at the moment when you would get enough mats and/or gold for them you would craft all time gated mats.
There is only one really annoying time gated thing: charged quartz crystals [/quote]

I have 6 ascended armors, 2 heavy, 2 light and 2 medium long with weapons.
My point is that GW2 using time-gated crafting like other MMOs, which is a waste of time. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe Guild Wars 2 crafting did have time gated things before the “traditional MMO players wanting treadmill gear grind.” Now, I don’t mind the ascended armors/weapons as long as Arenanet doesn’t go back on their word and start adding gears with higher stats, which I don’t think they’ll. However, I noticed that there are still people wanting this “treadmill gear grind,” which is the problem with MMOs along with their players.

Unless someone says, “I promise” or “I swear” they aren’t promises. They are intentions at best and wishes at worst. So all the people saying Anet went back on it’s promises, obviously have no concept of the word.

As far as time gated things, they are a good thing IMO. What do you actually work toward if you have instant gratification of everything? Add to that the fact that you can buy most of those time gated mats on the TP and it renders most of the time gated arguments moot.

I guess GW2 is no longer my game, and it was the only MMO that I liked because it is different. However, it has been changing away from the original vision which they sold me on. I know that Season 1 and core GW2 had a lot of problems like end game etc. Also, I think they did a good job of addressing some of those problems. However, at the same time they didn’t solve other problems like the lack of Dynamic events in core tyria along with how to allow people to do the stories of season 1 without giving up on it is usage of affecting and changing the world. Instead, they give up on everything that made GW2 unique. Now, I love the way they are telling their story in HoT and Living stories; they are getting better at it. Despite that, those stories don’t affect the world in any significant way like season 1.

blade eyes.2034:

I guess GW2 is no longer my game, and it was the only MMO that I liked because it is different. However, it has been changing away from the original vision which they sold me on. I know that Season 1 and core GW2 had a lot of problems like end game etc. Also, I think they did a good job of addressing some of those problems. However, at the same time they didn’t solve other problems like the lack of Dynamic events in core tyria along with how to allow people to do the stories of season 1 without giving up on it is usage of affecting and changing the world. Instead, they give up on everything that made GW2 unique. Now, I love the way they are telling their story in HoT and Living stories; they are getting better at it. Despite that, those stories don’t affect the world in any significant way like season 1.

Yes because thousands of dynamic events is lacking….

Only a like two maps were impacted by LS1. The existing stories do impact the world but not the individual maps themselves.

Putting nostalgia aside, the original game direction had a lot of great ideas to the point where I seriously thought it was the real WoW killer… but the implementation of most of these great ideas was a failure. The game had serious issues that have since then been addressed.

• The personal story with branching choices was a great idea on paper, but it turned out that most choices had no moral implications and therefore was uninteresting, and the sheer number of missions they had to do meant that most missions you did lasted for 5 or 10 minutes. With LW2 and 3, you have missions that last much longer and you still get some choices to make here and there. You can also replay it. The story mode is much better today.

• Replacing healers and tank roles with the more generic roles of “support” and “control” looked like a great ideas at first but with their implementation the best party build was 5 DPS in berserker and players who would have preferred playing a tank or a healer were alienated. I realize that putting tanks and healers in raids is opposite to their initial philosophy, but at least the players who enjoyed these roles are not left behind now.

• Dynamic events are a great idea to make the zones feel alive, but people outlevel a zone far too quickly to notice the dynamic changes to a zone, and there is not enough incentive to go back to the mid-level zones because it’s naturally more fun to play in a level 80 area where you’re at full power. And the effort it must have taken to make the zones change depending on success or failure of the events is cool but ultimately feels like a waste of developer effort. I feel that the FATE system of FFXIV works just as well and doesn’t force the devs to make event chains and zone changes.

• The downed state is a good idea on paper but in practice it’s only useful if some enemy is near death. If you’re downed in solo and your enemy is not almost dead you’re basically stuck watching your character getting slowly killed for 10 seconds and there’s nothing you can do. I am still waiting for a suicide option when downed. PvP players don’t seem too fond of the downed system either but I don’t know about PvP.

• Town clothes were a very promising toy for role-players, but it was underdeveloped and the devs preferred killing the feature outright and replaced it with outfits.

And I could keep going for hours. My point is that despite the storm of praises and 10/10 that it has received at launch, vanilla GW2 was far from perfect, and while there are definitely things that I liked more about vanilla GW2, I think the game is overall better today than it was back then. Heart of Thorns was a disappointment but it was not all bad, and it did bring some genuinely good things to the game.

Bearhugger.4326:

I am still waiting for a suicide option when downed.

yup I miss a kill me button
You can’t travel because you are not dead
that annoys me too

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2” Hmmm
Regarding other MMOs “Everybody around you is doing the same thing your doing, the boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later, it doesn’t care that I’m there” Hmmm
“We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building” Raids /cough

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-grind-philosophy/page/4#post4733273

- Grind: To us, grind means being required to do the same boring activity over and over again. In particular, the biggest reference we’re talking about here in traditional MMO’s is having to kill the same creatures over and over again to farm for levels or gear. In Gw2, you can gain exp and levels from a massive variety of game play, game modes, and content types. Same goes for the ability to acquire the gear to build up your characters. Similarly, ascended mats can be acquired from a wide variety of content types and game modes to allow you choice and options so you don’t need to grind to complete those goals. Our new mastery system continues to this promise as well, which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

I also felt this was worth pointing out:

Sometimes plans will change, I can assure you it’s never our intention to intentionally mislead/trick anyone, that’s simply the nature of development: from time to time things we say at one point later have to change.

Rikkagin.9472:

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2” Hmmm
Regarding other MMOs “Everybody around you is doing the same thing your doing, the boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later, it doesn’t care that I’m there” Hmmm
“We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building” Raids /cough

Incomplete quoting

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2” The next relevant sentence after it was “we want to change how people view combat”

So this one is about grinding mobs to level. That is, killing mobs over and over to gain XP. Not other types of grind.

“In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

and mixed messages

“Everybody around you is doing the same thing your doing, the boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later, it doesn’t care that I’m there”

That sentence isn’t talking about events but the Personal Story. Since you do it only once the boss never respawns, so it’s a true statement. Since the next paragraph was about events people thought her statement was about events also. This was clarified in a later interview.

I’ll just put this here as it’s relevant to this thread.

Part of this post was talking about expectations and calling ANet liars because things they said they wanted to do didn’t happen. You can jump to the complete post by clicking on Josh Forman’s name below.

Josh Foreman:

4. Please stop calling us liars when we fail to implement something we intended to months ago, but for some technical, balance, or other reason found it to be untenable. We can’t be very open about our plans if every word we say is taken as a contractual obligation. Imagine if every word you said to your friends were recorded and played back at the most inopportune time in order to make you look like a fool. You’d probably clam up pretty quickly. Making an MMO, especially one as experimental as GW2 requires… experimenting. Requires making plans, following through, finding dead ends, back-tracking and trying something else. Sometimes that means that we will state a clear goal, test it internally and find out it just won’t work. The idea that this means we don’t have a clear vision is wrong. There is a difference between a core vision for our design principles, and the implementation of specific systems. We are very clear about the mountain we want to scale, but whether we do it in 4×4, on foot, with a grappling hook, or a hot air balloon are all contingent on the terrain we discover as we progress.

Josh Foreman:

There is a difference between a core vision for our design principles, and the implementation of specific systems.

Yes, there is. Problem is, that the changes that are usually brought up when people are speaking about promises broken are usually those made not to latter, but to the former.

That saying, i don’t agree with parts of what OP posted. LS1 pace (the “two weeks’ cadence”), that OP is claiming was too slow, was already way too fast for many players (only those able to play on most days were able to catch up with it, while the majority of the game population felt more and more left behind). The fact that LS was a real living story, that took place mostly in open world, and was designed to be present only for a short time also created a lot of discontent.

This type of approach is good only if you can participate in it. The more of it you skip, the less appealing it becomes however. And obviously it does absolutely nothing for those players that started after it has already passed.

I’m not surprised it got changed. And “traditional MMO players” had nothing to do with it. Quite the opposite, it was mostly unappealing not to hardcores, but to casuals and “new mmo players”

There were other changes OP could have brought up as leading to his conclusion that would have fit far better than those he concentrated on.

Hevoskuuri.3891:

I don’t give a kitten what they promised or not, I’ll play the game as long as I enjoy it, and when I don’t, I move on.

Well said.

Sort and sweet instead of all the FB kissy kissy.
ANET BROKE THEIR PROMISE. Let me rephrase. —Anet didn’t break their commitment, M. O’B did!

It is true that season 1 had a problem with it is design. In fact, my brother doesn’t play GW2 because he can’t play season 1. However, I think that Arenanet could have fixed that problem by giving players access to the story, which was mostly instanced. They can even allow players to redo the big fights like “Twisted Marionette” and “The attack on Lion Arch” by making those fights also a standalone instance with an army of NPCs to replace the players. I know that it’ll not be the same as someone who would have done those events alive with other players, but I think it can work as long as the NPC AI isn’t horrible. Lastly, It is not that I care so much about season 1, but more of what it did to the game itself, which made it feel truly alive like they promised.

These videos are from 2011/2012. It’s 2017 now.
People change their opinions and visions almost on a weekly basis and you expect them to stick to what they said 5 years ago?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

-snip-
All I can see from the original post is that the OP preferred the original premise of GW2 (as did I) over the current implementation. That doesn’t mean that ANet broke any promises; it just means that they have adapted to the community’s interests & needs.-snip-

Exactly this. You can close this thread. Thanks.

So I take it the OP is suggesting that Anet shouldn’t listen to the playerbase and adapt the game to what the players ask for. Because there were a whole lot of people who didn’t like season 1. People complained about Scarlet, about the story, about the lack of time to do achievements, about not being able to replay their favorite things.

Perhaps Anet would be in a better place now if they kept putting in and removing content, so that new people had no new content at all, only the original content.

I can’t see why anyone would make such an assertion. The Living Story was abandoned because it didn’t work, period. Whether you liked it or you didn’t like it, it drove players from the game and continues to be a problem to this very day.

Unfortunately, Anet listened only to a small section of the playerbase…. I am sure a lot of the playerbase wasn’t even aware of the CDI back in the day…… Lots of the ideas for HoT came directly from the CDI and I sure don’t think HoT represents the wishes of the entire playerbase.

so if HoT is what we got by Anet listening to the playerbase……. I wish they wouldn’t listen to the playerbase

I wish they never set “these promises” it only brought them bad things.

The idea of s1 was good but its just not something that you can do. You need immense amounts of content to keep up the pace with older content getting deleted. And anet couldnt pull it off. I would like tho a similar aproach to se2 tho where not everything happens in the lw maps and you can see changes and events in the rest of the world. Making it feel alive. You could alo visit the same map multiple times making them feel like an actual part of the world. Meanwhile se3 map feel like amusement park you vsit onces and you are done for the year :/

Dashingsteel.3410:

Unfortunately, Anet listened only to a small section of the playerbase…. I am sure a lot of the playerbase wasn’t even aware of the CDI back in the day…… Lots of the ideas for HoT came directly from the CDI and I sure don’t think HoT represents the wishes of the entire playerbase.

The backpedaling Anet did with trying to partially patch it up later, and general negative opinion HoT received suggests it didn’t represent those wishes. For the most part, at least.

zealex.9410:

Meanwhile se3 map feel like amusement park you vsit onces and you are done for the year :/

That is unfortunately true. If you’re not farming map currency for ascended accesories, those maps are not very interesting. In that regard, SW and Dry Top have far better replayability than LS3 maps.

Arenanet tried to reinvent the wheel and failed catastrophically.

In paper, GW2 was supposed to be an innovative MMO, but in practice it was an awful, clunky mess.
These “broken promises” are an attempt to fix an unfixable game, by turning it into a more traditional MMO.

Blaming “traditional mmo players” is silly. The ones at fault are Arenanet and the people who bought into their ideas in the first place. Renown Hearts were in the game since Beta, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

It’s funny how you’re associating Arenanet’s mistakes and failures as hallmarks of traditional MMOs, when games like FFXIV are extremely succesful (even with a sub fee) while GW2 was forced to go F2P to maintain a relatively decent playerbase.

tl;dr play another game

Mavis.1463:

Arenanet tried to reinvent the wheel and failed catastrophically.

Obviously it’s all subjective. A game is not a wheel and it never will be.
If you read other people opinions, you notice they are mixed that it was both liked as well as disliked.

I personally wish ArenaNet took your stance, if you didn’t like it, just play another game.

How could anything represent the wishes of the entire playerbase? The entire playerbase does not agree on what would be the ideal game. Some want this, others want that. ArenaNet can only try to accommodate what they deem to be the more popular opinions, based on metrics that we, the playerbase, have no access to.

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for your characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore. I am so bored most if the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The beautiful vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, that is slowly fading.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

Founder Mike O’Brien did not leave.

Furthermore the dates that Guild Wars 2 diverged from what was said back then according to a lot of people was the introduction of ascended gear, which happened a mere months after launch. Most of the people in that video were around during the creation and release of HoT.

The fact is, a manifesto is nothing more than a statement of intent. They had certain intentions in the production of the game that simply didn’t work and when something doesn’t work you change it.

The concept that most people who played the game are now dissatisifed with it, is not necessarily true and it’s certainly untested.

The idea that the game is somehow worse now, or less people enjoy it is not a provable position. It’s simply an opinion. The easiest type of opinion that can be subjected to confirmation bias.

The fact that you don’t like this game as much, doesn’t mean other people don’t like it more. But this game was as critictized there months after launch as it is when HoT launched and a lot of players left even back then. When everyone in the manifesto was still with the game.

The idea the game has changed drastically because specific people left is not only an unprovable theory, but it’s most likely a mistaken one.

So many people in this thread suggeset more people liked this game pre-hot than now. There’s not any hard evidence to support this.

The biggest “evidence” people use that is that a year and a half after HoT launched, the number of dollars the game makes quarterly has dropped to about half of what it was, which is certainly in line with other MMOs a year and a half after an expansion launches. Another example of confirmation bias.

The fact is, all these opinions are simply opinions, and people trying to find evidence to back up those opinions.

In some cases, as with this post, the stated facts using to back up the opinions are factually incorrect.

A-Net has tried to implement things, and most worked out. Yes, this also means some didn’t.

The trinity? What trinity?

I still do not think this game is about healers tanks and DPS classes. The true healer is useless in 97% of the game, as is the pure tank…. The classic tank would be pointless in this game… as the game favors melee over range. So we cannot have 1 char holding the line and all others DPSsing from behind him.

This is a bit different in the tanked or kited raidbosses, these require you do the mechanics and stay on opposite side of the boss, and you’ll make it… anyone can do it. The fact I myself have legendary aror shows anyone can do it.

I hav enoticed the game has an affinity with builds using 1 or 2 parts of the triangle,

• DPS (all direct and indirect dmg builds (most PvE))
• healer (all true heal builds, magi druids and auramancers)
• bunker (most support builds and buffers)
• healer/DPS; (zealot auramancers and condidruids)
• healer/bunker; (minstrel ele, mace/focus guradian, ventari revs)
• bunker/DPS; (most WvW builds)

There are no true tanks. There are no builds whcih will live through anything.
The healers.. Well they are here in name, but they cannot keep everybody 100%, no matter what… As such they are not the infinitely powerfull allways alive ultra booners from some other games.
But no matter what you can finish most content including t4 fractals without bunkers or healers. It’s a choice to brinng them but not a must. That’s innovative. you can even choose to make groups lower in dps fully build on sustain… And do nearl all content on them. The present meta is selfimposed, and not neccesary at all. The Meta has only 1 goal and that’s to finish all content a.s.a.p. Nothing more, nothing less.

The DPS classes. Well most are…
All can heal all can support, they do whatever the want with the change of a few traits.

As for the promises.

• Gw2 is trying to be innovative and they have been with a game with only rare moments of downtime, they may struggela bit with the pacing, but all in all they seem to do quite well.

• There are still event chains, some hearts have returned, and I like the concept . We have a lot more repeatable content and a lot more area to run in then i expected to recieve in HoT so that’s positive.

• I like the horizontal progression, the masteries and elite specs.
  I like the rare small side quests. and I like the content all for cents per hour played in my case.

• I did like the more frequent release of content. I also like the fact everything is replayable. I would prefer the speed of LS S1 with the system of LS S2,3 but I also see some things causing problems now and then.

• We’ll be heading to expansion 2 soon. I’ll buy it, I want to see what the future holds.
  Banning such uproar as last time over trivialities I expect it to be good. I expect to have a decent platform to get another year’s worth of good content and thrills. But I’ll see.

I believe all people in entertainment want to entertain and see ppl return, not to make everyones lives miserable. The future will tell if I’m getting what I expoect, and I expect much, HoT seemed somewhat flawed and limited and eventually made up for so much… and I consider a better buy now then the moment I bought it. I expect a new expansion to continue on this.

Played thru GW, started GW2 during beta and been playing almost every day since. I have never seen or read anything that could be construed as lies from ANET.
I am still having fun with the game and I don’t see that ending any time soon.
It’s a game that takes time from real life to relax from the problems of said real life. In no way has this game ever felt like it’s been a job, I would not play it if it was.
There was never been any required grinding nor have I felt like I have to do anything like grinding nor would I ever do any grinding.

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

When did MO leave?

He didn’t.

Posters should really check their facts, especially about the President of the studio.

I agree, GW2 has indeed changed their vision and prob everything in this game, both in good and bad ways.

I do miss the old GW2 Vanilla back in 2011/2012 as their old trailers did promised so much more.
If you look back in those old trailers, you see alot did changed just before the actual release.

All of the Capital cities did changed, had a ’’make-over’’.
They changed the story of Zhaitan, his appearance and end story.
They also changed lots of the skills of the character trailers, as the older ones were more ’’team-up’’ skills, as I would prefer.
Sure there’s alot of other things too but one thing that they actually broken which was #1 for me was that you were able to equip every NPCs outfits/clothes/armor.
Yes, even town clothes, unique armors aswell different hairstyles and faces.

When I saw the GW2 old trailer, I felt in love with the game. Underwater content, jumping, dungeons, character creation, beautiful areas and much more.
I also saw these beautiful longer dresses, which screams Mesmer profession to me as I was going to create my first character as a Mesmer in order to look just like in the picture below here.

And guess what? Neither the hairstyle, face OR the dress/armor was included to the game!! That was so disappointed,
But as we all do, we take pauses from the game from being bored, have no time for it, to hate it and then we once we come back, we fall in love again with this beautiful game.

Almost 5 years old and counting! I can’t wait what ANet will show us for the next 5 years!

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

When did MO leave?

He probably meant Colin. The problem with his assertion is that people were probably even less happy with the game over all when Colin was here (my opinion only) than now. I believe a number of people believe the game has shifted back in the right direction since Mo took over as the game director.

I can’t prove it, but it seems to be the case. Thus the argument for people leaving being the problem is probably not accurate.

It might, however, being new people coming in rather than people leaving, since Anet did hire a raid designer and an AI guy in the past couple of years.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

When did MO leave?

He probably meant Colin. The problem with his assertion is that people were probably even less happy with the game over all when Colin was here (my opinion only) than now. I believe a number of people believe the game has shifted back in the right direction since Mo took over as the game director.

I can’t prove it, but it seems to be the case. Thus the argument for people leaving being the problem is probably not accurate.

It might, however, being new people coming in rather than people leaving, since Anet did hire a raid designer and an AI guy in the past couple of years.

The direction change had to have started when Colin was still here since all of the LS teams were in production at the time.

My opinion is that the direction change is from them listening to the players just as they had with the previous direction.

Ayrilana.1396:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Ashantara.8731:

@OP – You miss the most important part: Those key people talking in the trailer, the veterans from GW1, are no longer part of the team. Founder Mike O’Brien (I loved that guy) left, and so did Ree Soesbee (she was great), and Daniel Dociu (his son took over as lead artist who apparently prefers a more modern style than good old-fashioned classic fantasy). That’s why GW2 has become more and more of a grinding game with weird new designs. And in many aspects it tries to copy other MMO’s core content (raids, for instance) instead of staying true to the original vision. I’d prefer to have better storylines personalized for my characters (race, background, alignment etc.) than new ways to ridiculously move through a map etc.

So I am currently desperately looking for an alternative, because GW2 just isn’t cutting it for me anymore (I’m merely hanging by a thread, trying to fill the “gap” with new characters only to experience some of the good content again on my way to Level 80). I am so bored most of the time. It feels too repetitive, as you correctly stated (and adding new means of travel doesn’t help the issue). Unfortunately, all the other MMOs out there are just as repetitive. The original vision of what GW2 was supposed to be has been canned in many aspects for the sake of satisfying those standard MMO players. While it still has a uniqueness about it, it is gradually fading. Quantity doesn’t equal quality.

P.S. This video summarizes the issue pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

When did MO leave?

He probably meant Colin. The problem with his assertion is that people were probably even less happy with the game over all when Colin was here (my opinion only) than now. I believe a number of people believe the game has shifted back in the right direction since Mo took over as the game director.

I can’t prove it, but it seems to be the case. Thus the argument for people leaving being the problem is probably not accurate.

It might, however, being new people coming in rather than people leaving, since Anet did hire a raid designer and an AI guy in the past couple of years.

The direction change had to have started when Colin was still here since all of the LS teams were in production at the time.

My opinion is that the direction change is from them listening to the players just as they had with the previous direction.

I agree they listen to players. The problem is they don’t listen to all players, just the vocal ones, which unfortunately don’t cover everyone. The people who don’t express their opinions in enough numbers are the ones that miss out…ie the most casual percentage of the playerbase, which is probably a pretty large group.

If you don’t vote, you can’t complain when someone else gets in office.

Mavis.1463:

Arenanet tried to reinvent the wheel and failed catastrophically.

On the contrary, it succeeded wonderfully. The game is still going strong with most of the core components of the original game (no traditional trinity, no competition for nodes, shared loot, no gear treadmill, play as you like to earn rewards, etc), plus improvements. Even the Living World ‘succeeded’, but not enough in its original form to make it worth continuing. It turns out: (1) people don’t like their MMOs to change too quickly, (2) ANet wasn’t ready for their popularity of the game at launch, & (3) it’s a lot more draining on their staff than they expected.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

On the contrary, it succeeded wonderfully. The game is still going strong with most of the core components of the original game (no traditional trinity, no competition for nodes, shared loot, no gear treadmill, play as you like to earn rewards, etc)

“Play as you like to earn rewards” = false.

Many things force you to play raid, or fractals or wvw if you want to earn them. Even if you don’t want to.

A lot of the older players were drawn into the game by the so called “manifesto”. And they failed on a lot of points on it.

GW2 is not a bad game, but it’s far from what many of the first players expected it would be.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Mavis.1463:

Arenanet tried to reinvent the wheel and failed catastrophically.

On the contrary, it succeeded wonderfully.

Uh, yeah it was so succesful the game lost the vast majority of its original playersbase and was forced to go F2P.

Your definition of success s a bit skewed.

Mavis.1463:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Mavis.1463:

Arenanet tried to reinvent the wheel and failed catastrophically.

On the contrary, it succeeded wonderfully.

Uh, yeah it was so succesful the game lost the vast majority of its original playersbase and was forced to go F2P.

Your definition of success s a bit skewed.

Vast majority? Based on what numbers?

Forced to go F2P? Based on what?

Mavis.1463:

It’s funny how you’re associating Arenanet’s mistakes and failures as hallmarks of traditional MMOs, when games like FFXIV are extremely succesful (even with a sub fee) while GW2 was forced to go F2P to maintain a relatively decent playerbase.

Interesting non-facts. All it takes is a quick google search to show that this poster did not perform such a search. While GW2 is listed below WoW, FFIV and ESO in most articles, it is generally considered to be quite healthy. An IP with far less brand recognition placing below IP behemoths Warcraft, Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls is not surprising, nor is it a mark of commercial failure.

Also, GW2 Play-For-Free does not make GW2 a true free-to-play game. PFF is nothing but an extended trial intended to entice people to buy Buy-to-Play GW2’s current boxed XPac plus core.

Final fantassy also removedthee time trial from the f2p up to lvl 35 making it practicly a free game up until there and that might be raised even higher in thee future. Does this mean the game is doing badly?