Guild Wars 2

Hello!
Long-time stalker. Played at release, put it down after a couple of levels (40-50?), Massive fan of the Guild Wars universe. (Obviously owner of the collector’s edition as a result Rawr Charr figure!)

I’ve not been following Anets development cycle / announcements so I’m hoping maybe someone could help me shed some light onto the topic below.

So going into Guild Wars 2 it obviously lacked a greater amount of customisation than its previous iteration I’m wondering if Anet will be doing anything to bring a more wide variety of abilities, especially for the first half of your bar.
Being limited to a certain weapons and skills associated with said weapon is all right but it took away a lot of choice. I personally loved to play as a Ranger / Assassin tank with Beastmastery as a focus using only 3 of my skills dedicated to my weapon. – Has any stream or anything similar mentioned anything remotely similar to anything which will resolve this pet peeve of mine?

Also the lack of Energy.
Energy was probably the best mechanic of GW1, much superior to the old MMO concept “mana”. It allowed you to manage your resource in a much more meaningful way. I felt like a lot of the abilities in GW1 was held back by cooldowns or damage without a resource system to counter-act it.
Heal Party ( http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Heal_Party ) was an excellent example of a powerful spell with practically no cooldown which only limitation was the huge drain on your resource (15 out of 40 for a monk) The only class with a resource system was the Assassin (GW2) if I remember correctly but sadly it’s not the type of arch-type I intended playing as.

Has A-net put down any thoughts regarding the lack of resources and if they’re trying (or have tried but failed?) to bring it back?

I realise this is probably a bit late and I should’ve posted by Release but the forum was flooded with other problems so I didn’t want to add onto the problem.
A new expansion however is on the horizon so hopefully some spilling of their future design philosophies has been put out there. I’d greatly appreciate any attempt at finding anything remotely similar to what I’ve brought up and what Anet’s stance on them are.

Thank you very much .

The short answers to your questions are as follows.

There will never be as much customization in Guild Wars 2 as there was in Guild Wars 1 by design. Guild Wars 1 was called Build Wars for a reason and while many loved that play style, many abandoned the game early because they didn’t. Also the amount of customization in Guild Wars 1 made the game far too hard to balance. This game was simplified to have a broader appeal. The skill here comes less from choosing skills and more from your actual ability to play your profession by using self-combos and active dodging, and positioning.

One thing you can do here that you couldn’t do in Guild Wars 1 is to change skills and traits any time out of combat, which means that you can respec for different bosses in the same dungeon. You couldn’t do that in Guild Wars 1. But Guild Wars 1 definitely had far more build options. No one could argue that.

To your second question, the new profession Revenant will have an energy bar of sorts. Not exactly the same as the way it worked in Guild Wars 1 but reminiscent of it. The thief also has initiative which works similar to an energy bar.

Energy is not a major part of this game and never will be, because more people prefer dynamic combat than having to watch a meter, having it run out and not be able to do anything.

I know it sounds implausible, but I believe it’s true.

This is, of course, all just my opinion, in case that needed to be stated.

In addition to what Vayne said (all of it accurate IMO) you should know that Anet is adding a specialization to each profession. This will allow a character to use an additional weapon. So while a Ranger may not be able to change which skills he can use while equipping a bow he will be able to equip a staff as a Ranger-Druid specialization.

Indeed. The focus in GW2 is much more kinetic. Many seem to forget that while GW1 had a greater variety of skills, a majority of these were not widely useful or niche at best. Simply put, there were some builds that simply did not work.

In GW2 you can run some very atrocious set ups and still succeed. Check out some naked Lupi solos or full Bearbow joke videos. It’s possible because gear plays second fiddle to player skill. This wasn’t the case in GW1 for a good portion of the elite content.

I liked that game a lot as well. It’s not that GW2 doesn’t have its faults but I don’t think it needs more useless skills. Meaningful additions in small amounts are better than a mass of trash updates.

In regards to energy management, it doesn’t transition in exactly the same form but different classes have similar mechanics to keep in mind. Managing adrenaline, initiative, attunement cooldowns, etc.. all have some passive and active benefits to them that change depending on the build and style of play.

It’s not as right in your face as if was in GW1 but they do play a large role. Again, since the game isn’t build reliant, you might not notice that you’re doing less DPS on your thief with under 6 init. but paying attention to this does change the way you play.

I guess the difference between them, particularly if you were doing PvE wtih heroes, most of the time you set your build and you could just go around and do anything you wanted if that build was good. I remember going AFK and letting my heroes handle stuff in the middle of hard mode dungeon fights, if the phone rang. And it was fine, because they were specced well for that dungeon.

The skill in Guild Wars 1 comes less from your build (though builds can be important) and more from how you actually play. What skills you’ve chosen, however, do come into play at higher levels.

Not having enough condition removal will certainly screw you over in the Silverwastes. So will only have a melee weapon if you happen to be in the middle of four terragrifs.

It’s just a different thought process altogether.

But I could see where someone coming from Guild Wars 1 might be disappointed by the changes.

Soyaman.7096:

Hello!

So going into Guild Wars 2 it obviously lacked a greater amount of customisation than its previous iteration I’m wondering if Anet will be doing anything to bring a more wide variety of abilities, especially for the first half of your bar.
Being limited to a certain weapons and skills associated with said weapon is all right but it took away a lot of choice. I personally loved to play as a Ranger / Assassin tank with Beastmastery as a focus using only 3 of my skills dedicated to my weapon. – Has any stream or anything similar mentioned anything remotely similar to anything which will resolve this pet peeve of mine?

I hear you.
Personally, I used to find the lack of customisation nearly unbearable, after leaving gw1. It cut 70% of what I liked about the game. Now I got used to it, but as I quickly approach the final burndown (tada-ta-da…), I’m growing increasingly disgusted with the limited amount of skills and the cookie-cutter, banal, uninsteresting weapon skills. Autoattack is sooo sooo fun…

On related news, Revenant will have energy as a resource and I strongly believe it’s a good candidate for having the gw1 vibe attached to it. I’m very eager to play that profession. It’ll be exciting to rethink about Mallyx, Glint and the likes, while having this “dervish élite” feeling.
Hopefully it’ll be more inspired than ranger or warrior… /gags

To put a slight positive spin on the lack of weapon customization, in GW1 you normally chose skills that complimented the weapon you used. A simple example is, why take a bunch of hammer abilities when you were primarily wielding a sword and shield?

After that you had a bunch of “utility” skills to fill up the skill bar, as there are probably only 2 or 3 weapon skills of choice on your bar that were consistently used.

I only played GW1 for a very short while, so maybe further into game development the above scenario is less true, but I see GW2 as streamlining the choices the player has to make in an attempt to lessen the often complained about skill clutter of useless skills and builds (which we are still ailed with today, but much less than GW1’s hundreds of random skills that were never really used).

Now this streamlining does feel restrictive and lessens personal choice and flavor, which in turn makes me often feel like there is only one or two good builds, but it (in essence) accomplishes what player knowledge used to do for GW1. Which is prevent you from taking skills that do not work well with your current weapons.

Still, a little bit of variation WOULD be nice, so that it feels like I am out smarting my opponents and it was due to my superior strategy and build knowledge.

Soyaman.7096:

So going into Guild Wars 2 it obviously lacked a greater amount of customisation than its previous iteration I’m wondering if Anet will be doing anything to bring a more wide variety of abilities, especially for the first half of your bar.
Being limited to a certain weapons and skills associated with said weapon is all right but it took away a lot of choice. I personally loved to play as a Ranger / Assassin tank with Beastmastery as a focus using only 3 of my skills dedicated to my weapon. – Has any stream or anything similar mentioned anything remotely similar to anything which will resolve this pet peeve of mine?

Although the amount of skills you can select for your skillbar is limited in GW2, in reality you have way more choice than in GW1. I really don’t understand those people who say they are “locked” by their weapon skills when in fact you are not. You can change your weapon sets at any time when out of combat, which allows you to tweak your build on the fly and select new abilities for a specific encounter. In GW1 you were forced to use the same skills for the entire encounter/dungeon/mission.

Same goes with traits, a single trait change can make all the difference in a build, at a specific moment. I guess those who say are “locked” or have limited choices in their skill selection do not change their builds on the fly as much as I (and many good players in general) do. Have you seen Elementalists Might Stacking by changing through 3 different weapons before an encounter? Yes, that’s the kind of versatility and combo ability you can get in GW2.

As a Thief, in GW2 I can change to an off-hand Pistol when pulling trash mobs (Black Powder), I can use a Stealth-focused build when skipping (Shortbow for blast finisher, Smoke Screen, extra Stealth duration trait, faster movement while in stealth trait, shadow refuge), use Dagger off-hand and condition removal on Stealth trait for on-demand condi removal, or use Sword for on-demand condi removal, use S/P with Pistol Whip and IP for massive health gain and aoe cleave.

The posibilities in GW2 are limitless. It’s just people for some reason want to use just one skillbar in GW2 and compare it with the choice they had in GW1, why not use everything GW2 has to offer instead? I love having the choice to change my traits and weapon when I want, that’s ACTUAL choice. Having to choose between a vast amount of skills for 8-locked skills is not the same type of choice.

tl;dr There IS choice in GW2, way more active choice than in GW1, you just have to look for it, if you lock yourself in a specific build and only use that, it’s your own fault, not with the game

Has A-net put down any thoughts regarding the lack of resources and if they’re trying (or have tried but failed?) to bring it back?

Thieves have an energy mechanic for their Weapon attacks, Revenants will use an energy mechanic for all their skills. There used to be Energy in the game at the Alpha phase, but I guess it got confusing with the dodge energy bar and the more active gameplay.

IMHO energy as such was implemented in thieves as initiative and in the revenant as we are led to beleive…. even though the concept is not fully used in all builds I still some of it made it into gw2.

If you want to stretch the concept even adrenaline is comaprable, though only for 1 skill

As it has been said, too many skills and options would eventually lead to the same state of game we are in at the moment. Cookie cutter builds are in every mmo and the more skills there are, the less ones are getting used and are obsolete.

Now as for energy, it is a redundant form of skill gating requires even less effort in order to do rotations for the best energy based skills. Cooldowns allow for skills to be balanced easily compared to spamable skills, this is why thief weapons are in a good place because they are balanced around stable skills.

I highly doubt anet will bring it back for every class but as it has been stated, revenant will have a form of energy that skills use, maybe the new specializations will also have these.

This is GW2 and you should never expect the same thing in a sequel, that’s just straight up boring no matter whether its a song, movie or game.

These are just my opinions, as are yours.

I like what the others have said so far, and I’m a long time player also. I’ve played GW1 since year 1, until recently swapping my main game of choice to GW2 when I started that on it’s launch. I think it might be said that the energy bar or 2 dodges in a yellow bow meter acting like a two skill use energy consumption if you will. I am not the only one here that might suggest you level your toon to 80 first, then get in some good groups that are farming something you need like, gold and make some new farming friends that might be in your time zone. Take note of some of the cheap costing gear as you check out the TP to speed things along. When you can afford to put it on an exotic or better weapon set, get the Superior Sigil of Energy, so you have an extra dodge on weapon swaps. This is not required but it sure does help a lot.

Apples and oranges.

I also miss the build dynamic of GW1. In the latter days of that game being populated I would honestly spend hour apon hour experimenting with builds, testing and tweaking before trying them out. Then, when the servers got quiet, we got 7 heroes and omfg it was a build theory-crafters wet-dream.

I still go back to GW1 for that. The servers are largely dead but to experiment with not only your build but your 7 other henchies and the symbiosis that could be achieved is something totally awesome and I can’t rave enough about how much I still enjoy it.

GW2 is really a different beast.

Builds are not it’s strong point at all. It’s a cookie-cutter zerker meta fest but hey…Anet wanted to try and push PvP as an E-Sport and with the popularity and exposure of moba games like Dota2, FPS games like CS and RTS games like Starcraft I get what they were going for. They wanted to wave the flag of E-Sport for MMORPG’s….sad to say it kinda failed and we are really left with the fallout which is a highly restrictive game in regards to build variety and freedom.

I get what they tried and how the build freedom of GW1 wasn’t conducive to that goal.

As such I really look at this game in a vastly different light. Build Wars is gone but I love the new world and overall path the game has taken but I’ll be the first to put my hand up and ask for a Thief/Guardian.

lol

Mea.5491:

“As a GW1 player; What I found missing.”

SKILLS.

Seriously. That very thing is what made GW1 so great.

GW2 is to GW1 as ‘The Blues Brothers 2000’ is to ‘The Blues Brothers.’ Sort of related in a flashier, louder, but lazier and shallower way.

Chuo.4238:

Mea.5491:

“As a GW1 player; What I found missing.”

SKILLS.

Seriously. That very thing is what made GW1 so great.

GW2 is to GW1 as ‘The Blues Brothers 2000’ is to ‘The Blues Brothers.’ Sort of related in a flashier, louder, but lazier and shallower way.

That same thing that “made Guild Wars so great” is the very same thing that made Guild Wars so niche.

When you widen your net, you have to make changes. Of course, some people see that as shallow. I see it as smart.

fireflyry.7023:

Builds are not it’s strong point at all. It’s a cookie-cutter zerker meta fest but hey…Anet wanted to try and push PvP as an E-Sport and with the popularity and exposure of moba games like Dota2, FPS games like CS and RTS games like Starcraft I get what they were going for. They wanted to wave the flag of E-Sport for MMORPG’s….sad to say it kinda failed and we are really left with the fallout which is a highly restrictive game in regards to build variety and freedom.

Funny thing is tho, Guild Wars PvP was the big draw for many. A-Net was the first Gaming Developer to offer $1 mil in prizes for a PvP tournament. Eventually they had a Grand Prize of $1.5 mil for the tournament after Nightfall was released. They were even pulling some of the PvP FPS guilds/clans from games like CoD and BFV.

If A-Net would add GvG back(like everyone has asked) and give us more than 2-5 skills per weapon to choose from then I think they could once again see the PvP numbers that they had back in Nightfall. All the need to do is give us 3 more skills for 1-hander, 2 more for off-hand, and 5 more for 2-handers. They should also let us choose the order of our weapon skills.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Mea.5491:

“As a GW1 player; What I found missing.”

SKILLS.

Seriously. That very thing is what made GW1 so great.

GW2 is to GW1 as ‘The Blues Brothers 2000’ is to ‘The Blues Brothers.’ Sort of related in a flashier, louder, but lazier and shallower way.

That same thing that “made Guild Wars so great” is the very same thing that made Guild Wars so niche.

When you widen your net, you have to make changes. Of course, some people see that as shallow. I see it as smart.

I also see the widening of the net as the reason we have so many MMO’s that are just cookie-cutter games(hello WoW Clones). It’s the reason that the MMO genre is floundering at the moment. The only MMo’s that are actually doing well right now are the Niche games. I see more complaints about the “dumbing down” of the MMO now than I see threads complementing MMo’s.

This is because generation y feels entitled to everything and will complain if something is not good enough. Sure games have diminished in content due to the demand of graphics but that’s what most people care about these days, great graphics.
Then they complain there is not enough things to do, not enough content.

Soyaman.7096:

I’ve not been following Anets development cycle / announcements so I’m hoping maybe someone could help me shed some light onto the topic below.

The thing is, Guild Wars was not made for GW1 players like you and me. Do you remember when we were playing the original Guild Wars and someone would pop in the forums and say, “I won’t play this game unless we get an increased level cap and more powerful gear”? And most players would reply with, “Then this is not a game for you, but there are many alternatives like what you’re talking about out there”?

Well, GW2 has been made for that kind of person. The one who has not happy with GW1 and wanted something more similar to common MMORPGs (despite how most common MMORPGs have failed). Not for the players who were happy with GW1 and wanted a refinement of that game’s systems.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was called Build Wars for a reason and while many loved that play style, many abandoned the game early because they didn’t.

That is just your opinion, man.

Test.8734:

Soyaman.7096:

I’ve not been following Anets development cycle / announcements so I’m hoping maybe someone could help me shed some light onto the topic below.

The thing is, Guild Wars was not made for GW1 players like you and me. Do you remember when we were playing the original Guild Wars and someone would pop in the forums and say, “I won’t play this game unless we get an increased level cap and more powerful gear”? And most players would reply with, “Then this is not a game for you, but there are many alternatives like what you’re talking about out there”?

Well, GW2 has been made for that kind of person. The one who has not happy with GW1 and wanted something more similar to common MMORPGs (despite how most common MMORPGs have failed). Not for the players who were happy with GW1 and wanted a refinement of that game’s systems.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was called Build Wars for a reason and while many loved that play style, many abandoned the game early because they didn’t.

That is just your opinion, man.

Nope, those are all facts.

Fact 1. People did call Guild Wars Build Wars.
Fact 2. Many did love that play style.
Fact 3. Many people did abandon the game early because they didn’t.

How many? No one knows.

But I know quite a few people who couldn’t get into the game because they didn’t care about builds at all.

It’s highly unlikely that those people are the only people who feel that way.

Edit: From the Guild Wars 1 wiki: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Buildwars

Vayne.8563:

Fact 3. Many people did abandon the game early because they didn’t.

Proof?

Vayne.8563:

But I know quite a few people who couldn’t get into the game because they didn’t care about builds at all.

Yeah, the “people” you know are not proof. Amazing how you always know people that support your opinion, but in the end it’s just that, your opinion.

Test.8734:

Vayne.8563:

Fact 3. Many people did abandon the game early because they didn’t.

Proof?

Vayne.8563:

But I know quite a few people who couldn’t get into the game because they didn’t care about builds at all.

Yeah, the “people” you know are not proof. Amazing how you always know people that support your opinion, but in the end it’s just that, your opinion.

People I know are proof. It’s silly you think otherwise.

I know dozens of people, many in my guild right now, who couldn’t get into Guild Wars 1 because of the build situation. But more importantly is this comment from the Guild Wars 1 wiki.

Buildwars (or Build Wars) is a common mocking term, referring to the game (paticularly PvP) being in a state in which the builds are more important than skill or tactics. This state is undesirable to most players as it causes matches to be frustrating, boring and predictable. This happens when powerful skills cannot be countered without building specifically to counter them. The more powerful, hard to counter, skills there are, the higher the degree of Buildwars. When the game is in this state, it can be likened to Rock, Paper, Scissors.

I don’t remember GW being refered to as Build Wars until After Nightfall was released. During Prophecies people loved coming up with new builds for GvG/HoH. It was the addition of the repeat skills(same skill different name) that made it harder to balance and started the Build Wars. And I can see why the devs hated trying to balance GW, there were just too many skills at that point. When A-Net released the first info on GW2 they said no dual professions because it was just too hard to balance. I’m fine with that but it doesn’t mean they had to lock our first five skills to a weapon. We can’t even choose the order of our skills on the skill bar.