Guild Wars 2

I saw this quote by a forum moderator on another site, and I thought it summed things up quite nicely regarding the difference between GW1 and GW2.

“Well, they could have fights that are more involved without having a role trinity. Such as… Guild Wars 1.

GW1 only had one hard defined role in the Monk. Which wasn’t expressly a healer as one could take 8 damage skills to a dungeon/mission. Still one could run missions/dungeons fully without a healer/monk or means of direct heals. And there were no consumables in GW1 either.

It was all about composition, the puzzle and execution.

Where GW2 fails in it’s variant on GW1’s no trinity dynamic is lack of the “puzzle” part.

Most fights with bosses in GW2 are indistinguishable from mundane mobs. Most encounters are the same; kite, CC, damage, damage, damage. This is compounded by more limited class choices, interaction and input compared to Guild Wars 1.

In GW1 almost anything was possible within the gameplay systems. Almost everything was open to players, allowing for creative solutions to very complex encounters. Which did take in the common axis between damage in | damage out. But also added things like protection, timing, binary choices, environmental interaction, time constraints, alternate paths and so on.

The sort of problem with GW2 combat in fractals/dungeons/open world is that it’s badly designed. IMO, natch.

No trinity is totes fine… if you can pull it off."

To sum it up, GW1 gave players all the tools/builds they could possibly imagine to overcome anything in the game, and that succeeded without a Trinity.

All the classes in GW2 are brought in line with each other so that they have now all become “dps with options”, without the creative freedom to organize whatever kind of build comp you desire.

Continuing with that lack of trinity design in GW2, players are given only a fraction of the builds/tools that GW1 players had, and due to the lack of more viable builds/comps, most encounters devolve into mindless zerg without any real thought other than “dodge that!”, and “kill that as fast as you can!” There is simply no other better way of handling encounters due to the fact that you can’t viably support your party through healing, like you could in GW1, nor the fact that even if you fully spec for tankiness/healing, you are contributing less to the party, and are still in danger of being one-shot.

Can you link to the original post in the other forum? Thanks!

Here is the link to the original post in the other forum (mmo-champion.com). Every post is numbered on this forum, and you can see the number of the post in the top right hand corner of every post. The mod’s name is Fencers, and her post is #490 on page 25 of the thread. Verdict on Guild Wars 2’s innovations

Oh boy… where to begin..

What bosses were a challenge in gw1? When were the fights not moreso tap these buttons to kill x target? Even on my ele I was able to solo most bosses and farm destroyer cores like it was a piece of cake. You could take henchies that did most of the work for you and chats became “what, you can’t solo it with henchies? I’m an elitest jerk and I say you suck at gw.”

GW1 had the capture skills concept, as well as multiple expansions that built upon more spells/skills to each class. We haven’t even had a first expansion yet. We can compare vanilla gw to vanilla gw2 just before the first expansion is released to give a full comparison?

There was no concept of dodging in gw1, and I don’t remember seeing any jump puzzles because, well, you couldn’t jump. The amount of weapons you were stuck with per class choice were horrid. Not even a two handed sword in game. (Although I miss the zodiac sword skin like crazy, I still would play everyday and look at it wishing it would magically become a 2 hander). The story wasn’t challenging as well, but I will say the story was quite fun.

GW2 is an entirely different game based upon a story arc that is a world many years after gw1.

cletiscake.9173:

Here is the link to the original post in the other forum (mmo-champion.com). Every post is numbered on this forum, and you can see the number of the post in the top right hand corner of every post. The mod’s name is Fencers, and her post is #490 on page 25 of the thread. Verdict on Guild Wars 2’s innovations

Thanks! Very interesting read.

You’re absolutely right, we can’t compare a new game to an old game in absolutes, but we can definitely discuss what works for this game and what doesn’t, and what could be improved and what could be tuned down. If we didn’t have a point of reference (GW1), then this game wouldn’t be called GW2.

GW2 has a ton to offer, but the forums are littered with the same posts concerning end-game content, dungeons, viable builds for classes, posts about the sky falling, etc. And all the while, none of these posts receive any feedback from the devs. What can the players do but continue on with their one-sided discourse, hoping that maybe the issues that are concerning everyone will be addressed? This is why so many comparisons are made between GW1 and GW2, because that is where the majority of players are coming from, at least that’s what I think.

I am afraid you need to take this post with a grain of salt. First off, it states that there were no consumables in GW1, which is completely false:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Conset

Those consumables have a much bigger impact on the game in my opinion than those you find in GW2. Many speed clear builds (like DoA Glaiveway or Trenchway) relied on those consets to actually work thanks to cooldown reduction and very valuable stat boosts.

Moreover, stating that you could do dungeons without a healer is something I don’t believe. I have played GW1 for many years and am genuinely interested in seeing proof of that as I’ve never heard of this happen (unless you’re talking about solo farming a specific part of a dungeon). Looking up the current team builds on gwpvx.com, they still feature a dedicated healer or bonder.

So yeah, it’s not quite accurate.

theguildless.1386:

I am afraid you need to take this post with a grain of salt. First off, it states that there were no consumables in GW1, which is completely false:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Conset

Those consumables have a much bigger impact on the game in my opinion than those you find in GW2. Many speed clear builds (like DoA Glaiveway or Trenchway) relied on those consets to actually work thanks to cooldown reduction and very valuable stat boosts.

Moreover, stating that you could do dungeons without a healer is something I don’t believe. I have played GW1 for many years and am genuinely interested in seeing proof of that as I’ve never heard of this happen (unless you’re talking about solo farming a specific part of a dungeon). Looking up the current team builds on gwpvx.com, they still feature a dedicated healer or bonder.

So yeah, it’s not quite accurate.

While not dungeon runs, IWAY and Bloodspike were both prominent PvP group builds at one point that had no monks and were fairly effective.

I would like to add that in GW2 you have to choose between doing a lot of damage (either through Power/Prec/Crit or Condition) with little survivability to doing less damage with more survivability. In GW1, I was simply deciding HOW I wanted to do damage, not sacrificing damage for survival… I miss that aspect.

I say any argument about gw1 that includes things from Eye of the North should be dismissed. That is when they were testing ideas they wanted to include in gw2 and for the most part ruined a lot of the fun of the game. It was a scrapped mess that they released so people wouldn’t be upset about losing out on the Utopia expansion and in the end added more problems and ruined every other part of the game besides Eye of the North.

ScottBroChill.3254:

I say any argument about gw1 that includes things from Eye of the North should be dismissed. That is when they were testing ideas they wanted to include in gw2 and for the most part ruined a lot of the fun of the game. It was a scrapped mess that they released so people wouldn’t be upset about losing out on the Utopia expansion and in the end added more problems and ruined every other part of the game besides Eye of the North.

I agree 100%. The game was practically unplayable after EOTN, IMO.

A few Thoughts.^^

I have played GW1 too often, mostly with heros, and I can’t see it anymore. But still, GW1 was soo much more fun, you could change between so many skills and there were always great skills which did not fit in my build anymore <3. Big problem here: Many skills were useless, mostly never used and if used, only under special circumstances. E-drain, a really great idea, but completly useless in PvE. Also I made tons of buils with skills fitting perfect together, but the common mainstream-builds were still the best… pretty unbelanced…

About GW1 bosses, they were often unbeatabel, but with the perfect build they were easy… Mallyx had some horrible skills, but they became useless with the correct skills for killing him. But still, cause there were nearly no bosses in GW1 (I dont count boss-monsters as such), they were always an expirience. In GW2, they take your time and can one-hit you to be not completly useless, boring like hell.

About the holy trinity, nothing really changed. No tank anymore, but he was boring like hell. No healer anymore, but you can heal yourself. The rest of the team nearly only attacked and if they really should get damage, they took a few steps back, more or less the same like before.

What i really miss, are teams vs teams (even in PvE). You can play a lot different things in GW2 and even if not so effective like a 5 zergers, there is nothing completly uneffective. But it is always only hitting the foe…

GW1 Mesmer could let skills fail and interrupt them, they could increase their recharge or deactivate them, they could steal energy, deal huge damage or degeneration and they could take a especially dangerous enemy for themself to let the others do the rest, they had too watch the enemys steps, had to interrupt the right skills and think about the most effective damage against the foe. Mesmers in GW2 cant do that. There is not a specially dangerous ele or monk in the enemy team, no difference between spells and attacks, it is easy to interrupt skills, but you dont have many interrupts and they dont reward you for the interrupt.

As Monk/Resto you had some heal skills and some strong protection skills. You had to watch your energy, you had to use your protections in the right moment. It sucked, that the typical team needed always 2 monks, but i really miss this thrilling feeling.

As necromancer, you had strong hexes, especially SS, which you had to use wisely on the enemys foes to get immense AoE damage. The MM hat to look after its minions, healing them without sacreficing yourself to death, keeping deathnova on them…

You had to think about the following things: Foes position, foes skill, your own energy, your skill functions. You may also often spammed skills in GW1, but it usually not only spamming, Energy and Skillfunction made it often more wisely to wait for the best moment. Furthermore you could specialize yourself (healing, protection, interruption, damage, degeneration, deactivation and a lot of builds around one real strong elite) and that was really fun to me. Of course, skills and builds, weapons and stats, all this can change your playstyle a lot, but you always have a bit of everything and there are nearly no special skills like the GW1-elites anymore.

In open PvE, you cannot really change anything about the way bosses work, and in a group, normal foes are a joke, making event-foes stronger would also not change much. So do your best with them, but the changes can be made in other places. You could change the normal foes, having a amount of different skills you can realize through the animation (a dangerous firestorm for exemple). This way the tyical one vs one figths in PvE could be more thrilling and in instances, instead of a bunch of strong foes or boring superstrong bosses, you could rather add foe teams like in GW1 with different skills and were you could use a strategy.

Furthermore a far more fun gameplay for sPvP and PvE-Instances are skills with a animation making the effect obvious. This could make many playstyles possible, cause the longer animation, interrupts could be used more effective, the team could better react to the foes skills and skills could be more interisting and fun (like the GW1 ones, which were hard to balance) without an OP, cause you can react to this skills far better than you can now.

Comparing two games I love is hard, but I do see the differences. Although I do think the combat in GW2 is better in the sense that while fighting a boss you’re actually paying attention to his actions and the encounter rather then looking at your skills standing there and spamming your build. Now mind you, I picked up GW1 when it was released by pure coincidence (I was still a middle schooler and just bought a game that had a cool looking box, which for the record; GW1 had an amazing looking box) and loved the skill system. Played for years, factions was probably one of the greatest expansions ever.

My greatest joy but also seemed like a flaw IMO was the vast skill system. Figuring out a build to beat someone 1v1 in PvP, or a hard mission’s boss (Shiro before the insta 10 second Shiro kill build was revealed) after they slaughtered you was fun, but also showed that you can beat content without even starting it. The skills made or broke your character, instead of having to make on the fly decisions like weapon swapping, utilities and dodging like in GW2. But comparing the two is hard. GW1 at release had no expectations, and imo, Anet probably didn’t know what to expect, but it succeeded and rightfully so. It’s a game that I will always remember as the most enjoyable MMO before GW2 xD. GW2 had high expectations, and some of the systems they put in place sounded good on paper, but didn’t work out. GW2 has flaws, but imo is still a great game, and is only improving as the months are going along. The combat system has a good foundation and is set up in a way to create very interesting encounters for PVE and PvP in the future. I hope they work on making the personal Story more engaging for future expansions (Personal Story is good, but not great). Only complaint I have for WvW is the undermanned buff. Extra karma and gold won’t influence my party of 10 holding off a 30 man zerg in the least. Dungeons for me are actually ok, the boss encounters aren’t that interesting (which hopefully will be worked on) but when I thought about it, they don’t really have many random mobs just standing there waiting to be killed like in most other MMOs. Every room has a purpose xD. sPvP needs more game modes. PvP in general is fun (fights can be pretty epic) but some more modes would help PvP. (such as GvG, a MOBA style like in Halloween maybe). All this could possibly be implemented in the future, they are just what I find to be things I think about, but none take away from the gameplay.

This is just my personal opinion, I started to sound subjective near the end, but that’s to be expected from an opinion. Just my two cents on GW1 & GW2.

“encounter design is the issue, not the combat and/or roles”

I don’t completely agree with this quote, while yes encounter design is an issue, i believe the issue exists because of the lack of roles…

I do not think the trinity is a fix for Guildwars 2 but i do think what we have currently works even less than the whole trinity idea..

But i do agree Guildwars 1 had roles for classes in spades because we could do so much more with so many more options available to us, in Guildwars 2 we have mostly one option “DPS” or maybe a couple if you play the couple of luckier classes..even then 99% go DPS because it works better than everything else..

clay.7849:

ScottBroChill.3254:

I say any argument about gw1 that includes things from Eye of the North should be dismissed. That is when they were testing ideas they wanted to include in gw2 and for the most part ruined a lot of the fun of the game. It was a scrapped mess that they released so people wouldn’t be upset about losing out on the Utopia expansion and in the end added more problems and ruined every other part of the game besides Eye of the North.

I agree 100%. The game was practically unplayable after EOTN, IMO.

Wow you and Scott agree on something? Imagine that? I think you might be the same person.

Unfortunately you can’t pick and choose what you talk about when you talk about Guild Wars 1. Well you can but you CERTAINLY can’t talk about what other people use as a basis of comparison. You’re not the Guild Wars 1 police any more than I’m the Guild Wars 2 police.

And the problems with Guild Wars 1 started all the way in Factions, where faction grind was a travesty, because people wanted to get the most power they could out of the Luxon/Kurzick skills. And in Nightfall, also before Eye of the North, people wanted to get all the benefit they could from Sunspear/Lightbringer skills.

And in case you haven’t noticed, builds like sabway and permasin predated Eye of the North. Later on there were other “trick” builds that imbalanced the game and made it unplayable. Eye of the North showed a progression toward what Guild Wars 1 was going towards. You choose to ignore it and then blame Guild Wars 2 for continuing the trend that should have been obvious in the first place.

Eye of the North, btw, was my favorite of all the Guild Wars titles.

cletiscake.9173:

Forum moderator on another site:
And there were no consumables in GW1 either.

Well I do believe there is Consumables. Maybe not at the beginning, I wasn’t there at the beginning, but there are most definitely consumables in GW1.

Adding: To me Comparing GW1 to GW2 is like comparing Resident Evil 0,1,2, and 3 to Resident Evil 4,5, and 6.

GW1:

-7 of 1026 normal skills (roughly 130 per profession, everyone has 2 professions, second profession can be changed. 81 skills are common across all professions).
-1 of 293 elite skills (you can choose to drop an elite for a normal skill instead)
-200 attribute points (to distribute across 1 primary attribute and 8 of 36 secondary attributes)

GW2:

-5 sets of 5 weapon skills with aquatic counterparts (on average).
-3 of 22 utility skills (2 racial)
-1 of 4 healing skills (1 racial)
-1 of 6 elite skills (3 racial)
-70 points (to distribute across 5 trait lines)
-7 traits (1 for each 10 spent in a single trait line)

GW2’s skill system is far too restrictive, and your weapon makes up 90% of your build and fully determines what you do in combat. The game becomes monotonous fast.

The pool of skills to choose from in GW2 is simply too small once you’ve committed to your race and profession at character creation. The biggest problem is the weapon skill system. Interesting in concept but lackluster in execution. Compare this to GW1 where you have the freedom to mix and match everything you want and crazy-yet-functional builds flourish in any environment.

The only thing GW2 does better than GW1 as far as the skill system goes is Traits. Traits are infinitely better than attribute points.

Space Cow.2431:

GW1:

-7 of 1026 normal skills (roughly 130 per profession, everyone has 2 professions, second profession can be changed. 81 skills are common across all professions).
-1 of 293 elite skills (you can choose to drop an elite for a normal skill instead)
-200 attribute points (to distribute across 1 primary attribute and 8 of 36 secondary attributes)

GW2:

-5 sets of 5 weapon skills with aquatic counterparts (on average).
-3 of 22 utility skills (2 racial)
-1 of 4 healing skills (1 racial)
-1 of 6 elite skills (3 racial)
-70 points (to distribute across 5 trait lines)
-7 traits (1 for each 10 spent in a single trait line)

GW2’s skill system is far too restrictive, and your weapon makes up 90% of your build and fully determines what you do in combat. The game becomes monotonous fast.

The pool of skills to choose from in GW2 is simply too small once you’ve committed to your race and profession at character creation. The biggest problem is the weapon skill system. Interesting in concept but lackluster in execution. Compare this to GW1 where you have the freedom to mix and match everything you want and crazy-yet-functional builds flourish in any environment.

The only thing GW2 does better than GW1 as far as the skill system goes is Traits. Traits are infinitely better than attribute points.

Good comparison.

Guild Wars 1 system, a free for all, open to all sorts of exploitation, followed by no end to nerfs of builds because half of what was out there were “trick” builds.

Many of those skills were totally useless. I guess you designed a ranger build around “quickshot”?

If you were a necro, you took Aura of the Lich or Discord or Blood is Power…one of those three. MAYBE, you took Flesh Golem. That’s four elites…the rest were pretty much wasted when I played.

There were always builds of the month that you had to have to get into groups. So much for freedom.

On paper it was great, but it was unwieldy, impossible to balance and led to a whole lot of people getting bored with the game.

Sure some people loved it. But to many it was inaccessible and to others it was a simple as going to PVx wiki and copying and pasting the build of the month.