I’ve been a long time passionate fan of Guild Wars 2, but more and more lately I’ve found I haven’t been playing the game. I’ve been spending more time with Torchlight II and Champions Online because… well… I just feel that the game is far too cynical.
Let me address some points.
Money Sinks
There’s money paid for crafting materials, for travelling, and for armour repair. What this means is that there’s so much money being spent that no one has any money left over for anything else, which brings me to my next point…
The Economy is Ruined
Barely anything sells for more than the vendor price on the auction house. This is because everyone is so consistently destitute. This destitution is punishing especially on casual players who don’t have time to grind (in the game that was never supposed to be about grinding).
Random Difficulty Spikes
The game is almost designed so that you’ll encounter random difficult spikes, extra mobs and things, even when not in an event. And you’ll get swarmed, and you’ll die because there’s no real way out. There’s no method of retreating or teleporting away. You can’t transfer instances or do anything.
This is crushingly depressing to a casual gamer, like myself, because it means that if I get a random difficulty spike, I have to teleport back somewhere and get my armour repaired, and there goes my money.
Just to stress: I don’t mind difficulty so much. I’m okay with dying. But the punishment for dying is absolutely nonsensical, it’s almost hateful. And some of those deaths can be because of random swarming, which is a bit of a jerk move. So if I die a couple of times because of that, I just end up closing the game. It kills my will to play;.
Those Useless Professions
The Engineer and the Thief, are they supposed to be able to do anything other than die? And no, no builds. Having incredibly specific builds in order to not die is not a solution to this problem. I’ve had to shelve some professions because they can do nothing but die.
Ridiculous Prices
So, you’re constantly destitute in gold, and you only get this slight trickle of gold and karma. You get to level 30 and you’d like to get a new armour set. But that armour set costs more than you could have in ten lifetimes. So your only option is to grind (in the game that’s not supposed to be about grinding).
The Money Trickle
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears being its own point. You only get a tiny trickle of money. And it’s about 2% of what you’d actually need for the area you’re in, whether it’s normal money or karma. So you’re always finding yourself short for what you need.
Armour Design is Lazy
For the charr, and I believe the asura and sylvari. This is a game about getting cosmetic skins, because you want to look good. But most of the skins look terrible, even the ones you have to buy. I mean, the Heritage skins aren’t that great, and those require you to own Guild Wars 1! This is really cynical.
Is a tail flap on some armour pieces too much to ask for?
And if I don’t look good, how am I supposed to feel good? Most armour on races that aren’t norn or human doesn’t look too great.
In Conclusion
I think that this is going to turn a lot of casual players off the game, as it’s hard to feel like one is getting anywhere. The random difficulty, the unexpected deaths, constant destitution, the ridiculous prices on everything, it just all feels really, really cynical. It feels Blizzard levels of cynical where I can hear this constant voice saying…
…do you want to give us any money, yet…
And that’s not what I want from a game. In the original Guild Wars I bought lots of things, all of the cosmetic things, name/face changes, bank upgrades, and so on. I was happy to spend money on this stuff. This is because I felt I could enjoy the game.
But Guild Wars 2 is feeling so cynical that I’m having serious trouble enjoying it. It’s getting harder and harder to fire up the game.
ArenaNet…
I know this is designed to make people want to buy gems, but it doesn’t work that way. Good will makes people want to buy gems. This is why Champions Online has a dedicated base of people who buy lots of store things. You have to have a good game that people enjoy playing. But the cynical design of the game means that you’re making people not want to play. And if they don’t pay, what on the store will you be paying for?
As a proposed fix, I’d suggest making the game itself feel less cynical, and then just adding more and more cosmetic things to the store. Otherwise you’re going to end up like an iOS app, wondering why all the gold has dried up, and where the gold rush went.
(edited by AuldWolf.7598)