Guild Wars 2

I’m having a hard time adjusting to the fact that this insanely cool element of the game is gone. I didn’t realize, playing GW1, how much that really meant to me: The fact that I could gather hundreds of skills and dream up amazing (and awful) builds was what kept me going for years, and the game never felt stale because of it.

Now we have traits. But traits just doesn’t cut it. You can only go so far with traits. I will even go so far as to say that traits were a bad idea to begin with. Its too “every other MMO out there”-ish, and it feels like a step backwards compared to GW1. It’s extremely limiting, and we are at the mercy of the trait designer, who had some plan (when making the traits) of what the trait could be used for.

I like most things about GW2; events are a great idea, the graphics fits perfectly and ANet has truly made a game where people play together because its just better that way.

But I still miss the creativity I could unleash in GW1. I feel I won’t get it back in GW2. I suppose GW2 just wasn’t designed for the deck building enthusiasts of GW1.

Never played but I really like the idea, the only problem with it was so many were useless. I think a modified version should have been placed in this game

There’s still SOME options. You don’t get to build your own deck per se, but you can choose which trump cards you hold and when to play them. There’s still a good variety of builds out there to find and try for the creative player even if you’re not longer defining every aspect of your build.

I’m not saying that you should be satisfied with that, but I think it’s enough to play around with for now.

I do sometimes miss the flexibility of it, mainly when I’m wishing there was a way to apply poison with a longbow that doesn’t involve giant friggin spiders running after me. But so far I don’t think this system is too limited. There is still scope to customise and there will probably be more as updates and expansions add new skills, or even entirely new mechanics.

Sadly I think the skill system from GW1 was probably dropped because the vast majority of people never used it to it’s full potential. I use all custom builds and I can’t tell you the number of times people acted like I must be insane, stupid or really arrogant for daring to make my own instead of copying one off some website. The way some people talked it really seemed as if they believed only certain self-proclaimed experts were allowed to invent builds.

That and a lot of the people who did use it properly used it to make gimmicky builds that did things Anet didn’t like, like solo speed clears for farming.

Corian.4068:

There’s still SOME options. You don’t get to build your own deck per se, but you can choose which trump cards you hold and when to play them. There’s still a good variety of builds out there to find and try for the creative player even if you’re not longer defining every aspect of your build.

I’m not saying that you should be satisfied with that, but I think it’s enough to play around with for now.

Well, I think there’ll be room for creavity once evything works as intended.. no bugs.. hmmm.. could take quite a while though.

To OP : Yes I miss this system. I don’t know if it’s the system per se, or just the fact that this one (GW2’s one) can’t stand the comparison in terms of choice.

I played GW1. I most certainly do not miss the deck building aspect of it. If I wanted to play Magic the Gathering, I would play Magic the Gathering. As it happens, I don’t like Magic the Gathering so there no reason I’d want to see in an MMO.

Also I found that if you had the right builds and heroes in GW1, the content became laughably easy with little to no real skill needed. If you had the wrong build, the same content could become unplayable. That bi-polar aspect of the gameplay was highly annoying.

Honestly, go ahead and tell without laughing that content isn’t easy in GW2.
At least it’s not bi-polar anymore, it’s plain unchallenging.

GW2 has enough variety and flexibility for me. There are plenty of ways to make a character between weapon sets, healing/utility/elite, traits, and stats. It’s enough to keep me having fun and not get bored while still making sure that combat and player skill are the focus instead of crazy builds. If you want to play with deck building, go play The Secret World. I much prefer GW2’s system.

Leiloni.7951:

GW2 has enough variety and flexibility for me. There are plenty of ways to make a character between weapon sets, healing/utility/elite, traits, and stats. It’s enough to keep me having fun and not get bored while still making sure that combat and player skill are the focus instead of crazy builds. If you want to play with deck building, go play The Secret World. I much prefer GW2’s system.

This is true in PvP, but really, PvE feels like it boils down to kite kite and kite mobs.

I don’t. I was never a huge fan of it, and I became less of one when it seems that all the ‘meta-builds’ came to light and it seemed the game was more balanced around those, making it more of a struggle if you wanted to do something different.

Honestly, I still prefer the PSO approach of keeping it simple, but still giving you a wide range of options in the form of distinct and different weapons. Equip a Yasminkov 7ØØØV and you can go straight damage. Want to fourth enemy HP? Use a Bringer’s Rifle. Anti-android rifle stuns. Frozen shooter freezes things. And so on.

So I like that the pool of skills has been toned down somewhat, but I do feel like we’re missing something. Traits could have filled the gap somewhat, but they really don’t give enough of a major shift in style, IMO. Same with sigils for the most part. I’d like to, in the words of Bob Ross, “make some big decisions here.” But aside from weapon-type, I don’t feel I really can.

The skill was in knowing which skills and heroes were right for the job, Doc. Personally, I really miss the deckbuilding aspect of GW1 as well, and further feel that ArenaNet may have overdone their oversimplification of the game’s systems in GW2.

I understand that the system runs more smoothly this way and that it was built for a level of player mental competence somewhat lower than mine (I’m sorry, I am, but there’s no way to say that without sounding like a kitten, so I’m not going to try), but at the same time it really seems like they optimized it for a level of mindless twitch skill significantly higher than mine. time once was, I could counterbalance my fudge-fingered ways with a build optimized for my needs and desires and still be kitten good at Guild Wars, but this environment doesn’t allow a player to compensate for anything in their builds.

The combat is certainly more fun, and I get by well enough on my Warrior and Ranger (when my kitten computer is working, anyways), but while the combat is more fun, in many ways I think it’s less satisfying. There’s no sense of having truly emerged victorious over a difficult foe, in having outwitted whatever nefarious plans the A.I. designer built into an area (or having outwitted the monkey-brained nincompoops in RA, for that matter), just a feeling of having pulled the right levers at the right time to make the machine do what it was built to do. Cool enough, and the entire Call of Duty franchise is built on that feeling, but when ye’re used to being able to build the machine in the first place, just yanking levers kinda seems like a letdown.

No. 1.) The best builds quickly rose to the top. Want to group play? “ping your build”. If your build didn’t match expectations of whatever you would get kicked or asked to leave. 2.) The GW2 system is more complex in the way traits alter skills. It makes it difficult for team mates to hate you for creativity or for not running a specific configuration.

As nice as of an idea as the build system in GW1 was ultimately it failed.

SamTheGuardian – In my experience a lot of the people who insisted on everyone using specific pre-approved builds were happy as long as it had a name, which IMO strongly suggests they didn’t really know what they were talking about.

As I said above I use all custom builds and I got a lot of grief for it if I told people that. But if I made up a name for it, even a completely inaccurate one (my “DPS Ranger” is actually a pressure build, but I could never be bothered renaming the template), they’d accept it.

Admittedly it wouldn’t work for speed clears and things where you had to have specific people in specific roles, but it kept the vast majority of PUGs happy. And often made things easier because if there was a conflict (for example another rit using my favourite spirits) I had a much easier time changing my build than if I’d copied and pasted it and had no real idea of how it worked.

It’s a perfect example of dumbing down. I just try not to dwell on it…

It has been mentioned in this thread already, but GW1 had the flexibility of “decide your own difficulty”. I actually cleared most of Nightfall with one other guy, and a single hench. I was a challenge, and it was fun. We picked the challenge by not bringing an entire party.

That option just isn’t here. I’m 80 now and I can’t make the content more difficult by playing in an area with higher level mobs than me.

Playstyle customization and complexity is important to me in MMO’s or RPG’s, GW2’s customization is definately way too shallow.

I played GW1 and I do not miss it at all.
First if you do, you could try played GW1 again or any other MMO. As they all support this.
That said, I understand how some people might want it in GW2. Maybe for you building your own build from a massive deck of skills is great fun, however I think for most it is waiting for people to find the best build and copying that.
Also it sort of inhibits casual players, who see 1000’s of skills and think I CBA to look through them all to find the 8 that worked well.
So they end up copying the build posted online, and the reason for the massive deck becomes pointless again. Either people copy the good builds or they stop because it is hard to make your own.

The good part about GW2, and it’s limited skills, is that all the builds use similar skills because it comes down to the weapon and then stats. It is great for casual as they can just play with the weapon they like and people who like to make their build can still do so with the 6 – 10 skills.

Also balance comes into this, as I think they attached skills to weapons to help make balancing the game easier. As they always know what skills are used together.

I actually really miss the build stacking as well. I also used really awful builds that I created myself, and I was okay with it. I never experienced people negatively commenting on my builds. If they asked me to ping it, I’d be like, “Just let me do my thing.” and I also did okay. I knew how to work with it.

Also, when you reach max level, it’s another thing to work for. In this game, you get elite skills at level 30, incredibly early. In GW1, it wouldn’t be that easy. I don’t want to go back to the signet capture thing – I like having the skill point challenges, etc. But it allowed us to do more after beating the game. You could go out and look for hundreds of skills to add to your collection. Now? You can complete it pretty quickly. I miss that part of building skills. I miss being knowing that no matter how strong I got, there were probably still some skills out there that I don’t have. I don’t get that from this game.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

The skill was in knowing which skills and heroes were right for the job, Doc. Personally, I really miss the deckbuilding aspect of GW1 as well, and further feel that ArenaNet may have overdone their oversimplification of the game’s systems in GW2.

I understand that the system runs more smoothly this way and that it was built for a level of player mental competence somewhat lower than mine (I’m sorry, I am, but there’s no way to say that without sounding like a kitten, so I’m not going to try), but at the same time it really seems like they optimized it for a level of mindless twitch skill significantly higher than mine. time once was, I could counterbalance my fudge-fingered ways with a build optimized for my needs and desires and still be kitten good at Guild Wars, but this environment doesn’t allow a player to compensate for anything in their builds.

The combat is certainly more fun, and I get by well enough on my Warrior and Ranger (when my kitten computer is working, anyways), but while the combat is more fun, in many ways I think it’s less satisfying. There’s no sense of having truly emerged victorious over a difficult foe, in having outwitted whatever nefarious plans the A.I. designer built into an area (or having outwitted the monkey-brained nincompoops in RA, for that matter), just a feeling of having pulled the right levers at the right time to make the machine do what it was built to do. Cool enough, and the entire Call of Duty franchise is built on that feeling, but when ye’re used to being able to build the machine in the first place, just yanking levers kinda seems like a letdown.

That’s a difference of opinion, though. It’s basically just an argument of builds vs combat. I do get that feeling of emerging victorious because it’s how well you played that fight that earned you the win, and not how well designed your build was. I think there is a lot more skill in “pulling the right levers at the right time” than you’re giving people credit for, and a fight in GW2 is about even more than just pressing the right buttons.

I’d actually argue that making sure to do the right thing in combat requires a more skilled player than designing a good build, because you can spend as much time as you want researching, testing, and creating a perfect build and you can also just copy one from someone else. All of that before the fight even started. But once you enter combat, you have to know what you’re doing and be able to switch tactics depending on what the opponent is doing. That always requires a good player that really knows the game well and most likely who has practiced a lot as opposed to relying on a good build that may have nothing to do with the skill of player behind the character.

A build shouldn’t be idiot proof so that anyone can play a class badly and still do well just because the build is OP. If a good build can make up for a lack of player skill, than that is similar to a class being OP basically. The game should be about how well you play it, not how well something was designed before the fight even started. And even if you have a good build, it should be down to the player’s skill how well they perform with it (and vice versa – good players should be able to get more out of a bad build).

SamTheGuardian.2938:

No. 1.) The best builds quickly rose to the top. Want to group play? “ping your build”. If your build didn’t match expectations of whatever you would get kicked or asked to leave. 2.) The GW2 system is more complex in the way traits alter skills. It makes it difficult for team mates to hate you for creativity or for not running a specific configuration.

As nice as of an idea as the build system in GW1 was ultimately it failed.

Isn’t it the case here? Don’t players run around with the same type of builds? After a month? Sure there are some traits difference, but it still feels the same anyway.
Sure no one will hate you for creativity. How many builds are really viable per profession, seriously?

I bought this game hoping against hope it still retained some of that GW1 Build Wars aspect even though the previews looked pretty dire. I never got into GW1 before it was too late, but a strategy based MMO seemed like a great idea.

But no, noobs might be unable to figure it out and would cry so Anet made character building irrelevant. Just lug around all of your weapons, get the best traits and spells and you’re set.

Hell, you don’t even need the best traits and spells. In fact I didn’t even spend my trait points yet and I don’t use my unlocked spells. No problems at all killing 2-3 monsters 3-4 levels above me.

The only decisions I made on my character were 1/ replace my standard heal with the obviously better Troll Unguent, 2/ get two bears because they are obviously the best pets. This game really has awesome depth.

My expectation is that this is just the sort of thing that will be added in expansions and free updates: New elite or class utility skills to give individuality to builds.

It seems to me that they balanced the game around the core weapon skills, and utility skills (not traits) are the “extras” that give a build its flavor. I’ve seen a couple of posts saying that people are disappointed the elite skills aren’t more uber: I think that’s by design. They’re supposed to be situationally powerful, but not OP in themselves, or combat would simply be “pick the best elite and spam it.”

One idea that I think would be fun: have anet track the most-used elite skills in PvP, and give a small percentage bonus to tournament points for those using the less-preferred skills – so you could get extra bragging rights for succeeding with an idiosyncratic build.

They pretty much just got rid of skills in this game and replaced them with the traits. At least this is how i see it. In some ways this is pretty nice since the massive amount of skills in the first game could be pretty overwhelming. But this game really needs more skills, specifically the ability to choose different weapon skills.

But one thing this game needs badly is more elite skills, there are just not enough at all in this game and most of them that are in all pretty much the same, the game needs more elites with more variety. Like the elite skills in the first game where pretty much beefed up versions of just about every skill type in the game that were stronger but limited by long cd and the ability to only have 1, but could drastically change how you played your class just by changing the elite. The biggest example of this imo were the forms on the dervish.

This game is still great without the boat load of skills, but really limits the different amount of builds we can make, thus making almost everyone play their class pretty much the same as everyone else using the same class.

I miss the deck building part of it so much, to me its what made Guild wars as a game stand out from other MMO’s i loved the fact that i didn’t have to have hundreds of skills on my screen at once, it’s truly an element i miss from GW1 that i would like to see in some way shape or form implemented a little more strongly in GW2 cause at the moment every class will just have more or less the same skill set, i do agree that there should be more options to customize not only your last 4 skills but your first half of the skill bar as well, maybe make a skill that is unique to that particular weapon rather than just a whole board of skill that a generic to one weapon type.

I think this is the main reason why I am not having as much fun with GW2 than GW1. Traits are not a substitute for having different skill combinations. There are only so many ways you can use each weapon, and by the time I’m level 80, it will feel routine and non-exciting. Traits also push you into directions into how they want you to play.

I also hate the fact that I can’t move the skills around on the skill – yes you can create keybinds, what what if I want my main hand weapon (2-3) to be in the MIDDLE of my skill ar, and then the offhand at the sides (1 and 5). You can’t do that. It’s always skill 1-3, skill 4-5. I’ve played GW1 for so long with my main 3 skills in the center of my skill bar that even after hours of playing GW2, it never feels natural and intuitive. I don’t think it ever will.

So, can we just agree that future additions to the game can add:

1. More utility skills
2. More elite skills
3. Possibly additional traits
4. New weapons
5. Possibly different weapon skillsets

I really liked the GW1 and the skill system, and would like that in GW2 or something somewhat similar at least.. But not only that, a lot of skills in GW2 largely seem useless outside high end competitive pvp. I mean most crowd control skills or any skills in general are in the range of being up for 1,5 sec and then having a cooldown of 45 sec.. Way way too long cooldown, and way too low effect time, it renders the vast majority of skills pretty pointless in casual pve for instance.
In GW1 the skills in general lasted so much longer and really made a difference. On top of that putting points into traits would extend the duration of skills drastically, as in from 4 sec to 18 sec. Of course you couldn’t do that to all your skills though.

So basically GW2 just feels so restrictive and superficial, you really don’t have any major choices to make, neither in choice of skills or traits. It’s all a matter of tweaking the finer details that’ll make a difference in a tournament battle, but otherwise won’t really make any noticeable difference.

I really tire of the weapon preset skills as well.. The idea of weapon specific skills is fine, but give people a bunch of different skills they can choose from themselves, as they like.

I miss it to some degree, but then I remember how out of the million possible builds only a few (yeah, I confess, I like min/max) were really top notch and the race for staying ahead of the nerf bat. GW2 is just more traditional I guess, you e.g. have a variety of thieves, but you cannot bend a thief to a totally different concept. It is really pros and cons for me.

Traits are much easier to balance. When in doubt, they can just make them so weak, it doesn’t matter. Seems like somewhere along the way, they became obsessed with balance, putting it above the fun-factor of having real choices to make.

The deck building aspect is the primary thing that I miss. But it was likely the single biggest source of headache for ANet. I mean really, a monk with 55 health soloing a destroyer boss?! Those were the days!

Ticee.2451:

I really liked the GW1 and the skill system, and would like that in GW2 or something somewhat similar at least.. But not only that, a lot of skills in GW2 largely seem useless outside high end competitive pvp. I mean most crowd control skills or any skills in general are in the range of being up for 1,5 sec and then having a cooldown of 45 sec.. Way way too long cooldown, and way too low effect time, it renders the vast majority of skills pretty pointless in casual pve for instance.
In GW1 the skills in general lasted so much longer and really made a difference. On top of that putting points into traits would extend the duration of skills drastically, as in from 4 sec to 18 sec. Of course you couldn’t do that to all your skills though.

So basically GW2 just feels so restrictive and superficial, you really don’t have any major choices to make, neither in choice of skills or traits. It’s all a matter of tweaking the finer details that’ll make a difference in a tournament battle, but otherwise won’t really make any noticeable difference.

I really tire of the weapon preset skills as well.. The idea of weapon specific skills is fine, but give people a bunch of different skills they can choose from themselves, as they like.

I don’t really mind the longer cooldowns. It’s balanced for the current combat system.

I like the idea of a single weapon giving access to more than 3 skills on your skillbar. Like say an axe giving access to 10-20 axe skills, which you could then place 3 of on the skillbar. That would be nice. It would also individualize people more.

I disliked GW partly for the system it had. I didn’t like that you had to have a “loadout” before venturing forth. I prefer the GW2 system where both weapon and utilities can be changed on the fly, but you are still limited within Profession. I think the Professions are plenty broad, and I like having the flexibility of being able to switch weapons and utilities to suit context while wandering. I guess GW didn’t have that requirement because it didn’t have a persistent world so much, so loadouts were ok in that context as you knew what quest you were venturing out to do. But when you’re out and about in the world, you need more flexibility.

Vzur.7123:

Traits are much easier to balance. When in doubt, they can just make them so weak, it doesn’t matter. Seems like somewhere along the way, they became obsessed with balance, putting it above the fun-factor of having real choices to make.

I think for most players, balance is a key to having fun in a game and that is pretty obvious on any MMO game’s forum. If one class is even the slightest bit under or overpowered, people are not having fun.

Leiloni.7951:

Vzur.7123:

Traits are much easier to balance. When in doubt, they can just make them so weak, it doesn’t matter. Seems like somewhere along the way, they became obsessed with balance, putting it above the fun-factor of having real choices to make.

I think for most players, balance is a key to having fun in a game and that is pretty obvious on any MMO game’s forum. If one class is even the slightest bit under or overpowered, people are not having fun.

I disagree. Balance is an overrated ideal, that’s never quite achieved, but the incessant striving for it is sucking the fun out of these games. People will always whine about balance – except when they’re not having enough fun to care.

As a GW1 vet I can tell you our classes had less viable builds in prophecies than we have in GW2.
Ultimately, when the best builds for X role have been made, there was little reason to impair yourself.

I agree though that sitting for hours trying to create new builds was fun.

I never cared for the build-making process of GW1 as it pertained to PvP. Perhaps I’m just bad at making builds, but I always disliked that people used standard or semi-standard PvP builds that totally made anything I put time into seem worthless and weak.

For me, the current system is simple enough that I know I’ll have a shot at even the most skilled players, but still customize-able enough that I can have that shot in my own way, and not have to always worry about Joe Shmoe with the latest PvP build.

What about if they added a 4th trait slot we could use? I think that would help things a lot. Three trait slots is not really enough. Especially with the huge cooldowns on some traits.

I miss this and mercs/heroes. These were core gameplay elements of GW1 and created incredible complexity (obviously very hard for game designers to balance though, and technically challenging to create good AI).

While aesthetically GW2 is far superior to GW1, I think that under-the-skin GW1 was/s the superior game.

And that’s why this is World of Guildwarscraft and not actually GW2.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

So, can we just agree that future additions to the game can add:

1. More utility skills
2. More elite skills
3. Possibly additional traits
4. New weapons
5. Possibly different weapon skillsets

About 3, I feel it should work the other way round, like chosing trait and enforcing them in level (say 2 or 3) should give you bonuses, be it stats or else.

wookie slayer.4259:

Never played but I really like the idea, the only problem with it was so many were useless. I think a modified version should have been placed in this game

So many are useless in GW2 I don’t see the point…

To OP, yes. That was what kept me playint GW1 for so long. If I could take the movement system of GW2 and put it in GW1 I would be in heaven.

I also miss the elite skills from GW1. They felt ELITE. (Hundred Blades? There was no ‘common’ skill that did anything like that) In GW2 all my elite skills feel meh. :/

You want different builds? Try Secret World. I did. Still playing. PVE there is hard. You may need to switch builds a couple of times just to do 1 quest.

People make crazy builds like Deadpool – Pistols+Blades.
Or that Elemental magic+Assault Rifles.

I’m running Blade/Fist weapons wolverine build right now. It’s awesome.

GW2 is too limiting. I can’t take the last skill from Valor without taking everything before it. In TSW you can.

^I don’t want to play another game, I want to stay in the world of Tyria without being so limited. Most of us that have a problem with these limitations are hoping ANet wakes up and lets us edit our first 5 skills, not just utilities.

I was a long time gw player and I never played the pvx meta game. I loved working on builds and trying to figure out what worked best for whatever myself and my husband were trying to tackle.. I do miss that.

No, I prefer the current system. I want to spend my time playing the kitten game, not researching how my character should be built to best play the game. It’s the game designer’s job to make a profession that works. I just wanna jump in and play.

If the skill system got too complicated I might consider not playing. The simplicity is one of the big drawing points for me – I don’t like having 50 keybinds and a complicated talent system to figure out so GW2’s system I love – plenty of variety in builds but still simple enough that I don’t have to spend too much time on it.

In games that are that complicated, if you take a break and come back later you have to entirely re-learn your class because there’s just so kitten much going on. That, in past games, has deterred me from coming back to it. That is just a roadblock to having fun and I don’t have time to kitten around with builds.

Playing GW1 for a long time. There is a LOT of things I miss from that game that are missing in this one. Skills, Heros, UW, FoW, Guild Halls/Guild Battles, Mobs on the radar, Finding Elites from bosses, Boss Weapons (greens) etc.

Most of those (minus heros) was in the first GW BEFORE factions.

I enjoy GW2 and what they’ve done with it, but yea I find it a little restricting in some ways and I miss a lot of “if it aint broke don’t fix it” idea they put in the first one.

I honestly miss Guild Wars… I don’t think Guild Wars 2 is a true successor to it. It’s honestly disappointing.

Rukia.4802:

And that’s why this is World of Guildwarscraft and not actually GW2.

LMAO

Sure I miss GW1. It’s still tops on my list of all time favorite MMOs and the deck building was great fun. But this game is not that one. I’d find it just as valid comparing The Secret World or SWTOR to GW1, as I do comparing it to GW2. Different games, different mechanics, different intended experience.

However, I still mourn the loss of true Mesmers. No other class, not even the new and improved GW2 version, can ever compare. All rational arguments aside, I wish we still had Mesmers.

morphemass.2850:

I miss this and mercs/heroes. These were core gameplay elements of GW1 and created incredible complexity (obviously very hard for game designers to balance though, and technically challenging to create good AI).

While aesthetically GW2 is far superior to GW1, I think that under-the-skin GW1 was/s the superior game.

I agree. I think the system that Guild Wars 1 was based on was obviously a superior game. All creatures had skills that can be countered and used by players. All players had skills that needed to be earned by questing or by capturing from bosses. Attribute points made the skill system easy to understand and made your character more powerful as you gained levels. How I miss Guild Wars. I’d gladly play it nonstop if more content were made for it and more people were playing it.