Guild Wars 2

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.

This is my biggest complaint. The reason the skills were built this way is due to the fact that all players now need to play all roles: healer, tank and dps.

I think that GW1 had a finite sort of experience with that system – and that’s not a bad thing. It just means that once you want to go outside the scope of (Player versus something), you’re gonna have to improvise a lot. Or in this case, expand on what the player’s resources are.

So, since they increased the scope of a game to a fully open world MMORPG, I can see why that decision happened.

I will forever praise the GW1 system, it gave space for a lot of creativity when it came to builds. Underworld was meant to be a really hard area, and how someone could come out with a way to solo and then after they nerfed it, two man it is beyond me.

If you ask me how someone even came up with the idea to use a pre-searing item to create kitten hp Monk build to farm everything, I wouldn’t know what to tell you.

However, that system also is not without its faults, in the end what we did have as well was also a lot of fluff. Hell they even had duplicate skills across the expansion packs. A lot of skills simply were mechanically inferior than others and went largely unused.

The fact that everyone could have both a primary and a secondary meant it was also a balancing nightmare. Not that balance is easy in any game, but the variety also made it a more difficult in the original guild wars. Simply by having more components and more variables to account for makes for a much more daunting task.

While I do miss the freedom in customization for both terribad and demigod builds that GW1 had, what I hope is that ANet’s streamlining of both skills and effects will lead to more balance as the game develops. Now it is my opinion that some of the more polished classes do have really interesting traits that do offer playstyle changes and customization. Now all they have to do is make sure all classes have these options to pick from.

Blacklight.2871:

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.

I hear you on that one. GW1 Mesmers would destroy a GW2 mesmer.

I mostly just wish there were more weapon skills. I wont be unreasonable and demand that there were thousands of skills in the game. But 3-5 skills per weapon just isn’t cutting it (pun) for me anymore. If each weapon at least had gave access to 10 skills each, which in turn could then be placed on the skillbar, then at least I wouldn’t feel like the gameplay was growing increasingly repetitive.

I couldn’t read through all of this so I’m sorry if I repeat somebody. A HUGE problem with having all of those skills was balance. There isn’t a reason to have so many skills if you are just going to leave some horribly balanced but it is a LOT of work to balance the skills we have, no less hundreds.

And come on guys. If part of your post is saying that you are smarter than other people (even if you try to do it respectfully) then you are incredibly stupid. You aren’t smarter than others just because you could build a GW1 build better than others. “Dumbing” a game down is a stupid phrase and doesn’t accurately reflect the action. But to be honest, if you really think “dumbing it down” is so bad then you probably deserve a time out. Jeez kids these days. “Look at me! I’m so much smarter than you! rofllol”

I always found having to unlock all those skills extremely annoying.

Well, you’re not alone. I personally feel Guild Wars 1 was a much better game, especially in terms of breaking conventions of the genre. ANet introduced a lot of bad MMO conventions into GW2 that were not present in the first game, supposedly out of some sense of necessity? I’m not sure. But as you can see, a lot of people complain about these problems.

I kept playing GW1 for years because of the vast array of skills and the number of ways you could build a skillbar to do so many things. ANet took the stance that it made it too hard for them to balance (yet they won an award for “most balanced pvp”), so we ended up with this mockery of a build system. I was offended when they ridiculed GW1’s skills as being dull and lacking in uniqueness. Not true at all. Now, in GW2, operating with some very generic, uninspired traits and some weapons that are stale to say the least, I’m even moreso offended.

It’s hard to believe that a game like GW1 ended up becoming the disappointment that is GW2’s combat system and endgame. All because ANet wanted to play it safe and reduce their workload. I play GW2 quite a lot, but I always think back to GW1, and wish GW2 could have been different. I’m already hoping for a new, more interesting game, because quite honestly, GW2 just doesn’t have what it takes. In between the massive gold sinks, terrible rewards, the ever-present feeling of slogging through level 80 content while being trapped in Orr, and the pathetic sPvP with the ineffectively dull combat design, GW2 is just the prettier, stupider relation of a much better game.

GW1 had a lot of problems, but I felt like that’s what GW2 was going to be – refining things from the first game into a better experience. Monks, ineffective skills ANet refused to buff, and so on. For every step forward GW2 takes with combat, it took two backwards.