Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 was sold on its dynamic events almost above everything. Not on stale gear progression, which now looks like the desperate grab that is being made for better retention.

Why not have new content focused on world events, an actual true large scale mmo mechanic, instead of cramming 5 people into a dungeon and telling them to run it over and over 60-90 times for a couple bigger numbers on their items?

It seems to me Anet strived to achieve this ‘living zone’ gameplay mechanic with the Orr zones, but just fell short for how either buggy or rushed most were, and too simplistic mechanics of mobs rushing the few same points over and over.

Some of the personal storyline events were much more in tune with the dynamic and epic scale events boasted about when the game was being developed (such as the battle for Claw Island, or invading Orr via a caravan of siege engines), but they were hampered and weakened by being restricted to a solo event, with just you at the focus, or a friend or two invited in.

These events should also be much longer chains than which can be recylced in one day (such as happens in Orr). They should take perhaps two weeks to gather enough momentum to unlock the final chains (think something like unlocking Ahn Qiraj in WoW). And once there, the climax should last several days itself so that players from different play times can all experience it (perhaps similar to the Halloween event stages, but more serious content). These chains could then themselves unlock access for entire regions, cities that offered goods/recipes, and even dungeons or mini dungeons too, but which themselves are not the end goal.

It just seems to me the easy and quick fix route has been grabbed for here when Anet could have doubled down on their original visions for pushing GW2 as a next gen game, fixing and improving the concepts that were good to begin with, but perhaps just needed more trial and error to perfect. The whole focus on ascended gear and shoehorning everyone into dungeons really feels like a step back into the past, than boldly going forward in the genre.