Guild Wars 2

Occasionally, my GW2 launcher won’t let me in, so I went into GW1 to get some more titles to add to my Hall of Monuments. It is a nice change of pace, and I’m really enjoying myself.

Anyhow, I was just wondering, Mike O’Brien said that GW2 would take everything that we loved about GW1 and put it into a more persistent world that had more active combat. However, there are still features from GW1 that haven’t made their way into GW2 yet.

- So what I’m asking is this: What is your favorite feature (or features) from GW1 that you’d like to see implemented into GW2?

skill system that doesn’t suck

raptor.1064:

skill system that doesn’t suck

That is a blunt way to be putting it, but yes, the skill system is something I feel should be improved as well.

I really liked the skill system in Guild Wars 1, but it did have some problems. Namely keeping everything balanced. Also there were tons of useless skills that nobody used.

I don’t dislike the Guild Wars 2 skill system, though. In some ways, I like it better.

I’d prefer some longer story missions though, like the kinds of quests that were in Guild Wars 1. I like the immediacy of dynamic events, but the longer storyline things seem to have missed the boat.

Well I like to collect things so I miss my HoM and my Menagerie. I guess the home instance was to act like the HoM but never got there?

I miss being able to be a proper minion master raising and maintaining my own army of undead created from the corpses of my enemies. The guild wars 2 necromancer just doesn’t have that feeling.

I miss hunting down some elusive boss in the middle of nowhere to cap his skill though I don’t know if this would cause balance issues.

The combat in GW2 feels less strategic than GW1 but I don’t miss waiting around for hours to get the right group composition (especially waiting for a kitten healer).

Vayne.8563:

I really liked the skill system in Guild Wars 1, but it did have some problems. Namely keeping everything balanced. Also there were tons of useless skills that nobody used.

I don’t dislike the Guild Wars 2 skill system, though. In some ways, I like it better.

I’d prefer some longer story missions though, like the kinds of quests that were in Guild Wars 1. I like the immediacy of dynamic events, but the longer storyline things seem to have missed the boat.

When it comes to the skill system, my main issue in GW2 is that I can’t quite make up a build that suits my playstyle. Mainly it is the two handed “I’m a whirlwind” skill that my Guardian has that I dislike. Not because it doesn’t do enough damage, because it does, but I don’t see my character doing that move.
- Maybe adding certain skills that can replace a certain other skill. Like if you could click a little up-arrow on “skill 2” and then there would be certain skills of the same kind (that would be AOE skills to the Guardian with a greatsword).
- Some improvement is due, but yes, I like the combat and skill system in GW2 better in some ways (I still miss having to hunt down an Elite Skill. I really enjoyed finding the skills to put together a certain build).

The things i miss the most are on the PvP side, namely Fort Aspenwood and The Jade Quarry game modes
Longer personal quests would be neat, i loved the long missions in GW1

also Ritualist

1. Heroes

2. Ritualist

3. SPvP ~ PvE Connected
(JQ -> Points -> Zaishen Keys -> Money or JQ -> Balthazar/Luxon/Kurzick for AMber, Skills, Elites etc )

4. Builds Diversity

Skill System
sPvP
Skill System
Elite Instances
Skill System
Player to Player trading
Skill System

1. Skill System
GW1 skill system was very good, although it had some major issues as every profession had a few “fixed” meta builds and lots of worthless builds. More skills to choose from doesn’t mean more variety in builds, it means more useless and unused skills but, on the other hand, more skills lead to more custom builds and experimentation, that eventually might become top and surpass the other “meta” builds, which is a huge plus.

As an example, Paragons had one single awesome build (SY!) with small variations in the skillbar, until some crazy people started using multiple paras in groups (with varied skillbars) and created some very interesting and amazing builds (4 Paras + 1 Derv was my favorite). Still, the “end-game” meta was still the same after years and years and years (for example DoA… or other elite dungeons, mostly the same compositions every time).

However, what was truly amazing was the acquisition of skills, you could earn skills even through pvp and the boss caping was one of the best features in the skill system, it would make all those champions sitting around neglected by everyone, more important if they were useful in a similar way… but unfortunately, with a few rare exceptions, Elite skills in Guild Wars 2 are terrible and most professions would rather use another utility in the slot, which is a real shame.

In sort: better skill acquisition, more skill variety and pretty please better Elite skills that deserve the status…

2. Guild Halls
Enough time has passed, make it happen already! Now we have a new guild currency to buy them with (merits?) and in a few months when guilds have so many merits and all types of missions unlocked, they won’t have anything to use them on, how about decorating a Guild Hall? There are lots of suggestion/threads on this so I will redirect to those, not here.

3. Missions, Secondary objectives and repeatable…
Extra long missions with various objectives are needed into the game, also, in Guild Wars 1 there were some secondary objectives that were quite hard to achieve (without heroes) this made them repeatable, players were forming parties for the secondaries alone, sadly, no Personal Story quest has any kind of meaningful objective, we were promised scaling story quests but instead we only get more mobs…. (I’ve played a lot of story quests with other players but other than more mobs, nothing changed)
Fractals of the Mists was the first dungeon that added optional objectives, sadly they only reward achievements and they are only used once (like killing all chicken in Ascalon or not touching the Lava in Volcanic fractal). How about adding more optionals in the game and making them rewarding?

And a very easy one to add that I wonder why they haven’t done it already:
4. Books
I don’t know about anyone else, but those little books that we were filling by playing the game gave a sense of progression to the game and were some sort of long term goal. Books like Dungeon Master’s Guide, Player’s Handbook, Flameseeker Prophecies, Nightfall etc
For those that don’t know, those were “books” that players could fill by finishing specific quests/dungeons, they contained one page for each dungeon/mission in the game. Once you had your book filled up to a certain point, you could exchange it for rewards. It could be used in Guild Wars 2 so instead of farming one dungeon, or more importantly one path of a specific dungeon (CoF p1), players would do more paths on a variety of dungeons to fill their books. It would reduce the sense of grinding.
Other books could be based on Jumping Puzzles, Story mode quests (repeatable story steps, why not?), big world bosses, huge event chains etc etc

1) Collectors! They would alleviate this RNG a bit – trade 100 bits of junk from Orr mobs for a lodestone or something similar

2) Build variety. I have no massive issue with the gw2 skill system and gw1 went too far, so some middle ground maybe

3) Guild Halls.

4) Dwarves

5) Dervishes (before they destroyed them in the re-balance)

6) Crystal Desert. Yeah I know we’ll get there eventually, I just want to go there now

Assassin Combos, Guild Halls, GvG, RA, Cantha (!!!!!) & the skill system.

Heroes

I then can much better “solo” GW2

Nothing. Id like to see a new game that capitalizes on what was good in gw1 and adds to it. Anything Anet would do now would be trying to hard to please people, with no original vision of their own so it wouldn’t work anyway if they tried to bring all the things we liked back into the game. They obviously dont get it, and its not meant for them to get, we as players get it and will pass on the favourable game mechanics to future games. Anet did its job. Next.

More weapon skills this is a big one build diversity is what i miss most.
Elite instances with 12 players.
Heroes but limit it 3 per player.
Pvp , GvG, HA,AB.
Monk Now one of the arguments to not have a healer profession in gw2 was its so kitten boring to play but it really Isn’t.
The old mesmer they changed out the hex mechanics with clones a huge set back in my opinion.
Interrupts Mesmer and ranger could interrupt skills which could really turn the tide of the battle.
Guild halls and guild capes.
More emotes and cooler more unique dance emotes.
Free transfers everywhere anywhere. Waypoints/servers in gw1 traveling to a town you had discovered and switching districts didn’t cost anything.
Hard mode the level scaling kind of kill this purpose but i still think there could be room for hard mode this would also give better rewards.
A story where you ARE the hero not just a random trashman. When i started winds of change i didnt had to high expectations to the story was incredible and with difficult and fun encounters.
Alliances this would also allow for small guilds to grow larger.

To make it short:
Apart from the lore and the music….what GW1 features were actually implemented in GW2?

My main two ones:

Guild Alliances is my No1 wish. It would also help a lot smaller guilds to get guild missions going.

New elite skills that have to be captured. I loved in GW1 to get the elite skills by purchasing a signet of capture, equip it and then heading out to hunt the mini boss that had the elite skill I wanted.

Guild halls and allieances are a huge one, as well as the variety i hope to see in further expansions (going from an asian setting like Cantha, to the elona desert, and back to tyria’s jungles and mountains)

Heavily modified “bits” of lore and outstanding art and music are all I see that managed the transition from GW1 to GW2.

Dafomen.7892:

To make it short:
Apart from the lore and the music….what GW1 features were actually implemented in GW2?

None that come to mind.

Mike O’Brien lied to try and get the remaining GW1 players to get GW2.

Respect: -1000.

I want equipment templates and macros back. Similarly for traits. It’s annoying to manually switch armor and traits.

At least give us the ability to swap them with templates/macros outside of combat.

Arcanorum Ignis.9218:

Dafomen.7892:

To make it short:
Apart from the lore and the music….what GW1 features were actually implemented in GW2?

None that come to mind.

Mike O’Brien lied to try and get the remaining GW1 players to get GW2.

Respect: -1000.

Not entirely true… Every time you enter another zone you go through a load screen, I’ve played very little of the first tittle, but I do remember that.

Guild Halls and Mercenaries/Heroes.

…and Ritualist.

Arcanorum Ignis.9218:

Dafomen.7892:

To make it short:
Apart from the lore and the music….what GW1 features were actually implemented in GW2?

None that come to mind.

Mike O’Brien lied to try and get the remaining GW1 players to get GW2.

Respect: -1000.

+1

If I could have one thing back, it would be the original classes and skills from Prophecies. Perhaps they could be tied to weapons just like the game now, so that people don’t make crappy builds, but the synergy from GW1 just isn’t anywhere to be found in GW2. And, no, bad combo fields and finishers don’t make up the difference. Hell, they aren’t even effective enough to gameplan around.

If I could have another thing back, it would be Random Arenas, Heroes Ascent and GvG (which would require guild halls). How we don’t have these things that were fundamental end game components of GW1, I don’t understand.

Last, if I could be greedy for a moment, I would ask for giant instances like UW and FoW back as well. A couple dungeons with 3-4 linear paths just doesn’t cut it in comparison.

This is easy, in gw1 i could play with my local group of friends on EU servers, then when i wanted to play with my American podcasting friends i could swap to US servers and play alongside them. Now i’m on Gandara with my local friends in a small guild and my American mates are over on Henge of Denravi, and can i join in when they do bounties and the like or help them explore the new open world content Flame and Frost? No i freaking can’t. Fix the guesting now!

Alliances
Guild Halls
Show enemy mobs on mini map

Dafomen.7892:

To make it short:
Apart from the lore and the music….what GW1 features were actually implemented in GW2?

+1

I’m not having fun in GW2.
My main was going to be a Mesmer but got the clone factory (which is one build from GW1 Necromancer).
Now I have no main because all the class feel the same.
I don’t see GW2 doing that great if they don’t change or improve the game mechanics and the skills being tied to weapons.
played Mesmer lvl 80

Dafomen.7892:

To make it short:
Apart from the lore and the music….what GW1 features were actually implemented in GW2?

Great question.

Something I really want to see in GW2 is…more armors…
In GW1 I had some problems, I never knew what armor choose on my mesmer/elem/ranger/monk, but now… Winged or Embroidered…
Then, I hope Ritualists and Dervishes will be playable too =D

I don’t really know if I can pin down what’s missing from GW2 that we had in GW1, but something definitely is. It seems as time goes on this strange new Tryian world drifts farther and farther from the feel and epicness of GW1.

Part I.

Guild Wars 2 has many new innovations and overall I enjoy the game. The things I miss the most from Guild Wars 1 are Guild Halls, Guild versus Guild (GvG), and the greater quantity of skills that were available to each profession within the game.

1. Guild Halls- Guild Halls were such an important feature in Guild Wars 1, they allowed for a greater sense of communitu within guilds and the game in general. Guild Halls also allowed Guilds to have a place to rally at for events and other things. After all, the name of the game is Guild Wars, but in Guild Wars 2 there are no Guild Halls, or Guilds having a war with one another, at least not in the direct and illustrated way they were in Guild Wars 1. I can understand ArenaNet taking their time with things, I am sure they are very busy but this should be a priority for them since the game doesnt really fit the description without having Guild Halls and overwhelming Guild-based features.

2. Guild versus Guild (GvG)- This was the pinnacle of Guild Wars 1 and it fueled this games eSports presence in the past. Not having Guild versus Guild in Guild Wars 2 is just wrong. It may take time to create and polish but it should be in the game by the end of 2013. It is too bad that we do not have the ability to watch matches that were taking place between Guilds like in Guild Wars 1, it was a great way to learn new builds, watch epic battles and even approach Guilds to become a member. Additionally, as far as implementation goes, all ArenaNet needs to do is create a match-list where Guilds can play against any other Guild from another server in a Guild versus Guild matchup, and keep the game modes the same as Guild Wars 1. I do not agree with what some other people have said in the past that we need to have a massive server sized guild to accomplish Guild versus Guild in Guild Wars 2, we just need every Guild that is created (on any server) to have the ability to access a cross-server match-list that any Guild can have their members Player versus Player (PvP) in through a Guild versus Guild (GvG) style matchup, and if two Guilds are part of the same server, they cannot play each other but rather, they can play against any guild from any other server. As for scoring, you could tally up points based on Guild versus Guild activity and Wins versus Losses, or some other variant.

Part II.

3. Greater Quantity of Skills- Even if ArenaNet wants to hold off on the first two (2) features, they should add more skills to each character class. Currently if you choose a weapon type you are limited to the skills within that weapon type. In Guild Wars 1 there was a lot of flexibility with skill selection and having this variety absent from Guild Wars 2 just sucks. ArenaNet could vastly revive Guild Wars 2 with a whole host of new skills. This would improve competition, allow for new builds and provide more variety in PvE, PvP, and WvW. After all, at the core of this game is the combat and your skill selection. While I do like the Skill Point design which causes players to have to earn their Utility Skills, there should be more of them and every weapon should have double their current skill selection. Obviously this would be a time consuming project and a complete overhaul of the current game but it is probably the easiest thing they could add to the game in terms of the overall idea. Every main-handed single hand weapon should have six (6) skills not three (3), every off handed weapon should have four (4) skills not two (2), and every two handed weapon should have ten (10) skills not five (5). Also, since you can place a sigil on the main hand and off hand weapon and gain your stacks twice (2x) as fast, two handed weapons should be allowed to have two (2) sigils as well to balance the game, currently if you use a one hand, off hand combination you get your stacks in twelve point five (12.5) kills versus a player using a two handed weapon having to kill twenty five (25) enemies to achieve the same stack count. This same principle would apply for healing skills so for your heal skill there should be eight (8), not four. For utility skills there should be twice (2x) as many for each utility skill type, so instead of twenty two (22) total skills there should be fourty-four (44). Finally, there should be twelve (12) elite skills not six (6). This kind of innovation would take a long time for ArenaNet and if they were to undertake this kind of project we as a community should be patient but they could also release this kind of project out in chunks. For example, they could do all the weapons skills additions for each class first and then add the new utility skills second. This way people can have a little taste of what ArenaNets overall implementation is going to be in segmented sections and it gives ArenaNet the ability to release things in smaller chunks, reducing the immediate workload and allowing for greater focus on each section of the project.

These are my current thoughts on features that should be in the game from Guild Wars 1, into Guild Wars 2, I hope someone in ArenaNet sees this….

Profession, classes, and skills/builds not based around gimmicks. They said they reduced the skills because there would end up being only a few powerful builds. Well, with even less options there are even less effective builds.

Oh, and all classes filling the same role creates even less diversity because then only the best class gets used for everything. At least with the holy trinity and stuff you are able to feel needed and felt like you impact things.

I feel like taking away specific roles is something that people don’t like. As human civilization evolved we became a people of specialization. It makes us feel important, is the most effective way to get things done, and we feel we have a purpose. Without the skill customization, I am unable to build a skill bar for a particular task in the best way possible. I then have useless skills on my bar that have nothing to do with my goal but I end up spamming them anyway because all my useful skills are on cd and I’m useless till they can be used again.

They said I get to play how I want. Well, I want to make my own skill bars and test new strategies. Right now it feels like I’m playing the way they want me to.

Skill bars tied to weapons is somewhat cool and I don’t mind it, but It keeps me from using certain weapons I want and skins to use because I have to use whatever weapon is accompanied by the best skills.

I feel insulted as a gamer by not being challenged and having training wheels on all the time. This doesn’t just relate to this game, but nowadays “nerdy” games are being played by the general public. Although this shows some success, It means people who hate being challenged ruin it for the rest of us by whining and making everything easy mode.

Whats the point in trying to execute a strategy and wanting to formulate a new successful build when I could easily garner the same results by smacking my head against the keyboard because no matter what I press it will result in success.

The fun of a video game is when you are met with a challenge and you have to figure a way to beat it. Whats the point of a puzzle if someones telling you where the pieces go?

p.s. You best get them ritualists in this game pronto. Cantha and the ritualist is what made me fall in love with gw1 and give you (ANET) money.

Reputation, Guild Halls, Costume Storage

maddoctor.2738:

4. Books
I don’t know about anyone else, but those little books that we were filling by playing the game gave a sense of progression to the game and were some sort of long term goal. Books like Dungeon Master’s Guide, Player’s Handbook, Flameseeker Prophecies, Nightfall etc
For those that don’t know, those were “books” that players could fill by finishing specific quests/dungeons, they contained one page for each dungeon/mission in the game. Once you had your book filled up to a certain point, you could exchange it for rewards. It could be used in Guild Wars 2 so instead of farming one dungeon, or more importantly one path of a specific dungeon (CoF p1), players would do more paths on a variety of dungeons to fill their books. It would reduce the sense of grinding.
Other books could be based on Jumping Puzzles, Story mode quests (repeatable story steps, why not?), big world bosses, huge event chains etc etc

That actually a VERY good idea, and would help get ppl to actually do more than the same path in same dungeon over and over again

One thing that I personally miss is the way you obtained Elite Skills.
- You had to hunt it down. I would feel a lot more epic having achieved it through a boss mob, and all the more epic if it truly felt like an Elite Skill.
GW2 doesn’t really make the Elite Skills feel elite.
- There is room for improvement, ANet.

Rahveiz.7461:

Something I really want to see in GW2 is…more armors…
In GW1 I had some problems, I never knew what armor choose on my mesmer/elem/ranger/monk, but now… Winged or Embroidered…
Then, I hope Ritualists and Dervishes will be playable too =D

Definitely more armors.
- There was a sense of gear progression in GW1 as you obtained stronger and more epic looking gear. You felt like your character progressed, which I felt was an awesome touch.

GW2 already has nice looking gear, and I’d love to see more in the future.

The Mesmer.

Whose smart idea was it to make them psuedo MM’s from GW1?

They took away the main thing the profession relied on, punishment.

You do something, you get punished. (Backfire, Diversion, Empathy and even interrupts)

In GW2, it’s like the only form of punishments are confusion and not killing clones before they blow up.

For those saying they miss the factions professions and the campaign, go to this thread :
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-is-getting-rid-of-Cantha-a-universal-representation-of-humanity/first

and please express your support for them to bring it back. The pages in support of it are growing but I’m sure much more are needed to show them we’re serious about it. Please keep it civil and polite. We’re trying to win their favor not kitten them off lol.

LumAnth.5124:

The Mesmer.

Whose smart idea was it to make them psuedo MM’s from GW1?

They took away the main thing the profession relied on, punishment.

You do something, you get punished. (Backfire, Diversion, Empathy and even interrupts)

In GW2, it’s like the only form of punishments are confusion and not killing clones before they blow up.

The kind of utility based professions you found in the Mesmer, Elementalist and some Necro skills are severely lacking in this game. It is a shame as the Mesmer was one of those great classes that didn’t do noticeable damage, but was an absolute beast in the hands of a skilled player.

Similarly, the ability to find quick parties doesn’t make up for the depth and strategy we lost when ANet decided to retire the monk profession from GW2.