Guild Wars 2

I started playing within a month or so of release, but could never really stay interested for much longer than about level 20-25, for a variety of reasons.

• bland voice acting and writing
• limited character customization
• combat felt very repetitive
• lack of Trinity limits PvE to zerging
• PvP is setup to encourage zerging
• Story never feels cohesive, partly because you spend 90% of your time doing random crap like feeding cows or whatever, for people you don’t know, don’t care about, and will never see again.
• The 10% of the time that you’re doing your personal story (or whatever it’s called), felt disjointed because you have to constantly put them on hold while you gain levels.

Despite that very broad set of complaints, I’ve kept coming back every 3 or 4 months to give the game another try, because I really want to like the game. I did so again this weekend, before realizing there was a major patch that just went live. Having started a new character and played to about 16 or 17, I wanted to take a moment to let people and/or devs know what my impression is. Mostly because I feel like I’m exactly the kind of player that they are trying to retain (maybe I’m wrong though).

First Impressions
I’ll be honest, and just say up front that I very nearly uninstalled as soon as I left the intro map. I immediately went looking for an AH guy, only to find out they are no longer on the 1-15 map. Thinking that was strange, I ran into the city and loaded up the AH. I was immediately struck by how *un*intuitive that interface has become. I don’t know if it was changed in this last patch, or earlier this year or what. But I managed to somehow accidentally purchase 48 bags when I only intended to purchase 5. So I spent the next several minutes figuring out how to relist the 43 bags that I didn’t need, and finally purchased the off hand weapon I came for in the first place.

And then I found out that I can’t even use off hand weapons until level 7. After asking around in chat again, people mentioned that ANet wrecked the whole early level experience because it was somehow too complicated. I then poke around on the forums to see what’s going on and read through the patch notes, usually dumbfounded by what I saw.

So basically, ANet managed take a game that was already too simplistic and found ways to make it ever less complicated in an effort to appeal to… I don’t know, 7 year olds or something. There aren’t enough abilities in the game to begin with (especially when you consider stuff with long cooldowns), yet they felt like offering even fewer abilities would better retain people? I still don’t understand the level gating thing, but it’s their game.

The single bright spot in all this, and the one reason why I might possibly manage to last longer than level 25 this time, is how the personal story is now paced. When I finally hit level 10 (after doing several hours of the same crap for the same people that I don’t know or care about, mind you), I was able to push through the first major story line without having to constantly stop and go level a few times before picking it up again. That was a huge improvement. My understanding these story sections will come up about every ten levels, which should be fine as long as the later levels don’t move too slowly. Even if the pacing does slow down at later levels, at least I’m not inexplicably holding off on something major like rescuing someone because I need to go kill grubs until another farmer is happy with me.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I really want to like the game, and I’m hoping that ANet can introduce some complexity at some point, rather than focusing solely on lowering the barrier of entry. Complexity is what will keep players playing.

Side note to ANet: despite what you may think, getting a notification every level about stats gained, or stuff unlocked, doesn’t actually make the level up process any more special because the stats/features/etc have no context. I gained a level and my stats increased by 20? I don’t even know what that means or how it helps my character, much less why I should feel accomplished.

Honestly, It’s possible this isn’t the game for you then. It seems that you come from a typical MMO and still want that play style, which is totally fine I think they really have their charm!
There’s a lot of complaining on the forums these days about the latest update features but one of the strong suits I believe for the game in general has been the level 1-80 experience especially on a first character it’s amazing, but since the game is 2 years old many have gone through it many times and want new things to do.

-Character voice acting isn’t bad IMO, most of them aren’t name brand actors keep in mind since if they did the budget wouldn’t have allowed for so many voices in the game. It doesn’t distract from the gameplay for me when a voice actor sounds bad I usually laugh a bit and move on. But I much prefer voices to having to read every thing.

- holy trinity – this is a tricky one because it does feel like there isn’t any roles and in PvE everyone uses the same stats and it’s just DPS DPS DPS.. I would love if there was more room for healer builds/ tanky builds/ etc.. in PVE specifically. I don’t know how you would change that since there isn’t taunting what good would a tank do? Controversial subject for sure.

When you say Story do you mean hearts? Because the cow feeding ones are hearts. And yes there are many mundane hearts that have you do trivial tasks but also many of the same ones allow you to kill local threats to advance them so you don’t always need to (most not all..) But hearts arent really the games strong suit.. I believe Dynamic events should have been the focus and not hearts. But it looks like the higher level zones like Orr and dry top are just doing events.

Also they changed the personal story so you do it every 10 levels now (sorry you already said that in your post), which makes it less disjointed. And some people don’t like this change but I think your complaint of it was VERY typical at the launch of the game.

For combat being boring – well nowadays with level unlocks you DO have to wait until higher levels to unlock your skills and traits to really try out traits. This I believe is a flawed system because people can no longer slow down and enjoy the game since they need to level quickly to get their possible builds. I liked it better when I didn’t have to chase after my class abilities by leveling. On my first character I didn’t even know I was leveling because I was having fun playing. But again now you have to level up to really get into your class now and try different builds, so combat would feel more exciting after that. But again if you want to do the best builds for PVE then there aren’t as many options, that’s typical of any game though there are always meta builds.

In regards to your side note.. I do agree that I don’t personally need a popup telling me I leveled/got stats/ especially now that stat increases are only every few levels so you’re now underpowered before that.. I prefer leveling to happen on the side, but I get why some people what immediate rewards for everything they do even if all they did was level. I do like getting a peice of armor/jewelry/ etc.. or something I can use though it does seem they are dropping more in the actual game. I would like to see heart vendors selling more useful things instead of just getting stuff in the popup window. Let me get it inside the game! The tip in the reward section is very confusing and needs to be clear that it’s a tip not an unlock/reward.. like unlocking vista’s for example.

Anyway, all that aside the fact that you can’t even bring yourself to play is a red flag because I think the newbie experience has been it’s strong suit, all the mysteries and little details of the game kept me all the way to 80 on my first character and I didn’t even notice I was leveling most of the time. Man if I could get that back!