Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

What evidence do you have that Guild Wars 2 is “petering out” as you put it? Because I don’t think that’s the case. While Raptr isn’t all players it gives and has always given a pretty decent indication of what’s popular. Guild Wars 2 remains in the top 20. In June it was back above ESO again, even though ESO is only a couple of months old. There are precisely 3 MMOs ahead of it. One of them, Wildstar launched this month. WoW is a juggernaut of course, and FF and Guild Wars 2 are almost neck and neck, before season 2 kicked off. I expect Guild Wars 2 to move up that list next month.

I’m not sure what you think petered out means in a 2 year old game, but it seems to me that Guild Wars 2 is doing quite well.

Vayne, this isn’t a court of law where you get to say " show me evidence". The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And you are right, Raptr is not indicative of anything. With a buy2play game the only viable proof is concurrently logged in players.

Now, last time I checked those numbers are locked up tight by Anet. Not sure if they publish them anywhere. Have they?

If they have I’ll admit I was ignorant. but I do know this….

If their concurrent numbers were anything to rave about, it would be on the front page of Most forums " Arenanet Breaks 5,000,000 concurrent players"…

If they have done so, I have not seen it. Not saying they haven’t ..just I have not seen it.

Maybe you can find me the link? I’ll gladly eat humble pie if you show me any link post say 5/1/14 that shows ArenaNet raving about their concurrent logged in players.

Edit:

When I said 5,000,000 I was exaggerating…but any large type blog On a reputable website that shows ArenaNet raving…. any interviews post the 4/15/14 update… that shows Anet bragging about How many concurrently logged In players Gw2 has. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. it’s 3 months since the 4/15/14 update, so surely there must be at least one.

Edit: I disagree about raptor since there are players that play MMO’s and do not use it..* raises her hand*.

IF Raptor were mandatory with ALL games…and IF… it were mandatory to run it when you are logged into all these different MMO’s THEN, you coupld point to raptr’s figures as meaning something. since it is purely voluntary, it is not representative.

You could have 100,000,000 players playing League of legends, but only 50,000 on Raptr,… On the other hand you could have 2,000,000 Gw2 players… and have ALL of them on raptr. If you go by Raptr…. Gw2 is 40 x’s more Popular than league of Legends.

so no… I don’t accept raptr’s figures as being representative of anything, other than How many players that Play Gw2, are also logged Onto Raptr at the same time.

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

What evidence do you have that Guild Wars 2 is “petering out” as you put it? Because I don’t think that’s the case. While Raptr isn’t all players it gives and has always given a pretty decent indication of what’s popular. Guild Wars 2 remains in the top 20. In June it was back above ESO again, even though ESO is only a couple of months old. There are precisely 3 MMOs ahead of it. One of them, Wildstar launched this month. WoW is a juggernaut of course, and FF and Guild Wars 2 are almost neck and neck, before season 2 kicked off. I expect Guild Wars 2 to move up that list next month.

I’m not sure what you think petered out means in a 2 year old game, but it seems to me that Guild Wars 2 is doing quite well.

Vayne, this isn’t a court of law where you get to say " show me evidence". The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And you are right, Raptr is not indicative of anything. With a buy2play game the only viable proof is concurrently logged in players.

Now, last time I checked those numbers are locked up tight by Anet. Not sure if they publish them anywhere. Have they?

If they have I’ll admit I was ignorant. but I do know this….

If their concurrent numbers were anything to rave about, it would be on the front page of Most forums " Arenanet Breaks 5,000,000 concurrent players"…

If they have done so, I have not seen it. Not saying they haven’t ..just I have not seen it.

Maybe you can find me the link? I’ll gladly eat humble pie if you show me any link post say 5/1/14 that shows ArenaNet raving about their concurrent logged in players.

Edit:

When I said 5,000,000 I was exaggerating…but any large type blog On a reputable website that shows ArenaNet raving…. any interviews post the 4/15/14 update… that shows Anet bragging about How many concurrently logged In players Gw2 has. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. it’s 3 months since the 4/15/14 update, so surely there must be at least one.

Edit: I disagree about raptor since there are players that play MMO’s and do not use it..* raises her hand*.

IF Raptor were mandatory with ALL games…and IF… it were mandatory to run it when you are logged into all these different MMO’s THEN, you coupld point to raptr’s figures as meaning something. since it is purely voluntary, it is not representative.

You could have 100,000,000 players playing League of legends, but only 50,000 on Raptr,… On the other hand you could have 2,000,000 Gw2 players… and have ALL of them on raptr. If you go by Raptr…. Gw2 is 40 x’s more Popular than league of Legends.

so no… I don’t accept raptr’s figures as being representative of anything, other than How many players that Play Gw2, are also logged Onto Raptr at the same time.

If you haven’t followed Raptr for any length of time, of course you wouldn’t believe the numbers. But if you have followed it and looked at it, you’d see that it does pretty well parallel how games are doing in sales. It’s not hard and fast evidence, but annecdotally it’s been pretty compelling.

More, what are the odds that everyone that still plays Guild Wars 2 happens to also be subscribed to raptr? It would seem very unusual to me.

Generally speaking, about the same percentage of gamers that play Guild Wars 2 would likely be on Raptr as any other game. And it counts log in hours. Hours spent actually playing. Not sales. So it doesn’t matter that Guild Wars 2 is buy to play.

If you have Raptr and decide to open it up while playing Guild Wars 2, it will track your hours, just like all the other games up there.

So when you see Raptr players from May to June in ESO have halved, the odds are the trend would follow elsewhere. The numbers might not be 100% but they’d be indicative of a trend.

You don’t have to believe it. Their predictions and the information they give have been relatively solid for a good long while now.

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

snip

Vayne, this isn’t a court of law where you get to say " show me evidence". The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And you are right, Raptr is not indicative of anything. With a buy2play game the only viable proof is concurrently logged in players.

Now, last time I checked those numbers are locked up tight by Anet. Not sure if they publish them anywhere. Have they?

If they have I’ll admit I was ignorant. but I do know this….

If their concurrent numbers were anything to rave about, it would be on the front page of Most forums " Arenanet Breaks 5,000,000 concurrent players"…

If they have done so, I have not seen it. Not saying they haven’t ..just I have not seen it.

Maybe you can find me the link? I’ll gladly eat humble pie if you show me any link post say 5/1/14 that shows ArenaNet raving about their concurrent logged in players.

Edit:

When I said 5,000,000 I was exaggerating…but any large type blog On a reputable website that shows ArenaNet raving…. any interviews post the 4/15/14 update… that shows Anet bragging about How many concurrently logged In players Gw2 has. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. it’s 3 months since the 4/15/14 update, so surely there must be at least one.

Edit: I disagree about raptor since there are players that play MMO’s and do not use it..* raises her hand*.

IF Raptor were mandatory with ALL games…and IF… it were mandatory to run it when you are logged into all these different MMO’s THEN, you coupld point to raptr’s figures as meaning something. since it is purely voluntary, it is not representative.

You could have 100,000,000 players playing League of legends, but only 50,000 on Raptr,… On the other hand you could have 2,000,000 Gw2 players… and have ALL of them on raptr. If you go by Raptr…. Gw2 is 40 x’s more Popular than league of Legends.

so no… I don’t accept raptr’s figures as being representative of anything, other than How many players that Play Gw2, are also logged Onto Raptr at the same time.

If you haven’t followed Raptr for any length of time, of course you wouldn’t believe the numbers. But if you have followed it and looked at it, you’d see that it does pretty well parallel how games are doing in sales. It’s not hard and fast evidence, but annecdotally it’s been pretty compelling.

More, what are the odds that everyone that still plays Guild Wars 2 happens to also be subscribed to raptr? It would seem very unusual to me.

Generally speaking, about the same percentage of gamers that play Guild Wars 2 would likely be on Raptr as any other game. And it counts log in hours. Hours spent actually playing. Not sales. So it doesn’t matter that Guild Wars 2 is buy to play.

If you have Raptr and decide to open it up while playing Guild Wars 2, it will track your hours, just like all the other games up there.

So when you see Raptr players from May to June in ESO have halved, the odds are the trend would follow elsewhere. The numbers might not be 100% but they’d be indicative of a trend.

You don’t have to believe it. Their predictions and the information they give have been relatively solid for a good long while now.

As for concurrent players, most games have the highest period of concurrency near launch when the hype is the highest. Everyone is playing at once. People take time off from work to play sometimes. That’s going to be your high concurrency for most games. Then people you know, play less, because they can. They’ve delved in. Maybe it’s a busy week and someone only has time to do dailies. Maybe they’re checking out a new beta or new game. Some people leave any game. That’s a normal part of the business.

So concurrency numbers from the high they announced would go down for well over 90% of all games. That’s normal. The exception would be if the game had a terrible launch and then got better. Then it might have a higher concurrency.

What company would advertise a concurrency lower than their peak? It could be 10% lower, 30%, and it doesn’t matter. That’s again, normal for most games.

In the end, you have no evidence at all except for silence on concurrency numbers, which doesn’t really make sense.

The issue with passive versus active traits is that not everybody is good enough as a player to take only active traits – or traits that require player input in order to activate or have an effect.

If that were the case – slower, less experienced or overall not as good with micro players would be unable to compete with those who could – being very good at the game – run 7 active major traits and make those builds work.

Passive traits in this game are in a sense a skill gap compression tool – they narrow the gap between players that are good and players that aren’t so good.

Because if you’re not a very good player a passive trait takes something off your active " to do " list while playing and gives you more time to do and react to the other aspects of the game.

Games usually tend to have these “skill gap compressors” built into them since too much skill gap between good and bad players will make the latter category unhappy.

Galphar.3901:

Here’s the main reason GW2 lacks build diversity. Because we are stuck with 5 kills based on which weapon we choose, we are essentially given only 5 skills to choose for our skill bars compared to the 8 we got in GW. And of those 5 we are regulated even further in that 1 MUST be a Heal skill. We have far fewer choices in GW2 than what we had in GW: Prophecies.

This. The problem with GW2 when it comes to diversity, is that it has built in, recursive limitations.
Meaning the following, once you choose your weapon sets, those are half 2/3 of your 15 skills, thus the stats and effects you pick are going to be the ones that complement those 2/3 of your skill the better for what your build is supposed to do. Meaning if you are going to be a GS damage build, you are not going to go with +Healing stats, this is obvious, but limits your build all the same.
After that you are left with 5 skills to choose, again restricted by what your other 10 skills do, your stats, and 1 being healing, 3 utility and 1 elite. It comes as no surprise that those skills have to either maximize your other 10 or compliment them. Thus you are again further restricted, since if for instance your 10 skills from weapons have no gap closer, in all likelihood if you are melee your utility skills will in deed need to have some gap closer of some description.
Add to this a rather limited Skill pool and lack of proper role definition/specialization, and you kind of shoot diversity in the foot.

Having said this, there are several ways you can improve diversity.

1- And the most obvious, More classes. Wont make classes diverse on them selves, but less frequent.

2- Obvious but not so effective as people might think, adding more healing, elite and utility skills. This is not so effective, remember that your weapon skills represent 2/3 or more of your skills, and your build has to answer or work for them, so having double the amount of utility skills for only 3 slots, would not really make all that difference.

3- Include double effect weapon skills based on complementary stats. For instance an aoe hard hitting nuke that also heals. Damage based on +damage and healing on +healing. this opens up 3 configurations on a single skill, all healing all damage or mixed.
This opposed to current skills like the warrior sword 1, where the direct damage is not as relevant as the over time damage, they both work towards the same end but one is much more effective than the other, not regardless of your stats but clearly optimized for a particular configuration. Meaning you are never going to do as much damage with a sword by stacking +damage as you would do if you stacked +damage duration. That is why stats and effects need to be complimentary and equally effective, so it makes it worth it going either way. It is not worth it, going direct damage based, with a warrior while wielding a 1 hand sword.

Out of all of these supposedly diverse builds in GW1, how many of them were actually meta? Or was it just run build X or be kicked?

maha.7902:

Out of all of these supposedly diverse builds in GW1, how many of them were actually meta? Or was it just run build X or be kicked?

It usually went like this for any organized PvE or PvP (i.e. UW or HA)…

1. Join a group.
2. Group asks you to ping one of two or three cookie-cutter meta builds.
3. You ping something with a slight variation.
4. You’re kicked and have no chance of being invited back.

Not that there wasn’t a reason for that, people wanted to stick with well known and proven formulas, and you being different endangered their time.

Of course, in random arena you could do whatever the hell you wanted since groups were automatically formed, but it usually just devolved into a game of “the team with the monk wins”.

It’s also why I liked running JQ most often, you didn’t have people controlling your build, and it presented a nice atmosphere for testing stuff out.

But saying there was more build variety in GW1 is detaching it from the context. All that basically means is that you could pick from 100+ “wrong skills” and had to pick the “right skills” if you actually wanted to play and accomplish things with people. Hell, even if you were just playing by yourself, it was really easy to kitten yourself and have the absolute crappiest build without even knowing how crappy it was. The weird thing is that a lot of the builds were really unintutive for newer players as well, like those X/Ritualist bombing builds used in DoA, or the E/Mo Bonder for UW.

Case in point, a product of the so-called “extensive” build variety possible in GW1 involved an elementalist that took nothing but glyphs on the their skill bar. I’m sure we all miss that build very much (ironically, you can make a functional all-glyph build in GW2, but it still sucks overall XD).

So it was exactly the same as it currently is in GW2, except GW1 literally just had more skills.

So in both games we have useless builds, useless weapons, useless gear (well I think GW1 didn’t have gear stats, just runes or something), it’s just that in GW1 you had more useless builds since there were more useless skills, but when it came to optimisation you still had to run a build from a very small pool of builds, which is basically identical to GW2. And yet GW1 is harped as some sort of holy grail of build diversity despite the fact that you can make twenty shades of terrible builds in both games, you still won’t be wanted in organised groups.

Or am I missing something?

The cookie cutter UW meta build were unusable outside the given instance.
There wasn’t one single build, unlike in GW2, that worked absolutely everywhere.

Also, some PvE and PvP skills were slightly different.
In Guild Wars 2, necros are extremely mediocre in PvE, while extremely powerful in PvP.
They can’t make Necro stronger in PvE without making it overpowered in PvP.

Guild Wars, where elite skills were elite and didn’t transform you into a dancing chicken or something equally pathetic. It’s no wonder they used traits instead of elite skills in the new ‘feature’. Nobody would bother hunting down most of the elite skills in this game. Anywhoo…

People say “GW had loads of skills but only so many were useful!” Rubbish, don’t blame the game for your lack of experimentation and using factory builds. I constantly changed and experimented with all skills across my heroes. Some were ultra failures and some were winners. The difference is here in GW2 I’ve had the same build on my main for the past (almost) 2 years, that says it all.

Oh, actually I tell a lie, I swapped my heal skill to the anti toxin one for about 5 minutes.

I got one question. Multiple people in this thread stated something along the lines I didnt care about the meta build in Gw1, I did my own thing, it may not have been the best but it worked and was fun to play. Great.

so my question is, why do you all feel compelled to play just the meta build in Gw2? You got weapon skills, utility skills, gear stats and traits that you can combine for different effects and no one build isnt exactly the same. Even the same build doesnt play exactly the same in different situations. The issue is not that Gw2 doesnt offer different builds, of course it does, the issue is you refuse to play anything but the meta.

You can easily use 4 different weapon setups in a single dungeon. That’s already 4 “builds” for you. Then switch couple of utility skills and traits around and you can get 10 – 20 “builds”.

All during a single dungeon run.

Point is, builds in GW2 are much more diverse than in GW1.

Nick.6972:

The cookie cutter UW meta build were unusable outside the given instance.
There wasn’t one single build, unlike in GW2, that worked absolutely everywhere.

Also, some PvE and PvP skills were slightly different.
In Guild Wars 2, necros are extremely mediocre in PvE, while extremely powerful in PvP.
They can’t make Necro stronger in PvE without making it overpowered in PvP.

Funny my main is a necro and I dont feel extremely mediocre in PvE at all. What PvE content are you playing specifically that you’re finding extremely hard using a necro? I’d love to know cause I am dying to find some challenging content!

It’s not about challenging content.
Necro just bring nothing to the team which can’t be done better by the other professions.

Harper.4173:

Uriel.6310:

In the past, I use to believe that GW2 skills were going to be something similar to how GW1 worked, and for those who have played the original series would know what I mean. There were multiple builds and usually more than one way for every class to be played in game. But as I played through the GW2 betas that quickly changed.

I am bothered to see now how some classes have more or less builds than others. And even with there being another build, it usually only includes swapping out a few utilities while maintaining the same 5 skills from your weapon. Not only that, some classes have mechanics which keep them from even being played at their max potential or at all in certain game modes. (Necro’s and Rangers).

So to start the conversation, How did we go from creating almost endless combos of builds in GW1 to being pigeon hold into certain builds to fit the meta in GW2? Is there any chance that things will improve or only get worse?

/Discuss

Guild Wars 1 group play also pigeon holed you into a build that was the meta.
That was always the case – not sure what you remember about the game.

Also – the lack of build diversity comes from the reduced number of skills and skill being tied into weapons.

This was done in an effort to make the game easier and more accessible to casual players that don’t have the time and resources to read up, do research and inform themselves in order to make a decent build by themselves.

In Guild Wars 2 – with the skills bound to a weapon they can ensure even the worst player is still somewhat viable.

Long story short: it’s a full proof system designed to keep people from being really terrible.
In GW1 if you wanted you could make * a totally unviable build that didn’t work*.
In GW2 that option has disappeared – and with it a lot of variety and customization.

Yes, I can imagine the devs saying “Guys, we must repress our will of adding this hundreds of skills we already did and complex combat mechanics we have designed and go back to simple, lets do it for the casuals…”

In my opinion the battle is not lost for GW2 yet.

Sure in GW1 you had 8 skills.

But aside from weapons skills, you still have 5 slots to play with in GW2.
And you can still play around by switching weapons and synergize with them.

So it’s less a question about skills slots than skills numbers and diversity.

→ Healing skills as Skill type are a very good idea (like a meditation for example).
Each healing skill could belong to a family to promote synergy.

→ Too few skills atm, with some skills being subpar, only 6-8 utility skills really useful for each professions.

→ Elites. Much work needed here. Stop dumb 180 seconds cd for elite. They need to be part of the build and really usable as such. A 30 to 60 seconds maximum should be ok. Rebalance them if needed.

Mada.5319:

GW2 has less skills, but makes up for it with traits and expanded gear compared to gw1. If two builds used the same skills/utilities but had different traits/gear, those two builds would be played very differently.
.

Dunno if we play the same game but in the game i play most traits are about +X% damage, lower cooldowns, proc on crit effects only a few traits really change the way you will play your class AKA the way you use your skills (traps for ranger, SD engies, venom thieves) most of the trait are just adding power creep, you know what is the difference between a traitless thief and a fully traited one (exept for venom sharing)
the fully traited one hits harder, dodge more often have more initiative regeneration I only see pros no compromise for getting power this is pure power creep. And there is worse you want to know the difference between the optimal build for every profession the color of the effects while you spam your 3 buttons rotation of course after popping your bland offensive cooldowns, Oh and you would be quite lucky if your rotation needs 3 button to be executed guardians and rangers only need to press #1.

Mada.5319:

GW2 has less skills, but makes up for it with traits and expanded gear compared to gw1. If two builds used the same skills/utilities but had different traits/gear, those two builds would be played very differently.
.

No, 90%+ of the traits in this game, serve the same function as stat points customization did in GW1.

Also there is a bast difference between GW1 using a build that was not meta but worked and play differently, than in GW2 using a build that is not meta and gets you invariably crushed.
GW1 had a ton of not quite top notch but very close, viable builds, GW2 simply has none.

I think what we’re seeing is an example of two different schools of thought.

Yes, theoretically GW1 had an immense amount of build diversity; in fact the number of permutations were in the millions, if not higher. You COULD roll a warrior/monk with all healing skills, for example.

HOWEVER…

If you wanted to complete the most difficult content in the game, or play with people outside your own circle, you found that there was only a very small handful of acceptable builds, and that the overwhelming majority of skills in GW1 was deemed irrelevant by the playerbase, making the amount of effective diversity almost depressingly low indeed. Your warrior healer was NOT going to be accepted pretty much anywhere. Much of that diversity was an illusion if you weren’t playing by yourself.

So, in my mind, the answer is “yes… but no.” A nigh infinite number of choices boiled down to maybe 2 or 3 effective builds per class at any given time.

Nick.6972:

It’s not about challenging content.
Necro just bring nothing to the team which can’t be done better by the other professions.

Of course it does, Necro has plenty of support skills. What my necro can contribute to the team:
- Instead revive up to 3 fallen allies
- Remove conditions off Allies
- Gives regen to allies
- Buy time for my allies to disengage if they’re close to that by fearing, slowing, blinding or dazing enemies
- Create a wall that prevents melee enemies from passing and reducing ranged damage
- Synergize with condition throwing allies by spreading those conditions to 5 different enemies
- transform conditions into boons, depending on the enemies it can be a good source of might increasing team overall damage
- inflict weakness on enemies thus reducing damage allies get.
- inflict vulnerability on enemies thus increase damage allies do.
- Create minions that might attract enemy attacks, attacks that would have been targeted at them otherwise
- cripple enemies allowing allies to have an easier time placing themselves better
- immobilize enemies helping in a few events where you want to stop npcs from escaping
- Heal allies (pretty good at supporting allies during a guild rush!)
- source of combo fields as well as trigger combos some of which are pretty useful like chaos shield, Area blindess, area retaliation.

+ the same is true for every profession, no profession does anything that cannot be done by at least one other profession and why is that a bad thing? More important why does the fact everyone a necro does can be done by another profession make it extremely mediocre?

Only issue with Necro is it lacks direct damage in most cases but it makes up for it by having more support capabilities then other professions + its essential if your team is condition oriented, epidemic will wreck havok in groups of enemies probably out dpsing the elementatist when everything is considered.

Warrior does it all better.

IMO GW1 definitely had 10 times the build diversity compared to GW2 even with the trait system. The idea u could have tons of skills that u had to work for and some of them were hard to get for a guy that wasn’t a seasoned player and knew everything and where interaction between players was much more limited compared to GW2, was awesome.

Also i felt that a huge % of the skills had very good uses in different situations.

Dunno btw again from my POV GW1 skill system is definitely superior (and even more importantly FUN) compared to the dumbed down system GW2 has…because…kids.

The main reason IMO for GW1 having more diversity than GW2 is because given henchman and heroes, I didn’t need my build to be approved by others. I could just run with whatever I found fun and viable.

Mesket.5728:

The main reason IMO for GW1 having more diversity than GW2 is because given henchman and heroes, I didn’t need my build to be approved by others. I could just run with whatever I found fun and viable.

This is true.

It’s ALSO true that you can go out into the open world in GW2 however you want with any trait application and gear loadout without the approval of the community (and in fact, many such players do).

But in GW1, if you wanted to complete harder content, even with henchmen or heroes? Well… you were likely pigeonholed into a team build such as SABway.

Make no mistake, there’s more diversity in GW1 when it comes to open world doing whatever you want. But the amount of “effective” builds wasn’t all that much more. Is an ineffective build really “viable”? Some would say no, some would say yes. And that’s where the dissonance occurs when people talk about how the build diversity in GW1 wasn’t all that much (if at all) more than in GW2.

This thread has done nothing but take me back to when I was 13, burned out with Runescape, poor (so I couldn’t afford a subscription), and parents who believe video games were a complete waste of time and therefore refused to buy me a WoW subscription for my birthday.

One day I was in Sam’s club with my mom and there it was, Guild Wars Factions, no subscription fee. I knew nothing about the game, but I took a gamble and bought it. Little did I know that it would be the beginning of the best video game that I have ever played. So in depth, everything I ever wanted in a video game. I spent countless hours over the next 3-4 years playing it.

The build diversity was perfectly complex for me at that stage of life. Honestly, I like to think that I was the first person ever to run the backbreaker assassin build and I laughed maniacally as everyone melted before me and then pmed me after the match saying “What the hell did you just do to me?”

Flash forward to now. I’m 21, work 60 hours a week in the summer and during the fall and spring semesters am a full time student, a member of a band, and have an extensive social circle and a serious girlfriend (shameless plug: She’s freaking hot. Go me).

I was perusing best buy one day and saw GW2, I had a few extra bucks and I bought it for nostalgic reasons. Instantly I fell in love with the lore again. After a weekend of playing I realized that the builds of GW2 were dumbed down a bit and the combat was completely different than GW1. I was bummed out at first, but the more I played, the more I loved it. It being simpler and geared more towards the “casual player” is perfect for me because when I’m at school, I might only play for an hour or two a week. Its perfect for me.

TL/DR: I played GW1 for a lot of my teenage years, and while build were more diverse in GW1, the play style and build diversity of GW2 works much better for me in my current stage of life.

p.s. Holy kitten the backbreaker assassin build was incredible.

Vayne.8563:

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne, this isn’t a court of law where you get to say " show me evidence". The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

And you are right, Raptr is not indicative of anything. With a buy2play game the only viable proof is concurrently logged in players.

Now, last time I checked those numbers are locked up tight by Anet. Not sure if they publish them anywhere. Have they?

If they have I’ll admit I was ignorant. but I do know this….

If their concurrent numbers were anything to rave about, it would be on the front page of Most forums " Arenanet Breaks 5,000,000 concurrent players"…

If they have done so, I have not seen it. Not saying they haven’t ..just I have not seen it.

Maybe you can find me the link? I’ll gladly eat humble pie if you show me any link post say 5/1/14 that shows ArenaNet raving about their concurrent logged in players.

Edit:

When I said 5,000,000 I was exaggerating…but any large type blog On a reputable website that shows ArenaNet raving…. any interviews post the 4/15/14 update… that shows Anet bragging about How many concurrently logged In players Gw2 has. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong. it’s 3 months since the 4/15/14 update, so surely there must be at least one.

Edit: I disagree about raptor since there are players that play MMO’s and do not use it..* raises her hand*.

IF Raptor were mandatory with ALL games…and IF… it were mandatory to run it when you are logged into all these different MMO’s THEN, you coupld point to raptr’s figures as meaning something. since it is purely voluntary, it is not representative.

You could have 100,000,000 players playing League of legends, but only 50,000 on Raptr,… On the other hand you could have 2,000,000 Gw2 players… and have ALL of them on raptr. If you go by Raptr…. Gw2 is 40 x’s more Popular than league of Legends.

so no… I don’t accept raptr’s figures as being representative of anything, other than How many players that Play Gw2, are also logged Onto Raptr at the same time.

If you haven’t followed Raptr for any length of time, of course you wouldn’t believe the numbers. But if you have followed it and looked at it, you’d see that it does pretty well parallel how games are doing in sales. It’s not hard and fast evidence, but annecdotally it’s been pretty compelling.

More, what are the odds that everyone that still plays Guild Wars 2 happens to also be subscribed to raptr? It would seem very unusual to me.

Generally speaking, about the same percentage of gamers that play Guild Wars 2 would likely be on Raptr as any other game. And it counts log in hours. Hours spent actually playing. Not sales. So it doesn’t matter that Guild Wars 2 is buy to play.

If you have Raptr and decide to open it up while playing Guild Wars 2, it will track your hours, just like all the other games up there.

So when you see Raptr players from May to June in ESO have halved, the odds are the trend would follow elsewhere. The numbers might not be 100% but they’d be indicative of a trend.

You don’t have to believe it. Their predictions and the information they give have been relatively solid for a good long while now.

As I said, the fact that raptr is purely voluntary, means it doesn’t indicate anything. Maybe 5 % of Gw2 players Like raptr, maybe 50 % of LoL like raptr, the fact is, you do not know.

You guess, you think… you find it compellingbecause of Confirmation Bias, it tells you what you want to hear so you say " ya Raptr."

Sorry, but the fact that the figures could be off, because there is no indication what % of players that play a given game also log onto raptr … tells me that it is not indicative of anything.

All it can tell me is how many players that play gw2, also have raptr on their compute,r and run it while playing gw2.

You can point to it,… it doesn’t compell me to give it any weight, since it is Not mandatory that it be run on every computer playing MMO’s so that it can actually say " 100 % of Gw2 players have this…and 30 % are on concurrently at any given time.

As I said, with buy2play games the only figures that count are concurrently logged in players.

If Gw2 has been raving about these numbers post a link. So we can see How great the game is doing.

me..My impression is, the game is losing steam. And Raptr doesn’t compell me to change my opinion.

Maybe if yoiu post a Link of Gw2 raving about their concurrent logged in numbers post 5/1/14 as I asked it might convince me otherwise.

maha.7902:

Out of all of these supposedly diverse builds in GW1, how many of them were actually meta? Or was it just run build X or be kicked?

I never ran meta…I was never kicked. Fact is, throughMy play from the launch of the first game, i rarely had a hard time finding a group to do group content…. And we did bonus missions, etc…not once was I kicked or even asked what my skill choices were, or what armor i was wearing.

the playerbase was also a better community. So…I think all these memories of " I wasn’t meta and I was kicked." were either grossly exaggerated, or maybe given too much weight do to the passage of time. Kind of the Opposite of rose-colored glasses….

maha.7902

So it was exactly the same as it currently is in GW2, except GW1 literally just had more skills.
So in both games we have useless builds, useless weapons, useless gear (well I think GW1 didn’t have gear stats, just runes or something), it’s just that in GW1 you had more useless builds since there were more useless skills, but when it came to optimisation you still had to run a build from a very small pool of builds, which is basically identical to GW2. And yet GW1 is harped as some sort of holy grail of build diversity despite the fact that you can make twenty shades of terrible builds in both games, you still won’t be wanted in organised groups.
Or am I missing something?

Yes you are missing quite a lot since you exaggerate. Now, since it seems that you never played the game, and are basing your ideas on what people that you agree with have said about the game, I can see why you would be incorrect about your assessment of Guild wars.

The fact is, that while it was poissible to play with a subpar build, it was also possible to theorycraft a build that had some synergy behind it. It wasn’t that hard.

Some people have presented it as if Theorycrafting was rocket-science. All you needed to do was Look at what conditions you could apply, or what boon you could give yourself, then Look for other skills that worked off those boons or conditions.

Except that by having ability points to improve certain" traits" Lines, you would decide How LONG a condition lasted, and How much damage it might do…. you could have tons of elites to choose from, each of which changes your style of play drastically…Unlike Gw2.

So yes, you are missing a lot. But the Only way for you to know what is to go play Guild Wars yourself. The game is still running.

Nick.6972:

Warrior does it all better.

Warrior might min max it better, that is not the issue, the point is if necro does it well enough to be competitive. While GW1 certainly had its meta, it had lots of good enough builds. GW2 not so much.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

It was too work intensive for the Devs to maintain skill balance. Yep that was the reason given. I was like “Seriously?” If my development team admitted that and wanted to dumb the game down there would have been alot of job openings. They may as well have told me, “We can’t do the job sorry..”

I’m waiting for them to announce console versions of Gw2. I’m used to MMO’s that require a lot more thought and planning.

What an absolutely massive over-simplification of their design decisions….thanks for sharing your insight into building an MMO…what’s the name of yours again?

Wow, swtor, etc they all face the same challenges. Even the original founder of Anet ( Jeff Strain) was from Wow. In any job, either you’re up to the task or not. If not, admit it and ask for help. It’s the first sign of wisdom. I haven’t written gaming code, but I’ve tested them and watched them evolve as a beta tester longer than I care to admit. So that gives me a bit of room to critque a game.

Added:

In closing, players voicing their concerns and complaints can only help. Like Chef Ramsay says “I don’t give a …. about compliments and people blowing smoke up my …, I only want to hear the complaints”

There is a major difference in voicing concerns and complaints and flat out rude name calling of the Devs…. There is nothing wrong with pointing out you think it’s a “lazy” decision (I stated the possibility myself) but at some point, you need to learn internet anonymity should not be used as an excuse to be rude just because you CAN.

BTW, you missed my REAL point….see the old adage of, “those that can DO, those that FAIL critique…..”.

Galen Grey.4709:

I got one question. Multiple people in this thread stated something along the lines I didnt care about the meta build in Gw1, I did my own thing, it may not have been the best but it worked and was fun to play. Great.

so my question is, why do you all feel compelled to play just the meta build in Gw2? You got weapon skills, utility skills, gear stats and traits that you can combine for different effects and no one build isnt exactly the same. Even the same build doesnt play exactly the same in different situations. The issue is not that Gw2 doesnt offer different builds, of course it does, the issue is you refuse to play anything but the meta.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. The issue is build diversity. How many different types of builds can you play ? How many different ways can you play? Are you afforded the opportunity by selecting different skills to vastly change your playstyle? can you pick and choose any skills to play together to get some synergy?

In Gw2, your skills are few… and 2/3rds are weapon locked. The traits do not afford you a chance to change How you play because they are things Like." when you steal you gain vigor" etc…. except for 3 rolls as opposed to 2, In the same time frame, i sincerely doubt Vigor is gonna drastically change how i play.

In Guild Wars, How you trait changes How you play. The fact that most of the skills were situational doesn’t mean they are useless, Just Not usable 100 % of the time.

I think the players that Anet wants to play Gw2, are " set it and forget it" type players, that use one build for almost everything.

Guild Wars demanded you think dynamically about your build.

Holy Water is awesome against Vampires, useless against Robots unless you pour it down a vent or something ( metaphor got away from me)… anyway… Not being able to use Holy Water on Robots doesn’t make it useless, it just makes it useless against Robots.

I LOVED situational skills in Guild Wars. it was a way of making you THINK about your skill selections, and try to synergize them with one another.

That you had TONS more skills means you had tons more diversity. was it possible to play sub-par builds? absolutely. The cure was simple…learn how to theorycraft so you didn’t have a sub-par build…or grab a cookie cutter off some website. Me I went with the former… and that made all the difference.

Of course if all you care about is " meta cookie cutter" then there will only be 1 or 2… but.. I for one never played Meta cookie cutter… and yet I never got booted out of a group either.

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

it’s really simple, if i can’t choose the skills on my weapon then i question what ppl talk about with builds.
i never use a scepter on any prof, they just suck and the same is for the mace.
if i could change the skills then i might use them more, i would remove the lame defend skill on the mace and replace it for a pierce throw.

in GW1 i can do that at any time, in GW2 we are stuck with lame skills no one uses unless for fun.
every time i see a guardian they always use the GS, it becomes quite tiring to see the same.
and why do you think that is, it’s not because of choice but rather lack of.

Right because in Guild Wars 1 everyone used quick shot.

oh wow, so because one skill isn’t use you think that’s a good argument against a whole weapon not being used, a champ move…..-_-

No, I pulled one skill as an example off the top of my head, because I remembered it’s name. I remember having dozens and dozens of skills I didn’t find useful.

there are plenty of skills in GW2 that are completely useless yet that’s easy to ignore, ignoring a whole weapon means that you’re cutting a portion of the profession away.
it’s like instead of ignoring vampire gaze, you ignore the whole blood magic line.
if we could change the skills on the weapons with a certain set of skills then weapons are less likely to be ignored completely, it would give more diversity in a skill bar.

one thing i would like to see is that one-handed weapons still have 4/5 skills (i don’t really see the auto attack skill a skill), that way you’re not forced to use an off-hand weapon and the amount of skills you can use increases greatly.

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

it’s really simple, if i can’t choose the skills on my weapon then i question what ppl talk about with builds.
i never use a scepter on any prof, they just suck and the same is for the mace.
if i could change the skills then i might use them more, i would remove the lame defend skill on the mace and replace it for a pierce throw.

in GW1 i can do that at any time, in GW2 we are stuck with lame skills no one uses unless for fun.
every time i see a guardian they always use the GS, it becomes quite tiring to see the same.
and why do you think that is, it’s not because of choice but rather lack of.

Right because in Guild Wars 1 everyone used quick shot.

oh wow, so because one skill isn’t use you think that’s a good argument against a whole weapon not being used, a champ move…..-_-

No, I pulled one skill as an example off the top of my head, because I remembered it’s name. I remember having dozens and dozens of skills I didn’t find useful.

there are plenty of skills in GW2 that are completely useless yet that’s easy to ignore, ignoring a whole weapon means that you’re cutting a portion of the profession away.
it’s like instead of ignoring vampire gaze, you ignore the whole blood magic line.
if we could change the skills on the weapons with a certain set of skills then weapons are less likely to be ignored completely, it would give more diversity in a skill bar.

one thing i would like to see is that one-handed weapons still have 4/5 skills (i don’t really see the auto attack skill a skill), that way you’re not forced to use an off-hand weapon and the amount of skills you can use increases greatly.

Personally I think weapon Locked skills are just a bad design move. Does it simplify the game? yes. Is that a good thing? In My opinion. No.

Does it make it easier for a Player to NOT play sub-optimally? Maybe. Is it a good design choice? In my opinion no. A player will not learn how to play better if you make it simple, you need to give them something challenging to strive for, like lifting weights.

Yes, anyone can ride a tricycle. Except that NOT falling leads to NOT learning to ride a Bicycle.

Does it make it easier for the devs to balance? yes. But Is that the criteria we should be aiming for? Should a game be simplified so that the devs have an easier job? Especially when the message that sends out is.." Guild Wars is too hard for you to play, and too hard for us to balance"?

The best thing that Guild Wars had was that since you had so many skills open for you to choose from, if you took sub-par useless for the given situation types of skills, you had no one to blame but yourself.

in GW1, any useless skill, COMPLETELY useless skill, could be the next FOTM without any balance patch just because someone put some thought and find a combo with the least thought class combination and made it the most OP build ever. Given the amount of skills, class combinations and runes, it was theoricrafters dreamland and the best (at least for pvp) there was no meta because every meta was always countered… in GW2 pvp metas get nerfed because there aren’t enough tools ingame for the players to counter them,

All I’m saying is that if this game wants to be GW sequel, its needs a ton load of more skills and let us choose between different weapon skills as well, not just the same 5 for any build with the same weapon.

GW2 meta builds are a kinda of a joke when compared… “I equipped reflect wall, I’m now the party reflector, that’s my role”, “hey I have time warp, I must be the party buffer!”..

Mesket.5728:

in GW1, any useless skill, COMPLETELY useless skill, could be the next FOTM without any balance patch just because someone put some thought and find a combo with the least thought class combination and made it the most OP build ever. Given the amount of skills, class combinations and runes, it was theoricrafters dreamland and the best (at least for pvp) there was no meta because every meta was always countered… in GW2 pvp metas get nerfed because there aren’t enough tools ingame for the players to counter them,

All I’m saying is that if this game wants to be GW sequel, its needs a ton load of more skills and let us choose between different weapon skills as well, not just the same 5 for any build with the same weapon.

GW2 meta builds are a kinda of a joke when compared… “I equipped reflect wall, I’m now the party reflector, that’s my role”, “hey I have time warp, I must be the party buffer!”..

THIS. It is amazing how synergy had so much to do with the earlier game’s popularity. All it took is saying " hmmm…this skill teleports me over and heals me, but..I get extra healing if it also happens to be poisoned… what causes it to be Poisoned? and that other one makes it bleed,… but this skill will cripple it if it happsn to be bleeding.,…so do i want extra heals from it being poisoned? or cripple it if it’s bleeding? Now I need to figure out…where do i put my points ?"

Now… for ME that used to be interesting, and could keep me playing on, and on, and on,. and on.

I could take builds into GvG, and enjoy it, and this…coming from someone that detests PvP.

I think that many players that currently enjoy gw2, have latched onto the idea that " Guild wars was filled with useless skills" to accept that gw2 has so few of them. It’s Like they feel the sheer " uselessness" of Guild Wars was a problem that a Lot fewer weapon locked skills were the answer to.

Guild wars wasn’t filled with useless skills, Guild Wars was filled wit tons of situational skills, that rocked in the right situation. Guild Wars was filled with synergistic skills, that would rock, if used with other skills that played off them….

Personally I think Guild Wars was a Theorycrafter’s heaven. And what we are seeing boils down to " Am I a Theorycrafter at heart? If I am I would probably love Guild Wars. If I am not…not so Much."

And how come no one has even mentioned sub-classes? Added diversity ^2, from having 1 of 9 possible sub-classes for each main class. That is…

90 possible combinations, without even looking at skill selections, and elites. If you Bought Prophesies, Factions and Nightfall.

56 if you owned any 2 of the 3.

30 if you only owned one.

And yes Monk/mesmer played very differently from monk/necromancer

No.. The skills weren’t useless, they were situational, which meant they were powerful In the situation they were made for, and useless In the one they weren’t.

Holy Water, Powerful against Vampires, useless against Robots.

Vayne.8563:

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Vayne.8563:

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Many here are swearing the game is diverse and has so much depth. Besides GW1, what other mmo’s have they played? Seriously played. Have they ever done a dungeon crawl that took hours to complete, or had lockouts so you could take several days to complete it? Those are hard core games, where skills require thought, and combinations, etc are important. Where certain builds are crucial. In comparison, GW2 is an extremely casual game, and that is fine. I just find it interesting how players new to mmo’s think this game is more than it is.

Raids in most games are artificially hard based on the fact that you don’t have the gear requirement to complete them right away. It’s just a numbers game.

I played Rift. I had three stupid buttons I hit, because all my useful skills were macroed onto three keys. The content that came out was jumping through hoops complex. The only thing complex about it was getting people to be in the same page. The actual content wasn’t that hard.

The fact is, if you had less than a certain amount of focus as a spell caster, you couldn’t do damage to the creatures at all. You needed the gear to up your focus. There was zero skill in it. It was about perservering until enough gear dropped with enough focus so you could damage stuff.

That’s not depth, and that’s not fun for me. This game has more depth than that. Not depth in being a trained monkey repeating the same thing over and over till you could do it in your sleep.

Raids and dungeons in other games are one of the reasons I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2. They give the illusion of complexity when in reality, it’s just a giant con.

Rift? Lol

I’ve also played Lotro, DDO, WoW, Eve, Perfect World, TSW and a few others. I picked the first example I can think of. Nice try.

Sorry, you’re just the first person I’ve seen admit they played it.

Here’s one solution: at least provide some options for the weapon skills – provide us with maybe 3 options for each weapon skill slot or at the very least 3 versions of the weapon skillbar 1-5.

For example: using any weapon you may change the skills (individually, or the bar) to gear more towards condition damage, power, or even buffs/debuffs/cc. This will take more balancing but it will definitely add more variety to the combat and would be worth it in my opinion. This would at least let you have 10 skills you could change rather than just 5.

Weapons being tied down to specific skills was one of the most disappointing aspects of the game for me and in my opinion is one of the things that severely limits build diversity. Imagine when you see a class using a specific weapon in PVP, you immediately know what you can expect to see for at least 1/2 of their skills. The element of surprise for unique builds is hardly there. I feel that rather than resolve the issues of balancing the diversity of skills in GW1, Anet opted for the opposite and albeit lazy solution of just limiting options entirely.

Nerelith.7360:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

it’s really simple, if i can’t choose the skills on my weapon then i question what ppl talk about with builds.
i never use a scepter on any prof, they just suck and the same is for the mace.
if i could change the skills then i might use them more, i would remove the lame defend skill on the mace and replace it for a pierce throw.

in GW1 i can do that at any time, in GW2 we are stuck with lame skills no one uses unless for fun.
every time i see a guardian they always use the GS, it becomes quite tiring to see the same.
and why do you think that is, it’s not because of choice but rather lack of.

Right because in Guild Wars 1 everyone used quick shot.

oh wow, so because one skill isn’t use you think that’s a good argument against a whole weapon not being used, a champ move…..-_-

No, I pulled one skill as an example off the top of my head, because I remembered it’s name. I remember having dozens and dozens of skills I didn’t find useful.

there are plenty of skills in GW2 that are completely useless yet that’s easy to ignore, ignoring a whole weapon means that you’re cutting a portion of the profession away.
it’s like instead of ignoring vampire gaze, you ignore the whole blood magic line.
if we could change the skills on the weapons with a certain set of skills then weapons are less likely to be ignored completely, it would give more diversity in a skill bar.

one thing i would like to see is that one-handed weapons still have 4/5 skills (i don’t really see the auto attack skill a skill), that way you’re not forced to use an off-hand weapon and the amount of skills you can use increases greatly.

Personally I think weapon Locked skills are just a bad design move. Does it simplify the game? yes. Is that a good thing? In My opinion. No.

Does it make it easier for a Player to NOT play sub-optimally? Maybe. Is it a good design choice? In my opinion no. A player will not learn how to play better if you make it simple, you need to give them something challenging to strive for, like lifting weights.

Yes, anyone can ride a tricycle. Except that NOT falling leads to NOT learning to ride a Bicycle.

Does it make it easier for the devs to balance? yes. But Is that the criteria we should be aiming for? Should a game be simplified so that the devs have an easier job? Especially when the message that sends out is.." Guild Wars is too hard for you to play, and too hard for us to balance"?

The best thing that Guild Wars had was that since you had so many skills open for you to choose from, if you took sub-par useless for the given situation types of skills, you had no one to blame but yourself.

It’s the best thing for the game in my opinion. Because many people I know…possibly most, didn’t like Guild Wars 1 because of the build aspect. They’d get into the game, they’d only have a few skills they’d have to wait to get anything that worked together decently. It wasn’t fun for them.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a staff of 50 devs to pay. It has a staff of 300. It needs to appeal to a broader spectrum of players.

At least this way, everyone has a working weapon.

It may not seem fair to people who want more build depth/complexity, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near a majority.

Mesket.5728:

Harper.4173:

Uriel.6310:

In the past, I use to believe that GW2 skills were going to be something similar to how GW1 worked, and for those who have played the original series would know what I mean. There were multiple builds and usually more than one way for every class to be played in game. But as I played through the GW2 betas that quickly changed.

I am bothered to see now how some classes have more or less builds than others. And even with there being another build, it usually only includes swapping out a few utilities while maintaining the same 5 skills from your weapon. Not only that, some classes have mechanics which keep them from even being played at their max potential or at all in certain game modes. (Necro’s and Rangers).

So to start the conversation, How did we go from creating almost endless combos of builds in GW1 to being pigeon hold into certain builds to fit the meta in GW2? Is there any chance that things will improve or only get worse?

/Discuss

Guild Wars 1 group play also pigeon holed you into a build that was the meta.
That was always the case – not sure what you remember about the game.

Also – the lack of build diversity comes from the reduced number of skills and skill being tied into weapons.

This was done in an effort to make the game easier and more accessible to casual players that don’t have the time and resources to read up, do research and inform themselves in order to make a decent build by themselves.

In Guild Wars 2 – with the skills bound to a weapon they can ensure even the worst player is still somewhat viable.

Long story short: it’s a full proof system designed to keep people from being really terrible.
In GW1 if you wanted you could make * a totally unviable build that didn’t work*.
In GW2 that option has disappeared – and with it a lot of variety and customization.

Yes, I can imagine the devs saying “Guys, we must repress our will of adding this hundreds of skills we already did and complex combat mechanics we have designed and go back to simple, lets do it for the casuals…”

Games that are easier and cater to more casual players usually sell more.
Since it’s fun for the whole family not just the one who likes to play hardcore games.

Guild Wars 2 is very pick up and play – Guild Wars 1 wasn’t.
You had lots of skills and the majority of those only worked well in a context that you had to design yourself – pairing said skills with other skills that would go well together.

GW2’s skills go with anything – with some utility skills that are situational. But even those are few.

I won’t disagree – a lot of GW1’s skill pallet was clutter – skills that only worked in very specific places.

The main difference then was that the average player before he could navigate the content successfully had to learn how to put a build together by learning about the skills and combat mechanics.

Guild Wars 2 teaches you mechanics but they’re not related to build making.

putting stats on weapons and armor ruined build diversity.

Nerelith.7360:

maha.7902:

Out of all of these supposedly diverse builds in GW1, how many of them were actually meta? Or was it just run build X or be kicked?

I never ran meta…I was never kicked. Fact is, throughMy play from the launch of the first game, i rarely had a hard time finding a group to do group content…. And we did bonus missions, etc…not once was I kicked or even asked what my skill choices were, or what armor i was wearing.

the playerbase was also a better community. So…I think all these memories of " I wasn’t meta and I was kicked." were either grossly exaggerated, or maybe given too much weight do to the passage of time. Kind of the Opposite of rose-colored glasses….

maha.7902

So it was exactly the same as it currently is in GW2, except GW1 literally just had more skills.
So in both games we have useless builds, useless weapons, useless gear (well I think GW1 didn’t have gear stats, just runes or something), it’s just that in GW1 you had more useless builds since there were more useless skills, but when it came to optimisation you still had to run a build from a very small pool of builds, which is basically identical to GW2. And yet GW1 is harped as some sort of holy grail of build diversity despite the fact that you can make twenty shades of terrible builds in both games, you still won’t be wanted in organised groups.
Or am I missing something?

Yes you are missing quite a lot since you exaggerate. Now, since it seems that you never played the game, and are basing your ideas on what people that you agree with have said about the game, I can see why you would be incorrect about your assessment of Guild wars.

The fact is, that while it was poissible to play with a subpar build, it was also possible to theorycraft a build that had some synergy behind it. It wasn’t that hard.

Some people have presented it as if Theorycrafting was rocket-science. All you needed to do was Look at what conditions you could apply, or what boon you could give yourself, then Look for other skills that worked off those boons or conditions.

Except that by having ability points to improve certain" traits" Lines, you would decide How LONG a condition lasted, and How much damage it might do…. you could have tons of elites to choose from, each of which changes your style of play drastically…Unlike Gw2.

So yes, you are missing a lot. But the Only way for you to know what is to go play Guild Wars yourself. The game is still running.

Except the GW2 population was so bad at traiting they had to change traits so people could no longer invest traits poorly – and by that I mean people who would go invest
points in a trait line but not enough to unlock a minor or major trait.

Harper.4173:

Mesket.5728:

Harper.4173:

Uriel.6310:

In the past, I use to believe that GW2 skills were going to be something similar to how GW1 worked, and for those who have played the original series would know what I mean. There were multiple builds and usually more than one way for every class to be played in game. But as I played through the GW2 betas that quickly changed.

I am bothered to see now how some classes have more or less builds than others. And even with there being another build, it usually only includes swapping out a few utilities while maintaining the same 5 skills from your weapon. Not only that, some classes have mechanics which keep them from even being played at their max potential or at all in certain game modes. (Necro’s and Rangers).

So to start the conversation, How did we go from creating almost endless combos of builds in GW1 to being pigeon hold into certain builds to fit the meta in GW2? Is there any chance that things will improve or only get worse?

/Discuss

Guild Wars 1 group play also pigeon holed you into a build that was the meta.
That was always the case – not sure what you remember about the game.

Also – the lack of build diversity comes from the reduced number of skills and skill being tied into weapons.

This was done in an effort to make the game easier and more accessible to casual players that don’t have the time and resources to read up, do research and inform themselves in order to make a decent build by themselves.

In Guild Wars 2 – with the skills bound to a weapon they can ensure even the worst player is still somewhat viable.

Long story short: it’s a full proof system designed to keep people from being really terrible.
In GW1 if you wanted you could make * a totally unviable build that didn’t work*.
In GW2 that option has disappeared – and with it a lot of variety and customization.

Yes, I can imagine the devs saying “Guys, we must repress our will of adding this hundreds of skills we already did and complex combat mechanics we have designed and go back to simple, lets do it for the casuals…”

Games that are easier and cater to more casual players usually sell more.
Since it’s fun for the whole family not just the one who likes to play hardcore games.

weird, i am really casual yet i find the GW2 build system really restrictive and boring, GW1 kept me interested because i could fool around and make builds so underpowered it can never work correctly.
however, in GW2 we are stuck with forced builds not made to fool around, “fun” doesn’t exist because it’s made to much for serious hardcore gamers.

if it really was made for casual players then builds were not designed so restrictive, a part of being casual is to experiment with builds and to not take things to serious.
clearly that’s not the case, GW1 was made more for “fun for the whole family” while GW2 was made for “fun for all the hardcore group”.

In my opinion build diversity between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 is about the same. This will be long and is my opinion.

In Guild Wars your attributes determined the potency of your skills with they being improved by placing a limited amount of attribute points in your primary or secondary class attributes and being able to increase your class specific attributes by using runes on your armor.

Additionally each class had a main attribute, such as Strength for a warrior or Fast Casting for the mesmer, which only that class had access to with it providing useful bonuses to all areas of their skills. For example Strength provided armor penetration and Fast Casting increased activation speed of spells and recharge times for mesmer spells. Each class also has access to all their minor attributes and the minor attributes of their secondary class, such as Elementalist/Monk and so on.

However, builds in Guild Wars typically had a lot of structure. For example, many warrior builds typically consisted on 4 attack skills, 1 increased attack speed stance and a resurrection skill. The other two were either cross-class support skills or skills that increase the damage or potency of the other skills.

In Guild Wars 2 the potency of your skills are mostly determined by the attributes provided by your equipment while traits provide additional functionality to your skills, improve cooldowns and essentially determine your strengths and weaknesses. However, you have access to 10 weapon skills at one time, or 20 if you are an elementalist, 3 Utility skills, 1 Elite skill, 1 healing skill and your class mechanic. Additionally you do not need to slot a skill to resurrect your allies.

Basically, in the original Guild Wars terms it would be like having access to two or three skill bars and being able to use them all reasonably well. Yes, there are fewer skills in Guild Wars 2 and you do not get to choose each, individual skill but we have access to all the skills that we need and the trait system provides variations that the Guild Wars attribute system could not. The skills we have access to also function in any content but the problem is that they need to be balanced so that they all are optimal. We do not need more skills…we need ones that work well and work well with the other professions.

Conditions. Even in Guild Wars conditions have always been support damage. Bleeding, Poison and Disease were health degeneration while the rest impaired the enemies damage capabilities and movement while in Guild Wars 2 that seems to be the same for the most part. In terms of Open World and condition stacking I would think it would be fun to have condition combos much like how there are boon combos which give effects similar to Curse and Hex spells from Guild Wars. That and more variations of enemies that are heavily resistant to specific types of damage.

Vayne.8563:

Nerelith.7360:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

Vayne.8563:

sorudo.9054:

it’s really simple, if i can’t choose the skills on my weapon then i question what ppl talk about with builds.
i never use a scepter on any prof, they just suck and the same is for the mace.
if i could change the skills then i might use them more, i would remove the lame defend skill on the mace and replace it for a pierce throw.

in GW1 i can do that at any time, in GW2 we are stuck with lame skills no one uses unless for fun.
every time i see a guardian they always use the GS, it becomes quite tiring to see the same.
and why do you think that is, it’s not because of choice but rather lack of.

Right because in Guild Wars 1 everyone used quick shot.

oh wow, so because one skill isn’t use you think that’s a good argument against a whole weapon not being used, a champ move…..-_-

No, I pulled one skill as an example off the top of my head, because I remembered it’s name. I remember having dozens and dozens of skills I didn’t find useful.

there are plenty of skills in GW2 that are completely useless yet that’s easy to ignore, ignoring a whole weapon means that you’re cutting a portion of the profession away.
it’s like instead of ignoring vampire gaze, you ignore the whole blood magic line.
if we could change the skills on the weapons with a certain set of skills then weapons are less likely to be ignored completely, it would give more diversity in a skill bar.

one thing i would like to see is that one-handed weapons still have 4/5 skills (i don’t really see the auto attack skill a skill), that way you’re not forced to use an off-hand weapon and the amount of skills you ckittene increases greatly.

Personally I think weapon Locked skills are just a bad design move. Does it simplify the game? yes. Is that a good thing? In My opinion. No.

Does it make it easier for a Player to NOT play sub-optimally? Maybe. Is it a good design choice? In my opinion no. A player will not learn how to play better if you make it simple, you need to give them something challenging to strive for, like lifting weights.

Yes, anyone can ride a tricycle. Except that NOT falling leads to NOT learning to ride a Bicycle.

Does it make it easier for the devs to balance? yes. But Is that the criteria we should be aiming for? Should a game be simplified so that the devs have an easier job? Especially when the message that sends out is.." Guild Wars is too hard for you to play, and too hard for us to balance"?

The best thing that Guild Wars had was that since you had so many skills open for you to choose from, if you took sub-par useless for the given situation types of skills, you had no one to blame but yourself.

It’s the best thing for the game in my opinion. Because many people I know…possibly most, didn’t like Guild Wars 1 because of the build aspect. They’d get into the game, they’d only have a few skills they’d have to wait to get anything that worked together decently. It wasn’t fun for them.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a staff of 50 devs to pay. It has a staff of 300. It needs to appeal to a broader spectrum of players.

At least this way, everyone has a working weapon.

It may not seem fair to people who want more build depth/complexity, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near a majority.

so a staff of 50, did a better job balancing Guild Wars with it’s myriads of skills, and class combinations,…etc… but 300, cannot balance the weapon locked skills, that were weapon Locked…to make balancing easier?

Maybe they should let go some of the staff in the gem shop, and hire some to balance the professions?

Speaking entirely within the confines of PvE, I personally find little difference in build diversity between GW1 and GW2. In GW1 I remember the time I reorganised my saved build list which lead to a significant number of builds being collapsed and condensed into one 5 (or 4) skill template leaving the other 3 (or 4) blank ‘utility’ slots to be filled on a situational basis. The net result was a surprising small list of core build templates which I have always paralleled to GW2’s weapon-based skill sets. Mind you, in GW1 one of my professions was the elementalist which was highly restricted in many builds by having to dedicate 2 to 3 skill slots purely for energy management.

Please note, I do enjoy diversity, but GW1 simply took it to an unwieldy extreme for me. While I appreciate that many loved the ‘buildwars’ aspect of GW1, I have little doubt there were many other players who simply wanted a more self-restrained skill system that could still facilitate a manageable selection of fun, effective & efficient builds that allowed them to get on & play the ‘kitten’ game.

Certainly from my recollection of GW1 the fun times happened after establishing a small selection of core builds either through player suggestions, forums or PvXwiki. I personally took no pleasure in fighting through a massive skill list filtering out all the PvP focused, downright useless, repetitive or situational specific skills just to establish some sensible and decent PvE builds.

Unsurprisingly, I find GW2’s skill and trait system much more manageable while still providing me the same playstyle diversity feel I got from GW1.

Each to their own!

sorudo.9054:

Harper.4173:

Mesket.5728:

Harper.4173:

Uriel.6310:

In the past, I use to believe that GW2 skills were going to be something similar to how GW1 worked, and for those who have played the original series would know what I mean. There were multiple builds and usually more than one way for every class to be played in game. But as I played through the GW2 betas that quickly changed.

I am bothered to see now how some classes have more or less builds than others. And even with there being another build, it usually only includes swapping out a few utilities while maintaining the same 5 skills from your weapon. Not only that, some classes have mechanics which keep them from even being played at their max potential or at all in certain game modes. (Necro’s and Rangers).

So to start the conversation, How did we go from creating almost endless combos of builds in GW1 to being pigeon hold into certain builds to fit the meta in GW2? Is there any chance that things will improve or only get worse?

/Discuss

Guild Wars 1 group play also pigeon holed you into a build that was the meta.
That was always the case – not sure what you remember about the game.

Also – the lack of build diversity comes from the reduced number of skills and skill being tied into weapons.

This was done in an effort to make the game easier and more accessible to casual players that don’t have the time and resources to read up, do research and inform themselves in order to make a decent build by themselves.

In Guild Wars 2 – with the skills bound to a weapon they can ensure even the worst player is still somewhat viable.

Long story short: it’s a full proof system designed to keep people from being really terrible.
In GW1 if you wanted you could make * a totally unviable build that didn’t work*.
In GW2 that option has disappeared – and with it a lot of variety and customization.

Yes, I can imagine the devs saying “Guys, we must repress our will of adding this hundreds of skills we already did and complex combat mechanics we have designed and go back to simple, lets do it for the casuals…”

Games that are easier and cater to more casual players usually sell more.
Since it’s fun for the whole family not just the one who likes to play hardcore games.

weird, i am really casual yet i find the GW2 build system really restrictive and boring, GW1 kept me interested because i could fool around and make builds so underpowered it can never work correctly.
however, in GW2 we are stuck with forced builds not made to fool around, “fun” doesn’t exist because it’s made to much for serious hardcore gamers.

if it really was made for casual players then builds were not designed so restrictive, a part of being casual is to experiment with builds and to not take things to serious.
clearly that’s not the case, GW1 was made more for “fun for the whole family” while GW2 was made for “fun for all the hardcore group”.

You misunderstand – by GW2’s standards and you’re not a casual player. A casual player doesn’t have the basic understanding of skill synergy to put together a build like you did in GW1.

You may consider yourself “casual” but that doesn’t mean you represent what I meant when I said casual.

You’ve probably played games before and have an idea of what you’re doing.
I’m talking about players who couldn’t even piece a build together in GW1 – they can play GW2 easily.

It doesn’t require as much theory crafting, grasping mechanics and reading comprehension.
It requires more reflexes and other related skills but from a build building perspective it is much easier.

Harper.4173:

sorudo.9054:

Harper.4173:

Mesket.5728:

Harper.4173:

Uriel.6310:

In the past, I use to believe that GW2 skills were going to be something similar to how GW1 worked, and for those who have played the original series would know what I mean. There were multiple builds and usually more than one way for every class to be played in game. But as I played through the GW2 betas that quickly changed.

I am bothered to see now how some classes have more or less builds than others. And even with there being another build, it usually only includes swapping out a few utilities while maintaining the same 5 skills from your weapon. Not only that, some classes have mechanics which keep them from even being played at their max potential or at all in certain game modes. (Necro’s and Rangers).

So to start the conversation, How did we go from creating almost endless combos of builds in GW1 to being pigeon hold into certain builds to fit the meta in GW2? Is there any chance that things will improve or only get worse?

/Discuss

Guild Wars 1 group play also pigeon holed you into a build that was the meta.
That was always the case – not sure what you remember about the game.

Also – the lack of build diversity comes from the reduced number of skills and skill being tied into weapons.

This was done in an effort to make the game easier and more accessible to casual players that don’t have the time and resources to read up, do research and inform themselves in order to make a decent build by themselves.

In Guild Wars 2 – with the skills bound to a weapon they can ensure even the worst player is still somewhat viable.

Long story short: it’s a full proof system designed to keep people from being really terrible.
In GW1 if you wanted you could make * a totally unviable build that didn’t work*.
In GW2 that option has disappeared – and with it a lot of variety and customization.

Yes, I can imagine the devs saying “Guys, we must repress our will of adding this hundreds of skills we already did and complex combat mechanics we have designed and go back to simple, lets do it for the casuals…”

Games that are easier and cater to more casual players usually sell more.
Since it’s fun for the whole family not just the one who likes to play hardcore games.

weird, i am really casual yet i find the GW2 build system really restrictive and boring, GW1 kept me interested because i could fool around and make builds so underpowered it can never work correctly.
however, in GW2 we are stuck with forced builds not made to fool around, “fun” doesn’t exist because it’s made to much for serious hardcore gamers.

if it really was made for casual players then builds were not designed so restrictive, a part of being casual is to experiment with builds and to not take things to serious.
clearly that’s not the case, GW1 was made more for “fun for the whole family” while GW2 was made for “fun for all the hardcore group”.

You misunderstand – by GW2’s standards and you’re not a casual player. A casual player doesn’t have the basic understanding of skill synergy to put together a build like you did in GW1.

You may consider yourself “casual” but that doesn’t mean you represent what I meant when I said casual.

You’ve probably played games before and have an idea of what you’re doing.
I’m talking about players who couldn’t even piece a build together in GW1 – they can play GW2 easily.

It doesn’t require as much theory crafting, grasping mechanics and reading comprehension.
It requires more reflexes and other related skills but from a build building perspective it is much easier.

I find this actually pretty insulting. A lot of casual players can put together a halfway decent build in Guild Wars.

This is what jumped at me

A casual player doesn’t have the basic understanding of skill synergy to put together a build like you did in GW1.

Unless we mean different things by casual. For me casual, is abouyt How Much time a player can devote to the game, How much they can put into it. A player that can only log in 30 minutes a night to an Hour may be casual, that doesn’t mean they cannot read skill descriptions to find synergy.

The way you seem to use the word casual. it sounds Like someone that cannot or will not read a skill description, and must have all the work done for them, or they cannot play the game….

as I said, sounds kind of insulting, and I consider myself pretty hardcore, but I would never talk about casuals as you do.

It’s the way the “Min/Maxers” view the non-“Min/Maxers”. To them tho anyone who isn’t a “Min/Maxer” is a casual player. Hate to break it to them tho, a causal player is just someone who doesn’t spend 5+ hrs a day in-game. Casuals actually have real lives and don’t live vicariously through a computer.

Galphar.3901:

It’s the way the “Min/Maxers” view the non-“Min/Maxers”. To them tho anyone who isn’t a “Min/Maxer” is a casual player. Hate to break it to them tho, a causal player is just someone who doesn’t spend 5+ hrs a day in-game. Casuals actually have real lives and don’t live vicariously through a computer.

You know. Until I read your and sorudo’s posts I always thought casual / hardcore was mostly time based, or How Much time you devote to doing things Like researching builds etc…

See I always looked Up information on skills, where to hunt down bosses for elites… even as i play " that game that shall not be named." I flip on the AH, yes I use add-ons and Look up How to use TSM etc… for me that is hardcore.

But sorudo said " casual players just play " fun" builds… I read that as " Builds that are not Intended to be mini-maxed, and are played because the skills are cool."

if we look at it that way, someone that plays 5 Hours a day with a fun …frivolous build…can still be a casual player. Somepne that only plays 2 Hours a night, but does tons of research on the game can still be hardcore.

Looked at from that Perspective, in my opinion… Guild Wars appealed to, and pleased both casual and hardcore gamers more. It gave so many skills players could make " fun" builds,…and Play for laughs…

and….

Gave you enough meaty skills for theorycrafters. In my opinion…Guild Wars served BOTH the casuals, and the Hardcore better…. so why was Gw2 dumbed down?

Nerelith.7360:

Galphar.3901:

It’s the way the “Min/Maxers” view the non-“Min/Maxers”. To them tho anyone who isn’t a “Min/Maxer” is a casual player. Hate to break it to them tho, a causal player is just someone who doesn’t spend 5+ hrs a day in-game. Casuals actually have real lives and don’t live vicariously through a computer.

You know. Until I read your and sorudo’s posts I always thought casual / hardcore was mostly time based, or How Much time you devote to doing things Like researching builds etc…

See I always looked Up information on skills, where to hunt down bosses for elites… even as i play " that game that shall not be named." I flip on the AH, yes I use add-ons and Look up How to use TSM etc… for me that is hardcore.

But sorudo said " casual players just play " fun" builds… I read that as " Builds that are not Intended to be mini-maxed, and are played because the skills are cool."

if we look at it that way, someone that plays 5 Hours a day with a fun …frivolous build…can still be a casual player. Somepne that only plays 2 Hours a night, but does tons of research on the game can still be hardcore.

Looked at from that Perspective, in my opinion… Guild Wars appealed to, and pleased both casual and hardcore gamers more. It gave so many skills players could make " fun" builds,…and Play for laughs…

and….

Gave you enough meaty skills for theorycrafters. In my opinion…Guild Wars served BOTH the casuals, and the Hardcore better…. so why was Gw2 dumbed down?

ANet “dumbed down” GW2 because they said after adding so many skills to GW it became almost impossible to keep balanced. It’s also why they did away with the dual-professions in GW2. I think most GW veterans(myself included) thought that we would be getting about the same number of skills that we had per profession when Prophecies was released or at the very least the same number of “Core” skills.

Galphar.3901:

Nerelith.7360:

Galphar.3901:

It’s the way the “Min/Maxers” view the non-“Min/Maxers”. To them tho anyone who isn’t a “Min/Maxer” is a casual player. Hate to break it to them tho, a causal player is just someone who doesn’t spend 5+ hrs a day in-game. Casuals actually have real lives and don’t live vicariously through a computer.

You know. Until I read your and sorudo’s posts I always thought casual / hardcore was mostly time based, or How Much time you devote to doing things Like researching builds etc…

See I always looked Up information on skills, where to hunt down bosses for elites… even as i play " that game that shall not be named." I flip on the AH, yes I use add-ons and Look up How to use TSM etc… for me that is hardcore.

But sorudo said " casual players just play " fun" builds… I read that as " Builds that are not Intended to be mini-maxed, and are played because the skills are cool."

if we look at it that way, someone that plays 5 Hours a day with a fun …frivolous build…can still be a casual player. Somepne that only plays 2 Hours a night, but does tons of research on the game can still be hardcore.

Looked at from that Perspective, in my opinion… Guild Wars appealed to, and pleased both casual and hardcore gamers more. It gave so many skills players could make " fun" builds,…and Play for laughs…

and….

Gave you enough meaty skills for theorycrafters. In my opinion…Guild Wars served BOTH the casuals, and the Hardcore better…. so why was Gw2 dumbed down?

ANet “dumbed down” GW2 because they said after adding so many skills to GW it became almost impossible to keep balanced.

I find that unnacceptable as a" reason"… that boils down to " it’s easier for us, so you need a simpler game. We don’t want to do our best to provide you with the best gaming experience. If we need to sacrifice fun gameplay, to make our jobs easier…. we will do it, cause it makes our jobs easier."

Basically you are saying that the devs chose to be lazy, even if the product suffers for it. That they gave less than their best because less is Not as hard to do.