GW2: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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^ Well that’s about it. Nicely done.
I have actually been hoping for a megaserver system for a long time before they implemented it, so i see it as a “good” point.
THE BAD
- No WvW Support — it seems they wanted to include some sort of WvW in this game, and yet do not want to offer anything in the way of bug fixes, balance, and content updates to help support the format
Could you specify what kind of bug fixes, balance and content updates you’re talking about?
- Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
I’d say that soloing dungeons is pretty challenging.
- No Sense of Wonder — while the world looks good and plays (mostly) smoothly, there isn’t really anything to draw you in and immerse you in the world. It is a sort of x-factor that is tough to describe. Either you have it or you don’t.
This is very subjective. I personally find the world very interesting and immersive.
THE UGLY
- Megaserver — so something had to be done, I guess, about declining server populations, but this update was seemingly rushed out the door with 0 consideration given to how it would impact the community. News update: it had a profoundly negative impact.
The megaservers have not only brought disaster. With them, it is much more fun to level, explore and do events. I personally haven’t felt any of the negative effects on World Bosses, so I won’t comment on that.
- Lack of Meaningful Interaction — more and more, this game seems to reward players for becoming another faceless portion of a big blob of players rather than actually giving individuals and small groups something to strive for.
That’s one way to look at it. I prefer to see it as players grouping together to fight for a common cause. I’d say that dungeons and fractals are meant for what you want? Is there something else you’d like to see?
- No New Expansions — this may be fixed at some point, hopefully. The Living Story updates are nice and all, but they in no way make up for the need for a real, full-on expansion to the game. Already people are hungry for it, and if they don’t get it then other games out there are going to start looking more and more tempting.
I personally prefer the Living Story.
No sense of wonder? Sometimes I wonder if I’m playing the same game as other people. For me the mega server was like a breath of fresh air.
The rest of it I agree with.
No sense of wonder? Sometimes I wonder if I’m playing the same game as other people. For me the mega server was like a breath of fresh air.
The rest of it I agree with.
this
and no need for expansions u can ask anet to give us more every 2 weeks but i dont see why i should be forced to buy expansions. to continue the game which was advertised as free to play after u buy it ones
i didn’t like the music
Not much I can argue against.
- No WvW Support — it seems they wanted to include some sort of WvW in this game, and yet do not want to offer anything in the way of bug fixes, balance, and content updates to help support the format
Unfortunately, this can be said of all game modes. New skills, new traits, balance adjustments, bug fixes, they’re slow to materialize across for every aspect of the game.
- No Sense of Wonder — while the world looks good and plays (mostly) smoothly, there isn’t really anything to draw you in and immerse you in the world. It is a sort of x-factor that is tough to describe. Either you have it or you don’t.
I understand what you’re saying, as I feel there’s no wonder in the left in the world, I do think it was there at one point. After getting 100% map completion on five different character, though, I know every nook and cranny of the world map. This kind of familiarity can strip the sense of world out of an MMO world.
As to immersion, the game does a great job with ambiance – everything from idle NPC banter to frogs croaking away the night in wetland areas. But there’s room for improvement. Little things like an animation for sitting in chairs would much to improve immersion.
I would place megaserver as good thing.Everyone says how megaserver come cause of drop in population….i dont think that is the case cause if im in Anet i would make megaserver even if there are 10 million active players.No matter how much people play the game,megaservers are made for starters so that they can play together and lvl together.Besides,i can now finally play a game with my friends from other servers.
Living story is another good thing in my opinion.
Bad thing – community on forum and lack of end game content
(edited by saalle.4623)
You could add to The Bad “lack of communication”. It’s been months since the developers have told us anything about…well, anything. Other than the Living Story, we don’t know what, if anything, we have to look forward to. We haven’t been apprised on the game’s outlook since the early months of 2013. That’s bad. That’s approaching ugly.
I’d say that combat seriously hindered by the horrible particle system, when you can’t make out what’s going on on the screen for the life of yours and thus you’re not reacting or anticipating, you act in a semi random way, just guessing what can be happening there right now, judging from your past experience. Plus the fact that too many classes use passive mechanics, such as mesmer clones, necro minions, engi turrets makes thing even worse.
And i don’t think optimisation can be called good. Audio engine is still quiet glitchy, long loading times plus things tend to appear (or not) right in front of you for quiet some time after map loaded, including the UI elements, some areas where you have unreasonable FPS drops (look Southsun Cove) and the main thing, this engine clearly wasn’t designed to handle massive number of players on the screen, the vision AN had for this game and the tech they used for it, they just don’t match. Imo it’s a long way to go before optimisation can be called “good”.
Hilarious HoT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9gVQB8gss
(edited by wasted.6817)
My Bads and Uglies are pretty well known.
Good
Environment. Sense of Wonder, yes. I was raised in Colorado, and standing on a certain vista in Timberline falls always sparks a Deja Vu of cold creeks and springtime mountain valleys.
Art and Characters. As good as it gets. Arenanet did amazing art for GW that managed to run on Windows 3, and it has stepped up to exceed expectations again, here.
Staff. With a couple of major exceptions I believe the staff of Arenanet is very talented and capable. Ree, so multi-talented. Gail is a wonder. I LOATHE platforming and still see Josh as an interesting and innovative person any game would love to have on staff. I could name more names but it would take too much space. Simply put.. I think they have collected an amazing group. (how they are directed is another opinion totally)
Combat. It’s good. rather limited but “good”. Dodge as the single avoidance mech doesn’t lead to a lot of options, unfortunately.
Music. Excellent.
Ley lines. The perfect solution to deadlines and writers block. Now in an easy open Can.
(edited by Teofa Tsavo.9863)
THE BAD
- No WvW Support — it seems they wanted to include some sort of WvW in this game, and yet do not want to offer anything in the way of bug fixes, balance, and content updates to help support the format
Could you specify what kind of bug fixes, balance and content updates you’re talking about?
Any WvW player knows about the current issues with WvW and how Anet is neglecting what pretty much amount to half the game. But ok:
- Numerous broken/unbalanced class skills reducing their viability in WvW/PvP or making them OP. Anet programmers has previously mentioned pets as not being intended for WvW due to adverse effects on the server stability. Necros should consider themselves pretty lucky having a main role in raids, but then again they are all wellmancers, not minionmancers. Mesmers and Rangers are pretty much kittened. Coincidence? I think not. And everyone love permastealth, dont they? Or the heaviest armoured class with the best health regen also having the best mobility and the best damage (and they get all the ladies).
- The maps themselves are old and not up to par with the rest of the game. They havent changed anything since the removal of the central lake yet they make whole freaking EoTM which is more complex than all WvW maps combined… and then its not even used for WvW, just karma training.
- They havent done anything to commander features despite promising to look it over years ago.
- Orbs are still MIA despite the promise to bring them back. It took nearly 2 years for them to hide they ever existed (they removed the northern ramp in the borders and removed the orb guards) but sure enough they finally did it. And I dont believe they ever said why.
- Siege is still unbalanced like all hell after the arrowcart lets-buff-the-damage-by-20000%-just-for-laughs patch. Not even a minor change like increasing the supply cost. Many of the siege skill traits are still horribly OP causing strange uses of siege (trebuchet supply drain for example).
- PvD zerging is still too easy.
- Outmanned buff still does jack kitten to an outmanned team. But hey, at least they changed the name!
- PPT still encourage the upper dog to kick the lower dog in the nuts while leeching off the middle dog because there is no difference in value.
- Why is garrison south inner still completely unique (you can see the door break at low HP)? Its like an unfinished experiment someone at Anet competely forgot about. Unless they’ve done another stealth removal of a feature since the last time I checked.
- They still havent done anything about the keep lord banner res spam.
- They still havent done anything to discourage night shift rampages or give the other servers a chance to reclaim lost points when morning comes. When PPT is gone, its gone. Good luck winning the matchup after 2 days in the weekend with low coverage.
- Nothing is being done about the lowest tier servers, which should pretty much be removed and absorbed into middle tiers. High tier servers barely have queues anymore and the megaservers make them useless in PvE. Maybe Anet could use those low tier WvW servers to, I dont know… fix megaservers by at least giving us one server instance in a city?
- Guild claiming is still wonky as hell. You cant even tell if you guild has something already claimed when you try to claim something else, other than thinking the function is broken (again).
- Nothing done about possible ways to encourage guild combat.
And probably dozens of other things I’ve forgotten to mention.
a few things I personally disagree with
“No Sense of Wonder” some places honestly blow me away (bamboo grove in the grove anyone?) not much i can say to argue that since it’s extremely subjective though :P
“Lack of Meaningful Interaction” as someone who has social problems, this is actually one of the reasons i prefer gw2 over others. you don’t need to communicate to play this game, but if you do, you can achieve better results. perfect for someone like me who wants to play but has a hard time socializing
“No New Expansions” if an expansion came out, I probably wouldn’t buy it (coming from someone who has spent over $100 on gem store items) personally I just don’t like expansions or dlc of any sort. (e.g. I’m not going to buy the dark souls 2 dlc/expansion even though it’s one of my favorite games (though that’s partially because they promised no dlc. that’s a different game topic though :P))
aside from that, and sorta the guild part (i don’t really care about guilds) I agree 100%
Druid main, 80 on all, Legendary ranked, Eternal and all that jazz (I go by Feyris in game)
I agree with all your good points.
I do, however, agree with someone above that there was a ‘sense of wonder’ at one point. I simply no longer feel this because I’ve been everywhere and seen it all. I’m used to Tyria now so there’s nothing to wonder. But I remember my first weeks in the game, exploring was incredible for me. I also felt that wonder when I entered Dry Top for the first time. Now, I’m used to it, and no longer feel it. I feel ‘wonder’ and ‘awe’ are very temporary in games, I guess like they are in real life.
As for the bug fixes in WvW, this isn’t a problem just for WvW. This is a universal issue. And honestly, I’d say WvW has been better off than dungeons. At least WvW and world bosses have been looked at, and overhauled several times. Dungeons were rejected the moment they were created. We have game-breaking bugs in dungeons that have been there since launch.
I would say one of the ugliest things not on your list is Anet’s inability to communicate to it’s player base. They tell us next to nothing. We have no idea whether they’re reading our woes, and whether they ever intend to fix or implement features into the game. They leave us in the dark all the time. This for me is one of the ugliest things about GW2.
As for expansions, well… I’m not sure how I feel about that. To be honest, I do enjoy the Living Story, and once they get season 1 into the journal, it will start building up into more of an ‘expansion’. I do see how it can feel lacking without a solid expansion though. But I feel this was more the fault of season 1 being entirely temporary. They’ve clearly learned from that and I think the new journal system will start to create a more permanent feel. I would have liked something a little beefier for the start of Maguuma though. We should have got episode 1, 2 and maybe 3 in one go IMO.
| Lithia |
- Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
I’d say that soloing dungeons is pretty challenging.
I have a lot of problem with non arguments but gosh this one.. we can even make it better “playing GW2 with my tongue is challenging”.
- Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
I’d say that soloing dungeons is pretty challenging.
I have a lot of problem with non arguments but gosh this one.. we can even make it better “playing GW2 with my tongue is challenging”.
It’s a bad argument. Soloing dungeons is something that can be done within the game and people do it for challenge. In a game like Guild Wars 2, you have to make your own challenges and there’s nothing at all wrong with that.
So many people want everything spoon fed. Here’s a challenge. Here’s another challenge. So while some people are saying there’s nothing challenging other people are out their soloing dungeons and competing for the fastest time.
If you’re good enough to do it, it should be relatively challenging.
The Good:
The combat just feels and looks really good and is still the high point of the game.
The Bad:
A seeming lack of focus on any particular aspect of the game makes progression feel sort of empty and meaningless. The game is fun to play but doesn’t really pull you in unless you happen to like the exact content that happens to be getting released that week.
The Ugly:
ANet’s decision to near totally cease communication with their dedicated player base. Before it was just a near total lack of meaningful communication, but now it’s “progressed” to a near total wall of silence altogether.
on super easy pve: we got arah and teq and wurm,that being said its pro to some and con to some other, so its subjective and i actually like to log on and kick some kitten and get some loot. IF i wanted challenge i would play chess, in my country you can even make career out of it.
on sense of wonder: really?! beautiful world with jumping puzzle. vista and point of interests ect, come on it make u wonder around more than any mmo i ever played.
on ugly part: i agree with all of it.
- Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
I’d say that soloing dungeons is pretty challenging.
I have a lot of problem with non arguments but gosh this one.. we can even make it better “playing GW2 with my tongue is challenging”.
It’s a bad argument. Soloing dungeons is something that can be done within the game and people do it for challenge. In a game like Guild Wars 2, you have to make your own challenges and there’s nothing at all wrong with that.
So many people want everything spoon fed. Here’s a challenge. Here’s another challenge. So while some people are saying there’s nothing challenging other people are out their soloing dungeons and competing for the fastest time.
If you’re good enough to do it, it should be relatively challenging.
At this point everything is challenging if i cripple my self enough.
- Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
I’d say that soloing dungeons is pretty challenging.
I have a lot of problem with non arguments but gosh this one.. we can even make it better “playing GW2 with my tongue is challenging”.
It’s a bad argument. Soloing dungeons is something that can be done within the game and people do it for challenge. In a game like Guild Wars 2, you have to make your own challenges and there’s nothing at all wrong with that.
So many people want everything spoon fed. Here’s a challenge. Here’s another challenge. So while some people are saying there’s nothing challenging other people are out their soloing dungeons and competing for the fastest time.
If you’re good enough to do it, it should be relatively challenging.
At this point everything is challenging if i cripple my self enough.
Good golf players play with a handicap for a reason. But you know, there are games that are all spoon fed and games where you make your own fun. From my observations those who like to make their own fun enjoy this game more than those that want to be led by the game. Neither style of play is invalid.
EotM “fails” because players decided to ignore the maps intent and use it as a farming zone.
That’s a player-side problem. It has nothing to do with a lack of communication for the devs.
EotM “fails” because players decided to ignore the maps intent and use it as a farming zone.
That’s a player-side problem. It has nothing to do with a lack of communication for the devs.
To be fair, if you design something that is capable of being farmed/exploited, its’ going to be farmed/exploited. Edge of the Mists was too good to be true for a farmer, and farmers used it. It’s a delicate balance.
Most troubling is a single guild that uses it to farm itself for bags, since they have chapters on different servers. They’ve pretty much destroyed EotM for anyone who doesn’t want to farm.
Now, with that… I’m not sure I really have an “ugly”… but that’s really just a matter of scale, I think. If there’s something in a game I consider so bad that I would rate it an “ugly”, I just wouldn’t play that game.
There’s a good many things I’d call “bad”, I suppose. Underwater combat is a exercise in frustration for one (though I don’t think completely abandoning it is the answer). If I REALLY wanted to, I’d have a pretty decent essay on what I think are writing issues within the game (but I guess those would be more subjective than most).
The UI has never been particularly intuitive for me, and I would LOVE the ability to move a lot of the UI elements around (like you could in GW1).
WvW can be fun in short sessions, but extremely stagnant. I’m not sure what the holdup is, but the generic, copy and paste borderlands really don’t do it for me (odd that they are hanging onto it for the sake of “balance” when they claim repeatedly that “balance” is not a particularly high focus in WvW).
I’m not sure I’m particularly fond of the piecemeal approach of releasing map areas so far in LS Season 2. The theory of gating some progression for the sake of story is fine… but it still seems like the pieces getting unlocked are still pretty small.
Still not digging the whole “world bosses are the new raid” mechanic. I’m impressed that the player base seems to be getting the hang of them, but is it REALLY worth the months of anger, frustration, and whining from every corner as they learn? I really don’t think so.
I do not like the new trait acquisition method in the slightest. Absolutely loathe it. I hated the skill cap mechanic of GW1, and I like this even less. They’re better off changing it back to what it was before… like now, please.
On the other hand, despite the lack of developer acknowledgement, it IS clear that Arena.net IS listening to fan feedback (either that or it is the most bizarre confluence of coincidences that the game is starting to reflect a good many things that fans have complained about in the past).
I do like that the game remains one of “pick it up and go” outside of a few circumstances that you have to be ready a good hour before hand. As someone who really doesn’t have the time for three hour sessions anymore, I appreciate it.
I like that this second season of the LS so far doesn’t have that maddening urgency that “I have to get this done before it’s gone for good!” Especially useful since I am recovering from a back injury and am only now able to sit down for prolonged periods of time.
And for an MMO, GW2’s combat is quite engaging with not too steep of a learning curve. The level scaling mechanic is pretty good, though it could probably use a little bit more tweaking. Exploring is actually a good time waster, even if I’m terrible at jumping puzzles. This is a remarkably large world, even now, and I’m still finding little things I’ve never seen before even after 100% world completion.
This is the best MMO I’ve personally played, though that doesn’t mean there’s a lot that it could do better.
EDIT: Really? THAT is censored? Okay folks, take the “F” word, and replace the “U” with an “A”. THAT string of letters (like when “of” is followed by “acknowledgement” is replaced by “kitten.” I mean… what?
I suppose that’s one more “bad”; this forum has some REALLY bizarre and uneven applications of rules and policies.
(edited by chemiclord.3978)
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
Why?
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
Why?
Because so many people are saying every Guild Wars 1 player expected it to be here, when I’m convinced most Guild Wars 1 players never even attempted it. It’s this huge debate all the time. Maybe there’s a reason it wasn’t a priority for Anet to put it in the game.
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
Why?
Because so many people are saying every Guild Wars 1 player expected it to be here, when I’m convinced most Guild Wars 1 players never even attempted it. It’s this huge debate all the time. Maybe there’s a reason it wasn’t a priority for Anet to put it in the game.
Why are you convinced when you have nothing to support your idea?
Im sure there IS a reason, I`m just not so sure its for the reason you think.
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
Why?
Because so many people are saying every Guild Wars 1 player expected it to be here, when I’m convinced most Guild Wars 1 players never even attempted it. It’s this huge debate all the time. Maybe there’s a reason it wasn’t a priority for Anet to put it in the game.
Why are you convinced when you have nothing to support your idea?
Im sure there IS a reason, I`m just not so sure its for the reason you think.
What makes you think I have nothing to support my idea?
THE GOOD
- Combat — say what you will, but the combat in this game is actually pretty good. It isn’t as balanced as GW1, but dodging/evades plus the variety of conditions and skills give you something more to do rather than just sit there and mash buttons.
- Optimization — as far as MMO’s go these days, this game is pretty smooth to play.
- Graphics — its no Michelangelo, but the artists for this game did a pretty admirable job in making the game visually interesting while not sacrificing efficiency.
- Stability — they have a quality platform that can obviously stand up to a lot of stress.
- Jumping Puzzles — the JP’s are well-designed, fun, and interesting: they did a good job adding in this new MMO element.
- The Music — the in-game music is just all-around good
- No Sub Fee — and all of the above for no subscription fees. The gemstore is there, but you really don’t miss out on much of anything by not spending.
THE BAD
- No WvW Support — it seems they wanted to include some sort of WvW in this game, and yet do not want to offer anything in the way of bug fixes, balance, and content updates to help support the format
*Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill- No Sense of Wonder — while the world looks good and plays (mostly) smoothly, there isn’t really anything to draw you in and immerse you in the world. It is a sort of x-factor that is tough to describe. Either you have it or you don’t.
THE UGLY
- Megaserver — so something had to be done, I guess, about declining server populations, but this update was seemingly rushed out the door with 0 consideration given to how it would impact the community. News update: it had a profoundly negative impact.
- Lack of Meaningful Interaction — more and more, this game seems to reward players for becoming another faceless portion of a big blob of players rather than actually giving individuals and small groups something to strive for.
Guild Features/Interface — this is by far one of the clunkiest and most feature-less guild interfaces that I have ever had to use. Nevermind the fact that outside of guild missions, the game offers basically nothing to encourage guilds to interact together.- No New Expansions — this may be fixed at some point, hopefully. The Living Story updates are nice and all, but they in no way make up for the need for a real, full-on expansion to the game. Already people are hungry for it, and if they don’t get it then other games out there are going to start looking more and more tempting.
Feel free to comment and add your own inclusions to the list.
Agree most except:
Mega server, i love it…. to me it is “good”
No Expansion, well, free contents every 2 weeks, small contents but good for casual players like me, lack of new classes, new weapons, new race so far, doesn’t mean they will never add those in the later LS update though. Don’t need to rush all the contents or won’t being left behind because busy with works, that’s a “good” to me too.
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
Why?
Because so many people are saying every Guild Wars 1 player expected it to be here, when I’m convinced most Guild Wars 1 players never even attempted it. It’s this huge debate all the time. Maybe there’s a reason it wasn’t a priority for Anet to put it in the game.
Why are you convinced when you have nothing to support your idea?
Im sure there IS a reason, I`m just not so sure its for the reason you think.
What makes you think I have nothing to support my idea?
Ah you do?
Can you share these facts with the rest of us?
EotM “fails” because players decided to ignore the maps intent and use it as a farming zone.
That’s a player-side problem. It has nothing to do with a lack of communication for the devs.
To be fair, if you design something that is capable of being farmed/exploited, its’ going to be farmed/exploited. Edge of the Mists was too good to be true for a farmer, and farmers used it. It’s a delicate balance.
Most troubling is a single guild that uses it to farm itself for bags, since they have chapters on different servers. They’ve pretty much destroyed EotM for anyone who doesn’t want to farm.
To be fair, you don’t know its capable of being farmed or abused until you get people playing (see champ trains when they existed).
And to be doubly fair, the EotM map had a PTR, where player WvW guilds got invited. So not only did the devs not see the flaw, but WvW players as well
THE BAD
- Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
Challenge in any MMO’s PvE is based on two things: skill and math. The math for a boss, mob group or single mob has to be such that the intended number of players can win the encounter, assuming average skill. Tune the encounters too hard and you lose the low end and the mid-range on the player skill curve.
The problem with GW2 challenge is that timing makes up a large amount of the skill component. With the right timing, damage can be negated. Bad timing means that the heavy hits delivered by many (but not all) mobs do a lot of damage. Once you throw in a practice effect, with players knowing most mob moves by heart, timing plays an even greater role because players know what’s coming.
- Orbs are still MIA despite the promise to bring them back. It took nearly 2 years for them to hide they ever existed (they removed the northern ramp in the borders and removed the orb guards) but sure enough they finally did it. And I dont believe they ever said why.
Orbs were removed because too many times matches would go haywire because of an exploiter, so the were removed. They did not bring back the orbs physically because the same thing would happen, so they created the small capture zones at the center of the maps. When you hold them, you essentially get the orb buff.
- Lack of Meaningful Interaction — more and more, this game seems to reward players for becoming another faceless portion of a big blob of players rather than actually giving individuals and small groups something to strive for.
I completely agree. I have a couple of people that I group with for general PvE running around and there is almost no reason to do so. Why can’t we all contribute to finishing a heart as a group? We’re always like “I’ve finished the heart, how much more do you and you have?” etc.
I agree with the rest of the post as well except PvE being “too” easy. I think it is fine the way it is and there are options people can do if they want more challenge like JP, world bosses, dungeons, fractals, etc. (not saying those are all the same amount of challenge).
it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol
Agree with lack of challenge. And no, you can’t dump that on the players as in make your own challenge. We need challenging content that rewards us accordingly. Soloing Arah p2 in under 20 minutes will make you famous on youtube and maybe you can get rewarded by receiving donations for your stream but no sane person can say that’s a valid replacement for actual ingame rewards.
We need more stuff like super high level fractals or maybe Arah, basically dungeons you can’t semi afk faceroll as a half decent player.
Agree with lack of challenge. And no, you can’t dump that on the players as in make your own challenge. We need challenging content that rewards us accordingly. Soloing Arah p2 in under 20 minutes will make you famous on youtube and maybe you can get rewarded by receiving donations for your stream but no sane person can say that’s a valid replacement for actual ingame rewards.
We need more stuff like super high level fractals or maybe Arah, basically dungeons you can’t semi afk faceroll as a half decent player.
You know, you say “We need challenging content”… but the minute that ANY content of any significant difficulty appears in this game, these very forums are flooded with complaints that the new content is “too hard” and “not fun.”
So no, I would argue that the bulk of the player base DOESN’T want or need challenging content. YOU may want it (and honestly, I would too), but until Arena.net backs off their stance of instanced “raid” like content, I don’t think we’re gonna be seeing it any time soon.
You know, you say “We need challenging content”… but the minute that ANY content of any significant difficulty appears in this game, these very forums are flooded with complaints that the new content is “too hard” and “not fun.”
So no, I would argue that the bulk of the player base DOESN’T want or need challenging content. YOU may want it (and honestly, I would too), but until Arena.net backs off their stance of instanced “raid” like content, I don’t think we’re gonna be seeing it any time soon.
The shop shouldn’t stop selling ice cream because some of its patrons are lactose intolerant. The shop owner should simply tell those complaining about ice cream, “if you can’t handle ice cream, order one of the many other items off our extensive menu.”
As long as Arena.net insists on an open world experience for all, don’t expect to see too much challenging content. The open world really has to cater to the lowest common denominator.
That’s WHY “raid” instances exist in most MMOs… because players who DON’T want that challenge tend to be very offended by its presence in the open world, and as much as you may hate it, that group represents a MUCH larger percentage of the player base… and it’s not even remotely somewhere even in the astronomical vicinity of close.
Arena.net would have to do a 180 on their design decisions made since launch, and start making instanced dungeons again at the very least.
Some elements of its basic are what the most “ugly” about this game.
- Horrid in game camera.
- Player visuals appearance don’t match its hitbox and collision.
- Swiftness and running down a ramp/hill.
- Some classes get rewarded for hotkey abilities to where other classes don’t get any reward to their ground targeted skills.
This are just some examples. before ranting about cash shop, gear progression, loot etc…
But you can see just how from these few it already splits into everything.
THE GOOD\
….
- Stability — they have a quality platform that can obviously stand up to a lot of stress.
…
LoL. I seem to crash after a few minutes every time I get on a Teq turret when Teq fight is going on. Not to mention innumerable DCs from Anet’s servers (the times when its not my internet’s problems) but to be fair they seem to have decreased over time and upon the introduction of mega server.
THE BAD
…
*Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill
…
People who never PUG dungeons™.
Apologies to those who may find my posts on GW2 forums offensive and hateful.
My list of GW2 bad:
- Living Story etc plotlines catered for 12 years olds and below. Lore reduced to the barest minimum
- No new dungeons
- Recent new content is almost always farm content.
- Very fragmented player base
- No queue / grace period system for people who disconnect from full servers (which are sometimes because of Anet’s servers and not on user’s side)
- No economic incentives for dungeoneers to utilize different professions
My list of GW2 Good:
- Anet philosophy of anti-griefing and player cooperation in PvE.
- Lots of nooks and crannies for map exploration
- Ease of use of UI for the most part
- Wide variety of character customization
- Asura / Quaggan etc assorted kawaii content
- Interesting profession skills and traits; if unbalanced
- Belated unified account wide wardrobe system for PvE and PvP
My list of GW2 ugly:
- Loot is uninteresting and for the most part unrewarding
- Account bound RNG unique skins
- Press 2 to win against the uber boss big baddie head honcho Elder Dragon Zhaitan
Personal GW2 pet peeve:
Time Warp nerf (quickness nerf but not compensated by shorter CD)
Ascended grind and money sink
Apologies to those who may find my posts on GW2 forums offensive and hateful.
(edited by Khal Drogo.9631)
I agree completely with the OP, and out of all the other uglies I’d add, this one’s foremost in my mind when I think about GW2 these days:
Forcing a free-to-play business model into a pay-to-play game.
This is where the spirit of Guild Wars has completely died. The gem shop is as intrusive in GW2 as it is in free-to-play games such as Age of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons Online and many others. Actually, moreso as it’s tied directly to the in-game economy.
When the only long-term rewards in this game are cosmetic, and most new cosmetic content is released via the gem store, it really has become pay-to-win.
It’s so intrusive in fact that many players think of it as a free-to-play game forgetting that they initially paid a large fee up front to play the game in the first place.
Please note that due to restrictions placed on my account, I am only allowed 1 post per hour.
Therefore I may take some time replying to you.
Therefore I may take some time replying to you.
The Ugly: Lack of GvG everyone was expecting after GW1.
Everyone wasn’t expecting it, Anet never said it was coming and they were very clear that it might never come. Anyone who was expecting it simply wasn’t paying attention.
I’d also be extremely curious to know what percentage of Guild Wars 1 players even participated in GvG.
Why?
Because so many people are saying every Guild Wars 1 player expected it to be here, when I’m convinced most Guild Wars 1 players never even attempted it. It’s this huge debate all the time. Maybe there’s a reason it wasn’t a priority for Anet to put it in the game.
Why are you convinced when you have nothing to support your idea?
Im sure there IS a reason, I`m just not so sure its for the reason you think.
What makes you think I have nothing to support my idea?
Ah you do?
Can you share these facts with the rest of us?
Not in this thread, no. Because it’s not the place for it. But then, there is something besides fiction and fact. There is circumstantial evidence which is neither. There’s a difference between a fact and an educated guess. I consider my guesses to be educated. There’s something for me to go on. That doesn’t make them fact.
Which is why I said I’d be interested to know how many people actually participated in Guild vs Guild, instead of stating it wasn’t a big percentage of the playerbase (as I suspect).
THE BAD
- No WvW Support — it seems they wanted to include some sort of WvW in this game, and yet do not want to offer anything in the way of bug fixes, balance, and content updates to help support the format
*Super-easy PvE Content — this is a bad thing. There really isn’t a single thing in the PvE side of the game that offers a significant challenge, thus making the content go stale quickly and negating the importance of skill- No Sense of Wonder — while the world looks good and plays (mostly) smoothly, there isn’t really anything to draw you in and immerse you in the world. It is a sort of x-factor that is tough to describe. Either you have it or you don’t.
Karuna you forgot:
- No Platypus Mini or Tonic form.
Tarnished Coast – Everlasting Sacred Path [ESP]
Agree with lack of challenge. And no, you can’t dump that on the players as in make your own challenge. We need challenging content that rewards us accordingly. Soloing Arah p2 in under 20 minutes will make you famous on youtube and maybe you can get rewarded by receiving donations for your stream but no sane person can say that’s a valid replacement for actual ingame rewards.
We need more stuff like super high level fractals or maybe Arah, basically dungeons you can’t semi afk faceroll as a half decent player.
See this is what bothers me. People talk about challenge. There’s not enough challenge in the game. We want more challenge. But then the challenge in the game gets back to rewards, not challenge. We want more rewards. We want the challenges to be worth doing. So what you’re really talking about is being rewarded better, because you’re a good player.
What’s the real percentage in doing that for most of the player base? In Guild Wars 1, we had people making dungeons runs all the time, and the ability to buy pretty much all the end game rewards except titles. And even most titles you could get by being run, or farming and paying gold.
It makes less than zero sense for a company to put huge amounts of time and energy making something for 5% of their playbase. Not when 95% is complaining they don’t have enough content. It’s just not going to happen.
Not because I don’t sympathize with you, but because it would be a bad business decision. This game isn’t that hard, but whenever challenging content is added, it tends to get ignored by the majority of the playerbase. So what impetus does Anet have to add more of it.
Do you think that the new path of Twilight Arbor got run more than CoF path 1 or SE path 1?
You know, you say “We need challenging content”… but the minute that ANY content of any significant difficulty appears in this game, these very forums are flooded with complaints that the new content is “too hard” and “not fun.”
So no, I would argue that the bulk of the player base DOESN’T want or need challenging content. YOU may want it (and honestly, I would too), but until Arena.net backs off their stance of instanced “raid” like content, I don’t think we’re gonna be seeing it any time soon.
The shop shouldn’t stop selling ice cream because some of its patrons are lactose intolerant. The shop owner should simply tell those complaining about ice cream, “if you can’t handle ice cream, order one of the many other items off our extensive menu.”
It’s not the same thing. In order for that to work, there has to be enough choices and selection for the other patrons. But since many are complaining there’s not enough content, making more challenging content for the minority would be a waste of time. Would you rather risk losing 5% of your audience our 25%? It’s a very simple business decision.
If I were in business, I’d rather kitten off a smaller percentage than a larger one.
I agree completely with the OP, and out of all the other uglies I’d add, this one’s foremost in my mind when I think about GW2 these days:
Forcing a free-to-play business model into a pay-to-play game.
This is where the spirit of Guild Wars has completely died. The gem shop is as intrusive in GW2 as it is in free-to-play games such as Age of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons Online and many others. Actually, moreso as it’s tied directly to the in-game economy.
When the only long-term rewards in this game are cosmetic, and most new cosmetic content is released via the gem store, it really has become pay-to-win.It’s so intrusive in fact that many players think of it as a free-to-play game forgetting that they initially paid a large fee up front to play the game in the first place.
Except that you can farm gold to pay for everything in the gem store, and people do.
I would just like to say on record the percentages Vayne mentioned were pulled out of thin air, therefore meaningless. I hope this clarifies any mislead readers.
Thank you for your time.
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