Guild Wars 2

(Noob perspective – highest lvl is 43).
I was thinking about writing a post but I wasn’t sure what all to say, because a lot of what I think of GW2 has to do with comparisons between it and the most popular MMO – we all know its name. Anyway, I’m posting because a poster in another thread mentioned that positive feedback is good for the community to read. So, here are some things I LOOOOOOVE about GW2, in no particular order.

• Players are nicer. There are far less trolls, though obviously there will always be a few rude people.
• Characters are WAY more customizable. Armor dyes, cosmetic sets, sliders at character creation.. The character feels more like “your own” and no other character can look exactly the same (unless they do it on purpose :P). Way more variety.
• Don’t have to store 100s of outfits in your bank to customize your appearance later.
• No “factions”. I can be whatever race I want and not feel like I’m choosing sides.
• Every race can become any profession.
• Waypoints for travelling.
• Every profession is viable, and you use the playstyle you choose. Less cookiecutter-ness. I can use a bow on my warrior if I want to, or a shield and mace.
• Events in zones all the time, NPCs talking with each other, and the whole world in general feeling “alive”. (In wow, once the xpac is over, all related zones are effectively stuck in a time capsule indefinitely.)
• Dailies are not mind-numbingly boring repetitive quests, but instead tie into things you would have been doing anyway.
• Quests themselves are great and unique instead of being basically the same thing over and over and over.
• Crafting is more fun. Discovering the recipe on your own by creating it feels much more immersive than just buying a piece of paper with the recipe.
• Not so grindy with gear (from what I can see so far).
• Cool gem store purchases. If you’re a thrifty type of person, or just enjoy making gold on games, you can even earn gems yourself without spending real money. It’s nice that the option is there.
• Underwater looks AMAZING. Seriously, first time I dove underwater, I couldn’t get over it.
• Jumping puzzles are ridiculously fun.
• Notifications for one more step completed towards an achievement. Great for people who are into doing achievements.
• Picking and choosing what spells you want to have active on your bar and being limited at any given time. Cluttered bars are crazy: http://i.imgur.com/FT0SZ5r.jpg . Clicking either of the other 2 circled buttons brings up yet more spells. You’re gonna need a razr naga for that. Having less causes you to plan ahead and be more creative.
• Being further tied to my character by being able to give it traits and a background, and its own story.
• Aesthetics of the game itself. Can’t ignore this one Zones are beautiful and unique.
• Haven’t done any pvp, but from what I understand, everyone is the same level? If so, good. It’s somewhat even – no twinks, no odd bracket groups where the bottom levels are at a severe disadvantage before even mentioning gear.
• Being able to click “represent” on a guild as opposed to being able to be in only one guild (where you have to leave before joining another) and needing to be invited on every single character. A nice convenience for us, the player.
• Nodes. They’re not shared. Each node can be gathered by each player. This is not a thing in wow and creates tension between players, as all nodes become competition and seeing another player becomes a bad thing.
• Group loot for kills. This ties into the above point about player competition. It’s nice to know that if you do enough damage to a mob someone else is also fighting, you can loot it as well. This creates more teamwork. You know that other game? This isn’t a thing at all. There, if you hit the mob once, you get all the loot (with very few exceptions).

I like almost everything about GW2 so far, but the above are the main things that I REALLY love, especially the last two points about player teamwork. It’s so great to not be in competition like that with players; you should be happy to see them – it’s an MMO. There are many conveniences players have here that I am not used to at all, and I’m usually surprised in some small way every time I play. I spent 3 years playing wow, and I’m not trying to advertise it (I left for a reason), but this is the only way I know to explain why I see GW2 this way. It’s natural to compare. I think GW2 is better than the top mmo. There are many things that are done right here, and I just thought maybe you guys needed a fresh perspective on them if you’ve been here a few years or haven’t really gone into other mmos.

Feel free to comment, but let’s keep it in spirit and be positive, alright? :P

Haha, nice post dude! I hope these feelings persist once you get some characters at max level

Ugh… got something in my eye…

Guild Wars 2 is the first MMORPG I’ve ever played that is actually rewarding when helping other players, rather than creating a constantly hostile and competitive environment. It’s definitely a good change.

If you haven’t already, make sure to try out activities. You can find the activities NPC in Grand Piazza (Lion’s Arch), with 1 out of 4 mini-games available on a daily rotation.

Nice post and it is realy neat to hear how new players enjoys the game and it reminds me of when I was new to the game.

The points you had are all true to me too and I have played since headstart, can I add – No idiotic mindless Quests you more or less has to do to level up?

Could add:
- no Korean-style grindfest for gear and weapons

I want to add on that list: No quest steps

There is nothing more annoying, in a freaking MULTIPLAYER game, than having different goals, in the same dungeon/instance, than your teammates. Watching your team-mates rescue an npc from a prison, that you can’t, or interract with an invisible to you item, just because they are on a “different quest step”. And most of the time they can’t even share it with you because the first step is to talk with some npc for no reason at all.

Same goes with other problems of traditional questing:

Killing a roaming boss mob and getting nothing for it, because once again you weren’t “on the proper quest step” or camping near a boss spawn point with 20 other players, waiting for it to respawn, then praying you get lucky and tag it to finish YOUR quest. The unlucky ones will have to wait once again for their turn.

Not able to help during an escort quest, because you weren’t there when it started, and even more, having to wait for the previous guy to finish his escort so the escort npc respawns for you, so you can do it too. Most of the time there is also a quest marker at the spawn point….

Kill quests are no different: remember those 2 mobs types that spawn very very closely together so you can’t kill x without also killing y? Well, for the first step you must kill 10 of x (and a lot of y too in the process) and then the quest will ask you to kill y now (and a lot of x in the process) instead of killing them at the same time!

How about defense quests, when after you talk to an npc, by a miracle zombies start spawning to attack a camp, but hey if you are not on that quest step you can’t help with the defense! Just wait for the previous player to finish his part so you can do it yourself.

Or one of my favorites:, open a door for your teammate but they can’t pass through because it’s locked for them! They have to open it themselves! WHY IS THIS CALLED A MULTIPLAYER GAME?

I like Quests, but there are certain types (escort, defend, kill, gather) that I’d never want to see in an MMORPG again, leave traditional Quests for things that actually progress a storyline, or have interesting mechanics/riddles in them, everything else can be dynamic without Quest logs or Quest steps.

At least in some “lobby” games, like Diablo or Guild Wars, the quests of the first player were dictating what the players would see, this allowed a uniform experience for PARTY MEMBERS in the same zone/instance/dungeon.

This is very important, other mmorpgs are Massively Solo Online RPGs because players are not actually cooperating, but competing, and they have their own version of the game world (based on their quests) that cannot influence the actual world or others

Finally did some pvp yesterday. It was great
Spent a lot of time following around some zerg group and trying to learn what to do. Map feels huge.

ofLegends.9853:

Finally did some pvp yesterday. It was great
Spent a lot of time following around some zerg group and trying to learn what to do. Map feels huge.

Sounds like you did WvW, not PvP. PvP is teams of 5 and the maps, while large for some game’s standards of PvP maps, are really not that big. Still, WvW is a totally different monster.

I think you will find, though, that your first point ties in with your last two. The game has been built entirely around player cooperation, which actually annoys trolls, because they really can’t, well, troll. They can’t impede anyone’s progress, so they either give up trying to troll or move on to another game.

Always happy to hear people enjoying the game rather than simply complaining about it. Your points hold true for me as well. Although if you do try sPvP, I would suggest try it out on custom arenas (with maybe a few friends) first, as with any sort of PvP in any MMO, things can get a bit heated in there.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ofLegends.9853:

Finally did some pvp yesterday. It was great
Spent a lot of time following around some zerg group and trying to learn what to do. Map feels huge.

Sounds like you did WvW, not PvP. PvP is teams of 5 and the maps, while large for some game’s standards of PvP maps, are really not that big. Still, WvW is a totally different monster.

I think you will find, though, that your first point ties in with your last two. The game has been built entirely around player cooperation, which actually annoys trolls, because they really can’t, well, troll. They can’t impede anyone’s progress, so they either give up trying to troll or move on to another game.

Whoops, yeah it was WvW.

Hmmm, I knew the community seemed nicer, but I didn’t think about the fact that I really haven’t seen any trolls at all….. Nice!

Bloonis.9528:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ofLegends.9853:

Finally did some pvp yesterday. It was great
Spent a lot of time following around some zerg group and trying to learn what to do. Map feels huge.

Sounds like you did WvW, not PvP. PvP is teams of 5 and the maps, while large for some game’s standards of PvP maps, are really not that big. Still, WvW is a totally different monster.

I think you will find, though, that your first point ties in with your last two. The game has been built entirely around player cooperation, which actually annoys trolls, because they really can’t, well, troll. They can’t impede anyone’s progress, so they either give up trying to troll or move on to another game.

“Built entirely around player cooperation”? LOL, a game with no clear healer, tank, dps? Most of the pve content you can solo, lol, which cooperation are you talking about? I think you are talking about another game here, not GW2.

I think you might not being thinking about cooperation. In a trinity game, everyone has a role, but everyone is basically doing their role. Everyone doesn’t rez everyone else. Everyone can’t combo with everyone else.

In most other games, if you tag a mob before someone else, you own the mob. People get mad when you start fighting their mob. That’s how most games are. That’s competitive.

When you worry about some guy stealing your node while you’re busy fighting, that’s not cooperative.

It’s not just about having a role in a fight. The tank isn’t cooperating. He’s standing there doing a rotation while eating a sandwhich at the same time. He’s happy as long as everyone stays out of his way. One warrior draws aggro and boom, so much for cooperating.

Yup, agree with Vayne.

Dungeons are soloable by better players than you*

Bloonis.9528:

…

A lot of “teamwork” in GW2 is basically people playing side by side, as opposed to playing together. Most dungeons are soloable, and there is not actually that much interaction between players. Largely, it is just everyone doing their own thing and they happen to be physically close to each other. The strategy for soloing or undermanning content is no different than for doing the content with a full party, because all that more people bring is more damage numbers.

EDIT: Added quote to make the string of posts more clear.

I’m still waiting for a 5 fire staff ele speedrun with no mightstacking. Then i’ll agree with how support is irrelevant.

I’ve been reading the forums of a newish game that came out recently and the way the two forums are handled, it’s like night and day.

The other has no forum filter, so people freely use whatever profanity they want. There are frequent derailing posts and now gold sellers are spamming the forum with multiple threads.

(From pictures of ingame chat, gold sellers are spamming map chat also to the point that ingame conversation is difficult. Bots are reportedly everywhere (one guy counted 20 plus bots out of 50 chars on one path) and there is, also reportedly, flagrant use of hacks and cheats by the players).

After reading that forum, I come back to this forum to find quiet, (semi)rational discussions. All due to the hard working forum moderators.

Thank you moderators and ANet for professional conduct and hard work.

Surbrus.6942:

A lot of “teamwork” in GW2 is basically people playing side by side, as opposed to playing together. Most dungeons are soloable, and there is not actually that much interaction between players. Largely, it is just everyone doing their own thing and they happen to be physically close to each other. The strategy for soloing or undermanning content is no different than for doing the content with a full party, because all that more people bring is more damage numbers.

You entirely missed the definition of “teamwork” used in the OP, which was literally just meant to be the opposite of “competition”.

Now, I’m not sure if you were responding to the OP or not, but you didn’t quote anyone and I asked to keep it positive. The fact is that players aren’t competing against each other for anything in open world content, therefore, there is teamwork.

I should further point out (to everyone) that this thread isn’t the place to argue over whether or not dungeons are soloable, whether or not profession choice actually matters, or anything else. The bottom line is that GW2 is unique in several ways and you either like it or not.

What’s your opinion about mobs? Open world, Dungeon, everywhere in PvE…

Read all posts in this topic, but didn’t see any inputs about mobs by you.

ofLegends.9853:

You entirely missed the definition of “teamwork” used in the OP, which was literally just meant to be the opposite of “competition”.

The fact is that players aren’t competing against each other for anything in open world content, therefore, there is teamwork.

A lack of competition is not a definition of teamwork. My employer is not competing against Anet, that does not mean we are engaged with them in any form of teamwork. My character working on an event chain in one zone is not engaged with a character in another zone just because we are not competing against each other.

I agree with much of the OP but there is competition between players in PVE. The reward system ensures it.

Bloonis.9528:

When all the pve content can be done with any class and any build, the importance of the classes and builds is zero. In other games, you can’t complete anything without a healer or a tank.

Let’s just say here:
In other MMORPG games. This is important because in REAL Role playing games you don’t need any form of trinity to play. Players who play RPGs know that, the MMO trinity drones do not.

Bloonis.9528:

“Built entirely around player cooperation”? LOL, a game with no clear healer, tank, dps? Most of the pve content you can solo, lol, which cooperation are you talking about? I think you are talking about another game here, not GW2.

I think you haven’t played ANY other RPG in your life, only MMORPGs otherwise you wouldn’t say that.

Maybe you missed what cooperation means. In GW2 when you are out in the open and an events begins, you cooperate with others to finish it, when a boss spawns, players cooperate to bring it down.

In other games you do not cooperate with anyone at all, you are fixed inside your own single player version of the game, phasing, quest steps, mob tags, quest tags take care of any kind of cooperation and ruin it completely.

Ashen.2907:

A lack of competition is not a definition of teamwork. My employer is not competing against Anet, that does not mean we are engaged with them in any form of teamwork. My character working on an event chain in one zone is not engaged with a character in another zone just because we are not competing against each other.

I agree with much of the OP but there is competition between players in PVE. The reward system ensures it.

Those are drastic cases which serve no purpose, really. I think what the OP meant was that instead of people fighting over tagging mobs or trying to complete their quests or gathering resource nodes, they can instead help each other out. The lack of competition between players can help create an environment where cooperation is prevalent.

See someone downed fighting a Champion? Jump in and revive them then help kill the Champion and you can reap the rewards from it.

See someone defending an outpost by themselves? Rush to their aid and get credit for the event.

See a rich orichalcum vein surrounded by mobs that someone else is fighting? Go help kill those mobs and you can both mine the node.

It doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who would ignore downed people, or people doing an event or fighting mobs and just run pass them to gather the node, but those are player problems not the game’s.

Elsdragon.5109:

Ashen.2907:

A lack of competition is not a definition of teamwork. My employer is not competing against Anet, that does not mean we are engaged with them in any form of teamwork. My character working on an event chain in one zone is not engaged with a character in another zone just because we are not competing against each other.

I agree with much of the OP but there is competition between players in PVE. The reward system ensures it.

Those are drastic cases which serve no purpose, really. I think what the OP meant was that instead of people fighting over tagging mobs or trying to complete their quests or gathering resource nodes, they can instead help each other out. The lack of competition between players can help create an environment where cooperation is prevalent.

See someone downed fighting a Champion? Jump in and revive them then help kill the Champion and you can reap the rewards from it.

See someone defending an outpost by themselves? Rush to their aid and get credit for the event.

See a rich orichalcum vein surrounded by mobs that someone else is fighting? Go help kill those mobs and you can both mine the node.

It doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who would ignore downed people, or people doing an event or fighting mobs and just run pass them to gather the node, but those are player problems not the game’s.

I was not replying to the OP’s comment about the elements you mention. I was pointing out to the poster I quoted that not competing with someone is not the same as being engaged in teamwork with them.

As to competing to tag mobs, I see it almost every time I play GW2. Not to the same degree as in some other games though..

Bloonis.9528:

In a game with clear roles, a tank will die if the healer is sleeping. Yes, that needs cooperation to succeed. In Guild Wars, cooperation is limited to everyone going over to the downed person and pressing the action key.

Also, almost every dungeon in Guild Wars can be done solo. I don’t see the cooperation needed here. In other games, no dungeon can be completed solo. In some , you can complete them with a couple lesser people but they have to be really well equipped, a game side that is also missing from Guild Wars. It is extremely easy to gear up. It should be easy, but not that easy.

When all the pve content can be done with any class and any build, the importance of the classes and builds is zero. In other games, you can’t complete anything without a healer or a tank.

Your post sort of contradicts itself since what you’re mostly stating is about dungeons and even in GW2, without the proper build (and to a lesser extent class) it would be a tall order to solo dungeon paths. This means that for the majority of the players, they will require a full party to complete said dungeons in the first place. Also, another thing that is different in GW is that gear is not the almighty divider amongst players, but rather skill. You cannot simply overpower enemies (for the most part) with just higher numbers, but you’ll need to learn what the enemy does and act accordingly.

Your trinity of healer, tank, dps logic doesn’t work in GW2 because of how the game was designed. Cooperation between those three in other games are usually limited to instanced parts of the games, wherein the party is formed beforehand and the roles are defined. In the other parts of the game however, that trinity is not needed (at the very least not to the extent of when inside a dungeon).

Ashen.2907:

I was not replying to the OP’s comment about the elements you mention. I was pointing out to the poster I quoted that not competing with someone is not the same as being engaged in teamwork with them.

As to competing to tag mobs, I see it almost every time I play GW2. Not to the same degree as in some other games though..

The post you quoted to reply to is from the OP (check the username), that’s why I said OP. They also said the opposite of competition, not the lack of competition. Those are different.

If you meant competing to tag mobs as in when 80’s go to lower level zones and just kill mobs too fast for newer players to tag, that’s unfortunate, but like you said to a much lesser degree than other games. I personally try to only attack mobs that lower level people tag when I’m in low level areas and there are other people around me.

FrostSpectre.4198:

What’s your opinion about mobs? Open world, Dungeon, everywhere in PvE…

Read all posts in this topic, but didn’t see any inputs about mobs by you.

My opinion?

I’m neutral.

Edit: Guess I can elaborate. I understand that they need to be there to make us feel a part of the world. I will say that at least our level scales down with the zone so that they aren’t just a pointless distraction (as they are on wow). Sometimes they can be annoying, but I don’t mind them much. They’re no better or worse than they are in any other MMO I’ve played (except wow).

Ashen.2907:

Elsdragon.5109:

Ashen.2907:

A lack of competition is not a definition of teamwork. My employer is not competing against Anet, that does not mean we are engaged with them in any form of teamwork. My character working on an event chain in one zone is not engaged with a character in another zone just because we are not competing against each other.

I agree with much of the OP but there is competition between players in PVE. The reward system ensures it.

Those are drastic cases which serve no purpose, really. I think what the OP meant was that instead of people fighting over tagging mobs or trying to complete their quests or gathering resource nodes, they can instead help each other out. The lack of competition between players can help create an environment where cooperation is prevalent.

See someone downed fighting a Champion? Jump in and revive them then help kill the Champion and you can reap the rewards from it.

See someone defending an outpost by themselves? Rush to their aid and get credit for the event.

See a rich orichalcum vein surrounded by mobs that someone else is fighting? Go help kill those mobs and you can both mine the node.

It doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who would ignore downed people, or people doing an event or fighting mobs and just run pass them to gather the node, but those are player problems not the game’s.

I was not replying to the OP’s comment about the elements you mention. I was pointing out to the poster I quoted that not competing with someone is not the same as being engaged in teamwork with them.

As to competing to tag mobs, I see it almost every time I play GW2. Not to the same degree as in some other games though..

The person you’re replying to in this post has the idea of what I meant.

maddoctor.2738:

[real RPGs don’t need specific party compositions]

True, but the strategy will be entirely different if you bring a homogeneous party to a real RPG. To use D&D as an example: a party of Fighters is going to play completely different than a party of Wizards, or a party of Clerics/Druids, etc (obviously I’m not talking about D&D4e, as that game suffers from the same “samey” class variety that GW2 does).

The party might play so differently that the DM will have to greatly alter encounters to either challenge powerful party compositions, or go easy on weak compositions. Some party compositions (or even just strategies) might even be entirely non-violent.

Video games simply do not have this flexibility much of the time, particularly for MMOs. In GW2’s case all the classes are so similar that it largely doesn’t matter which classes or builds you bring because of the “everyone is a winner” difficulty level of GW2 PvE.

One of the biggest things Guild Wars 2 does right is leave behind the old school mechanics that have moved from one MMO to another despite the fact that the main thing they do is cause fight, anger, and pain.

Fighting over quest kills …. gone.
Fighting over resource nodes …. gone.
Fighting over choke point quest goals …. gone.
Fighting over environmental quest goals …. gone.
The worst game mechanic ever – need and greed …. gone …. thank you for this one more than any other.