Guild Wars 2

Lalabu.2097:

The way I see it, not allowing for glass-cannons or tanks shows that Arena Net stayed true to getting rid of the holy-trinity. If you look at the lore behind the dungeons, the dangers within are feared by the inhabitants of Tyria! It would be silly for a group of adventurers to come by and have one of them simply stand in the face of the enemy laughing at his pathetic blows (tank). & the glass-cannon who just pulverizes the boss because he has been hard training for a month’s time.

You present a false dichotomy. It is not neccessary for all the classes to form a kind of homogenous lump in terms of DPS and damage mitigation in order to get rid of the “holy trinity”.

When you can give 5 people random exotic gear, have them not spend ANY trait points, but also have them choose their own weapons and utility skills, and those 5 people can clear a dungeon, you have a problem. The only place that the traits ACTUALLY matter is in SPvP. If one’s trait choices and stat distribution is essentially irrelevant to the gameplaying experience, then there is not enough of a distinction between glass cannons and people going full tank. It also means that the dungeon mechanics focus too much on the dodging mechanic.

When you say that building tanky allows for no more than taking 2 hits extra, I can only think of how that’s fine! Your stats and skills should synch as to allow you to alter your playstyle only enough to get down your combos while surviving, not regenerating to max HP. I do not want people to have the ability to change from a wrecking ball to a block of god-metal. This forces people into pro-builds & into 1 to 3 very specific ways of playing each class.
Right now, it comes down to positioning and strategy, not build. Games where builds are do-or-die fail to keep me and my friends interested for long.
Guild Wars 2 is where it is at

I did not buy GW2 to play a FPS. I do not have a problem with dodging being a mechanic for damage avoidance, but I do have a problem when the entire game’s combat system, its utility skills and its weapon choices are built around this dodging mechanic. It makes the gameplay shallow and uninteresting and repetitive, and it ultimately results in a feeling of one’s desired playstyle being irrelevant.

Fritz.5026:

I would disagree. I find there to be enough difference in classes that I can have a difficult time choosing which class I want to play at times. Though I suppose you could be really nitpicky and be like “all melee hits things and all ranged shoot things” but then I would simply wonder how that is different than any other game.

In GW1, your entire build was built around your elite skill. How much impact does an elite skill make in GW2? Does it make or break your build or is it basically just another utility skill in a special slot?

Also you have to understand that this game is designed with a pvp backbone. Yes it does have a large pve section that you can level up and explore, but every player should notice that this pve section does not have gear grinds where the game devolves down to most time = most powerful.

The design of the game probably seems strange to many players who are used to playing pve based games where the pvp is just something they tacked on to keep people sated. However, i dont see that as a shortcoming of this game, but just an inappropriate expectation from the player.

I said in the OP that I have played a lot of Guild Wars 1. That game also had a PvP backbone with some PvE tacked onto it. I did not go into GW2 expecting to find a gear grind.

Curlybaby.6258:

I am one who loves GW2 and it’s game phylosophy and often times finds myself defending many of the criticisms slung at Anet on these forums. Having said that, I don’t think the OP is being malicious with his criticism and I can see his point in most of his post. The one area in which I greatly disagree is in his abilities section. I think it an exaggeration when he says that the differences between a tank and a glass cannon are nearly negligible. IMHO, there are huge differences between glass canons and tanks in GW2.

Much like many of the posters with criticisms of GW2, the OP only comes to his conclusion when comparing GW2 to other games (WOW again?). In that same light, a GW2 player could go on the WOW forums and criticize that game for being too “arcady” with their damage and damage mitigation. Again, I know that this is his opinion, and everyone is entitled to one, but that does not mean the game is “lacking,” “rushed,” or “unfinished.” It is simply an intended game design decision.

In that regard, I see GW2 as a very well thought out game. Yes, there may be bugs that need to be fixed, and there are perhaps a few other areas that need to, and perhaps in time, will be adjusted, but overall GW2 is a very good game and playing as intended.

If the combat mechanics are superficial to such a degree that your choices with regard to gear and traits become mostly irrelevant in a PvE environment, then the balance is off.

I do not expect the differentiation between DPS and Tanks that you would find in, say, Rift. But I did expect the differences to be more like what you found in GW1.

7000 hours of fun in GW1, and I think I’ll get the same out of GW2 in a few years, I’m up to 700+ already

I agree a lot of things are really really broken, some things should never have been like the way they are. There are some things I can hardly believe aren’t fixed.

But despite that I’m still having fun with the things that aren’t broken.

Draeka.5941:

Yoh, periods and paragraphs are your friend.

I don’t understand why you complain about not being able to go toe-to-toe with dungeon mobs, since you can do a whole lot more than just dodge. Blind, daze, knockback/down, root, cripple, freeze…you can do a heckuvalot to avoid being hit. This is why a good dungeon group doesn’t get wiped; not because they have ridiculously high healing power or toughness, but because they know their skills and how they interact with others. Team synergy isn’t evident in world PvE, but in the rest of the game that’s what separates good players/teams from those that are not.

However, you are still basing your entire strategy of how you are going to run around and dodge the mobs and keep them disabled so you can do damage. Whether or not your attack combo finishes before you have to dodge again is largely irrelevant. Getting a good crit off or finishing an attack chain is highly unlikely to stop the group from wiping. And that kind of fighting style just isn’t fun. It’s like playing dodgeball and all the NPCs have an endless supply of balls and the only way you’re gonna win is to keep dodging and using abilities to avoid all the crap they’re hurling at you. To which I say, “no thanks”.

If you find such content fun, well, congratulations, I guess you’re a masochist. :P

Darknass.1903:

You don’t need to be level 80 to experience the game, that isn’t the way it was designed. It was designed that you get to level 80 as you experience the game, so for the people who bum rushed to level 80 thinking that all the good content is at the “end” are now disappointed. The entire game is endgame content, It wasn’t designed to be rushed through, it was designed to be experienced. Sure there aren’t many “level specific” things to be done at level 80, but there is a down leveling system for a reason. If you bum rushed to level 80 without second thought, maybe you should run around the world, explore I’m sure you’ll find something interesting, and if not then you’ve missed the point entirely.

This is patently wrong. Once you are at level 80 there is only one place that is worth your time to farm, and that’s cursed shore (and MAYBE malchor’s leap if you have enough people at the right events.)

The problem I was alluding to was not the fact that I expected the open-world grinding part of the game to somehow magically transform at level 80, but the fact that one area is vastly superior to all other areas in terms of profitability, despite there being no real increase in the complexity or difficulty of the content. This is bad game design. I’m really hoping lost shore provides a viable alternative, but I’m also hoping that the devs provide viable incentives to revisit the older zones.

KensaiZen.3740:

Not able to stand and tank dungeon mobs or boss? You’ve obviously never rolled an AH Guardian.

Just did TA the other night and killed the bosses by just standing together in the symbol and beating them to death. No dodging required.

Things like this can be done. Just because people have not found out how does not mean they do not exist in the game.

Actually, my main is a Guardian and I’ve traited full toughness + healing and I use AH as well as the “your crits grant your allies might” ability. I prefer to run around with a hammer and use the combo to keep up a very high uptime of protection and retaliation, as well as traiting my character so that my symbols heal anyone standing in them.

The strategy you are referring to relies upon your teammates being clever enough to stand in your symbols, and to be frank there’s a lot of credible speculation that Altuistic Healing will be the next guardian ability to get hit by the nerf bat.

Though, I dare you to try ALL the dungeons using this tactic and/or trying to go toe-to-toe with champion mobs this way. If you happen to upload any of the attempts to Youtube, lemme know, cuz I think watching the replays will be quite entertaining.

Yea dude I just bought it yesterday and immensely regret it. I told myself I’d give it until level 20 but Im 16 and have lost inerest. It just seems so horribly untested and unbalanced and buggy.

Anywhoooo… My account will be for sale on craigslist for the cheap if anyone wants a digitial delux edition for $15 cheaper.

While I agree that, so far, I consider GW2 to be the inferior product to GW1, this is based upon looking at a complete first game and comparing it to a two-month old game. That’s simply unfair.

The only solution is to wait while they put the meat onto this skeleton. Fortunately, this game has no subscription, so it’s possible to simply take some time off and explore the new content once it’s out.

markob.4398:

While I agree that, so far, I consider GW2 to be the inferior product to GW1, this is based upon looking at a complete first game and comparing it to a two-month old game. That’s simply unfair.

The only solution is to wait while they put the meat onto this skeleton. Fortunately, this game has no subscription, so it’s possible to simply take some time off and explore the new content once it’s out.

Yea I agree.. I loved GW1 but I’m just scratching my head at this rubbish. Man spent $80 on the dig. delux copy like an idiot. I gave this game 16 levels and didn’t enjoy any of it. Was CONSTANTLY dying or coming very close. Nearly every single battle was a near death. Just not fun at all… Not to mention how many bugged events I came across in only 16 levels… and normally the lower levels are the most polished.. I can only imagine how bad it gets at higher levels.

Aza.2105:

Apparently the OP has had bad experiences with dungeons. So he, like many others with bad experiences want anet to change dungeons solely for them.

1. In most cases you were in a poorly coordinated group and failed. I don’t recall ever having to dodge every sec of my dungeon experience. What I do recall is dodging when I see a big attack coming or using skills to negate or mitigate damage if I so happened to prematurely use up my endurance.

I’ve had good groups and bad ones. The fact that there are good groups does not change the fact that all of the participants will be building around damage avoidance and choosing utility skills which focus on boosting group survivability. Even while trying to contradict my initial post, you talk about how you’re using your utility skills cuz your endurance is low and you can’t dodge. Which only proves my point how much emphasis this game places on dodging, and how is relegates all other considerations to a secondary position.

2. GW2 doesn’t have team play like chain stunning a mob to death while your friend nukes in the back? Sounds lame and mindless. GW2 has combos, which are very helpful, use them.

I dunno, I found 2 eles comboing meteor shower for the AoE knockdowns to be tons of fun in GW1. It wasn’t lame and mindless at all and actually required quite a bit of skill and co-operation amongst the players. When it went well, it was a rewarding experience. When it went badly, well, that’s what the monks were for.

Now GW2 doesn’t have monks, and I perfectly fine with that. But at the same time the potential of a player to initiate a conflict and gain the upper hand through the entire fight just does not exist. It’s not that its insanely difficult to pull off, it’s just plain theoretically impossible.

I do not want to project, but it appears your idea of fun comes from the sensation of having monsters being not very challenging. I do agree with your other problem about items being exclusive to specific dungeons.

I like challenging mobs. I like interesting fights that test my skills and my reactions. I do not enjoy trash mobs that have to be constantly kited and which require me to constantly blow all my control skills while hoping that other people also blow their control skills at the right time while the people who don’t currently have aggro sit and use their auto-attacks until it becomes their turn to hold aggro for a bit and blow their mitigation utilities. Just because I want this improved does not mean that I’m looking for loot pinata dungeons.

I imagine if tokens for example were universal, all that would happen is everyone would pick the dungeon they found the most easiest to complete. Which would be worse than what we have now.

I am fine with the tokens working as they currently do. What I think they could do, however, is to add rare materials to some of the dungeons and have each dungeon have its own material which can be farmed. These materials could maybe go towards legendary armour sets or something, since those are entirely missing from the game at the moment.

markob.4398:

While I agree that, so far, I consider GW2 to be the inferior product to GW1, this is based upon looking at a complete first game and comparing it to a two-month old game. That’s simply unfair.

The only solution is to wait while they put the meat onto this skeleton. Fortunately, this game has no subscription, so it’s possible to simply take some time off and explore the new content once it’s out.

I’m not giving up just yet. I do think that they need time to add meat to the so-called skeleton, but I also want to do what I can to make sure its the right meat. For example, if all the game development goes into making new costume pieces to be sold in the gemstore, that’s definitely flesh on the bones, but at the same time it won’t help GW2’s long-term survivability.

Xarog.3172:

Darknass.1903:

You don’t need to be level 80 to experience the game, that isn’t the way it was designed. It was designed that you get to level 80 as you experience the game, so for the people who bum rushed to level 80 thinking that all the good content is at the “end” are now disappointed. The entire game is endgame content, It wasn’t designed to be rushed through, it was designed to be experienced. Sure there aren’t many “level specific” things to be done at level 80, but there is a down leveling system for a reason. If you bum rushed to level 80 without second thought, maybe you should run around the world, explore I’m sure you’ll find something interesting, and if not then you’ve missed the point entirely.

This is patently wrong. Once you are at level 80 there is only one place that is worth your time to farm, and that’s cursed shore (and MAYBE malchor’s leap if you have enough people at the right events.)

The problem I was alluding to was not the fact that I expected the open-world grinding part of the game to somehow magically transform at level 80, but the fact that one area is vastly superior to all other areas in terms of profitability, despite there being no real increase in the complexity or difficulty of the content. This is bad game design. I’m really hoping lost shore provides a viable alternative, but I’m also hoping that the devs provide viable incentives to revisit the older zones.

So what your saying is your idea of “endgame” is farming/grinding all day long? If so then yes, there are only a few suitable places to farm, but for those who play the game for entertainment value rather then grinding gold… (for whatever reason) THE ENTIRE GAME IS ENTERTAINING. The “incentives” for going back to lower level zones are purely for entertainment, if you don’t find it entertaining to explore different areas then I guess my point is completely lost on you. Sure the best way to get your shiny pixels the fastest (as of right now) is by grinding the plinx DE chain over and over and over and over and over again, but is it entertaining for you? If not, there is a whole big wide open world to explore.

Darknass.1903:

So what your saying is your idea of “endgame” is farming/grinding all day long? If so then yes, there are only a few suitable places to farm, but for those who play the game for entertainment value rather then grinding gold… (for whatever reason) THE ENTIRE GAME IS ENTERTAINING.

No, I’m not saying that mindless grinding is my idea of end game at all. I am saying that my complaints about the way cursed shore is designed relative to the rest of the game has nothing to do with your argument about me having levelled too quickly, but you simply don’t want to take the hint.

The “incentives” for going back to lower level zones are purely for entertainment, if you don’t find it entertaining to explore different areas then I guess my point is completely lost on you. Sure the best way to get your shiny pixels the fastest (as of right now) is by grinding the plinx DE chain over and over and over and over and over again, but is it entertaining for you? If not, there is a whole big wide open world to explore.

And over every hill is the same generic mobs. One troll is the same as another. The skelks will always blink in a predictable manner. What’s the point of exploring, if, when you’ve seen one kind of mob, you’ve seen them all? Is it an exciting challenge to encounter these garden variety mobs? On the contrary, it doesn’t matter what gear you have or what skills you’ve chosen, the encounter will pretty much play out like all of the previous encounters.

So no, exploration doesn’t really grab me as an advertising point. If I wanted the kind of exploration you are referring to, I would rather spend my time in a sandbox game such as minecraft.

There is a huge difference between glass cannon builds and tank builds ur doing it wrong.

Tank builds can easily soak the regular hits, everyone still needs to avoid the huge damage spikes.

Disagree with almost everything u said except the unique drop on a zone by zone basis…

Not living up to your expectaions =/= Not living up to its potential.

There is a difference... >.<

Also, as mentioned.. new game. Young game. Not a complete MMO by any means. So far I’m still enjoying everything at 80. Working on a second and third 80 simultaneously. I’m creating my own challenges as well. Currently leveling a new thief (@ lvl 30), wearing only HALF my armor.

A game is as fun as you make it. Just because you don’t like something, or have problems with certain aspects, doesn’t mean everyone does.

I don’t have to PvP to know what’s missing from the PvE aspect of the game. If there’s anything missing from the PvE aspect of the game, then the game is not living up to its full potential.

What? Your a hard one to please. You need things perfect, got it.

Reciprocity.8021:

markob.4398:

While I agree that, so far, I consider GW2 to be the inferior product to GW1, this is based upon looking at a complete first game and comparing it to a two-month old game. That’s simply unfair.

The only solution is to wait while they put the meat onto this skeleton. Fortunately, this game has no subscription, so it’s possible to simply take some time off and explore the new content once it’s out.

Yea I agree.. I loved GW1 but I’m just scratching my head at this rubbish. Man spent $80 on the dig. delux copy like an idiot. I gave this game 16 levels and didn’t enjoy any of it. Was CONSTANTLY dying or coming very close. Nearly every single battle was a near death. Just not fun at all… Not to mention how many bugged events I came across in only 16 levels… and normally the lower levels are the most polished.. I can only imagine how bad it gets at higher levels.

you keep reiterating this in various threads, basically your complaint is that the game is too hard. Which is, well… The insane leveling speed is one of the reasons people hit a brick wall at level 80 wondering what to do.

Xarog.3172:

Well they do have rare materials that drop from specific dungeons. Onyx cores drop from TA, charged cores drop from COE. Problem is….they just don’t drop frequently enough.

You took the words right out of my mouth about my perspective on GW2. It “didn’t live up to its potential”

Problem with grinding at endgame is that it leads to nothing. Grind gold..nothing to spend it on. Grind karma..nothing to spend it on.

Ohyea, i can buy armorset that looks worse then what i already have and with worse stats.

Your basicly only farming to see how big the number in your gold window can go.

Pve is meaningless, WvW is meaningless, sPvP is meaningless.
This is not an FPS, its an MMO, never compare the 2.

On my server, most zones are empty. Now mostly everyone simply farms the event chains in Cursed Shore where everyone mindlessly spams keys on everything. When it comes to a boss, same thing, but whoever has aggro gets to run around in circles. When it comes to dungeons, I see it usually as, everyone skips all the monsters and rushes to the bosses, where you have to occasionally avoid the big damage. Is it just farming? Or is it that everything is so uneventful, and/or worthless up until the boss? Wheres the teamwork other than removing defiant?

I love the effort they put into the game, and its well worth the money. I enjoyed the artwork, every vista, every jumping puzzle, and just about every level I achieved. Personal story could have been a lot better… Zaithan wasn’t what I hoped for either. Its hard to enjoy the game with alot of sound annoyances (sentances starting before the first has finished, random popping, too frequent looping of certain sounds ), events breaking, and NPCs failing. Some dungeons were actually enjoyable to play, though not as great as gw1. I wish I could do more WvW but I get 3 fps when theres that many people in 1 spot…

This game WAS released too early, however despite all of the bugs, it was still incredible at launch. I know this team is dedicated to fixing their game, but I hope they prioritize core problems instead of adding more content to distract everyone from those problems. But you pretty much said it already, GW2 has not lived up to its potential, but maybe some day it will.

“Once you hit lvl 80, your pve experience pretty much revolves around dungeons and event grinding in Cursed Shore. However, the dungeons are repetitive and un-fun (which I’ll get into below), and that pretty much leaves a major grind-fest so simplistic and repetitive that players have been mistakenly caught in ANet’s anti-bot web.”

-All I can say is, “no it doesn’t?” I highly doubt it’s even possible to reach 80 with 100% map exploration. You have an entire world of events and habitats at your fingertips. Why do you feel the need to stay in one place and grind events there? The events in a lv 1 zone grant about 240 karma, and the ones in Cursed Shore grant about 360. If that alone is causing you to feel “forced” to grind Cursed Shore, then perhaps its best for every event in the game to grant the same rewards. Or at least zone-wise.

-Dungeonwise, I’m not convinced the playstyle you describe would be any more fun. If you could stunlock the enemy so easily, every fight would just turn into a tank and spank and become boring real fast. The way it is now, you have to be on your toes all the time, but you are still more than capable of soundly defeating whatever you may come across.

Loot-wise, I absolutely agree. Dungeons should reward MUCH more karma than they do at the moment, and should be a good source of rare crafting mats. More XP and money would be nice, but I can live with the amount you get now. Not only that, but it should be rewarded on a boss-by-boss basis, possibly even a trash-by-trash basis. One thing I can’t stand is people skipping bosses and trash because they just want to get their 60 Ascalonian Tears and go home.

Zone-wise: Loot that is useful at all levels? Oh hell yes. Zone-specific loot? Only under a few conditions:

1. The zone-specific loot functions like tokens. Zone-specific crafting mats already exist in cooking to an extent, but can be implemented for other crafting skills as well.
2. There are two types of vendors: One that allows you to buy cool things with the Zone-specific tokens,
3. and one that allows you to exchange tokens for other kinds of tokens. It wouldn’t be a very fair ratio, to encourage people to actually get the tokens from the zone instead of farm another zone.
4. Dynamic events and World bosses reward those tokens.

Jabronee.9465:

…
The main attraction of GW is the Skills Combination, GvG, HA and AB.
…

I played GW1 for over 5 years and close to 10000 hours. But, I never saw the game’s attraction as any of the above. Heck, I did not even once play GvG or HA, and I found AB frankly boring.

The game was fun not because of those things, but because there was always something new to find. Not “new” so much as not seen before. Sometimes truly new.

I played GW1 to master it, as I do all fun games. That means I checked into the nooks and crannies to discover the jewels the devs had placed for me. Every holiday had new quests nearly every year. There were places I hadn’t been to yet. There were quests I never completed simply because I didn’t get to them — there was too much other stuff to do.

THAT is what makes a game good to me: The ability to spend time, become an expert, and yet still realize you have not yet scratched the surface.

GW2? Looks like the same kind of depth to me. In fact, more. Just in each zone are somewhere around 50 event chains. When I have done all of them, perhaps I’ll get bored. But, I doubt the devs will allow that to happen.

So, what ARE the problems with GW2? They are many, but mostly of the “tweaks can fix that” variety. The game as a whole is solid. My objections like in areas:

• Death sucks. It double sucks. It triple sucks. You have to pay unless some sweet soul is nearby and has the heart to rez you for some piddly number of XP. And, even when you pay, you get to pay again. And, if WHEN you pay again isn’t just after you paid to rez/teleport, you have upped your odds of dying trying to get to the armor repair guy. Every time I die I want to quit. And the 2nd or 3rd time in a story-line quest pushes me further in that direction. I HATE dying! Not for dying, but because it’s so stupidly lame how you get penalized.

• The combat balance is atrocious. Some battles are amazingly easy. Others are beyond difficult and into impossible (alone). They need to count deaths per event (from a global perspective) and tone down some of the rediculously hard battles. If it says “Group Event”, fine. But nowhere else should you have to automatically die just to get through an area.

• Money is far from balanced. You can’t earn squat before you are 80th level. And, even then, you must go to the level 80 areas, or combat is ho-hum.

• Effective level is a brilliant concept. But, it is inconsistently done. In “Estate of Decay”, you are leveled down to the same as the boss. But, the boss is nearly impossible to even damage, let alone kill. If characters had been 1-2 levels higher, it would have been much more playable. The way it is I dread my next player getting to it.

• All battles are identical. Oh, the skills and effects are different, but a battle against 2 spiders in Caledon is basically the same as a battle against two risen farmers in Cursed Shore. While I like the effective level concept, it has reduced the game to a very small number of ways to make battles interesting.

HOWEVER, I like the game. Overall, it’s brilliant. OP, your points have some value, but you’re missing the point of the game. It isn’t a vehicle to deliver you into more interesting combats. It is a world. It is meant to be explored, not just fought.

There are a HUGE number of stories being told. Zones are full of interesting events. If you only slog through the battles, well then yes, it is boring. But, if you try to find out why you’re having to kill wave after wave of pirates trying to attack some poor lass’es farm, it gets interesting. And there are HUNDREDS of these mini-stories being told constantly.

Don’t play to get to the end. Don’t play to earn titles. While both are fun, this game was intended to be MUCH more than that. It is a world to be discovered. And, when you get it all discovered, I suspect the devs will have cooked up a bunch of new sub-plots to keep you busy.

I hate the game sometimes (see the post above), but I keep coming back because there is SO much to discover.

OP, I’ve been firm on the points you’ve made since release and I see that the reaction to these posts has not changed. I’m sorry you’re getting flamed and I think your post deserves some more recognition by the community.

I agree with everything you’ve said. I have a group of friends that also agree and we have all stopped playing Guild Wars 2. Unfortunately, they are part of the player-base that do not log on to the forums and express their opinion.

I was a very big Guild Wars fan and I believe that ArenaNet has a chance to save this game.

“Save”? Many players may argue there is nothing wrong with the game. I do see that in its current state, the game may be fun for some players. But in my opinion, the game design in Guild Wars 2 will cause players to leave after a short period of time and will not retain the same value and depth the original Guild Wars had.

I all haven’t touched the game since Halloween, much less log on to the forums. I’ve become incredibly bored with the game. I don’t enjoy exploring and PvP in most games, so the PvE was the only content I was looking forward to because for me it gives me the most enjoyment. Sadly, Guild Wars 2 did not deliver.

To review your points, I agree:

• Combat is shallow – Combat is mostly built around positioning and dodging. I didn’t log on to play a third-person action game or an FPS. I want an RPG. I want to be able to sit down and think about my build. Zones and dungeons should have different gameplay mechanics. Skills need a bit more oomph. Builds need to complement the trinity system, not degrade it. It feels like each profession is the jack of all trades, master of none. Downed mechanic and dodging are super uninteresting to me. Elites are completely pointless, rarely change the tide of battle.

• Game mechanics are shallow – Exotic armor and weapons have better stats than rare armor. This completely goes against their horizontal scaling game design. Armor sets are confusingly specialized into certain stats. Runes, sigils and gems feel half-baked, like an extra layer of fluff. Traits are mostly irrelevant if they do not provide stat bonuses. Weapon skills are static and most professions contain odd skills attached to each weapon. Dungeon tokens are horrid and limits the player to a very specific experience. Karma is horrid and feels like more fluff (everything that works with karma works just as well if replaced with gold).

• No incentive to visit other zones/zones generally uninteresting – Zones don’t scale your rewards. Mobs are facerolled if too many players are together. There are no unique drops in the game, so you don’t need to go to an area to farm them. Mobs are generally all the same, have the same characteristics with few tweaks. End-game, which is unofficially titled due to the loot table, is mostly all the same. World bosses do not change the world, provide no sense of havoc. The world is mostly static, does not evolve.

I’ve pretty much just touched the tip of the iceberg here. I guess the only good thing I’ve gotten out of this game is I’ve been inspired to assemble a team and create an independent MMO. Hope you all keep enjoying the game and I hope to be able to come back someday and enjoy it as well.

Daddicus.6128:

HOWEVER, I like the game. Overall, it’s brilliant. OP, your points have some value, but you’re missing the point of the game. It isn’t a vehicle to deliver you into more interesting combats. It is a world. It is meant to be explored, not just fought.

There are a HUGE number of stories being told. Zones are full of interesting events. If you only slog through the battles, well then yes, it is boring. But, if you try to find out why you’re having to kill wave after wave of pirates trying to attack some poor lass’es farm, it gets interesting. And there are HUNDREDS of these mini-stories being told constantly.

Don’t play to get to the end. Don’t play to earn titles. While both are fun, this game was intended to be MUCH more than that. It is a world to be discovered. And, when you get it all discovered, I suspect the devs will have cooked up a bunch of new sub-plots to keep you busy.

I hate the game sometimes (see the post above), but I keep coming back because there is SO much to discover.

And what if you don’t like exploring? What if you like getting to the end? What if you like getting titles? You’re kind of missing the point here… You’re telling a player how he should play and enjoy the game. If that is the case, then ArenaNet failed in their objective.

Good thing they aren’t pumping out content updates every month. That would imply that there are several hundred people actively working on the game to make it better and releasing their progress in the pursuit of that goal every month. Plus, how would that fare for doomsayers? What would we have to talk about then?

We’ve seen ONE content update – for a holiday that already had a premise that was founded deeply in GW1’s precedent. We have yet to see the kind of ORIGINAL content that they can create in a single month. All I’m sayin’ is that I’ve got a tinfoil hat on that says there was a Dev that when asked about dungeon-like content with more than 5 people they responded with a “we don’t want to spoil anything”, and if they’re already looking at stuff this different from current content types I can pretty confidently say that things will be interesting for this game. Why people are so willing to just give up on a game that professed to be getting MONTHLY CONTENT UPDATES is beyond me.

As I sit here and masticate these cashews, I find myself in partial agreement with the OP. One thing I loved about GW1 was the boss loot tables, and the ability to capture elite skills. I very much think they should implement this into GW2, and I think they did say somewhere that they were working on it (the loot tables, not the captures). I agree with your point about the dungeons, too. Don’t get me wrong, difficulty is great, but enemies with huuuge health pools isn’t difficult; it’s annoying.

That being said, I do think Anet has produced a wonderful MMO with wonderful potential, but I can’t fool myself into thinking it’s perfect. It has its flaws, and talking about them really doesn’t accomplish much, but I was in a typing mood. And honestly, I needed an excuse to use the word masticate, because it sounds rather odd.

Xarog.3172:

In GW1, different zones would drop different things. Take the Icy Dragon Sword as an example :
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Icy_Dragon_Sword
It only drops from a few mobs in a very specific area of the game. If you wanted an ICD, you either had to go there to farm it, or to buy it from someone who farmed the area.

Since there were many skins that were restricted to certain mobs/areas, it in turn kept those areas valuable to the playerbase. If you knew for a fact that Dusk could drop from, say, Sparkfly Fen mobs, that would give you a reason to farm there instead of in Cursed Shore.

Basically, some of the zones should have something unique about them which serves as a reason to farm that zone.

Are you aware that that weapon did not exist when GW1 was first released?

100% agree on the dungeons in this game. They are unfun and all few mothodically similar, every fight is deal dmg, if they come at u dodge and heal and repeat.

Omega Mayhem.7163:

Xarog.3172:

I had a lot of expectations for GW2…

I found the problem… but that’s YOUR problem, not the game’s.

Actaully when it becomes the players problems(many have issues with the game) it becomes the games problems because it needs people to make money and keep alive.

Omega Mayhem.7163:

Turtlemilk.1064:

Xarog.3172:

The overwhelming feeling that I get when I play GW2 is that it’s a game that was released too soon.

It’s as simple as that. ArenaNet is no doubt having regrets.

People love to make this ridiculous statement. GW2 was just about as polished a release as any I have ever seen. Does it have bugs? Sure, every MMO does… even WoW which has been out for many years still has bugs.

And if they had delayed releasing it, I bet you and the guy you quoted would be first in line crying about the delay, saying ‘just release it already!’.

So that ‘it was released too soon’ is just such a tired, worn out argument that it needs to be retired.

Have you not played the dungeons? The stroy modes have decnt ok mechanics. The explorable modes are JOKES, its clear they ran out of time with mechanics and said what the hell just make them do aoe or summon adds and have lots of health, thats like 90% of the Exp modes lol. The Zhitan fight, come on turn cannon at weird angle jam fire button for 5 mins and win HAHA, this game has so much potential but was just executed bad in so many area’s, the biggest being the dungeons.

Well let’s burst a few bubbles:
1/ Every single mmo is not ready by release date. Do not fret over this. GW2 was already leaps and beyond every other release which is more than could be expected.

2/ I’d much rather have this token system than any form of RNG in the chest. The current system at least respects my time.

3/ I run dungeons because I like running dungeons. It was only after I got tons of tokens in several dungeons that I first took a look about what to get for them. Even without loot I would do them over and over because they’re usually fun.

4/ the fun factor is enhanced because skill and tactics, not gear, is required. You see this as an emphasis on dodge, which is indeed what makes the better player run dungeons faster. A naked untraited player could beat a dungeon if he had a decent level of skill and imho that proves GOOD dungeon design instead of the opposite. An enrage timer in other games is just a gear check which takes all skill out of it.

Main aspect of every game is LONG-TERM FUN.
GW2 has only the SHORT-TERM FUN – until 80.
I quit GW2 (so did my friends) because I have no motivation to do anything after I reach 80. WvW – overcrowded / stupid rewards. PvP – no need to level 80 / stupid rewards / less fun to compare with other games in the market. PvE – you get 80 with your 1st char and suddenly realize the above-mentioned.
If I am wrong, then the devs made a mistake by “letting” me quit.
But ArenaNet did good, they got their billions. Impressive advertising. By some reason this game reminds me non-alcoholic beer…

Just one more thought about the Fun term.
These days every game is a product in the market. Every game has its competitors. There are “multifunctional” or “multipurpose” games like GW2, WoW, Aion, etc. as compared with products (e.g. 3-in-1 coffee or 2-in-1 shampoo). They do ok. But once you try “special” games (like League of Legends or DOTA (PvP), the TES series (PvE), Warhammer Online (WvW or RvR)), you begin feeling the difference between “multipurpose” and “special” products. I call those games “special” because they excel in their category and have been widely acclaimed on the long-term.
Therefore, to my mind, GW2 can only compete with other multipurpose games and not with special ones. I got used to special games very much, that’s why I am very demanding to every single aspect in a multipurpose game. So are others who quit.
Because – remember – there are competitive products in the market.