Guild Wars 2

As others have said, a healthy guild is a good solution which permits a lot more freedom in how you play and what you play, and ultimately makes all experiences in the game more fun.

However, roles don’t need to be defined by stripping them down and forcing them to rely on other players to be successful, they need to be defined by promoting particular strengths within certain areas. Player A doing multiple roles simultaneously is not a problem if player B can excel at one particular role better than they could. And when I refer to roles I don’t mean tanking/healing/dps, I refer to control builds, condition stacking, support, high damage power builds etc. In this regard, I think the games balance is more or less fine with the exception of ranger that just doesn’t feel strong enough in any particular area, but still does okay for its versatility. [should note that the reason power/zerker builds are popular lies in the balance of damage types, not balance of classes/roles]

The example of ranger is important though, as it extends to all classes in all areas of the game. You can literally play anyway you want because of how each class is independently responsible for its own power and role within a team, which means that build diversity and player role is vast. If you want to roam on a necro you can, and even though you detailed that Thief/Mesmer ‘excel’ in these roles, they still rely on player skill, build, equipment etc. to be successful. On the flip side, a Necro/Thief/Mesmer can also build themselves for group oriented combat quite easily, and successfully. Group interaction and the satisfaction of working with others hinges entirely on the group of ‘people’, not roles. If you are joining a dungeon speed run and you don’t satisfy the group criteria of killing things fast then you are in opposition of the other players yourself.

Again, in answer to your point on Guild Events it depends entirely on what guild you run with. If you’re in a guild with a WvW focused commander then you will have a lot of opportunities to play with people you like on a daily basis. I don’t see opportunities to play exclusively with your guild as a reasonable excuse for the lack of cooperation in the game, though I will concede that daily guild events etc. would be awesome. Also, if you haven’t done any guild WvW runs I would thoroughly recommend it; you can roam as a small group or zerg if you have more players, and using voice comms its a very enjoyable experience.

Your comments on melee are true to an extent; the range thing I never really realised, but its true. I suppose that as a compromise to having dynamic combat there really needed to be a way for melee to be competitive; in WoW for example, there are many problems with the balance between melee/ranged, with ranged generally having an advantage in fights because melee is unable to close them down enough. I think the balance is fine in GW2 though, but I play WvW mainly and movement/positioning is critical during a fight. “Then you are told you are playing wrong” is a troubling thing to read as it implies you’re playing with the wrong people; role diversity is a staple of GW2 combat and is part of its charm, so you are in essence never playing the game wrong. Min/maxing is player choice, and it shouldn’t impede on a players ability to play with others and have fun.

My post is written from someone who focuses on WvW more than any other aspect of the game, and compared to PvE there is far more incentive to group up, communicate and work together to achieve success, but that’s not to say its impossible to have that in PvE, it just requires more effort on the players part, as it is in any other game. I’ve played WoW on and off since Vanilla and participated in raids, dungeons, arenas, battlegrounds; you name it, I’ve done it, and the most satisfying part of the game to me are the opportunities to play solo. Cooperative gameplay, teamwork, group activities; it doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t fun, and the dynamic fighting and being able to change roles at any time is what makes GW2 enjoyable to me.

phys.7689:

I wouldnt mind this so much, except if they wanted a game where stats didnt determine playstyle much, why have stats at all, would be better to just use a skill/trait system.

My thoughts exactly. Stats are obsolete. They only existed to represent the flow of combat: how many hits you need to kill your target, how long those attacks will take etc. What we currently have is an overly complex numbersystem that struggles to keep up with the things it’s trying to represent and proves a real pain to balance.
It’s not like racing games or FPS need such a complex system to be balanced / fun / or work properly in the first place. They do have numbers, but you rarely see a player farming for more critchance on his carabiner. And yet they still make the core of every mmo there is, impeding any real development of up-to-date immersion, horizontal depth and dynamic combat / worlds despite what the commercials say.

I could not agree more with you OP. People think that this game needs teamwork regardles its structure, but that’s not true!

Problem is that everything is so easy that you don’t really need team work. Of course if dungeons would be so hard that you actually would need to think about combo fields and stuff players would whine in forums like crazy.

Junkpile.7439:

Problem is that everything is so easy that you don’t really need team work. Of course if dungeons would be so hard that you actually would need to think about combo fields and stuff players would whine in forums like crazy.

Yea but that’s just due to the fact that the dungeons are meant to be farmed. If you have an encounter that is very hard to win, so you will have to try dozens of times, but will grant you the full reward on your first successful run (like an arcade game) then there is no reason to complain (besides I don’t wanna l2p).
However having to try a boss dozens of times just so he drops a masterwork randompiece of garbage is frustrating to the max. Right now, the only thing that matters is finishing the dungeon asap and as often as possible for it’s final reward. They should split the currency reward among all bosses and balance the actual amount for every single one depending on it’s difficulty. Otherwise there will be no reason to increase the difficulty of the game.

The Spiral King.2483:

As soon as I saw the thread title I knew I was in for a good read. The lack of teamplay and synergy among classes and skills is really a major issue with this game, and needs to be addressed by adding way more skills, and rebalancing the ones we have. And please, no one better try mentioning those kittenty kitten “combo fields” as an example of teamplay. The y’re the most watered down, brain dead things I can imagine.

And yet a lot of players can’t even get those right. Some outright have no idea what they are.

I think this comes down to a threshold issue. This game is very, very easy in the open world. It’s very, very easy in casual dungeon runs. That’s all good. This ‘tier 1 content’ is completable by almost anyone in any gear, in any group composition.

So where’s the challenge? World bosses like Teq and Jungle Wurm. Racing for time in speed clears, each time trying to beat the time of the last great run you had (or the top Guilds setting records). This content cannot be completed without buildcrafting, practice, and coordination. There is a lot of a teamwork involved here.

It really comes down the threshold of content you chose to take part in. Are you content with 1-20 fractals and 30 minute dungeon runs? Do you just want to roam open world and Zerg champs and World Bosses? Yes? Then you don’t really need to do anything special and I agree, teamwork isn’t a focus in that sort of content.

Are you trying to beat a time in a speed run? Do you want to prove that X setup can beat a different Guild’s setup? Are you trying to take down the Wurm or farm Teq? If so, then teamwork should be on your agenda. If it isn’t, you’ll be failing…a lot.

The level of teamwork needed is really up to you the sort of content you take part in and the way you chose to take part in it.

Improve the combo field / finisher system. I like the direction its going right now, and imo its the only thing holding the game together. Without expanding on it, the game will not develop into anything genre defining.

Escadin.9482:

phys.7689:

I wouldnt mind this so much, except if they wanted a game where stats didnt determine playstyle much, why have stats at all, would be better to just use a skill/trait system.

My thoughts exactly. Stats are obsolete. They only existed to represent the flow of combat: how many hits you need to kill your target, how long those attacks will take etc. What we currently have is an overly complex numbersystem that struggles to keep up with the things it’s trying to represent and proves a real pain to balance.
It’s not like racing games or FPS need such a complex system to be balanced / fun / or work properly in the first place. They do have numbers, but you rarely see a player farming for more critchance on his carabiner. And yet they still make the core of every mmo there is, impeding any real development of up-to-date immersion, horizontal depth and dynamic combat / worlds despite what the commercials say.

Yeah…they could just remove berserker and others useless stats combinations and make a universal stats comb, leaving only the vertical evolution.
Nothing will change and the whining about zerker domination will stop.

But this alone cant solve the lack of teamplay. This game needs some hard dungeons with mobs that force you to adjust your traits and skills sets through his mechanics. We have defined roles within traits and skill sets in all classes (we don’t need trinity).
Take a look at a Mesmer for example. He has some skills sets for defense based in confusion condition. Making combos more “gamebreaking” should also help significantly.

Some people don’t like the statement “force you” and will complain saying that this game was built around “playing how you want”. This kind of people are mostly CASUAL players and they are NOT the total game’s playerbase.
There are a lot of players that want challenge through teamplay and dungeons should provide that. If you want to have fun playing the way you like without nothing forcing you to anything, you should stick with the open world content.

Of course, for this to work, we need also rewards that are equally in power but cosmetically different for open world and dungeon content.

I guess somehow, the game is going on that direction, as incredible as it seems.
They could do it faster, thought….

Seera.5916:

Lack of Defined Roles

Yes, ANet could have made support and control a little more useful. But they were trying to avoid the situation where players couldn’t do X content unless they had a support or a control.

-This is what I don’t understand. If they didn’t want content to require heals or CC, then make content that doesn’t require CC or heals(like they have), but it doesn’t mean make CC or heals ineffective. Make a class that is awesome at CC, make a class that is awesome at heals. Make those roles, but don’t make them necessary. Just because a healer is in game doesn’t mean content needs them. The content defines what is needed, not what class is in the game.