Guild Wars 2

very well said
/15 char

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

Rieselle.5079:

Whilst GW2 never had the disastrous launch that FF14 had, nevertheless it was a disappointment to many people and never lived up to its true potential, nor the legacy of the first Guild Wars.

The shame of it is, GW2 is not a terrible game, which means there’s little incentive to fix the very serious and fundamental problems the game has. FF14 was a total wreck, and that was enough to force Square to bow their heads and remake it into FF14:ARR. Sure, you may or may not like the type of game FF14:ARR is, (I don’t, really) but from everything I’ve heard, it’s fulfilled its potential and the people that like that kind of thing really think it’s a great game.

Now that we have “Living World Season 2” coming, it’s maybe a good time to think about an expansion pack or reboot, that really FIXES the problems that have been there from day 1.

Sure, you might care about these things less or more or not at all, but I’m pretty sure everyone agree that “There’s room for improvement here.”

- Combat needs an overhaul.
Currently GW2 is an unhappy hybrid between action games and MMOs.

On the action side, the mechanics are too shallow, and there isn’t a proper risk/reward system in place. Even something as simple as “Powerful attacks and defensive skills use endurance too”, would mean that you have to make the difficult choice between using your endurance on offense, or saving it for dodging/defense. Rather than just hitting every skill on cooldown 90% of the time.
Also, too many of the traits are passive, minor and invisible. It would be much better if (like Diablo 3), choosing traits produced visible and game-changing alterations to how some of your skills worked. (eg. The elementalist trait Evasive Arcana is a good one.)

On the MMO side, there isn’t much depth in the way players cooperate in battle at the moment. Support skills are usually PBAoEs, that encourage everyone to stack on a single point (which is silly on many levels) and there aren’t any meaningful Roles.
ANet needs to rework a lot of the skills and traits so that they have strengths and weaknesses that depend/interact with your team. For example, give each class some support skills (ie. skills that heal/benefit others) that are very strong, but have a casting time that is interrupted by any attack. Then add more skills to every class that can knockdown/knockback the enemy and create projectile shields.
So, without pigeonholing any class to a role, we can allow players to build defensive and supporting roles, in addition to the usual offense.

There’s a whole bunch of other stuff, but I’ll just list them quickly since it’s already a wall of text.
- Enemy AI also needs a lot of work.
- Some fundamental features are missing from PvP and WvW – Like observer mode, build templates, etc.
- The metagame mechanics of WvW is quite broken. When the best rewards come from karma trains rather than epic combat, your Epic Combat mode is not designed properly.
-The personal/living story system, and the story of the game, is not sustainable. Personally I think it would be much better if you weren’t Saving The World, and instead Personal Stories could be shorter episodes about your character, like “My quest to find my sister who was captured by a circus and the adventures I had along the way.” There’s a potential for a huge variety of such Personal Stories, whereas you can only really Save The World a couple of times before it gets really silly.

Anyways, time for a reboot.

You will not get a redefined game – sorry that will not happen. It was done in FF14 because it was such a crummy game they had to do something to save it. That game never got off the ground. This game is already 2 years old. Redefining the game like that now, would just cause too many issues and lose too many players.

How do you know the PS, etc. is unsustainable? Are you a game designer or design for this game? The PS up until lvl is all about your character and how it gets to where you realize that you have to fight a Elder Dragon. That is not the end but the beginning since there are more Elder Dragons to fight.

Karma trains, etc. are not meta games designed by A.Net but is player defined. You can say what you want, but they already dealt with the issue in lower level areas and people whined like a bunch of little school girls. Karma trains do not give you the best rewards as it is a case of diminishing returns – what A.Net might do is lower the time from 3 hours to 1 hour for the anti-farm code to kick in. The karma trains would die.

The best rewards come from Doing an entire event, like Orr events, etc.

WvW does not need observer mode, that is too ripe for exploitation by other servers. There is observer mode in sPvP where it should be.

Reboot – no – tweaking yes!

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

Not one other mmo? Try PSO2 sometime when its not currently being attacked by DDOS.

But compared to that… This game still has great pacing in combat. I just wish i can use a controller instead of a mouse and keys. Then I can really show how an elementalist is played.

For people commenting on the combat:
- For the action side, GW2 is one of the best MMOs… but it’s very average compared to true action games. (eg. Demons/Dark Souls, Devil May Cry, fighting games, God of War, etc.) Read what I said about Risk/Reward again.
I -would love- GW2 to have better action combat. I’m currently playing Dark Souls 2 btw.

- Dark Souls is almost exclusively geared towards 1v1, so the second part of my comment comes in. An MMO like GW2 will never have as good action combat as an action game, but it can make up for it with team/party gameplay and mechanics.
GW2 needs more ways to help/cooperate with/interact with your teammates in combat.

why do you think combat is shallow. Although adding mana might help, the shallow combat is mostly the result of the game content.

There is only one game mode in pvp which is conquest. Face it, I complained about mob ai since day one. I wished anet will start a trend where pve is not a forgetable place with overpowered mob and you fight them as a script……

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

I feel like killing the elder dragons are better left for world/game-wide events, actually like the Living Story stuff. (when they are over, add them to Fractals so we can see the content again.)

For “personal story” that occurs in small instances, you can get a far wider range of possible stories if the scale is smaller.

For “killing an elder dragon”, it’s more or less the same story with 6 possible skins.
Well, maybe next time there won’t be a Trehearne, at least :P

loseridoit.2756:

why do you think combat is shallow. Although adding mana might help, the shallow combat is mostly the result of the game content.

There is only one game mode in pvp which is conquest. Face it, I complained about mob ai since day one. I wished anet will start a trend where pve is not a forgetable place with overpowered mob and you fight them as a script……

The design of enemy encounters (AI, skills, group composition, etc) is a big part of it, and I did give it a brief mention in my OP.

But even in PvP (where your enemies are supposed to be a bit smarter), the combat is still quite shallow. Most of the depth comes from how your team handles the Conquest mechanic.
If we ignore Conquest and just look at duels/team-duels, you can see how shallow GW2 is compared to fighting games, etc.
And if we ignore combat and just look at Conquest… then it’s probably a bit shallow too compared to FPS and other games that use that map type.

Back to combat… fundamentally, GW2 doesnt offer enough “difficult choices”.
The foundation of almost all action games is the choice between offense and defense.
“If I attack, I can’t block or dodge, so I might get hurt. / If I don’t attack, I can’t do damage, so I’ll get whittled down and lose.”
Because your various offensive and defensive skills are on independent cooldowns, because so many skills (particularly defensive) are instant-cast, because your autoattack isn’t designed to be turned off – this basically means GW2 wants you to attack as often as you can, and do defense when you need to. The biggest “risk” you face is wasting a cooldown.

Whereas in most action/fighting games, attempting to do more damage will leave you vulnerable to taking more damage. If someone blocks your fast Jab, there’s not much they can do to you to punish. But if they block a powerful attack, they have enough time to hit you with a big attack of their own, etc.

This works in fighting games because they operate at near-limits of human reaction speed. It’s not possible in a laggy MMO. But you can design those sorts of choices in via game mechanics like the Endurance Bar, “Take half damage if you stand and do nothing”, having a vulnerable period after a dodge where you take more damage, etc.

Somewhere along the way during development, ANet forgot to put the heart and soul of Guild Wars 1 into this game. That is what is missing and what needs to be fixed.

The only improvements GW2 has over GW1 is prettier graphics and you can jump and swim.

Rieselle.5079:

Whilst GW2 never had the disastrous launch that FF14 had, nevertheless it was a disappointment to many people and never lived up to its true potential, nor the legacy of the first Guild Wars.

Had this game in any ways been “living up to the legacy of GW1”, I had stopped playing it one and a half year ago. I am glad it does not. This shows the true problem of statements like yours: don’t think your opinion is a matter of fact, it isn’t, it’s just an opinion.

Combat to me is ok (the only thing I’d personally like to see changed is that dead players should be forced to waypoint and should not be rezzable any more). I don’t need a paid expansion with new zones leaving the old zones deserted and content that most players rush through within 4 weeks just to come back to the forums shouting “boring, more”. I would however welcome continuous(!) additions to WVW and PVP plus a true random dungeon system (someone ever played Anarchy Online?).

All in all, this game does not need a rebirth IMO, it rather needs ongoing love, maintenance and evolution.

It is like all other games: like it or don’t – there’s plenty of competition out there for those who really don’t like it at all.

Absolutely, this is exactly what I’m interested in seeing happen especially with the combat. The money they keep saying they are getting for the game should definitely go back into the game to make sure things like the combat overhaul is taken to the farm, also some of us are wondering when they’ll be taking our classes out of Beta Stage.

Like Engineers for instance. If the balance team needs that much help with this class hire some more folks, particularly from the military, I know alot of vets who can be used as weapons specialists in games like these so they can finally at long last fix the nerfs to PVE that have plagued the Engineer class once and for all. In fact I suggested that early on in the game’s development so they could see some real experts about just how these weapons should behave (and shouldn’t) due to their basic design, like how venting smoke never lasts just 1 second, flamethrower should always add multiple instances of the Burning condition without having to wait on a delay or trait for it, and the size of the explosive trigger zone for things like Mines. These things are terrible right now.

I also agree with you on the living story meme. It’s really not sustainable even with the rerun system imo. They are better off adding new metas and new DE’s every month to all of the zones post level 30 which was their original plan in the first place. Some of us are also waiting on the long awaited Rewards Revamp that was promised months ago, just as the long await hobosacks solution was promised months ago. One has to wonder why these things haven’t happened and why this title has suddenly picked up the new content launch schedule of a subscription game title.

Rieselle.5079:

The design of enemy encounters (AI, skills, group composition, etc) is a big part of it, and I did give it a brief mention in my OP.

But even in PvP (where your enemies are supposed to be a bit smarter), the combat is still quite shallow. Most of the depth comes from how your team handles the Conquest mechanic.
If we ignore Conquest and just look at duels/team-duels, you can see how shallow GW2 is compared to fighting games, etc.
And if we ignore combat and just look at Conquest… then it’s probably a bit shallow too compared to FPS and other games that use that map type.

Back to combat… fundamentally, GW2 doesnt offer enough “difficult choices”.
The foundation of almost all action games is the choice between offense and defense.
“If I attack, I can’t block or dodge, so I might get hurt. / If I don’t attack, I can’t do damage, so I’ll get whittled down and lose.”
Because your various offensive and defensive skills are on independent cooldowns, because so many skills (particularly defensive) are instant-cast, because your autoattack isn’t designed to be turned off – this basically means GW2 wants you to attack as often as you can, and do defense when you need to. The biggest “risk” you face is wasting a cooldown.

Whereas in most action/fighting games, attempting to do more damage will leave you vulnerable to taking more damage. If someone blocks your fast Jab, there’s not much they can do to you to punish. But if they block a powerful attack, they have enough time to hit you with a big attack of their own, etc.

This works in fighting games because they operate at near-limits of human reaction speed. It’s not possible in a laggy MMO. But you can design those sorts of choices in via game mechanics like the Endurance Bar, “Take half damage if you stand and do nothing”, having a vulnerable period after a dodge where you take more damage, etc.

so you are asking somewhere along the lines of a pre buffed warrior? Every move was punishing and they had a adrenaline bar for a powerful attack although most weapons f1 kinda suck.

loseridoit.2756:

so you are asking somewhere along the lines of a pre buffed warrior? Every move was punishing and they had a adrenaline bar for a powerful attack although most weapons f1 kinda suck.

Err… that’s not what I want at all.

Pre-buff warriors didn’t really have any tough choices with their adren mechanic. If they wanted to use a weapon with a bad F1, they took the traits that benefit from a full adren bar.
If they wanted to use a weapon with a good F1, they took the traits that helped them use all their adren as often as possible.

I guess the closest thing in GW2 would be Thief’s initiative mechanic, where both their offense and defense are tied to the same resource. (however the design of many Thief skills make it a poor example of what I’m talking about.)

Another example from GW2 might be some hypothetical warrior with a powerful eviscerate but also having a passive heal that scales with adrenaline level. But passive healing isn’t very fun so it’s also a poor example.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

Somewhere along the way during development, ANet forgot to put the heart and soul of Guild Wars 1 into this game. That is what is missing and what needs to be fixed.

The only improvements GW2 has over GW1 is prettier graphics and you can jump and swim.

I don’t agree. I like having an action+MMO hybrid, I just want GW2 to learn from both genres a bit better.

GW1’s Collectible Card Game + MMO hybrid was interesting too, though. Maybe some other game can fill this spot one day.

Halvorn.9831:

It is like all other games: like it or don’t – there’s plenty of competition out there for those who really don’t like it at all.

You forgot the third option – like parts of it, but not some other parts, and then hang around the forums for a year after you quit trying to get the parts you don’t like changed :P

seemingly well composed post, yet very vague and cherry picking from other games..
i’m also getting the impression of college writing long windedness.. oh, just noticed.. even has a cheesey title. . . seriously though, most of the ‘issues’ mentioned in this thread are just game critique.. it’s a suggestion thread grandstanding as one of these all too frequent general forum ‘revolutionary’ posts..

It would be a shame if something like what happened to FF14 happened here. I doubt that it will, but never say never. We’ve all seen crazier things.

At it’s core, I liked the first FF15. It needed the ‘polish’ that came with ARR, but I didn’t care for the strict armor system that was introduced, the strict classes and job business, or introducing more forced group play through out the middle of the core game experience. Not to mention the dumbed down graphics to meet PS3 performance, that was a shame. The original FF14 looked amazing on my computer, especially the character models. Yes, the way the world was pieced together needed help, but it was much more of a sand box type game, especially with regard to how you created your character, and it was interesting. Didn’t care for what it became.

I was never captivated by GW1. I think I was in and out in about 10 days. Walking around felt like I was on rails most of the time, it was just a weird experience.

I was totally captivated by GW2, from BWE1 and 3 (missed 2, was visiting family in Portland), and have been playing ever since, and fairly hard every day, without any breaks (and by hard I mean time, not style).

I guess I should be thankful this came out with the polish and it’s core was considered a success. Can’t imagine having to go through another FF14 reboot where the military industrial complex folks get their claws in the forum and ears of the developers like happened there, and the cure fun part of this game turned into GW1.

But at the end of the day, it will all be what it will be. If they think they can make bank with a move like that, then they should totally do it, with the onus being on me to either enjoy the changes or find something else to do.

Rieselle.5079:

On the action side, the mechanics are too shallow, and there isn’t a proper risk/reward system in place. Even something as simple as “Powerful attacks and defensive skills use endurance too”, would mean that you have to make the difficult choice between using your endurance on offense, or saving it for dodging/defense. Rather than just hitting every skill on cooldown 90% of the time.
Also, too many of the traits are passive, minor and invisible. It would be much better if (like Diablo 3), choosing traits produced visible and game-changing alterations to how some of your skills worked. (eg. The elementalist trait Evasive Arcana is a good one.)

You know, what you’ve actually described here is the ESO combat system. Yup.
You get a stamina bar and you can use it for Power Attacks, for Blocking or for Dodge Rolling. It’s also linked to some skill usage.
And the game-changing skill alterations ala Diablo 3? In there too; For example the basic Sword ‘n’ Board skill generates Aggro and lowers target’s physical defense; But later on it can be customized to also either A: Increase your Armor upon usage, or B: Decrease the Target’s Magic Defense in addition to the Physical Defense debuff on use. Naturally, these ‘morphs’ alter the role you play (dedicated tank or DPS hybrid?).

Funny thing is, I actually like the ESO combat system – or at least the concept. The problem is, the execution is off – this is because in ESO combat feels a bit sluggish and it can be rather unresponsive at times, which makes well-timed Blocks or Dodges that change the way the game is played somewhat hard to achieve.

However, GW2 combat doesn’t have this problem. It’s actually very responsive, certainly the most responsive I’ve seen in an MMO, and with this responsiveness, the way the combat in ESO is designed could actually work really well in GW2 so I second the idea. However, it’s probably too drastic and intelligent of a change for ANet to seriously consider. Here’s to hoping they surprise us.

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Horrible analogy. The world still has problems, despite the Elder Dragons, they are not wholly motivators for the issues with bandits, centaurs, grawl, Inquest, Flame Legion, Nightmare Court. We’ll keep turning, like 250 years earlier when Shiro Tagachi harnessed the power of ten Vin Diesels.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

Somewhere along the way during development, ANet forgot to put the heart and soul of Guild Wars 1 into this game. That is what is missing and what needs to be fixed.

The only improvements GW2 has over GW1 is prettier graphics and you can jump and swim.

I have mentioned In other threads that there are 3 things that made Guild Wars awesome that were gutted ut to make Gw2. (Not Guild Wars 2. see my sig)

1. Elite Skill capture off Boss Mobs.

2. Hundreds of skills that are not Locked to a weapon, so that all players can use any skills they wish, and not be limited By weapon choice.

If 2 is not possible.( not sure why, other MMO’s do it)…then more weapons.

3. Sub-classes.

To each i got the same response from players defending the current Gw2. " It’s too hard for the devs"

I think that gamers need to hold developers more accountable for lazyness and complacency.

Then again, maybe this title has enough players perfectly happy that Gw2 never needs to fear anything from it’s base.

And that is why my sig.

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Horrible analogy. The world still has problems, despite the Elder Dragons, they are not wholly motivators for the issues with bandits, centaurs, grawl, Inquest, Flame Legion, Nightmare Court. We’ll keep turning, like 250 years earlier when Shiro Tagachi harnessed the power of ten Vin Diesels.

So instead of One major Over-arching danger " a New elder -dragon" and destroying them, we focus on a lot of Little problems…“bandits” and fixing the farmer’s fence?

Nerelith.7360:

Boneheart.3561:

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Horrible analogy. The world still has problems, despite the Elder Dragons, they are not wholly motivators for the issues with bandits, centaurs, grawl, Inquest, Flame Legion, Nightmare Court. We’ll keep turning, like 250 years earlier when Shiro Tagachi harnessed the power of ten Vin Diesels.

So instead of One major Over-arching danger " a New elder -dragon" and destroying them, we focus on a lot of Little problems…“bandits” and fixing the farmer’s fence?

If you think bandits are a small issue, you have not been paying attention.

Nerelith.7360:

1. Elite Skill capture off Boss Mobs.

2. Hundreds of skills that are not Locked to a weapon, so that all players can use any skills they wish, and not be limited By weapon choice.

If 2 is not possible.( not sure why, other MMO’s do it)…then more weapons.

3. Sub-classes.

To each i got the same response from players defending the current Gw2. " It’s too hard for the devs"

1. We have this in the form of unlocking Traits (except it isn’t restricted to simply find boss > kill boss > use SoC, which, IMO, is an improvement), though they could have branched out with the requirements a bit and not lumped every professions’ traits to a single task.

2. I personally like that each weapon has it’s own individual skills (although I wouldn’t say no to more skills tied to the weapon and the ability to swap skills out). It makes the weapon something more than simply a stat-stick and adds a bit of depth to the character customisation. Not only that, in GW1, there were quite a few skills that were tied to a weapon that you couldn’t use with any other weapon type.

3. I honestly don’t see the point in adding sub-classes. IMO, the amount of time it would take them to implement the system and balance all of the existing Skills and Traits to follow this would be time better spent fleshing out the professions more (skills, traits, weapons ect). Not only that, players would simply choose the most wanted professions and pick and choose bits from other, less desirable professions. It wouldn’t improve anything while consuming a lot of resources to implement.

I wouldn’t say it’s “too hard” for them, but I think in terms of resources and time, it’s a smarter choice to do what they’ve done.

They simply learnt from the all of the trouble they had in GW1.

TheDaiBish.9735:

They simply learnt from the all of the trouble they had in GW1.

No one here will appreciate this line. Except me, of course.

Anet learned from their mistakes in GW1, Anet created the foundations to make a game superior to GW1, but then Anet completely undervalued and left forgotten the best that GW1 had to offer.

DiogoSilva.7089:

… the best that GW1 had to offer.

What was that, please?

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

Zerg warfare, spam1 fest = Death to nearly everything

Yeah…. sure…. best there is.

Azhure.1857:

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

Zerg warfare, spam1 fest = Death to nearly everything

Yeah…. sure…. best there is.

Combat system =/= encounter design.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Azhure.1857:

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

Zerg warfare, spam1 fest = Death to nearly everything

Yeah…. sure…. best there is.

Combat system =/= encounter design.

You’re splitting hairs.

Azhure.1857:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Azhure.1857:

Dardevilmon.6702:

Dont touch the combat that is the best part about this game the thing they need to touch is the balance of skills no the combat.Combat is incredibly fluid and responsive and non other mmo or rpg or mmorpg have combat as good as this 1.

Zerg warfare, spam1 fest = Death to nearly everything

Yeah…. sure…. best there is.

Combat system =/= encounter design.

You’re splitting hairs.

Not really.

A game could have, subjectively, the best combat system ever. However if the actual content, AI and all of these combining factors that go into encounters don’t bring out the full depth of the system, then it brings the combat system down.

It doesn’t mean the combat system is bad, it just hasn’t been done justice.

No thanks. Especially the combat is very good imo. Now, I don’t play the classes that depends less on flexibility, ahem ,warrior, but at least as an engineer I constantly adapt in a fight, and I time my skills with my enemy – otherwise I’m just that less effective. Maybe it has something to do with rotating four different weapons, but I never feel like any fights that has any degree of challenge to it is one and the same. As for the teamwork, why would we want to change it, in fact, go to a place like say Arah path 4 and you’ll see how critical teamwork becomes – stacking up doesn’t work against everything. What we need is, imo, for ANet to revamp dungeons to actively counter stacking, and to add.. idk, I want something new, but not sure what…

There are definetely by now alot of things, for that I would completely reboot GW2, like SE did with FF14.
My hopes are still up, that we will see a massively game changing Add On 2015 that we can basically see as some kind of Semi-Reboot to bring back GW2 into the right direction and I think Season 2 will work as some kind of prologue for the first Add On with the Add On bringing basically then the start for Season 3 at the same time.

10 quick things for that I would completely reboot GW2

1) Scarlet Season 1
2) Missing Sub Classes and all the general extreme lack of depthful Character Progression
3) WvW being way to stagnant and not using its real potential
4) SPvP is boring as hell and even more stagnant than WvW, I’m no real PvP, but GW2 is missing some kind of PvP, like the Fort Aspenwood battle in GW1 and GvG which would work so perfectly in GW2 as small scaled WvW
5) The shallow Combat System and unthought out and total unbalanced Underwater Combat, thats basically blending all its shallowness with gazillion of AoE Effects
6) Lots of missing Content and features for Game Performance, like DX11 Support and 64bit Client are desperately needed, and where the hell are Bar Brawls, polymok, Shooting Range ect.???
7) No real RP Servers and RP relevant important features, basically no good Emotes
8) Way too much Grind in this Game for Gold and Materials, the game is way too unrewarding for alot of things and everythign thats not locked behind a wall of grind, gets locked behind an even more ridiculous RNG wall or a combination of RNG and Gem Cost-wall, what is even far more antisocial- when I ever wanted to play the lottery, then I’d not play GW2 …
9)Lack of good GW1 features, like a good story gamepaly beign told through Missions and not through such lame and boring 2D screens with 2 standing figures, that looks as if we would play an ancient old console game in JRPG-Style.
Missing Build Temples to make changing builds more comfortable, senseful titles, special Weekend Events, real End Ccontent Dungeons/Elite instances, like the Underworld, the Deep ect.
10) Lack of interesting good features, that are fun, like Mounts, Housing/Gardening, a good Colosseum in the style of console RPGs where you can hone your skills either solo or as party and get rewards for beating it, Reputation System is missing, where the Orders of GW2 would be perfect for that, presentign the opportunity for it basically on the silver platter, better Guild Content, like Guild Halls/Towns/Islands ect.

But I guess/hope alot of the stuff that the community wishes for, is just too complex for simple patches and will only find the way into the game per a larger serious Add on

Nerelith.7360:

Vayne.8563:

Don’t have particular issues with what you’ve posted OP except for the very last point, about saving the world.

We’ve known about all the dragons since even before launch. We started learning about them in Guild Wars 1. The dragons aren’t going away. The battle with have is with them.

Until they’re gone, the world is in danger.

I’m not sure how Anet could back away from that now, and I’m not sure they should. It’s the same threat we had at launch. We’ve handled one of six elder dragons. There are five to go.

The problem as I see it is.. with this you have a sort of countdown…

1 dragon down… 5 left.

1. Either you kill off the dragons one at a time til None are left…or you do Not progress to kill the 6th dragon.

A. You kill off all the dragons One By one til None are left. What do you do then?

B. You never get to kill the 6th drafgon. How does your player-base feel?

It’s like the Dr Who corner the writers wrote themselves Into….

Only 12 Doctors .. that was the story going back to the 70’s…

Then the 12th doctor dies.

A. End the series.

B. Continue wih a 13th Doctor. But that means retconning all those " Only 12 doctors" storylines so that they make sense with a 13th doctor.." oops we were wrong"?

See what I mean?

What do you do if you kill off the 6th elder dragon? Turns out there was a 7th? an 8th? " oops we were wrong"?

Scarlet comes back to life and somehow becomes the 7th elder dragon? But in all seriousness there could just be fillers in between some of the elder dragon storylines and it could still end on the 6th. They could also have a post-dragon storyline introducing us to bits of GW3, kind of like Eye Of the North from GW1 introduced some things we now see in GW2. Then there’s also the backfire of destroying a force of nature that is known to help control the amount of magic in the world. With so much extra magic it could send Tyria into a sort of dark age where all magic is significantly more powerful and magical creatures (an example would be elementals) are running rampant. There are plenty of other stories they can use it just depends if they are willing to use them.

The creator of this thread, i think, doesn’t quite understand just how massive an overhaul that A Realm Reborn really was. they didn’t just take the game down, fix it, and then bring it back up.

they trashed 85% of the game(keeping Locations, Races, classes and NPCs), and basically made a new game from scratch. FF14 was different, for better or worse. they threw everything that made FF14 different out, and replaced it with a very highly polished, wonderfully animated, beautiful, WoW clone.

GW2 does not need that level of changes. if Arenanet did a ARR-level fix to this game, it 1) Wouldn’t be GW2 anymore, and 2)You wouldn’t like it, because everything that makes GW2 what it is would be gone, in favor of a highly polished WoW knock-off. and I could have sworn that the lot of you came to GW2 to get away from WoW knock-offs.

GW2 is different. but it’s not nearly as bad as FF14 was. comparing making GW2 changes to ARR is a highly drastic way to ask for changes.

don’t get me wrong, ARR is a fantastic success story in MMOs, and I played it to max level and enjoyed it. The game world rivals Tyria for beauty, imo. I have trouble deciding which is more gorgeous, as I consider both Eorzea and Tyria to be the 2 most beautiful game worlds in all of MMORPGs.

but gameplay-wise, it’s WoW with different graphics, different races, and the ability to change you class at will.

JMadFour.9730:

GW2 does not need that level of changes. if Arenanet did a ARR-level fix to this game, it 1) Wouldn’t be GW2 anymore, and 2)You wouldn’t like it, because everything that makes GW2 what it is would be gone, in favor of a highly polished WoW knock-off. and I could have sworn that the lot of you came to GW2 to get away from WoW knock-offs.

Many of us came for the game that was advertised in the Manifesto. GW2 isn’t that game either, now is it?

There are a lot of things that could be improved in this game – but i feel the combat is one of the things that’s well done and they really nailed it when they designed it.

I’m also referring to the combat in general not individual encounters.

It was the one thing that made me stick to the game after I saw how different it was from GW1.

The reboot you seek OP will not happen – the game is making a profit and doing well. There’s no reason to disturb what works. They will just improve the game in small increments.

If you think this game will be redesigned from the ground up -you’re in for a surprise. This game works and makes money through player retention – which means it aims to keep players that are currently playing and have invested in the game coming back and possibly spending cash on the gem store.

You can’t redesign the game from the ground up and expect the people that play it for what it is to stick around.

Azhure.1857:

JMadFour.9730:

GW2 does not need that level of changes. if Arenanet did a ARR-level fix to this game, it 1) Wouldn’t be GW2 anymore, and 2)You wouldn’t like it, because everything that makes GW2 what it is would be gone, in favor of a highly polished WoW knock-off. and I could have sworn that the lot of you came to GW2 to get away from WoW knock-offs.

Many of us came for the game that was advertised in the Manifesto. GW2 isn’t that game either, now is it?

don’t see what “The Manifesto” has to do with this specific discussion.

but sure. let’s throw out 85% of GW2 and make a WoW clone, ARR style, because it’s not the exact Manifesto down to the smallest word.

I really need to see this “Manifesto” so i can understand why trashing the entire game and starting over from scratch(like FF14 did) is worth discussing on this forum. and why it gets brought up in every single thread on every forum.

and how apparently the current GW2 is so 100% completely different from whatever the Manifesto said it would be. I often wonder if the game is indeed completely 100% different from the Manifesto, or if people are just mad about ascended gear.

JMadFour.9730:

Azhure.1857:

JMadFour.9730:

GW2 does not need that level of changes. if Arenanet did a ARR-level fix to this game, it 1) Wouldn’t be GW2 anymore, and 2)You wouldn’t like it, because everything that makes GW2 what it is would be gone, in favor of a highly polished WoW knock-off. and I could have sworn that the lot of you came to GW2 to get away from WoW knock-offs.

Many of us came for the game that was advertised in the Manifesto. GW2 isn’t that game either, now is it?

don’t see what “The Manifesto” has to do with this specific discussion.

but sure. let’s throw out 85% of GW2 and make a WoW clone, ARR style, because it’s not the exact Manifesto down to the smallest word.

I really need to see this “Manifesto” so i can understand why trashing the entire game and starting over from scratch(like FF14 did) is worth discussing on this forum. and why it gets brought up in every single thread on every forum.

and how apparently the current GW2 is so 100% completely different from whatever the Manifesto said it would be. I often wonder if the game is indeed completely 100% different from the Manifesto, or if people are just mad about ascended gear.

I wasn’t commenting on the OP’s idea – which if you must know I feel will never happen. I was replying to your points…
1) That GW2 wouldn’t be GW2 anymore. Well we’ve already been down that road. GW2, today, is not the game that was sold to many of us.
2) That we came here for something other than a WoW knock-off. I came here for, again, what was advertised to me in said Manifesto.

I’ve every right to feel cheated in that regard. Also I never mentioned Ascended gear, tyvfm.

Azhure.1857:

I wasn’t commenting on the OP’s idea – which if you must know I feel will never happen. I was replying to your points…
1) That GW2 wouldn’t be GW2 anymore. Well we’ve already been down that road. GW2, today, is not the game that was sold to many of us.
2) That we came here for something other than a WoW knock-off. I came here for, again, what was advertised to me in said Manifesto.

I’ve every right to feel cheated in that regard. Also – I never mentioned Ascended gear.

so then outside of Ascended Gear, what’s not GW2 about GW2?

Ascended Gear “grind” seems to be the common complaint whenever someone brings up “The Manifesto”.

what else is there? How have you been “cheated”?

@JMadFour

I could take the time out of my day and develop a very long, detailed list for you. But you don’t really want to hear it, do you? Not really? If you were a Guild Wars player that was sold to the idea of GW2 by their Manifesto, you would already know. Whether all of those players agree with me or not – a good many do. They know. They care.

But you don’t. You’re happy with GW2 today, for the most part at least. Liking the game for what it is isn’t a bad thing, JMadFour. Just don’t pretend that there are a LOT of people out there that have no right to expect anything else.
So please excuse me if I’m not going to waste time trying to convince someone that has no interest in actually listening.

Rieselle.5079:

loseridoit.2756:

so you are asking somewhere along the lines of a pre buffed warrior? Every move was punishing and they had a adrenaline bar for a powerful attack although most weapons f1 kinda suck.

Err… that’s not what I want at all.

Pre-buff warriors didn’t really have any tough choices with their adren mechanic. If they wanted to use a weapon with a bad F1, they took the traits that benefit from a full adren bar.
If they wanted to use a weapon with a good F1, they took the traits that helped them use all their adren as often as possible.

I guess the closest thing in GW2 would be Thief’s initiative mechanic, where both their offense and defense are tied to the same resource. (however the design of many Thief skills make it a poor example of what I’m talking about.)

Another example from GW2 might be some hypothetical warrior with a powerful eviscerate but also having a passive heal that scales with adrenaline level. But passive healing isn’t very fun so it’s also a poor example.

huh? the pre buff warrior is a lot weaker than you think. There were much less sustain and much less self buffs. Every attack was a tough choice because most of their attacks were slow and telegraphed. In fact, warriors are actually the most balanced class in the game. Every other class has a cheese mechanism. Btw, getting adrenline was actually kinda slow but most players do not notice because nobody uses the f1 skills because most of them suck. For most skills, adrenline is spent even though the attack doesnt connect because there were post animation cast time ( eviscerate is one of them).

I actually like the design alot better because most of the skills are offensive which are much harder to use. Basically, you attack the enemy to protect yourself

btw, i made an eviscerate warrior during pre buff but anet…… I hate anet and their silent bug fixes.

Azhure.1857:

@JMadFour

I could take the time out of my day and develop a very long, detailed list for you. But you don’t really want to hear it, do you? Not really?

I’d love to hear it. send me a PM if you want. the more detailed the better.

I cut out the rest of your post because it’s just a blanket dismissal along the lines of “you’re too stupid to understand.” which isn’t as true as you’d like to think.

incidentally, I too played GW1, through Nightfall. but I wasn’t here for The Manifesto. So I am, indeed, interested in listening. If you are interested in explaining.

Rieselle.5079:

On the action side, the mechanics are too shallow, and there isn’t a proper risk/reward system in place … (the skills are simple and) just hitting every skill on cooldown 90% of the time.

<shrug> This ain’t an ARPG. They’re fun when done well but are a different game type. I think the action element has been well integrated into GW2 in a way that doesn’t overly disadvantage those of us with non-US ping.

I played a bit of Wildstar and the lag and telegraphing system made it very difficult for Oceanic melee toons. Also, in PvP, I found that the telegraphing system often produced a sea of red – ie. becoming largely meaningless – when more than 6-7 were involved.

Additionally, at the risk of sounding elitist, if you’re mashing buttons when everything is on cooldown, then your level of gameplay is a fairly basic.

What I’d argue is that – after approaching 2 years – the builds and combat have become pretty stale. You’ve got it right there.

But making combat more console-like is not the answer.

[edit: grammarz]

Rieselle.5079:

Personally I think it would be much better if you weren’t Saving The World, and instead Personal Stories could be shorter episodes about your character, like “My quest to find my sister who was captured by a circus and the adventures I had along the way.” There’s a potential for a huge variety of such Personal Stories, whereas you can only really Save The World a couple of times before it gets really silly.

Everyone who ever writes a story needs to consider this.

In story telling, there is no strength in numbers:

300 people fought on the battlefield.
OR
10,000 people fought on the battlefield.

Both are infinitely less interesting than:

One person walked out into the battlefield alone and attempted to find a way to fight against himself pitting his arms against his legs.

JMadFour.9730:

Azhure.1857:

@JMadFour

I could take the time out of my day and develop a very long, detailed list for you. But you don’t really want to hear it, do you? Not really?

I’d love to hear it. send me a PM if you want. the more detailed the better.

I cut out the rest of your post because it’s just a blanket dismissal along the lines of “you’re too stupid to understand.” which isn’t as true as you’d like to think.

incidentally, I too played GW1, through Nightfall. but I wasn’t here for The Manifesto. So I am, indeed, interested in listening. If you are interested in explaining.

If you had stopped at your first sentence, I would have believed you. Truly. But when you put words into my mouth, ones that I neither used nor hinted at – that’s when you proved my point that you aren’t, in fact, listening.

DarkWasp.7291:

One person walked out into the battlefield alone and attempted to find a way to fight against himself pitting his arms against his legs.

Mind. Blown.

OP, for what purpose? GW2 is 2 years old in a couple of months. It’s basically what it is. It won’t attract that much more new players, and it would kitten off the current playerbase more than it would lure new ones (see SWG).

If it was done during the beta or alpha, I’d understand it. ARR’s circumstances were very different, since it was very early in the game’s life and was needed because of terrible reception to the original game. But overhauling a game with a steady playerbase and wasting resources for what’s likely to be a futile effort is unlikely to happen.

Azhure.1857:

JMadFour.9730:

Azhure.1857:

@JMadFour

I could take the time out of my day and develop a very long, detailed list for you. But you don’t really want to hear it, do you? Not really?

I’d love to hear it. send me a PM if you want. the more detailed the better.

I cut out the rest of your post because it’s just a blanket dismissal along the lines of “you’re too stupid to understand.” which isn’t as true as you’d like to think.

incidentally, I too played GW1, through Nightfall. but I wasn’t here for The Manifesto. So I am, indeed, interested in listening. If you are interested in explaining.

If you had stopped at your first sentence, I would have believed you. Truly. But when you put words into my mouth, ones that I neither used nor hinted at – that’s when you proved my point that you aren’t, in fact, listening.

any time you want to give me the rundown on what the game was supposed to be compared to what it is, I’m all ears.

Azhure.1857:

JMadFour.9730:

Azhure.1857:

@JMadFour

I could take the time out of my day and develop a very long, detailed list for you. But you don’t really want to hear it, do you? Not really?

I’d love to hear it. send me a PM if you want. the more detailed the better.

I cut out the rest of your post because it’s just a blanket dismissal along the lines of “you’re too stupid to understand.” which isn’t as true as you’d like to think.

incidentally, I too played GW1, through Nightfall. but I wasn’t here for The Manifesto. So I am, indeed, interested in listening. If you are interested in explaining.

If you had stopped at your first sentence, I would have believed you. Truly. But when you put words into my mouth, ones that I neither used nor hinted at – that’s when you proved my point that you aren’t, in fact, listening.

either way, any time you want to give me the rundown on what the game was supposed to be compared to what it is, I’m all ears.