Guild Wars 2

Wow, that title was a bit pretentious. Sorry for that.

The game has been out for almost a year now. I’d like to take the time to review the direction the game is taking and discuss some improvements I’d like to see, and possibly some current features I’d like to see remain as they are. For lazy people, or people who do not care, at the end of each section will be a TL;DR blurb. Prepare your butts and buckle up, it’s Wall o’Text time!

1. World Bosses

They just don’t do enough. I’m talking about the dragon champions, shadow behemoth and fire elemental especially. I know, many people want to get in quick and farm them as fast as possible in order to move onto the next. I understand that, I do, but too much of me wants these to be far more difficult. Ulgoth and the Megadestroyer are not bad fights in my view, and the fire elemental used to be great in beta. Many of the other bosses need to be far more dangerous than they currently are. I assume it must be difficult to achieve given the numbers of players who turn up to these events. Preliminary ideas could be as follows:

Tequatl – Make his bloated creepers spawn more, and hurt more. Have far more risen rushing in to back him up (he’s just across the water from Orr, after all), forcing players to break off into teams to fight them more in order to hold them back. I remember TotalBiscuit’s review of this event way before release, and the idea of it looked fantastic, but now with 50+ players he’s far too simple.

Shadow Behemoth – This guy really doesn’t do anything, does he? He could spawn far more adds and require dodging to avoid a very obvious one-hitting attack. I know it’s a starter zone, and as such I guess difficulty should be dealt with more carefully, but gosh darn he needs something doing to him.

The Shatterer – See above, more or less. He could do to trap people in crystals more, a lot more.

I know ArenaNet supposedly increased difficulty of these some time ago but it doesn’t feel much different. I’d like to see them re-appraised.

TL;DR: Increase difficulty of some bosses! They don’t feel worth the hype, and they really should. They should be substantially more epic.

2. Exploring

I love exploring. I really love exploring. Back in November, when it had been only a few months since release, and you gave us a whole new zone to explore, the game felt really exciting. Living Stories have come and gone since then and, we’ve had a few small instances open up, such as Cragstead, but nothing on the scale of Southsun.

I’d really like to see some more small explorable zones open up. Something that reveals something that might not necessarily be related to the main Guild Wars 2 story, but something interesting. Anvil Rock, for example, I always imaged that mountain in Guild Wars 2, but was disappointed to find it wasn’t included. Statue of Lyssa in the ice caves would be another cute, nostalgic place for a half-size explorable area.

In addition – please, for the love of Dwayna, include Southsun (and any future zone) exploration markers (waypoints, PoIs, etc) in the overall World Completion percentage. You have no idea how much this irritates me. WvW is included, and Southsun is not. Why?

TL;DR: Release more explorable zones like Southsun. Include Southsun exploration markers in with World Completion percentage.

Continued in Post 2…

3. Gamble Boxes

Yes, I went there. Yes, I know it’s contentious.

I could whine for a long time on this but I’m going to try to keep it brief. I hate them. I – hate – them. Having pre-purchased Guild Wars 2, played every single Beta, every single Stress Test, completed every daily and monthly since their inception, I feel very disappointed and disrespected to find out that I have to rely on dumb luck, and personal (real life) wealth in some cases in order to obtain skins.

Some of these skins are really nice. Molten and Jade especially, and my luck was never with me (possibly worth noting I have never once received a luck-based gamble-chest skin… sadface ). Despite the numbers of people who shout on forums about how they obtained many tickets already, I really believe they speak for a very small minority. I can only think of one friend in-game who was lucky enough to obtain a ticket for the recent Jade skins, and he ploughed much real-money into obtaining one. Me? – I decided after the Molten fiasco not to waste more money on the gamble boxes. I understand the Jade weapons drop from regular coffers during the Dragon Bash, but the drop rate is meaning that some people (such as me) have opened thousands with no luck.

So how would I propose fixing this? I believe loyal players are worthy of some chance to obtain one of these skins without having to rely on luck. Loyal players build up Achievement points, which are not currently used for anything other than vanity, although they have always been mooted as possibly being used as a currency. For every achievement point a player earns, give them a spendable one. This will mean that achievement points can only be spent once, but a player’s overall total will not drop when they are spent. You can make around about 530 achievement points completing every single PvE and PvP daily and monthly every month. Including points from other sources, 800 Achievement Points to unlock a gamble-skin wouldn’t seem too steep, and give those of us who actually play the game a way of unlocking one (or more) during an event, such that we don’t feel like we totally lost out.

TL;DR: Hate gamble boxes. Feel like loyal players should be rewarded with a way of obtaining special event skins without relying on gambling. My solution: use achievement points (a finite resource) to unlock skins. Number of unlocks is limited by the number of achievement points you have earned. Proposed cost per skin unlock: 800 points. Points do not deduct your achievement point total, but rather reduce your available “spendable” points.

4. Remote Areas

I’m one of these players who loves remote areas, but this one is quite a tricky one for me to explain. I always loved places like Dreadnaught’s Drift, The Falls and Mineral Springs in Guild Wars 1. Yea I know, it was all instances and I was the only player there, but these places had something else about them. Perhaps it was psychological, knowing I was 2+ zones away from the nearest town, but they felt so remote, quiet, and peaceful (once you’d killed the mobs, anyway!).

Some places in Guild Wars 2 succeed in almost creating the same feeling. Northern Lornar’s Pass, and much of Snowden Drifts are two areas that spring to mind, but you’re always aware that there are 2-3 waypoints within a minute of you. I’d like to see, in upcoming areas, some more remote locations – some locations you need to want to go to, rather than need a reason to. It’s a tricky one to sell I suppose, but the world is large enough to contain such regions. Get far enough from a waypoint and the background music turns off, and you’re left with wind whistling over mountain tops. It’s not make or break, just something I’d like.

TL;DR: If you skipped to here this section is not for you.

Continued in Post 3…

5. Underwater Play

I have three main desires here. Firstly, please could we make more utilities work underwater, or at least have an underwater version? For instance – why does Time Warp work underwater but Null Field does not? Both can just activate centred on the player. To me, some professions seem unnecessarily stale underwater mainly because of lack of utility choice. I’m not suggesting Mesmer is (I actually think it’s one of the more fun) but since I play it a lot Null Field came to mind.

Secondly, more weapon choices would be nice. Main Hand + Offhand combos. I’ll leave the creative thinking to ArenaNet on this one.

Thirdly, do I recall correctly Colin mentioning, before release, something about underwater cities? I kinda feel a bit let down by the variance of underwater areas. The odd Quaggan settlement doesn’t really do it for me, they don’t even have anything inside their “buildings”. I’d love to see a zone that’s almost entirely underwater, and maybe even a fully underwater city. Perhaps underwater legendaries may see a bit of love with this. I dunno – expanding underwater zones, making them deeper and far more impressive would be lovely.

TL;DR: More underwater Utility Skill choice, more weapon variety and improved underwater regions!

6. Cantha, Please.

Oh please please please please.

TL;DR: CANTHA!!
_________________________________________

Conclusion.

Some of the above is a bit of a dream, I admit it. This post is one I’ve been wanting to make for some time but always seem to be busy these days. For all my occasional whining I do adore this game – until I see another gamble box idea and then, I must say, my support of ArenaNet is very tested.

I know some of my suggestions are not for everyone, and that’s fine – we all have a different idea of what’s fun. All I ask is that any responses are kept civil. Thanks for reading!

On the world bosses I tend to agree with what you say. I’m one of the few I noticed that fight the mobs during teq because I don’t like to just sit there autoattacking the boss. They did mention that it only scales to a certain number and not beyond that. So many people are at world bosses on my server they don’t stand a chance. The number fighting is a lot higher than the scaling can produce an interesting fight (mechanics aside)

Jormag is on the right path, the debuff you get hurts so much you have to wait until its down before you can approach safely. The others should follow suit. In Teq the gun should HAVE to fire, or the mobs WILL attack from behind if you don’t take care of them.

Sarie.1630:

Wow, that title was a bit pretentious. Sorry for that.

The game has been out for almost a year now. I’d like to take the time to review the direction the game is taking and discuss some improvements I’d like to see, and possibly some current features I’d like to see remain as they are. For lazy people, or people who do not care, at the end of each section will be a TL;DR blurb. Prepare your butts and buckle up, it’s Wall o’Text time!

1. World Bosses

They just don’t do enough. I’m talking about the dragon champions, shadow behemoth and fire elemental especially. I know, many people want to get in quick and farm them as fast as possible in order to move onto the next. I understand that, I do, but too much of me wants these to be far more difficult. Ulgoth and the Megadestroyer are not bad fights in my view, and the fire elemental used to be great in beta. Many of the other bosses need to be far more dangerous than they currently are. I assume it must be difficult to achieve given the numbers of players who turn up to these events. Preliminary ideas could be as follows:

I would like ArenaNet to think bigger than that. Those are meant to be some of the most epic fights in the game, so they should be treated as such. I wish they would have:

• Multiple phases. Jormag is the “least bad” one in this aspect, but all dragon bosses should have more than one phase.

• Random phases. Using Jormag as an example, he always goes from the “ice barrier” phase to the “exploding golems” phase. Ideally, there would be many possible phases, so one time Jormag would go from the “ice barrier” phase to the “exploding golems”, but another time he would go from the “ice barrier” to “army of frozen moas”, and some other time he would begin at “Pact cannons” and go to “exploding golems”. This kind of variety would really help.

• Failure conditions. Ideally, all dragon bosses should be capable of defeating the players, and changing the area around them until players manage to fight them back. Such as icebrood dominating the north section of Frostgourge Sound, or the Shatterer increasing its corruption to the west, and similar effects.

Sarie.1630:

4. Remote Areas

I’m one of these players who loves remote areas, but this one is quite a tricky one for me to explain. I always loved places like Dreadnaught’s Drift, The Falls and Mineral Springs in Guild Wars 1. Yea I know, it was all instances and I was the only player there, but these places had something else about them. Perhaps it was psychological, knowing I was 2+ zones away from the nearest town, but they felt so remote, quiet, and peaceful (once you’d killed the mobs, anyway!).

Some places in Guild Wars 2 succeed in almost creating the same feeling. Northern Lornar’s Pass, and much of Snowden Drifts are two areas that spring to mind, but you’re always aware that there are 2-3 waypoints within a minute of you. I’d like to see, in upcoming areas, some more remote locations – some locations you need to want to go to, rather than need a reason to. It’s a tricky one to sell I suppose, but the world is large enough to contain such regions. Get far enough from a waypoint and the background music turns off, and you’re left with wind whistling over mountain tops. It’s not make or break, just something I’d like.

TL;DR: If you skipped to here this section is not for you.

Loved this section. And for the records, very few things can make me laugh on the internet these days, but your TL;DR did it, nice job.

I would agree on the points made on Jormag. He is by far the most interesting dragon champion fight. With fewer people, as was the case just after release when few people had leveled to 80 and the dragon timer didn’t exist his difficulty was nice I thought. Even with his additional mechanics over some of the other world bosses he still doesn’t really … scare me.

Pretty good comments all around OP. I agree with most of this.

Unfortunately, the world boss thing will end up being like temples though. No one wants to do temples because they’re too hard. If you make the world bosses harder, you’ll have a kittenstorm on the forums. People want their easy loot. Not me, but it’s not an easy change for Anet to make. Maybe after they redo the loot system.

The rest of it, pretty much spot on. Good job.