Guild Wars 2

PROS

General

• no subscription fee, one-time buy
• free2play option
• no limited content for buyers (nothing needs to be unlocked via store)
• pretty nice graphics (environment, characters, vivid colors)
• okay character editor (wouldn’t mind it being upgraded, though)
• handy LFG system

Game Mechanics

• accurate movement
• accurate targeting system
• relatively few glitches
• decent character animations
• good ragdolls
• easy grouping system (parties, squads)
• great dye system

Gameplay

• easy-to-handle user interface
• easy-to-follow game directives
• simple traveling system
• convenient death system
• very good in-game service accessibility (storage etc.)

Game Support

• excellent support team (best I have seen for any online game)
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CONS

General

• no tutorial, new players are forced to do extensive research by consulting various websites and asking other players
• inconsistencies (especially regarding shop item unlocks, ascended and legendary crafting, and other stuff)
• breaking the game’s style by adding more and more futuristic designs (weapon sets, armor sets, outfits, story gadgets)

Game Mechanics

• weapons undyeable
• very bad terrain meshing (i.e., walkable spaces/paths)
• many of the new travel methods (gliding, mushrooms, Oakheart essence) still have glitches, some more severe than others
• boring skill system (individualization very limited)
• extremely rigid meta

Gameplay

• constantly new bugs
• story 100% monotonous (“Just follow your log.”), no choices given
• no personalized quests (race, personality or profession don’t provide any individualized content)
• low replayability (due to the two aforementioned factors)
• constant additions of new means of travel are getting out of hand
• bad implementation of PvP (fairplay nearly impossible)
• bad WvW system (boring, because “Don’t think, just follow your Commander!”, and unlike PvP requires extra equipment)
• dungeons not made to scale with group size
• no new dungeons
• raids also quickly become repetitive
• game has become too grindy (especially with newer content)

Game Support

• very slow bug-fixing (only majorly game-breaking ones seem to be addressed at all)

Guild Wars 2 isn’t perfect, but my observation is that it is trying extremely hard to please all types of its gamers with a variety of content/skills and settings.

I don’t think the improvements you’ve suggested would make it a better game. It would just make it more overwhelming for new players. But I might be wong.

story 100% monotonous (“Just follow your log.”), no choices given
no personalized quests (race, personality or profession don’t provide any individualized content)

Quests are very expensive to develop in every game. Are you asking Anet to double the work?

constant additions of new means of travel are getting out of hand

I am more annoyed at the camera then the new means of travel. Looking vertically quickly is a pain.

dungeons not made to scale with group size

Dungeons are designed as puzzles (Predictable bosses). As a puzzle is solved, scale does not really matter any more. All that is left is patience and time.

raids also quickly become repetitive

Define repetitive? I dont raid at all. I look at a video and could not care less.

game has become too grindy (especially with newer content)

Most of the grind is for rewards thou.

Raids become repetitive in every game. Gww just doesnt require you to farm the very single week.

Is this thread suppost to be discussion of OP’s opinion, or where we each post our own.

I disagree with almost all of OP’s cons.

Heres my list:

Pros
-Visuals still great even for a 5 yr old game
-Casual nature of game great as an MMO for those who dont want to devote their playtime 100% to 1 game
-Elite specs good way to expand classes
-No subscription
-Details put into maps, dialogue and lore are great and immersive
-Gliding is fun
-JP, minigames ect are fun addon to main game
-Game still being developed with content added consistently

Cons
- Pretty horrible armor customization for a game thats 90% about comsetics. Outfit system is bad. Trench coats are bad. Buttskirts are bad.
-Bugfixes are almost non existant
-Dungeons are abandoned with content removed.
-LS S1 still unplayable. recap doesn’t cover it.
-Event scaling on newer maps is unbalanced and needs adjusting so events can be done when maps are empty.
-Lack of replay ability of content due to heavy story elements that are unskippable
-Guild missions abandoned, SAB development abandoned.
-Balance patches are far too infrequent and game is very rarely in a good state of balance, especially in PVP
-PvP and WvW modes negelcted. Changes often make things worse rather than better.
- Seems like ANet have no intention of making new races playable which makes me sad

Pro – Getting excited about new content.
Con – Watching it get nerfed.

Ashantara.8731:

PROS

• no limited content for buyers (nothing needs to be unlocked via store)

There is actually the Living Story Episodes to purchase. If you didn’t log in during the Living Story Season 2 & 3 you need to purchase them from the Gem Store if you want to experience them.

Ashantara.8731:

CONS

• constant additions of new means of travel are getting out of hand

I do think that it is a waste of developer time and a shame that the new modes of movement / travel are mainly confined to the new maps and sometimes not all the new maps. Movement is such a complex system to develop. There is physics, animations, and figuring out how they will interact like mushrooms or Oakheart with gliding, etc. I personally think that instead of spending all that development time on movement that will only happen in limited maps, Anet could have hired more people to give us other content – like armor

Cons balance changes are more to “shake up the meta” than actual balance. Build variety has been butchered, used traits get over nerfed while unused traits get left useless, etc.

Balance is sad

Cyndercat.5120:

Is this thread suppost to be discussion of OP’s opinion, or where we each post our own.

I’d go ahead and voice your opinion which you did. The OP has been creating threads like these the past several weeks.

As far as the topic, every game has its flaws. Overall, I enjoyed playing GW2 when there’s new content. Unfortunately, after the last five years, I’ve exhausted all of the existing content so I’m not in as much. That’s bound to happen to any game.

Ayrilana, I looked into the OPs posting history and found that 19 days ago they posted about hanging on by a thread. I think we’re seeing the back and forth of a mind in conflict. Stay/Go kind of issue as thrashed out into the community to provoke discourse. kitten many Pros/Cons are subjective as all get out? I’ll add mine as one each to save time. (As I go a bit long on the con)

Pro: It’s Guild Wars 2
Con: To have everything is a huge timesink that can be off-putting to people without hours to spend on the game everyday. I’m a Guild Leader who spends 4+ hours a day doing content and another few hours connected to chat to make sure things are progressing for people. Not everyone has 4+hours to do a PvX run and that is the biggest detriment to the game. It actually has quite the selection of things to do, that can be worthwhile, and when people see that they have to pick/choose/budget it can be a problem.
Toss in Pride issues. Interpersonal communication Conflicts. And the like and it becomes a tsunami of sadness.
It’s a game that’s easy to love, but it can be really high maintenance.

My opinion on the pros and cons of the game …..

Cons —- no cons for me. I still like the game quite a bit hence why I am still playing. If I didn’t like it anymore I would just find something else to play without making a fuss since it is just a game.

no tutorial, new players are forced to do extensive research by consulting various websites and asking other players
Forced to do extensive research? Are we playing the same game? Early PvE is the easiest thing ever. I remember when NPE was released I just couldn’t stop laughing, I felt like I was playing with one of those baby shape sorter toys.

breaking the game’s style by adding more and more futuristic designs (weapon sets, armor sets, outfits, story gadgets)
I assume this due to the new Exo-Suit outfit. Futuristic elements like this have been a part of the game ever since Asura were first introduced. With the Asura, we have Robots, Forcefields, Computers systems, energy weapons, teleporters, holograms, long range communication systems and much more. The Exo-Suit doesn’t break anything, Tech like that is part of the world. Besides a very similar suit has been in the game since launch (see Asura Heavy Cultural T3).

weapons undyeable
I agree on that one, though I can sorta understand why the devs never implemented that. Adding dye channels to all weapons will significantly increase their workload.

constantly new bugs
Just like every online game ever. Everytime a game is patched (online games are patched a lot), it fixes bugs but also adds new ones. It’s like playing wack-a-mole. Guild Wars 2 is no different.

story 100% monotonous (“Just follow your log.”), no choices given
The personal story had choices, allowing you to choose between different paths which result in getting different missions. It wasn’t much I admit, but it was something.

no personalized quests (race, personality or profession don’t provide any individualized content)
Apart from the personal story quests up to level 30, you are correct. There shouldn’t be any balance differences between races, but more different story quests would be really neat.

low replayability
Playing with different classes/builds added great replayability for me, the race specific story quests were nice too.

no new dungeons
Definitely agree there, it’s a shame Anet abandoned them.

for me it is this

PROS
General

no subscription fee, one-time buy
character editor
great dye system
play long as you like
ok pve
Game Support
very bad doss attacks
super slow bug-fixing . unless it is one that breaks the gem store or the game its self
support team ok not like it used to be
very little communication . unless its reddit

Game Mechanics
good movement
glitches all over the place and many bugs
character animations good
dye system better than most games

CONS
graphics stuck in the past with DX9 A while many older games have DX11 and new video card support for SLI and cross fire as well as support for newer CPU,S

breaking the game’s style
weapon sets, armor sets, outfits, story gadgets with clipping or not working at all or only sometimes working

time gating with ascended and legendary crafting system
weapons undyeable
broken personal storylines

very bad terrain meshing hot and all of living story
new travel methods (gliding, mushrooms, Oakheart essence hard to get for new players

super boring skill system very limited compared to guild wars and other games

all meta events

Gameplay

constantly old and new bugs never fixed unless they break the game or gem store
no personalized quests like guild wars or other games have
very bad pvp
very bad wvw
dungeons they gave up on them for factuals
raids very hard for new people to get into them as well as mid game players
dps checkers despite the very fact the game has its own built in dps checking system

doss attacks (last 2 weeks )
no SLI support
no Crossfire support
no new graphics or video card support (NVidia GTX 900 cards as well as the 1080TI cards

no new Ryzen cpu support
no FX video card support even tho it had it when the game first came out

no DX11 support unlike much older games that have that this game is still stuck
in DX9A
LFG system broken

new gem store with bugs

no IPV6 can be used for the game still stuck in IPV4

no personalized quests or otherwise in this game
hot all together was a failure

Balance very poor
things getting add to the game then get nerffed hard

things in the game and skills too nerffered super hard
.
only one youtuber even doing streaming currently on this game at all .
all other youtubers dropped this game from their streams

no proactive steps to improve the game state or otherwise

but thankful for the drevs that do stuff on their own time to at least
try to make the game more better for us all