- Dynamic events bugged. On Emhry Bay you have entire zones like Timerline Falls and Mount Malestrom bugged at times. Dynamic events are an important source of XP, karma and coin. Not to mention, DE are the only scripted content outside personal story. For these to be broken is for the game to be broken.
- Server population on the lower to mid servers (Emhry’s being again as an example) are scattered and so thin in many of the zones it’s hard to get 2-3 together to tackle an event. Most often the only rational thing to do is avoid events not run to them.
- Waypoint travel cost have implemented a system that makes players pay coin to help others. If my guildie is anywhere except right outside a major (free travel Heart of the Mist through LA ftw) I end up paying to go help them. That means unless I know them personally, I don’t help them and even then I have to weigh things. So yeah, that’s not good.
- Personal Story does not reward those who join in well enough and does not allow two players to complete the story chapter at the same time/in the same instance. I played Retribution through 3-times. It was the next story in my progression all three times, but since I didn’t initiate the instance I got no credit for it. If two players are on the same chapter there should be an option for the one “guesting” in the instance to get full credit and move forward. Without this the Personal Story system strongly discourages group play. The problem with this is that Personal Story are like Missions for GW1 these are where the good scripted content that you want to experience with others lives. Bad design Anet. I’m just going to say it, very very bad design. With personal story, you’ve baked in a single player game inside an MMO. The problem is that MMO desperately needs the content you’ve locked away in the single player experience because without it there is no real story. I love your game I don’t want it to be broken like this, I’m very upset that it was designed this way. It’s just horrible for group play and this is amplified with the broken events. Since I’m in no need of a healer and my profession and switch between range and DPS on his own I’m not really needing to use group strategy for anything. Essentially there is nothing to do with others in a structured way except dungeons.
- Dungeons in story mode lack need for strategy. No holy trinity, no need for any thought on the part of build configuration at all doing the first three AC, CM, TA. Sorrows Embrace story mode is also a cake walk up until the final endboss. That endbos was the first time in game I played with a structured team and we had to actually use strategy. The entire game after level 50 or so should be like this. But before you go make it harder, please fix some of the other issues first!
- Personal Story can’t be repeated: This is another big deal. There are several of my chapters I enjoyed enough to go back and replay. Some I’d like to experience with friends. Again, this is horribly flawed as the real “meat” of the game is locked away and designed around personal story. This is where the dialog is, this is where the complex scripted events are. This is where the writing of the game went and it’s designed to be experienced, alone? In an MMO? I get that Anet wanted to design something different, but this does not work!
- Most Personal Story chapters are hack and slash and lack puzzles. I dare say the first GW series of games all did a better job in this area. I can’t express how disappointed I am. Don’t take this comment and say “go play GW1”, I am just comparing the level design and puzzle challenge aspect of the two games.
- ArenaNet’s definition of endgame needs rethinking. Level 80 players with nothing to do aren’t really wanting to run the same dungeon all the time. We need something raid like that’s not a raid. Something instanced for max level, max stat large groups that plays out over the world over a series of days with stackable rewards each day leading up to something climatic at the end of each week. I have ideas too big and too OT for this thread. So that’s my big request for down the road, as an immediate fix please give better rewards in WvW. What does WvW reward right now? Nothing really.
I think the WvW maps would be a great location for new instanced content. Perhaps mix PvE and PvP elements as AION did. It just seems there is so much that could be there for max stat characters that isn’t.
Had I reviewed the game a week after lunch ~level 50 I would have probably scored it a 96/100. If I reviewed it today (only a few weeks later) I’d probably score it a 85/100. I just wanted the game to be so much more than it turned out. I wanted it to be stable and to meet the exceptional quality of past ArenaNet products (I’m talking specifically about lack of bugs). This game has an unacceptable # of bugs
(edited by SamTheGuardian.2938)