Guild Wars 2

“In the Eye of the Beholder”-Questions are lovely. Everyone has an opinion but that opinion is in no doubt^^

Here is mine:

2014 was a big disappointment if you are a WVW Player. Same ol’ problems and it seems Anet has no clue what they can do about it. At least they asked at the very end the community about ideas. Hopefully this won’t be too late. Positive to me were the changes to the tPvP System early this year but i don’t play tPvP frequently so tPvP interested player may disagree.

Thus 2014 is, again: in my opinion, just an improvement for PVE Player who are interested in the Story and in Farming. To me the LS is too shallow and predictable. At some point even odd. Furthermore it feels to me like GW2 became a real grinder. Not like “i farm that dungeon for item x” but a slot machine in a Casino.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I really preferred the content and delivery of LS Season One, but I do like the new Silverwastes map.

For me? Both years had their high points…and some things I didn’t enjoy as much.

Still, I think ArenaNet is learning and trying to improve as time goes by. It’s difficult, though, to please everyone as we all have different preferences.

Silverwastes in the end is the best of both worlds .. its something compareable to
the battle in Lions Arch but as permanent content.

And that is maybe what i expect really as permanent LS content and not those
instances that i mostly will never touch more than once.

Biggest problem for me in 2014 was in the end that it was just a big break followed
by the next big break, and even another big break since the end of LS1.

Well, the year started out with the final of the LS1 after a longish break. Mostly zerg content for guardians with a stuff that spammed 1 to get the most loot.
This included the buggiest release ever, the final episode, that took ANet a week of the two weeks the event was running to fix it (more like putting tons of band-aids over all the broken stuff).

Than there was the long nothing, the first feature patch, which at least for me seemed like the greatest waste of ressources (until the second feature patch (NPE) which was a even bigger waste of DEV time), four episodes of instanced single player boredom another looooong break, the mentioned NPE (yeah, finally the game works like all other MMOs, yay!) and recycled content.

Did I miss something? 9 mini episodes in 11 monthes, 2 patches, that mostly dumbed down the game and limited the freedom of new players by gating traits and stuff and, for most of the time, nothing at all.

Render me not impressed, most MMOs offer more content than this in a single content update every two to three monthes. Or you get an expansion which is like at least 20 times more content than this.

Vayne.8563:

Just because you say something, doesn’t make it truth. …

It actually does make it truth – to myself and others who experienced it, and to those who understand where I’m coming from. Someone who hasn’t ‘been there’ cannot comprehend it, sadly. But that does not mean the ‘it’ captured by the original is/was not there.

It’s rather lazy when you dumb things down in the name of ‘accessibility’ because providing challenging content without making it frustrating or too easy proved to be ‘too difficult’.
The only reasons they could afford doing so was 1) the goodwill (which was built up exclusively on the foundation of the original), 2) no fees, and 3) pulling the ‘no traditional quests and roles’ card (which, however, seems to be working out more against the game, rather than in its favour).

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 was more of a niche game than Guild Wars 2, for a lot of reasons. …

Of course it was niche. It was a >pvp< mmo. And what of it? Given the time of its launch (when WoW was at the peak of its strength), it was a great success, also because it was so niche and so different from established mmos. The biggest problem, however, was its timing, because it was years ahead of its time – most notably, years before streaming and esports went big.

Vayne.8563:

And there are other factors. You can’t introduce an MMO that’s completely different on all fronts, because the public won’t accept it. …

Well GW did just that – sth completely different than anything on the market (to this day, mind you), and surprise! it turned out rather successful in its uniqueness. Successful enough that it allowed the company to build up a new game on its foundation, although unfortunately discarding most things that helped it get so far.

Vayne.8563:

But I don’t actually think there’s anything lazy about this game. …

Don’t try to sell the original short when it comes to the overall quality – the bugs were few and far in between, skill descriptions concise, skill animations well-telegraphed and clear, and designs visually attractive yet not overloaded with particle effects. And most notably, if a major game-breaking bug happened to appear (be it pvp or pve), it was hot-fixed immediately.

Any half sensible player can tell as much, but those who favour the second game are hell-bent on sticking to their ‘fingers in ears while singing the la-la-la’ policy…which is why the quality of the game is still dismall. Which is why things either aren’t improving, or are improving at a glacial pace. Competition-wise, the pvp side is as good as dead, I just wonder how long the pve fraction will hold.
Pointless to try discredit me when I simply point out the obvious.

Vayne.8563:

Which isn’t particularly hurting the game. The game is doing fine. It will continue to do fine.

Every customer that walks is hurting the game, it’s just a question of how much.
Btw do you have an mp3 player turned on during the night to stream those 3 sentences over and over again when your sleep? Because that’s exactly how that constant self-repetition mantra sounds like to me. It’s great that you think the game is doing ‘fine’, but I like to present a version of reality where the game did not work fine, or rather, where it did not work at all, and you saying the opposite makes it no less real.

Vayne.8563:

Innovation is all well and nice, but it also has to be tempered, because people won’t jump from one format to another…

Oh it was tempered perfectly in GW, and many people appreciate(d) the novelty and the fresh ideas. Few games manage to build up a foundation as solid as that of GW is, yet the baby was thrown out the window with the baby water to copy the very game they initially tried getting away from. Isn’t that ironic.

Vayne.8563:

I think Anet’s design decisions were deliberate, trying to figure out just how much innovation the average MMO player could deal with.

Oh yes, they were indeed deliberate. But the implementation this time around ended up ‘all over the place’, feeling a lot less organized/thought out, and it shows. And some were just plain bad ideas to start with.

Continued disappointment sums up 2014 for me.

-Still waiting on the same fixes that were in discussion during BWE2.

-They broke the trait system, and are still uncommunicative about how they intend to fix it.

-We’re still waiting for the “expansion’s worth of content” that was supposedly going to be delivered via living story.

-RNG is still the sole route to quality rewards that doesn’t involve the gemstore. (The new backpack is a notable step in the right direction, credit where it’s due).

-Precursor crafting (cough) yeah…

Not worth the effort to continue the list. Their success or failure is subjective. For me, the little bit of gold has been eclipsed by their handling of things for it to be anything but a failing grade.

Seeing the potential for greatness being frittered away by mismanagement and blatant greed is disappointing.