Guild Wars 2

This is going to a be long post, sorry.

First of all, I followed this game for the longest time and have been a huge fan. I admired that ANet was transparent, connected with it’s fans, and desired to change the mmo mold that was so painfully stale. Which included Holy trinities,grinding,class imbalance and pvp ignoring, and failed releases and sub fees.

However after playing since release I simply find it harder and harder to log in each day.

WvW has proven to be poorly thought out in the long run. The system is designed so that people falling behind in the map stay behind. It is ridiculous that enemy teams can simply build endless siege weapons in places where you can’t possibly attack them. Anytime you try to get a group to make a comeback you’ll be trounced when you try to take any sort of towers. You’ll be bombarded with innumerable siege weapons followed by a massive zerg and you’ll be lucky to destroy the gate. The range and damage of the weapons is absurd is most cases.

Class balance has yet to be addressed or even commented on. I play an elementalist and I feel like the bottom of the food chain. I die incredibly easy no matter build or weapon combination I try (i’ve tried them all I promise) and my damage is never on par with other classes. I feel crippled when using anything but a staff aside from 1v1 pve/p. I can’t use anything else in WvW or else im useless, and I can’t bring myself to use other weapons in dungeons without feeling like I could be more useful with a staff. We need a long range single target weapon, that’d be nice. But the main point is that we were promised class balance would be a high priority and that they had all the cutting edge technology to implement quick and seamless fixes and were dedicated to working on them as fast as possible. But no, nothing. Thiefs run rampant, bugs are still aplenty, elementalists are not only weak but we can’t even get the bug fixes other classes are getting.

Another thing ofcourse are bugs. Lot’s and LOTS of bugs. I remember reporting countless bugged skillpoints and events in the betas, and what did they fix? None of them. It’s incredibly annoying not being able to complete a map when you want to because of those things. Another annoying bug is one that cuts off all the sound and replaces it with a “woo woo woo” noise in WvW. Not to mention I get at least one game crash a day. Optimization is terribly unfinished, countless people who are getting low fps should definitely not be, and the game is still incredibly CPU intensive for whatever reason. Invisible armies in WvW are incredibly annoying. Taking SM is a lag fest of invisible armies. Personal story quests bug out and either halt progression or require you to restart the mission. No first person camera. Grouping with people for instances is like juggling with fabrege eggs, it’s difficult and you’ll most likely just break everything and not be able to do the instance at all without jumping through a dozen inconvenient counter-intuitive hoops that often cause a domino-effect of people abandoning the group.

PvE dungeons are typically just corpse runs back to an event or boss that will instantly kill you either through means of insane difficulty or bugs. Another thing is ofcourse, the Zhaitan fight, which is an incredibly dull conclusion that isn’t fun or exciting. Most epic DE’s are a mad zerg rush on a dragon foot until you get a chest with more often than not no loot worthwhile. Also, no dungeon finder? Why must mmos always implement this ages after the game is released?

tldr version: They promised us game that would be finished when it was released. They lied, released the game in a horrid condition like so many other botched mmo releases, rarely officially comment on any of the games flaws or honestly and openly talk with the player base, like they did when the game was yet to be released. Their reputation of transparency,honesty, and innovation is slowly fading… I want the game to succeed and be what was originally envisioned, but they have a LONG way to go sadly, and it’s very hard to play for long periods of time right now.

I realize that i’ll probably be met with the ever-present fangs and claws of the fanboys who vehemently detest any kind of critiquing of the game, but I don’t care. This is how I feel about the game and I think these issues should be scrutinized not ignored and replaced with undying zeal. It’s unhealthy for the player base and the developers.

Chewie.7389:

WvW has proven to be poorly thought out in the long run. The system is designed so that people falling behind in the map stay behind.

I do dislike that this is so. The two weaker groups should be able to work together and beat down the stronger one. This does not seem possible in many cases though.

It is ridiculous that enemy teams can simply build endless siege weapons in places where you can’t possibly attack them…The range and damage of the weapons is absurd is most cases.

Disagree in part. The range of much siege (guessing cats and trebs are your real problems here) are consistent with real siege artillery. If they are hitting you and you cannot reach them, build counter-seige.

Class balance has yet to be addressed or even commented on. I play an elementalist and I feel like the bottom of the food chain. I die incredibly easy no matter build or weapon combination I try (i’ve tried them all I promise) and my damage is never on par with other classes.

I’ve yet to really play Ele. but I play a mesmer, another clothie with more or less equivalent defensive options, and less offensive ones. I’ve never really felt that squishy, or that weak in offensive power. I have however heard this complaint from many Eles, so perhaps there is merit. I really need to roll one.

Another thing ofcourse are bugs. Lot’s and LOTS of bugs. I remember reporting countless bugged skillpoints and events in the betas, and what did they fix? None of them.

I can accept the frustration at skill challenges, but I will point out that many of the problems in beta (the strong man in Queensdale comes to mind) were fixed in beta, but later patches seemed to re-break them. I realize that isn’t a glowing endorsement, but I want to point out that there were fixes. These were not ignored.

Also the Sept 25th patch seems to have fixed most (admittedly not all) of these.

Another annoying bug is one that cuts off all the sound and replaces it with a “woo woo woo” noise in WvW.

Driver compatibility issue. Happens in PvE too. Not saying its your fault as long as your drivers are up to date…Anet needs to fix some of the hardware issues still out there.

PvE dungeons are typically just corpse runs back to an event or boss that will instantly kill you either through means of insane difficulty or bugs.

Dunegeons definitely need balancing, both in terms of difficulty and loot.

Also, no dungeon finder? Why must mmos always implement this ages after the game is released?

They prioritize other things I guess? Also keep in mind the community spent a lot of time begging to NOT have a DF, because they were afraid it would turn out like WoW’s “invite 4 morons in crappy pvp gear that can’t play the game to waste an hour of my time and lock me out of dungeons” system.

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tldr version: They promised us game that would be finished when it was released. They lied, released the game in a horrid condition like so many other botched mmo releases, rarely officially comment on any of the games flaws or honestly and openly talk with the player base, like they did when the game was yet to be released. Their reputation of transparency,honesty, and innovation is slowly fading…

I do feel transparency is less than it was, but whether that’s them hiding something or being overly busy is hard to say. I will say I hate the term ’finished" in MMOs, because by definition they cannot ever be finished. I do understand your intent though. The game has a number of problems. Less than some other games have had at launch, but they are there. Despite all complaints I do feel Anet has responded better than some other developers I could mention, and tends to implement fixes (successful or not, sadly) much quicker.

I realize that i’ll probably be met with the ever-present fangs and claws of the fanboys who vehemently detest any kind of critiquing of the game, but I don’t care. This is how I feel about the game and I think these issues should be scrutinized not ignored and replaced with undying zeal. It’s unhealthy for the player base and the developers.

Agreed. While I support the game, I hope you’ll not see this as “zeal”. I try to be balanced. There’s good and bad in all things.

Chewie.7389:

WvW has proven to be poorly thought out in the long run. The system is designed so that people falling behind in the map stay behind.

No, it is not. However, the current generation of MMO players seem to be eager to believe so. The damage wow has done the genre cannot be measured, so shallow and impatient it has made players. It’s just easier to cry on forums than to actually play the game when there is the slightest bit of adversity to be faced.

The launch isn’t nearly as bad as you make it out to be. In fact, it’s been one of the best ones. However, the game absolutely wasn’t “ready”, as in “When will you release it?”, “When it’s ready”. The game was not “ready”, not by any stretch. It’s a testament to how good it is that it was still so enjoyable, despite being unfinished.

Have you tried different specs for dunegeons? Tried anything besides Glass cannon builds? WVW is not the place to test out class balance. Maybe the player is more skilled then you? To blame your problems on class balance is a joke. This game is very very balanced. Don’t like a weapon? try a new one? try and new play style? try and new tree? This game is far from broken dungeons are fun and well balanced and well thought out. Stop stacking DPS gear and balance your self out.

I just wanted to comment on the dungeon finder thing. This is one thing I don’t understand why also it takes awhile after launch to finally get one in. IMO it should be a standard now. I know some still debate this and “how it ruins a community” which is completely false, but it should be a priority. I was actually upset with Rift and ToR because I enjoy leveling and being able to que for a dungeon while leveling really helps. Plus it is a huge benefit to those who don’t have lots of playing time. Why should people sit in a main city or zone spamming “lfg for…” Yes this is how it was done but things change. So I missed out on all the 5 man type dungeons while leveling which was a huge disappointment. I love changing it up while leveling doing some dungeons.

You’re right about a lot of things – exaggerative about others.

All in all though, I believe they are on their way. It has been a wonderful launch as far as MMO launches have been in the past – the genre is constantly a work-in-progress, and this game (should) only get better as they work stuff out.

Thank you for mostly rational responses guys. I’d like to say that, as clearly stated in my post, I have tried numerous builds and weapons as an elementalist in pve and pvp.

And I also realize the term “finish” isn’t 100% appropriate but you get my meaning. Also I realize I may have exaggerated a bit on some fronts, that’s just due to frustration and the fact I didn’t mention the parts of the game I do like enough, and didn’t iterate enough how I do truly want the game to succeed.