Looking Ahead to 4th Anniversary

Looking Ahead to 4th Anniversary

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ubaid.8213

ubaid.8213

Yes, already!

I spent seven years playing Guild Wars. I loved GW. I still do. I’ll never stop loving it. When I look at other games, I hold GW up as the gold standard and say “THIS is what you need to live up to.”

Our guild in GW was made up of a group of real-life friends. We’d all known each other for almost 20 years. Even though by the time GW came out, we were scattered across America, we still came together as friends to go out and have fun in GW. Along the way, we managed to find new friends from all over the world, and we all played together.

When GW2 was announced as a reality, we were all excited for the new adventures that were ahead, and we planned to move to GW2 together.

It was a jarring experience to go from GW to GW2.

First, we knew our characters incredibly well in GW. Sure, we’d all been playing them for years, but it was more than just a “we’ve grown into our characters” situation. There were roles we each had, and enjoyed, and we knew as part of the team what it was we had to do to support each other against our enemies.

ANet wanted to break the “holy trinity,” but in doing so they broke us off into something that required less mutual support and really felt like making each of us the proverbial “I” in “team.”

Now, of course, it was a new game. There were going to be things we had to get used to. But the roles we had worked for us, and it’s what we wanted to do.

One of our members, for example, was a healer, and a fantastic one. It was a role she enjoyed, and she excelled at it. She was very disappointed to find that what she wanted to do had been completely eliminated in GW2, and the closest she could come to an actual healer was to play a Guardian, which she tried and just didn’t like. Eventually, she stopped playing GW2.

Our Mesmer was one of the best ‘rupters I’ve ever seen. Her ability to anticipate enemies and shut them down was a little frightening, and it’s what she was best at. In GW2, there’s really no such thing as a ’rupt mesmer. She eventually moved to WvW.

Our tank who, again, thoroughly enjoyed tanking, found that his role had been diminished, and, since people were going their own way in GW2 or simply going off to play something else, eventually he stopped playing GW2.

Our Ritualist suddenly found that his favorite class didn’t exist at all. He stopped playing GW2.

Then came the other surprise: Our friends in Europe were on the European server. We were on the American server. Now, this is basically because nobody stopped to think that we needed to check who was going where. The reason for that is that in GW, there was no separation of continents. We could all play together.

Our guild started to break up for two basic reasons: 1) It was no longer necessary to be a team. 2) We couldn’t play together as a group the way we had enjoyed in GW.

As our resident Nuker (and degen mesmer in JQ), I found the changes in skills and abilities (which I’ll address later) to be entirely distasteful. I simply didn’t like GW2 or its mechanics, and stopped playing, execpt for occasionally when we get together to try and give it a shot with the old guild, and that’s pretty rare.

In the end, we found that breaking the need for a team with designated roles actually made the Guild Wars universe less social, less fun, and we all went off to find other games to play.

I look back on our Guild Wars days as that final summer before senior year in high school, where everything changes and lifelong friends start to drift apart. The difference is that none of us felt like Guild Wars 2 was a “more grown-up” game. In fact, we saw it as the exact opposite.

Remember when I said I didn’t like the changes in skills and abilities? Right.

In Guild Wars, I had my Elementalist primary and all of the secondaries – over 1,000 skills at my disposal with which to create my own unique builds and change my play style at will. I could use any weapon. What happened to secondary professions? Has their been some kind of biological infection that affected the brains of everyone so that they are only able to learn one professionin the 250 years between GW and GW2?

On top of that, there were my runes, insignia, mods and inscriptions. I could tailor everything the way I wanted it to make the character truly mine. Never, in any game I have ever played, have I felt as connected to my character as I did in Guild Wars. It was truly my creation.

But in Guild Wars 2, it felt like things had been seriously “dumbed down.”

Now, the weapon in my hand chose my first five skills for me. I didn’t really have to think overly much about them. It felt like I was being forced to play the way someone else wanted me to play, and not the way I wanted to play. This left me feeling extremely disconnected from my character. In fact, I’m still not sure exactly what some of the skills do. I just couldn’t be bothered to check because it didn’t really matter that much. I don’t need any skill at all to play. I just hit the 1 key and let it go, only occasionally finding it necessary – even at level 80 – to use any other skill.

It also made me wonder what had happened to the world over 250 years.

The gods have bunked off for a smoke (which in god terms can take a long time), and left the mortal races to fend for themselves. I get that. But does that really mean that people have suddenly lost the ability to learn skills? Were ALL Ritualists strictly Elonian/Vabbian, and when Tyria lost contact with those lands, they all went home and were never heard from again? Nobody passed on their craft? The same for the Paragon. Did they dwindle and die off, leaving none of their skills or teachings behind?

What happened to the intellect of the known world in 250 years that its inhabitants became unable to learn skills for themselves, and yet are able to imbue certain skills into weapons? It’s as if two and a half centuries meant that the people of an entire continent suddenly got stupid.

Why is there no healer class? There are hospitals in GW2. Surely, there are dedicated healers at hospitals, otherwise what’s the point in there being a hospital in the first place? Is there some secret caste of healers who take an oath to ONLY use their skills in a hospital setting?

Looking ahead to Year 4 in Guild Wars 2, I would love to see some of the old things, the great things, the things that made Guild Wars such a fantastic game, make a return in Guild Wars 2.

Don’t force us to play ANet’s way. Let us play the way we want to play. Let us take the roles we had and loved. Let us connect with our characters again. Let us be part of a team again.

Make me want to play once more in the world I loved and enjoyed for six years.

These are my wishes for the 4th anniversary of Guild Wars 2.

Perhaps that’s just a dream that may never happen, but aren’t most wishes?

Looking Ahead to 4th Anniversary

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: niea.7504

niea.7504

My wish is for a tldr.

Looking Ahead to 4th Anniversary

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ubaid.8213

ubaid.8213

My wish is for a tldr.

From “How to give good feedback”:

“Avoid abbreviating.
“Short, unexplained opinions are not as useful as detailed responses.”

This post is for ANet, more than anyone else.

Looking Ahead to 4th Anniversary

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Yamialexa.5103

Yamialexa.5103

While I certainly understand your sadness that many things you have come to hold dear simply don’t exist anymore, I can’t quite get behind some of your reasoning.
You ask if people have become stupid because they can only have one profession. Well, why could charas in gw1 only have 2? Were they too stupid/too lazy to learn more? Why was there no crafting? I’m sure some people back then knew how to make weapons and the like? You ask why there are no healer roles, but why not ask for farmers or butchers? Just because they exist ingame, doesn’t mean they’re playable.

Don’t get me wrong, I see what you’re missing, but to explain it like this in lore terms is a bit silly.