Guild Wars 2

For quite a while now we’ve seen many people comment and complain on the state of the game, especially when it comes to PvE. The veterans of GW1 miss gearing and utility skill slotting from the first game and the trinity lovers miss defined roles and from what I’m reading, seem to miss the healing part of it the most. People who don’t enjoy trading and want fanciful gear are going on about the state of the economy and screaming “manipulation” and the like.

This thread, or at least post, will be about the PvE and Trinity topics.

Before we begin I’d like to remind everyone what GW2 is: An MMOARPG. I put in the A there because it really is an action game much like Monster Hunter(henceforth MH), TERA Online and PSO2. I’ll be comparing GW2 to MH. I would love to compare GW2 and TERA Online and how both are ARPGs but different but that will be for some other time.

Side note: There will be tl;drs at the end of each topic I bring up. I will try my very best to be very serious as I type it out but I will most probably end up being extemely casual and bring in references from other games, joke about, etc. Probably. But I will do my best to put on my serious face.

The State of PvE

As for most of the community, at least those who visit the forums, PvE is extraordinarily easy. There’s a lack of challenge and people are pushing for going full zerkers and have been doing so for months. It’s frustrating for those who want to play support, make things bleed, or just play a different build as opposed to going pure offence. While this is frustrating to said players I actually find this to be very normal given that the game possesses the elements of an action game. Also, this is a product of the community, rather than the game design itself.

Let’s take a little look at MH for this.

In MH you go out, hunt monsters, come back with their parts and make gear out of it. Some pieces of armour would give you skills that flat out boosted your stats such as HP+, Defence+, Critical rate+, Elemental Damage+ and others would give you bonuses which decreased the animation rate of your Weapon Sharpening and Eating. I cannot say for all players because that would be presumptuous of me but I believe, from talking about it with the players I’ve met here in Malaysia, many opt to take defensive and utility skills for quite a long while until they get much better.

At that point they would usually take what is jokingly called the “uniform”; the Silver Rathalos armour or customize their own gear set for every elemental weapon. The Silver Rathalos armour, and customized gear at that point, is completely offence based. They would have armour values but would come with things such as Critical+, Damage+, Elemental Damage+. You would also see people bombing themselves to high heaven so that they’d have minimal HP in order to proc Felyne Heroics, an attack buff that requires you to be near death. All they have is their weapon and active defenses.

This is very much like GW2. Having started near launch I can tell you people were trying to range dungeons at the very beginning before evolving, as skills developed and mechanics understood, to running balanced builds and finally pure damage ones. This isn’t really due to the fault of GW2 itself but rather the essence action games, games that require active input.

Also, the community plays a huge part to the state of the game. Part of the community has evolved in skill that using anything other than zerkers would be inefficient. It’s like running something other than damage enhancing armours in MH. You could, but there’s no real reason to. The only problem is that in GW2 you have official forums and you’re playing online all the time. People will read things online, find the most efficient builds and demand that people run them out of the belief of obtaining pure efficiency while PuGing.

((A hilarious thought, I know. I tried running 10/30/0/5/25 on my Guardian generally PuGing dungeons and it’s hell having very little survivability and being in a group that doesn’t try to max out the DPS despite going “full zerkers only” and asking for gear ping. A hilarious and relatively weak experience that run was.))

But this is a side effect of the community and how it’s grown. I think, to some degree, that it’s a good thing. Players will train themselves to be better players, hone their ability to actively respond. That’s always nice and good. I’ll no longer see Rangers who can’t go though their personal story, whine and say that ANet sucks because they face tanked and stayed static while holding a bow (I had a guildie do this way back. mfw.).

Side note: Condition damage is also around in MH if you wish to make a comparison. It is still a rather ineffective way of killing bosses as bosses generally gained resistance towards status effects as you repeatedly smack them in the face. Also, you need to smack them with the weapon a lot of times before it applies and even then it lasts for a relatively short period. However, you deal damage as you try to apply the status effect. As I’ve no experience with condition damage heavy characters I cannot say if you deal relatively effective damage as you do your thing.

tl;dr: GW2 is an action oriented game.The preference towards zerker is a natural thing and a product of the community who has grown up and people who only read the forums and idealistically build to organized team builds while expecting similar performance from pugs.

The Trinity. Again.

Some people love the Trinity. Some people do not. It’s a love it or hate it thing. I can understand why people love it, defined roles and stuff, but it isn’t something I like. Someone insulting Illidan’s mother, taking his complete, undivided attention while forty other players smack at his legs with weapons sharp enough to tear through his flesh is just plain silly. (Unless it’s Tarkus, the one Space Marine who’s skills at taunting is so artistic he taunts the Tyranid Hive Mind and succeeds.)

The people that love it often complain about the lack of it in game because there is, what is perceived, a lack of direction and the only thing to do is to kill, kill and kill. What I’d like to point out in this topic is that it is absolutely, completely, undeniably true. In dungeons, you go in, kill things, go through a mini puzzle or challenge, kill some more things, then kill the big guy.

Something which is in every single other RPG game, MMO or otherwise, Trinity present or not.

If one were to take a closer look at every RPG with dungeons, one will find that the main goal of most, if not all dungeons, is the same. Go in, kill everything, get loot. Trinity games simply add in an artificial layer to help keep things organized. You still go in, you still kill things but this time instead of surviving through pure active defenses you let a meatshield go in, taunt things and have a healer heal him so he can go insult mobs over and over again while you go in for the kill. In that I would love to say that there is absolutely no difference, in terms of objective, to games with Trinity and games without.

So why is it so loved by those who believe in it?

Personally I think it’s really in the player. Players are people and people, often feel the need for specified roles. If you’re in a specified role, doing a very specific thing required to keep your whole party alive, you’re wanted. You’re needed. And being wanted and needed feels good. Tanks ensure that the DPSers can go about unloading their rotations, healers ensure that parties don’t fully wipe.

((To those who say that they like to tank and heal I ask that you take a look inside of yourself and question yourself as to why you like doing that. I think, and this is again, my own humble opinion, that it is due to such reasons that you would love for a Trinity.))

If what I’m thinking is true, it isn’t so much that players really love tanking or healing, but rather being wanted and needed. Which is fine really, we’re all people here as far as I know and it’s a human need. Totally normal.

The Trinity is often said to create more teamwork than what you see in GW2. This, I think, is but an illusion. Really, it is. Let’s take a look at the Trinity:

A tank tanks. The healer heals. The DPS unloads damage by the truck load. You work in a team doing your own thing. You’re in a team and you do your own thing that is required of you.

Let’s take a look at GW2:

Everyone unloads damage. Everyone drops their own fields or procs what’s dropped. Everyone keeps the team buffs up as much as they can.

Same thing except everyone does a little bit of everything. There is no “less teamwork”. People drop blinds, Aegis, proc Fire and Water fields, draw attention for ressers to stealth ress and so on and so forth. I support and deal damage while built up for damage. I fail to see the lack of team work because I know it’s there despite many saying that everyone is doing their own thing and not playing as a team. The fact is no matter what game you’re running in, in a team, you’re going to be doing your own thing to the benefit of the team.

tl;dr: People like the Trinity because they feel wanted and needed. Team work is in GW2.

That’s it for now, I hope this brings up a discussion and creates new thoughts for discussion. Else I just made another really long wall for no reason whatsoever. (.__.)