Guild Wars 2

DiogoSilva.7089:

Fuz.5621:

I don’t agree with massively article at all.

This game has problems. But none of them is among the ones mentioned by them.

Do you seriously think that everything about the story and the “progression” of this game is fine?

Yep.

The problems are mostly end-game related.

Cheers.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Fuz.5621:

I don’t agree with massively article at all.

This game has problems. But none of them is among the ones mentioned by them.

Do you seriously think that everything about the story and the “progression” of this game is fine?

No, but it’s not a major problem and doesn’t really spoil the gameplay.

There are worse ones.

Zeldain.5710:

Korrigan.4837:

@Rhysati: dynamic events are the CORE of GW2’s PVE gameplay. The hearts where only added late in beta to make people used to the “WOW clone” system feel more comfortable.

And your paragraph about roles shows that despite your little introduction, you are still so used to the WoW-like trinity that you can’t imagine something else working. You only play since 6 days… let the game take you in, instead of trying to compare it and make it match with past experiences. Forget those hearts, go explore. Find those events, those puzzles, dungeons, that are all over the place.

Another hint… if you’re doing the same dynamic events over and over again, you are doing something wrong, not the game. The problem with people used to the WoW model like you is that you are used to the game holding your hand all the time… GW2 doesn’t do that, the game expects that you are a human being, not a machine following a predefined path, it expects you to go out of the way and explore.

If you keep on playing GW2 like you played WoW and its clones before, then YOU are doing it wrong, and it won’t work. It’s not the game’s fault. It’s the fault of all those WoW clones we got served during 8 years who tried to tell people there’s only one way to play a MMORPG. All veterans who played games like UO or AC1 know that’s not true.

No, sorry. Actually, I’m not sorry.

The game’s design doesn’t flesh out the systems how you are “supposed” to play. And if it aint happening naturally, then guess what? It’s the game’s fault, not the player.

Any game designer worth their salt will back that up.

It’s because of people like you that we get the same crappy WoW clones repeated over and over again in the last 8 years. Because of people unable to accept that a MMORPG doesn’t have to be a rush to max level followed by an infinite tiered gear grind.

A game designer worth something will DARE to try something different. Will dare to step away from the sheep crowd. Will dare to kick the hornet’s nest so that the future will be different, and not just another poorly executed copy of a game released 8 years ago.

And I’m not a WoW hater. I played the game for 7+years, with two accounts. It’s a great game. But it’s time for a change, and GW2 started that change.

Or do you REALLY want to play poor imitation of WoW number thousand in 2020? As much as I enjoyed WoW for all that time, with 2 subscriptions, I do NOT want that.

I’ve played UO. I’ve played AC1. I know games not based on gear grinds or forced grouping end game can work. Unlike the generation which only knew WoW clones, I know MMORPGs are not limited to an eternal gear tier grind.

I feel that the zones quite often do not reward enough experience, and the events are frustrating to try and find and track. Also, the combat is rather complicated and involves lots of abilities/spells in combination with quite a few major traits combinations. The amount of complexity to the professions customization system throws me off frankly. Take for instance that you likely will have to carry all your weapons in your bags to be as viable for any situation as possible. In addition, you might want to carry a second set of armor and trinkets to be versatile. Then you have a host of utility options in combination with elite skills. To make matters worst no spell seems to last very long when taking into account how long it takes to kill a veteran mob. So i guess I have to carefully consider what control options I use and when in order to take less damage when attempting to solo such encounters. Unless of course solo’ing the game world was not really intended to be a viable option.

If you carry magic find gear, then that all takes up a lot of room. In addition your main set of gear and perhaps also a pvp oriented set will take up even more room. Want to help upgrade your keeps and slow down the enemy while also boosting your supply for your world in WvWvW? Well that is going to cost you a huge chunk of change, so much that it makes it frustrating trying to play the game just to grind for gold in order to have fun helping out my world as it competes against other worlds. Way too costly in my opinion. Why not just make the upgrades cost karma instead?

Dungeons are so horribly difficult to me I don’t even know what is going on. I get now that the game is based around an ARPG combat system, and yet our control and support utility don’t seem to last very long. In some cases the dodge mechanic is just annoying to bother with since I would rather be fighting then rolling all over the place, and when I do miss that one animation cause I am blinded by all the very gratuitous number of animations going off on the Boss I get one shot…oh joy!

This game needs tons of refining and lots of fixes. I really like the game world and think this game has the potential to be the absolute top MMO out there atm, but as it currently stands it really needs to refine what just seems too grindy or tedious to bother with.

The trinity argument is flawed and subjective. Clearly the author just misses rigid roles because it gives him a sense of purpose. If he had used traits properly he would have been able to create his own combination of support + damage or control + support if he wanted too.

In fact in most of his points, he just makes broad sweeping generalizations that don’t even apply to every single DE or craft. Crafting is NOT THAT HARD. Come on. It’s pretty kitten simple once you identify the tool system for combining items. Cooking is the only craft that requires a lot more experimentation. Granted there are still issues with drop rates and what not, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they don’t work. They’re actually great Quest replacements, though whether or not you agree that they are totally fresh and dynamic remains to be seen. Some are more mundane than others, true, but I actually like searching for them for my dailies.

It sounds like he played through the human storyline which is a shame because I heard that’s the weakest one out of the bunch. I will agree that the storylines have been inconsistent which is a shame, because the story was one of the things I enjoyed most about GW1. Having said that I wouldn’t say it’s terrible. Again it would depend upon which race you started with.

I will say that I was kinda disappointed with the Destiny’s Edge Dungeon storyline. Almost all of the members were irritating to listen to. They sounded like disgruntled adolescents rather than seasoned warriors or tactical geniuses. As mediocre as the novel was, it was much more fun than the actual story in the game. I found as I completed each dungeon that I cared less and less about all of them, even Rytlock. It made them all sound egotistical and petty.

The author didn’t mention this, but one minor point of criticism is that anet didn’t really explain cross-profession combos. I never ever see anyone calling out combos in groups, they just sort of happen randomly. A nice indicator is when your character shouts, but aside from that, I think a lot of people don’t even know combos exist. Yes it’s on the website, but it hasn’t been used much in tactical play because there has been little incentive or necessity to do so, which is a shame, because it is a great idea. This was supposed to add complexity to combat, but I’m almost certain most people don’t try to use even simple field + projectile combos. Arguably, one could say that this was a bit half-heartedly promoted by Anet and one has to wonder why they didn’t try to make it more crucial to combat. It’s almost more of a fun bonus nobody notices because they’re too busy trying to dps the boss. Maybe if a combo provided a powerful interrupt and they mentioned in dialogue that this would help expediate the event or dungeon boss encounter.

I also agree with those saying that this game does have other problems, but the ones mentioned in the article are minor or non-existent.

@ Korrigan,
The post you quoted has nothing to do with WoW at all. Zeldain basically just said there that the devs should flesh out the systems, which is pretty much the same as saying that the quality should be higher. That’s it. Nothing to do with WoW, unless you think that only WoW deserves to be a fleshed-out (= high quality) MMO game?

Creating a game is not all about originality. There are plenty of original kitten in the market. They are original, but that didn’t prevent them from sucking.

All original, new things are naturally not fleshed well enough, exactly because they are new. Meanwhile, old mechanics are usually improved title upon title. WoW (and Blizzard in general) is (or was) excellent at taking mechanics from other games and improving them.

Anet has created new but rough mechanics, and now they should improve them right within the same game.

It has nothing to do with gear grinding.

The article is a wall of very biased and very subjective opinions – I can argue the opposite very easily.
The only real issue I can agree with is the “area flow problematic”.

> There’s certainly nothing explaining exactly what you’re supposed to be trying to build for or look for when crafting your character.

What the hell? The guy who wrote this article is clearly a noob. ANet has given us the freedom to play the role we want. Since there is no trinity system, every combination will work.

>Factor in the rewards for the daily achievements, and if you feel like clearing all of the starter maps right away, you may very well be into your 30s before you head into your first zone above level 10.

…what? Just what.

Absolutely AWFUL article full of short-sighted views and just flat out stupidity.

From the so called article:

“- Roles are horribly underexplained and unclear” => everything is unclear when you`re stupid dear article writer

“- Dynamic events don’t work in their role as quest replacements” => maybe because their role IS NOT to replace quests ? how dumb is this guy rly?

“-Crafting is a freaking mess” => again, everything is a mess when you`re stupid dear article writer

Ok I give up, too much to quote and it`s not worth my time.

The article was average to be honest. Roles don’t need to be explained because there are no roles, he was right on the money when its just 5 players zerging mobs down. Oh sure there might be some use of fields and finishers but for the most part team-play is non-existent.

The story and characters were between sub-par and acceptable, no kitten, this is something that basically everybody that has played the personal story has already complained about.

I was expecting a deep article about how GW2 fails as an MMO due to its policy of discouraging group behaviour and all endgame aspects having the depth of a kids pool and instead I get a eloquent rant about the story, characters and leveling being pretty bad.

I didn’t even get past the first section it was dripping too much stupid onto the keyboard…

What role is there to explain? – Classes in GW2 are like classes in Borderlands rather than WoW; Brick might be good in melee but he’s not a designated tank, while the hunter is the sniper it doesn’t mean he can’t melee, the class defines the playstyle not the role, and Arenanet did a great job explaining as much prior to release – illiteracy on the part of the reader is no fault of anets.

Korrigan.4837:

And I’m not a WoW hater. I played the game for 7+years, with two accounts. It’s a great game. But it’s time for a change, and GW2 started that change.

Or do you REALLY want to play poor imitation of WoW number thousand in 2020? As much as I enjoyed WoW for all that time, with 2 subscriptions, I do NOT want that.

I am dying for an advancement of the genre… I’ve been here since the beginning too with UO and even M59. Played WoW since day 1, and still subscribe. So I agree it’s time for a change.

But…

Change for the sake of change isn’t necessarily good. And that’s what it seems ArenaNet has done… there were some bold ideas, but either the execution was poor or the systems flat-out don’t work together well to make a “whole” fun game.

So in this case, maybe GW2 is the “bridge game” that another future developer will come in and pick (and perfect) the features that make sense and work will and integrate them with other systems that work well for a cohesive experience.

It simply doesn’t come together for me in GW2.

OK, first off, the trinity wasn’t removed, there’s just no tank or healer. Come with that perspective of the game, and combat makes a lot more sense. For any WoW players out there, imagine when the tank dies, so the hunter kites the mob, the rogue gets some stuns on it, and if the ret paladin was the one with aggro, he plays purely defensively until the rogue gives him chances to go offensive… THAT is GW2’s approach to combat. You play like it’s a game that uses a trinity and your tank and healer died. That’s where I agree with him that ANet didn’t explain it well enough. They kept saying they were getting rid of the trinity, but there was never any real insight to what their vision on removing these roles were supposed to work, so people could… adapt. The wiki only overcomplicated it by explaining basically a different set of 3 roles, when really that’s just the 3 things you focus on all the time. And at the same time, I see it as a step backwards. Removing the trinity opened up the opportunity for some very creative combat, but instead it’s really just the typical Damage Dealer role, without the other 2 roles in the game.

A major point I think he missed in the article, though, was the lack of synergy and diversity between players. By removing the tank and healer role, classes had to be designed into being as self-sufficient as possible since there’s nobody keeping you healed, and nobody taking the damage for you. That came with a big drawback, though. There’s no real benefit to another player besides more damage. In theory, 2 ranged classes that can keep a snare on something is all you need, the rest is mainly extra damage. There’s nothing that truely makes a warrior stand out over a Necromancer. While self-sufficiency is important for solo play, group play really needs some way that players need to work off of each other, everyone needs their spot to shine in a group.

The dynamic events, I agree with completely, and it’s been my biggest complaint about the genre. They keep developing these games around the idea that there’s this infinite flow of people going through all pieces of content 24/7. They usually lack the backup plan for when there’s just only 1 person in that entire zone (which hapens all the time in a matured MMORPG)

The story, voice acting, and crafting, I just agree with.

I disagree with pretty much everything the guy talks about, with the exception of the story, and crafting. The story is a bit weak, and crafting (in ANY game) is so awful, that it should just be removed all together…permanently.

I think the events are pretty accurate at least for lower levels. They’re very sparse and limited. I can run around the whole map and see a handful of the same ones repeating over and over. Not much depth until you hit the higher levels and get large chains. More chain events would be awesome.

I totally agree with everything but the crafting.
I find crafting one of the strong points of GW2.
I have to focus on “dynamic events” as Anet likes to call ’em.
Dynamic events are not fundamentally wrong.
Quite the contrary.
But it is the way they are implemented that creates the problem.
GW2 evolved the classic public quest type of event,and created
beautiful chains of events,that span over larger areas.
But,as soon as you finish an event,then it simply respawns
and there you go again.
And to add that flaw,the event respawn rates are way too fast.
And this is the problem when you decide to base your game only on dynamic
content.You need to keep your players busy,so inevitably you recycle that content.
So instead of a dynamic world,you got areas where certain events take place.
Every time you visit that area you get that event,and so on.
It seems to me that for such a system to work,in a dynamic way,
a lot more content and variety of events is needed.
And also there should be two types of events.
World altering,important events,that have a long respawn timer,and lesser
fast respawn timer events,to keep the players busy in the meantime.
The potential for a dynamic world is there.
But as it is now events,and event chains are static,and feel as dumb as any older
games quests.

When he was going on about the story, mainly when he said the game doesn’t give insight on to why Rytlock and Logan don’t like each other, you only really find out little smittens about it, but you get the whole picture through the Edge of Destiny book.

Rhysati.4932:

Roles: I’m a huge fan of playing a tank, healer, or support class. DPS bores the snot out of me in games. Unfortunately, dps seems to be the main focus of every single class. I do like that everyone gets at least some sort of heals, boons, conditions, etc to help out with, but it’s lacking in terms of the direct contributions I would like to see. I want to play a healer or a tank. Or I want to play someone focused on boons and conditions to help my team. As it stands, you can’t really do those things as an actual role. For some, this is great, for others: not so much.

Guessing this is mostly inexperience. If you want to make a tank/support/healer, then go for it. I have a Guardian that is amazing at tanking and support, I chose to focus more on damage rather than healing, but still have plenty of self healing. A friend of mine has a full tank/support/healing Warrior. Greater knowledge of hate/aggro mechanics for PvE, or PvP psychology and he is able to direct a whole lot of the enemy`s attention to him. That Warrior shouts out bigger AoE heals than my Mesmer has as a personal heal, and has more AoE condition removal than my Mesmer has in personal condition removal. Plenty of time in PvP or PvE, you hear guildies asking this Warrior to come throw down a few heals for them, or to tank this enemy while we do that, etc.

Saying that there are no roles is just showing your inexperience… not that that is a bad thing, it is a learning experience. Back to my mention of D&D, the roles in GW2 is almost like the roles in D&D, you can have whatever kind of party composition you want, noobs will assume that DPR (dmg per round) is the only way to do things… but that kind of thinking is just barely scratching the surface of the diversity of builds and playstyles.

The roles are still there, but they are explicitly needed. However having a variety of roles really helps out. When my guild first started out in GW2, the guild was almost entirely Warriors because ``5 warriors is all you need, get rid of that Mesmer and Guardian and actually contribute to the dungeon like the rest of us DPS Warriors``. After guildies started diversifying their chosen classes, and building for different roles than simply DPS, running dungeons became so much easier, faster, and safer.

1. Roles being clearly defined is not a problem of the game in question. It’s a problem with an inability to tolerate ambiguity. The author wants clearly defined roles due to a value placed on boundaries.

2. Dynamic events are problematic for a reason mentioned, but it wasn’t really talked about. The author complains that the events affect the world around you. The problem is not the change. The problem is what happens when people don’t change it BACK? What happens if the change is bugged and it can’t be changed? That is the problem. The author also seems to have two points: the change is too much, and the change isn’t enough.

3. Area flow is a problem. Good points here.

4. Crafting is better in FFXIV? What? Crafting in FFXIV was one of the worst things ever. You weren’t given recipes. You found them by messing around. Crafting was also slow, boring, and required so much work that few people bothered to craft after a while. Also, for the record of the author the recipes were only stored after massive outcry. GW2 stored them from the start. This criticism is, frankly, bogus.

5. Yeah, the story is weak. However, MMOs aren’t known for strong story. Even SWTOR had bad story at times. FFXI had decent story, but it also forced you to team in those stories. I think this criticism is appropriate, especially as a large part of the game lacked impact. And then there is Trahearne.

So the author had some valid points. The author also stated some things as bad that were, frankly, largely opinion and preference. Crafting and role clarity are preference. Storyline and map flow can be demonstrably demonstrated. The Dynamic Events points, however, were just puzzling.

The one part I agree with:

The crafting needs a better system.

I like the discoverable recipes, but at the same time, I should be able to click on a finished product and see all the raw components required to create it.

This is something many MMOs fall flat on.. in WoW you had to compensate with advanced tradeskill window.

I’d love to see ATSW built into crafting pane.

I disagree with the reasons, but agree with the points

1. Roles are unclear…
Dungeons are not as fun as the holy trinity because you dont feel like you have a specialist role. Its like playing a singleplayer game with extra AI. There is little to no snergy in groups, which leave it feeling “messy” this could have been easily rectified by given each class “signature” abilities that really bring something to the table. There is no need for there to be a holy trinity. (take MOBAs for example)

2. Dynamic events…
These are great but to only have them brings issues, because Quests are a better story telling tool (links in with the last point) overusing quests is a problem and so is overusing dynamic events, instead of endlessly ticking off your quest list, you are instead endlessly running through and ticking off objectives which have little depth to them. Story sucks in this game not because theres no quests though, it is because its poorly done, story through exploration and discovery is what would have been better, like the elder scrolls game. But with GW2 you rarely come across things that really peak your curiousity, or give you that hunger to look further.

3. Area flow
I just disagree with this one, the level scaling is a great mechanic. one shotting all the previous content is just bad design.

4. Crafting
I find the issue is that you dont really make anything that can be carried on, i was using tailoring to make armor, only to later find it because inert and pointless later on. I found discovery mechanic very awesome when doing cheffing.

I agreed with some of the more major points, but many of the details and “fixes” suggested were awful…

The whole “all games need more trinity” argument was just… lame. Players shouldn’t be forced to “specialize” and be pigeon holed into a single role. They should have to change up what they do and how they do it on the fly; adapt and survive. I change my weapons, skills and major traits all the time in dungeons and out the world depending on what I want to accomplish. Having to rely on one member as a crutch because they are the “healer” or “tank” or “control” and wipe if they fail because you now have no chance of succeeding is just lame. You should almost always have a chance to succeed; it should just become a bit more difficult when a group member fails. If a player fails, the rest of the group should be able to adapt and make up for it if they are good enough, not be forced to wipe because “ kitten this player died.”

The biggest thing I would like to see, is for the open world areas to be made more appealing to play in; better incentive and reason to play in lower level areas and just get players circulating around more overall.

The dynamic events can be fun, but many of them suffer from an “amusement park ride syndrome”; you stand in line and wait for your turn, then get off and the next group gets on. They need to break them up a bit more and add more events here and there over time, so that you don’t see the same event five minutes later all the time. This is something I would suggest they work on slowly over time though and add one or two new events to each area every month or so for a couple of months. Players want to feel like they accomplished something, having an event reset 2 seconds after they finish kind of erases that feeling.

As for the dungeons, I think if they build more on the fractals style dungeon design, they would become a lot more interesting than mobbing enemies down. The “gauntlet” runs were a nice way to break up combat, and adding some optional paths would be nice too (maybe a couple of jump puzzles, labyrinths, etc. in the mix).

I agree on all points. The fighting is hands down the best I’ve seen in an MMO, but AN counters this plus by stapling skills to weapons.

Vix.6730:

I agree on all points. The fighting is hands down the best I’ve seen in an MMO, but AN counters this plus by stapling skills to weapons.

I personally don’t see it as a huge problem, but a bit more flexibility would be nice. I find my self changing weapons all the time depending on the situation, which is what I think they intended for players to do by “stapling” skill sets to weapons; however, it would be nice to have a few more options for my favorite weapons too. Maybe add a second skill set to each weapon?

Sollith.3502:

Vix.6730:

I agree on all points. The fighting is hands down the best I’ve seen in an MMO, but AN counters this plus by stapling skills to weapons.

I personally don’t see it as a huge problem, but a bit more flexibility would be nice. I find my self changing weapons all the time depending on the situation, which is what I think they intended for players to do by “stapling” skill sets to weapons; however, it would be nice to have a few more options for my favorite weapons too. Maybe add a second skill set to each weapon?

I think many players don’t see the need (and there really isnt one) to change weapons in combat. And of course forget it if you have your legendary. Unless you want to grind another.

0.o

Zeldain.5710:

Sollith.3502:

Vix.6730:

I agree on all points. The fighting is hands down the best I’ve seen in an MMO, but AN counters this plus by stapling skills to weapons.

I personally don’t see it as a huge problem, but a bit more flexibility would be nice. I find my self changing weapons all the time depending on the situation, which is what I think they intended for players to do by “stapling” skill sets to weapons; however, it would be nice to have a few more options for my favorite weapons too. Maybe add a second skill set to each weapon?

I think many players don’t see the need (and there really isnt one) to change weapons in combat. And of course forget it if you have your legendary. Unless you want to grind another.

0.o

Depends on what you meant by “need”. If you’re okay with waiting for cooldowns and making engagements needlessly long then yes you don’t need to switch weapons. To be the best you do need to bring the right weapon set for each engagement and switch according to the situation.

Meh, Roles.

I quite like the organic messy nature of combat in GW2. It’s alot more realistic in a way. Yeah, players feel lost in this combat system, or are bored with it because it’s just that, combat. The whole notion that combat needs to be divided in roles, seems like a silly idea to me. Sure I have played FPSes where combat is just shooting your gun, and maybe I am used to that, but I prefer organic fluid combat instant of instanced version of pre determined roles where you cannot do anything else but that roles.

Be quick to adapt to a situation, use your skills so they contribute to the survival of your fellow players. That people say that every class is “just DPS” is silly, wt f do you think combat is? Sitting there and getting hit? Or standing somewhere just healing? That just doesn’t sound all well to me.

I know, the whole MMORPG crowd is all about “What is the most effective way to play” instead of “Whatever gets the job done”. But I am glad it’s not in this game. (tbh it just reminds me of the youtube movie series called “The Gamers” where they don’t roleplay tabletop characters but go for the best teamcomp and such, which is just strange for role playing imo.)

Dynamic events, are sadly… indeed, repetitive. The problem isn’t as such that they need activation, or that you miss out. They are designed to make the world come alive, when in reality, there isn’t much going on, simply because it would be even more repetitive than it already is. The Dynamic event system is really really cool. But it just doesn’t work when there are no ways of interacting with the world where there obviously should have been.

I would really like some sort of player generated content in some areas, personally, especially with event rewards being so standardized. I could see that certain people could come up with some interesting events of their own. As long as this remains in the theme of the area this shouldn’t be too immersion breaking either. I personally would have at least a 5 minute cooldown and an eternal lasting event. If there is some control over spawn locations or some sort of creative input into them that would be just…wow.

I gotta agree though that story telling is pretty lacking, other than the structure of where to go and such (this really isn’t a problem). It’s not as such that’s youre playing second fiddle, and more that there isn’t enough interaction and little control over where you go. (Youre basically given two options every time) Joining an order and then not being clearly able to pick your assignment first hand is strange.

I think the main reason people say the story is bad because you’re not the center of the universe in the story. It’s clear there’s a much bigger world out there that doesn’t all cheer you up and invites you. Every game that people play YOU are the hero YOU save the day. This game is much much to realistic putting their players into a world where they are just a small piece, making them less important while still trying to tell the overall story.

It’s not the story that is bad and much more the lack of emotional attachment, emotional choices and lack of basically any form of emotional character development, within the story. It’s like it’s made to show you the big picture as well as giving you a proper place in the world, and not really fleshing out any of those.

The only problems this game has, is because it strives to be something that no designer ever has made. It would require so much more dynamic events, much more choices in personal storyline to become what the developers want it to be.

I think anyway. It has at least alot of potential.

Heinel.6548:

Zeldain.5710:

Sollith.3502:

Vix.6730:

I agree on all points. The fighting is hands down the best I’ve seen in an MMO, but AN counters this plus by stapling skills to weapons.

I personally don’t see it as a huge problem, but a bit more flexibility would be nice. I find my self changing weapons all the time depending on the situation, which is what I think they intended for players to do by “stapling” skill sets to weapons; however, it would be nice to have a few more options for my favorite weapons too. Maybe add a second skill set to each weapon?

I think many players don’t see the need (and there really isnt one) to change weapons in combat. And of course forget it if you have your legendary. Unless you want to grind another.

0.o

Depends on what you meant by “need”. If you’re okay with waiting for cooldowns and making engagements needlessly long then yes you don’t need to switch weapons. To be the best you do need to bring the right weapon set for each engagement and switch according to the situation.

Hmmm…

Not sure I agree with you, at least on weapon swapping. Half the time, the mobs are dead before I go through a full rotation. That leaves half my CD’s blown on one encounter and switching weapons to finish the other half on a second mob. When I go to the 3rd, all my CD’s from the first encounter have refreshed and I wash/rinse/repeat. (this is on my mesmer) it got so repeatative that I was falling asleep.

However, on my ranger on my warrior, on my guardian, I NEVER needed to swap weapons…ever. CD’s were up so fast, and with 2H weapons having such a wide arc, I could mash down multiple enemies before moving on to the next engagement. WIth my ranger, most things could be killed with traps and my bow skills long before needing to swap to my melee weapons.

I agree that skills being attached to weapons are where the combat system fails…imho. You have so many triats and you have two weapon sets that you can hardly trait for two weapons (and utilities) without throwing out half or nearly half the traits that are the most useful. And often the traits you are selecting relate to your chosen weapon.

I find that to be the downfall of the system. Instead of traits empowering chosen skills and selected utilities, youi have to have build around traits, thusly pigeon-holing many (not all) characters into similar builds, because they are the only ones that are..semi-decent. And, once you have a build, you will never change it (unless, as a mesmer, you get nerfed hard over and over again), because what is teh point? You have a build, it works, and you can go about your business.

in GW1, if I played an earth/fire ele, I didn’t have to trait 15points into water to get a trait that boosted PBAoE effects, all I had to do was boost fire and earth to boost effectiveness and damage that those two elements did, with some in energy storage for the glyphs. That system COMPLIMENTED skills through traits and allowed for 100’s of different builds that were fun to explore (with no fee to change it up and try something new)

WIth this system, traits unrelated to the skill type (like fire and water) reside in trees that force players to put a little something here, and a little something there…to get a mish-mash build in some cases and really strong and focused builds for other classes, but a lot of the traits don’t seem like they fit where they do.

Just look at the rangers. Their entire trees are riddled with worthless traits and they have very FEW viable builds that it is no suprise when you see one ranger, they pretty much all look the same, and have the same builds. Simply because, they trait system limits just how versatile they could be.

I agree with most of his article, but some parts about personal story and crafting seems to me he just glossed over it and never spent the time to properly learn or experience it at all. I honestly think he either never set foot in a story mode of a dungeon or skipped all the cutscenes. As far as the crafting, this is the most non-grindy crafting I’ve ever dealt with. Crafting is the one part of the game I hope they never muck with because it’s nearly perfect. The only beef is the ridiculously low drop rates on some of the mats (referring to some of the fine mats, not the rares, those are suppsoed to be…well, rare). The voice acting seems to me like they just threw the script into the actor’s hands and said have at it. I think it would have worked out better if they had some video or some extra input for the voice actors to go on (just speculating, I wasn’t in the studio so idk how it went down) because it literally sounds like they are reading lines directly from a script into a microphone, not acting “life” into the conversation. The overall story was good, but he got it right when he said the junctions between the parts of the story splits felt blocky. The splits were the big thing for me as well as no revisiting my old friends. As far as his take on class roles, I think they just went too rigid on the “no trinity” thing, he vaguely touched on it right when he said it should be more like “all classes can fill a specific role when needed” rather than “all classes do all roles all the time” because in the current system, you can’t. Then finally (I’m sure I could cover more but this one is exhausting me already) the leveling through the zones, yeah you will reach 80 well before 80 zones. I was 80 before I hit the 60 zones, but it didn’t dissuade me from progressing, that’s just plain laziness holding you back if it does. This game is not and never was about level progression, it was about content. I always anxiously look for some DE I might have missed, or a new one around the corner. As far as FotM and RNG…yeah fail all around but thats been pounded in the ground so deep I don’t need to take it any farther.

Great article, thanks for sharing.

I really hope ArenaNet reads this article and fine tune their very unique game features. This can only better an already fun game.

Everything in that article I disagree with, except for the part about a weak story. Other than that, whoever wrote that article is full of kitten.

I don’t agree with the majority of this article.

No defined class roles? That’s perfectly fine. In fact it’s what makes Guild Wars 2 so enjoyable and so easy to group with other players. There’s no need to wait for X-type of character to join your party (most of the time). You can just gather up any 5 players above a certain level for your dungeon/quest/etc. and off you go. NO WAITING around for hours to do something because of a lack of a certain type of character.

The only thing I agree with is that the storytelling is weak in this game. Guild Wars 1 was much better at this cuz everyone had the same story and the cutscenes had better angles and camera motion instead of GW2’s repetitive one on one chats. Everyone has a different story so it’s kind of difficult to find anything memorable or something you can relate with other players.

Amiron.1067:

Everything in that article I disagree with, except for the part about a weak story. Other than that, whoever wrote that article is full of kitten.

Given, you (and those like you) who disagree with the author of massively are entitled to your opinion, I am honestly wondering why you disagree with the author? You come in, you say you don’t agree…but why don’t you agree? What is it about what he wrote that you do not agree with?

Some have said they feel he needed to be hand held, or some such, to which I can kind of relate to their perspectives. I may not completely agree with them, but they put feeling to why they disagree with him.

I feel those who swoop in and say they disagree without stating why are a detriment to holding and evaluating the topics this man chose to present.

Those who agree with him, well, their topics were discussed, at length in his article and not much really needs to be pried apart on why they agree.

I agree with him, a lot, except on the crafing. The crafting is fine, although I feel the system takes more of the rare crafting materials than it needs to ( 1, 3, 5 is just fine, not 3, 5, 8, 15). I do think other games out there have MUCH better crafting systems, but that was not the point of the conversation. The point was about the discovery system, and well, I felt it was fine. I enjoyed it, and broke up the monotony of normal crafting grinds.

But to say I disagree with his crafting stance…well, you don’t really know why and perhaps if A.Net is watching this, they won’t know why and you might have well not even posted.

PLease, if you disagree with the post, I applaude you, but can you take a few minutes and explain why?

teviko.6049:

Amiron.1067:

Everything in that article I disagree with, except for the part about a weak story. Other than that, whoever wrote that article is full of kitten.

I agree with him, a lot, except on the crafing. The crafting is fine, although I feel the system takes more of the rare crafting materials than it needs to ( 1, 3, 5 is just fine, not 3, 5, 8, 15). I do think other games out there have MUCH better crafting systems, but that was not the point of the conversation. The point was about the discovery system, and well, I felt it was fine. I enjoyed it, and broke up the monotony of normal crafting grinds.

But to say I disagree with his crafting stance…well, you don’t really know why and perhaps if A.Net is watching this, they won’t know why and you might have well not even posted.

I think the crafting system is fine. In fact it’s rather simplistic once you get the hang of it. I’m also surprised the article’s author didn’t mention anything about the BLTC and all the FUN you can have there.

I really do agree with him about the story being frustrating. While ArenaNet stated their goal of putting the RPG back into MMORPGs at least partly through the personal quest, you can still really feel that MMO aspect: everyone else is doing the story too, so don’t get too kitteny. The plot is afraid to keep characters beyond major segments (Claw Island. CLAW ISLAND.) and only gets more afraid to let the character change the world directly in the third act. The overall plot will be identical for every player, but won’t actually let that player feel important. I haven’t played through all the dungeon story modes yet. Maybe they’ll be better.

I’m iffy on his complaints about dynamic events. In principle I love them as a replacement to the traditional quest format. But the ‘repeating quests’ bit is too on the nose to ignore. Seeing the same bridge blow up and get rebuilt multiple times just gets silly. I actually really love arriving at quests already in progress though: jumping into the middle of things to help someone out is really refreshing to me. I’d say that events need longer recharge timers, but I think before that we’d need way more events. To be fair though, I can’t complain about seeing the same events on different characters. It’s just when I happen to cross my own path and see an event I helped complete half an hour ago start up again that I roll my eyes.

I agree with points 2, 3 and especially 4.

Wtf crafting!! The one thing I absolutely love about my mmorpgs. I swear I had migraine about a couple of times doing crafting in gw2.

I dont agree with points 1 and 5.

IMO the roles don’t need to be defined.

Furthermore, the original game story in any mmorpg doesnt really matter, as long as there is one. In contrast to single-player rpgs, built-in stories in mmorpgs is the first thing that every player will tend to forget about the game.

Most of us just do it for the sake of completing it, otherwise whats the point? Might as well play with a single-player rpg if im going for the story. Most of the real “story” we remember is the one we make with other players.

teviko.6049:

Please, if you disagree with the post, I applaude you, but can you take a few minutes and explain why?

Not to sound obnoxious, but I think it’s pretty obvious what it means to disagree with the article. By disagreeing with it, I believe the opposite of what it entails. I think level progression is fine, crafting is plenty organized and a fairly simple system with an interesting discovery mode, and I think the “lack of role definement” is what makes GW2 the game it is.

In short, I find that nearly all the issues they came up with are just them being too attached to older MMO’s and the unwillingness to adapt to something new like GW2.

Again, the only thing I agree with in the article is the story; it was weak and felt rushed, especially towards the end. I didn’t get the same appeal from it as I did back in GW1. For this reason alone, my level 80 warrior stands at 89% world completion and is still only on Personal Story level 24.

Hopefully this is more thorough. : )

Agree with article

Combat system is good on paper but flawed ingame. You just start the fight with your dodge button ready and everyone runs in and starts spamming dps.
Theres no strategy involved, when you take agro, you start running like an idiot until someone else takes agro, then he starts running like an idiot until someone else takes agro and so on. If you die, you jsut run back…
Holy trinity makes for much more tactical fighting. Saying that theres no movement in holy trinity is just bullcrap, having a dodgebutton doesnt make it “better”

Atleast the instances are easy enough that my group of friends cleared every path in every dungeon. The dungeons are not hard, its just that the combatsystem is incredibly stupid.

Classes are really unbalanced and doesnt give a clear discription on what they can do.
Elementalist for example, many think it would be a mage class with max range damage like normal mages, but infact it has worthless range damage and you have to be in melee if you want to do dps. Not every class can do everything..well maybe warrior.

The story is really weak, liek many said its not your story, your could just as well just have read some text, you make no differance whatsoever

Im a crafter, i craft in every mmo, but this one was one of the worst.
Take cooking for an example, you spend heaps and heaps of mats leveling up and finding recipes, but at the end its all junk, noone buys it and when you get to max, people just buy 1 item, and barely that, the rest is useless.

Heartquests is just normal quests without a questgiver, theres no differance.

In all mmos ive played since Meridian, GW2 is probably the most boring one and way to casual mainstream.
It should be a lesson for future developers of mmos, making an mmo only catered to casuals wont work, they might be a large community, but their not the ones carrying a mmo.

I disagree aswell,stopped reading halfway actually since i think most of it is bullocks.I do think the story should have been more interesting atleast,i wanted to feel like a hero,not that green little tree hugger stealing away my moment.Zhaithan fight is just a mess sorry to say,just not fun at all.And the only class balance issue i have are thieves,obviously they need to be reworked, the stealthing is getting insane,since everybody is now running around with perm stealth builds,they cant be hit while being invis,are invis 99% of the time,and also cannot be targetted,and for you even know your getting hit youve lost about 50 – 75% of your life without even realizing you were attacked,and while they Do appear they have full hp,and are gone again. Fix..Thieves.. and the rendering issue,my only 2 major concerns atm since these are game breaking issues imo.

I should prob clarify that I have no problem with not having defined class roles , but instead of every class being able to do everything all at once (which they can’t) they should be able to swap between more specific roles. Right now if someone wants to play mostly support for their team, they’re just dead weight, the “allied healing” (with a few rare exceptions) is a joke, only guardian does any noticeable healing and even then it’s weak as hell, they’re much better at cc and damage mitigation. So yes I love the fact there is no set roles and trinity, but the current system just doesn’t work the way we were told it would.

i agree with the article in general, the game does seem somewhat disconnected from organised and destinct roles to the point you dont know if somone is leeching from your party or is you are being carried yourself, there needs to be some kind of clarity here.

personally as a VERY old GW1 player since beta days it just doens not feel like the same game at all as what captivated me in GW1 i think here they have massivley let down its original followers.

and you dont actually get any good drops….they are just mats for other dops or to sell to raise funds for top items, what happened to actually getting drops you thought…..wow look at that skin or wow look at those stats…. its all the same…

not the game of the year for me and thats a real shame as ive waited years for it!!

maybe it will mature well but its still lacking in its infancy

“Roles are horribly underexplained and unclear”

True, there are roles and the game never explains them to you. You have to dig into the class forums to discover them when the game should at least give you some basics.

“In short, the whole thing would almost have worked better with a trinity setup”

Oh god no, go back to WoW. Not even Secret Worlds system or GW1 would have worked with GW2 combat. GW2 is meant to be played completely differently, and the class system reflects that. If you had tanks and backline healers, you would ruin the game. There is tanking, and there is healing, but not the same old boring kittene most MMOs use.

“Dynamic events don’t work in their role as quest replacements”

Thats because theyre not meant to be quest replacements. But I completely agree that there needs to be more players per zone. Just merge ALL the servers together, done.

“Quests are one of those things that have gone from being a brilliant new idea to an oversued idea that’s indicative of lazy design.”

Much like copy/pasting daily-quest hubs and labeling them as “content” right? I dont think theres an issue with either standard quests or DEs, its on the developer to make either of them interesting. If the DE isnt interesting, then it wouldnt be any more interesting using any other system.

“Area flow is problematic”

Thats true, seeing as how there isnt really supposed to be an area progression. The only reason there are even character levels is just to feed out content to the player so theyre not overwhelmed.

“Your personal story, in theory, helps direct you to your next destination, but in practice it jumps all over the place, and it’s far easier to just ignore your personal story, for reasons that I’ll address a couple of points down. It also will lead you to only a handful of places on the map, leaving you to just decide on wandering one way or the other until you get somewhere too high-level.”

ohmagaud, letting players choose for themselves while still pointing them in a direction! Please. This is one of my favorite parts of GW2, but Im also kind of an Elder Scrolls fan. I think the exploration is done perfectly.

“Crafting is a freaking mess”

I agree with that. Especially if youre coming from other MMOs – youll just assume you need to use the pre-given recipes, and completely miss the Discovery process. My biggest issue with it is the material costs. You cant level without farming for hours or spending all your money on the TP. I dont mind not being able to make the good stuff without a high cost, but you should be able to level up to make the good stuff without tons of extra investment.

“The story is weak”

Matter of opinion, but most of its pretty weak. I really liked the Priory stuff, but before and after that its lackluster.

Anyway I could cherry-pick things all day to respond, but Ive done enough patting myself on the back for now.

“Roles are horribly underexplained and unclear”

Fact:- tbh I’m not even sure what my role is bar “dont stand in the fire” and “kill stuff”. Thats about it. I dislike that intensely. The game explains very little and while this isn’t an issue until later in the game it makes dungeons a complete mess of everyone hurling themselves around, chain dying, and no real rhyme reason or fun to be had in them. While obviously some people know what they are doing the vast majority including myself don’t and I shouldn’t have to read a third party website to figure it out.

“Dynamic events don’t work in their role as quest replacements”

Disagree, wish there were more of these or heart quests were repeatable. The events and heart quests are by far the best thing the game has going for it.

“Area flow is problematic”

Disagree, in fact self exploring should be a key part of an MMO. I miss the days of EQ1 exploration.

“Crafting is a freaking mess”
Don’t know, have no interest in crafting in games as apart from EQ2 it has never been fun.

“The story is weak”
More “the story quests are bad” . I gave up on them after having to retry multiple times due to bugs or them taking too long.

About roles:

I’m amazed to see how some people need to be told how to play. Take a look here: a “top” player would be happy with being told “These are your skills, combine them to play as well as you can”. A “bottom” player, in other hand, would need the game to tell him if he’s a “tank”, a “healer” or a “DPS”.

In other words, Guild Wars 2 does not tell people which role they belong to because the game should not tell people at which role they belong; players are free to play the game how they want to play (remember how this was one of GW2’s slogans?), regardless of profession. Do you want to make a DPS guardian? Go for it. Do you want to make a support thief? Go for it.

Ultimatelly, this is a superior model than the one seen in classic MMOs. I think people complain because they are not used to this model, and in truth are just seeking more of the same when compared to what they have seen in old games of the genre.

There’s a very interesting article in GamaSutra, here, explaining how, whether people realize it or not, often they want a new MMO to be just like an older MMO just for the sake of being the same, regardless of how bad said old MMO is. It’s rather obvious that the same is happening with GW2: the author of the Massively article wants GW2 to be little more than a copy of his previous online worlds, while the game has been meant to be something new and better; it accomplishes both those things, but it still has room to be a lot better (considering how classic MMOs are very bad games).

Remember Mike O’Brien saying, “If you like MMOs, you are going to like GW2. But if you don’t like MMOs, you are REALLY going to like GW2”? I ask everyone sharing the complaints in the Massively article: are you truly the game’s main target audience (those who don’t like MMOs)?

Erasculio.2914:

About roles:

I’m amazed to see how some people need to be told how to play. Take a look here: a “top” player would be happy with being told “These are your skills, combine them to play as well as you can”. A “bottom” player, in other hand, would need the game to tell him if he’s a “tank”, a “healer” or a “DPS”.

In other words, Guild Wars 2 does not tell people which role they belong to because the game should not tell people at which role they belong; players are free to play the game how they want to play (remember how this was one of GW2’s slogans?), regardless of profession. Do you want to make a DPS guardian? Go for it. Do you want to make a support thief? Go for it.

Ultimatelly, this is a superior model than the one seen in classic MMOs. I think people complain because they are not used to this model, and in truth are just seeking more of the same when compared to what they have seen in old games of the genre.

There’s a very interesting article in GamaSutra, here, explaining how, whether people realize it or not, often they want a new MMO to be just like an older MMO just for the sake of being the same, regardless of how bad said old MMO is. It’s rather obvious that the same is happening with GW2: the author of the Massively article wants GW2 to be little more than a copy of his previous online worlds, while the game has been meant to be something new and better; it accomplishes both those things, but it still has room to be a lot better (considering how classic MMOs are very bad games).

Remember Mike O’Brien saying, “If you like MMOs, you are going to like GW2. But if you don’t like MMOs, you are REALLY going to like GW2”? I ask everyone sharing the complaints in the Massively article: are you truly the game’s main target audience (those who don’t like MMOs)?

If the target was people who don’t like MMO’s why implement a grind so grindy that it would make f2p asian MMO’s blush.

gummz.4928:

What the hell? The guy who wrote this article is clearly a noob. ANet has given us the freedom to play the role we want.

Thats one PoV. You can just as well AN has taken away from us the freedom to play any SPECIFIC role at all. The game only gives you the option to play homogenized (some more some less) hybrids.

I completely disagree. It seems to me like this “writer” is an avid WoW player who bought this game with the idea that this is (just another) WoW clone with better graphics. Well, it is not, nor should it ever be.

Roles are not only unclear, but highly inacessible. The amount you have to pay to experiment with traits multiple times to get an idea of what is stronger or what fits you mostly, and all the exotic pieces of equipment you must obtain for a single, specific build is crazy and a huge grind-fest. This makes most players invest on one and one role only, mostly a general role that can be adaptable to any situation, with some preference to offensive power to kill quickly, and some detriment to party support because you won’t need it for most of pve.

Money sink in build-making is a mistake, IMO. I don’t mind money sinks, but when they go degrade the quality of major aspects of the game, then something is wrong.

SharDarksoul.3024:

I completely disagree. It seems to me like this “writer” is an avid WoW player who bought this game with the idea that this is (just another) WoW clone with better graphics. Well, it is not, nor should it ever be.

Wrong, the writer was well aware that GW2 tried to innovate the genre. He’s just honestly saying that some of those changes have had a more negative impact than both players and devs have expected.

DiogoSilva.7089:

He’s just honestly saying that some of those changes have had a more negative impact than both players and devs have expected.

Actually, it’s more likely that he’s just one more person who would rather have the same old, same old than trying to adapt to a different, and better, system. It’s easier to change the game than to change the players.

It would be interesting to see the opinion of someone who was not a fan of classic MMOs; whenever we see a post here beginning with “I have played all MMOs ever released”, more often than not what follows is poor feedback.

Just my view copypasted from the article (meaning reading it like it is may not make much sense):

Roles are Horribly Unexplained and Unclear

Personally, concerning needing to have which weapons and traits are best for what, I disagree with your opinion.

As a person who enjoys experimenting, fine-tuning my builds and working things out for myself, I don’t think that spoon-feeding should be encouraged. Rather than have them say ‘Dagger/Dagger is best for Condition Thieves’, look at the skills, look at the Trait lines, and work it out. It costs nothing in the Mists to re-trait, meaning you can fine-tune your build and experiment to your hearts content.

As for the roles, on the old version of their website, they had descriptors for Control, Damage and Support. For the life of me I can’t think why they took them down.

I personally play a Control Warrior, with Shouts for top-up healing. Don’t do much damage, but at the same time, I have a lot of CC (meaning I can burn through stacks of Defiance fairly quickly ready to interrupt the next big attack) and support ability.

Dynamic events don’t work in their role as quest replacements

I do prefer the concept of events over ! and ? questing. For me, it offers way more immersion (which is only often ruined by the frequency of the events) than regular questing. While some events can get away with this (being in the heart of Orr, you expect to be under constant attack from Risen), others, not so much (bloody hell, they promoted that guy to Chieftain quick!)

In terms of execution and difficulty, DE’s (especially the dragon’s) need to be way, way harder in terms of tactics (although I think this is a scaling issue; done the Shatterer with 11 people, and boy was that fun), and more far-reaching. Pertinent Camp and Shelter’s Camp, for example. Why don’t the Risen attack the other camp through the tunnel if they take the one camp?

Area flow is problematic

I personally don’t find this a problem. Coming from WoW where you’re practically herded from zone to zone with quests, I much prefer the free-flow setup they have. If I want a bit of a challenge, I tend to leave for the next zone under-leveled. Scaling does need to be much harsher though.

Crafting is a freaking mess

I enjoy crafting. Discovery isn’t really that difficult to work out (mats have what level discipline they’re used in). The only thing I’d like is more top-end recipes for unique skins. Cooking is somewhat of a puzzle because there’s so many ingredients.

But again, I like puzzles. Cooking tends to occupy days in work if it’s quiet and I have literally nothing else to do.

The story is weak

Can’t really comment, since I haven’t completed my story yet. A lot of the pacing is kitten rushed though. 4 missions later and you’re high-ranking in your Order? Really?

I do feel that choices in your story could be brought more out into regular game-play though. Maybe receive missions from your Warband / Order (depending on your part of the story). Maybe Dinky needs your help with something? Maybe the Vigil need you to go help clean-up a Risen attack somewhere.

All in all, while I’m still enjoying the game a lot, it’s not perfect. They should look at the suggestion forums. Quite a few cool ideas there that would add to the game.