Guild Wars 2

The reason for this post is to let Arenanet/NCsoft know how I experienced Guild Wars 2. I don’t know if there already has been a similar thread on the forum, or if this is the right spot to post it, but I think this should go here, pardon me if I made a mistake.

If you also would like to give the dev team your honest review of the game, don’t hesitate to leave your comment. I would also like to ask you not to go into a discussion about this post, because this is how I experienced the game, and these are my opinions.

(((SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT)))

Necromancer:

I made a human necromancer, just to try something new from the elementalist I played in Guild Wars 1. A few things that bug me about the necromancer are:

1. The lack of weapon skills. There isn’t a lot of choice here.

2. Slot skills take way to long to recharge. Most skills have a +/- 45 second recharge.

3. Reanimator trait is useless. The jagged horror dies before it can do anything.

4. Minion AI. Half the time minions don’t do anything. In pvp this is even worse.

5. No regeneration for minions outside of combat. Not having this puts the necromancer at a disadvantage when they engage a new target.

6. Not being able to dismiss a minion. Basically there needs to be a way to refresh your minions outside of combat.

7. No minion control. Minions just attack whatever they want. The flesh golem is mostly guilty of this, sometimes going on a rampage. I witnessed the golem going on such a spree ones for litteraly a minute, in this time I was just standing still not touching my keyboard.

8. Flesh golem disolving in water. It’s an elite skill, yet my ‘crappy’ minions can swim.

Story:

The storyline didn’t really speak to me, the character didn’t feel like a hero, but more of a sidekick. Tibalt, and Trahearne were the main characters in the story, the player was around, following orders from them. Sure you were important to the story, but you were more of a handyman, fixing things. The branching of the storyline was a cool touch though, I hope you guys explore this feature more in future expansions.

As far as final bosses go, this one scores even lower then the non excistent boss in Mass Effect 3. An epic encounter just boiled down to the pressing of the ‘1’ button. I’m sorry, but that’s just underwhelming.

Destiny Edge:

Their side story in this game strikes me as odd at best. I read the books, but I can imagine a player that hadn’t read them wouldn’t have any interest in these characters. It’s not clear what happend to them that put them at odds, and they don’t drive the story either, appart from getting you to do the dungeons.

End Game:

As of now I have 100% map completion, have all jumping puzzles done, completed my personal story line, and I don’t care for the dungeons. For what I’ve seen the end game for the pve player consists of collecting the materials to forge your legendary weapon.

Let me ask you a question: What makes something legendary?

My answer to this would be the story behind it. Because there is no story backing these items you couldn’t call them legendary, instead I would call them fancy items.

The journey to get them is also a dissapointment, instead of making it something grand, the developers opted to make it a grindfest. And the final nail in the coffin: What if you don’t like how the weapon looks?

The worst thing that could hapkitten that a player collects all the items to make a legendary weapon, and then realizes it’s ugly. My tip to anyone who goes down this road, look up the weapon you want before you’re dissaponted.

Player vs. Player:

I’m compared the pvp of Guild Wars 2 with that of its predecessor, and keep in mind I only played a Necro in Guild Wars 2. Playing pvp with my necro is pretty much impossible, maybe removing 25% of someones health bar before I die. The minions I try to throw at a person die faster then the bunnies you find in Queesndale. This basically means that 5 skills in my bar only function when the minions feel like attacking anything at all.

After 5 matches of every class trampling over me I just gave up. Before you call me a noob, or chalk this up to me being a bad player, don’t. I may not be the best player out there but I’ve been around long enough that I can hold my own in any game.

Verdict:

Having 2 accounts in Guild Wars 1, each with 30 titles, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m pretty devoted to the francise. There is a lot this game does well, but it feels empty to me. The dynamic events do make the world feel alive a bit, but the game just lacks story. Moments like where Rurik dies, ascending by defeating your dobbleganger, these moments pusched the story, and I miss such events in this game.

It pains me to say this, but for a game that has been in the making for 5+ years, I just don’t see it. Nevertheless I have played the game for 200 hours+, so it’s definitely worth your money. But I can imagine that there are more people out there that share my view of the game.