Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 since the early access days pre-launch. I played Guild Wars before that. And I have played quite a few other MMO style games. GW2 is my favorite MMO. It is a wonderful game that I play many, many hours per week, alone and with friends. I’ve progressed characters of all races and classes to the highest levels, completed all the story lines and most of the achievements available in-game.

Rather than give a long review, as many others have already done, I want to hopefully point out some areas for improvement. I think GW2 is revolutionary in many ways. But, in others it is just like any other game. And some aspects are just plain irritating.

1) Monotonous Grind: exploring the world becomes a laundry list. Enter a region, run a few paces, kill one or more PvE monsters, possibly loot the dead bodies, run by way points, points of interest, click through/kill/wait at skill points, activate vistas (notice I didn’t say view), do whatever monotonous crap is required to get a heart, move to the next area of the map…repeat
This never changes from region to region. Ever.

2) When you think you have explored the entire world – you have NOT: You have uncovered the entire map. You have seen all the points of interest, viewed all the vistas, uncovered all the way points, achieved all the skill points, and ground through all the hearts. But wait! You really only have 92% of the world mapped! What!?!?! How can this be? You MUST go into the World v World (WvW) areas, which are Player v Player oriented, in order to complete the Exploration of the World. So, even if you detest PvP style play, you must endure it if you want the once coveted title of “Been there done that”.

3) It is more difficult to explore the world as a lofty level 80 character than as a lowly 1st level beginning character. In the beginning of a character’s “career” the low-level character can explore their world quite easily. They can explore large areas of the first few regions without even entering combat at all. And when they do meet with martial resistance to their progress, it is relatively unlikely they will even be seriously challenged except in areas of the region designed for the highest levels of the designated range for that region.

However, for the level 80 character exploration of their level-appropriate regions becomes a tedious task of almost constant combat. The PvE monsters (even the ones just standing on the road serving no purpose except to be in the way) are much more difficult to defeat than their level-appropriate counterparts in the lower level regions. The Grind is much slower, tougher and less rewarding.

Hm?

I would say that Orr, Southsun Cove, Dry Top and Silverwastes are quite different from what you are describing there.

4) Group play REQUIRED for PERSONAL story progression: The personal story tracks are a wonderful innovation in MMO gaming. Sometimes you even feel like you have some control over how your story progresses (although this is extremely limited). However, it becomes less and less of a personal story when there is no way to complete the story objectives in solo play. The epic quest quality of the story is great. But, if it is supposed to be a personal story, the objectives should be achievable for the person – not the person and as many friends as he can get to go along with him at the time.

I understand that the very name of the game is Guild Wars, indicating that people would band together in Guilds. And so that should mean that people group together for one reason or another naturally in such a game. But, not everyone limits playing the game to when they can group together with their guild-mates. And not everyone is comfortable playing with people they don’t know.

I understand that the dungeon instances, events labeled [group], world bosses, and even some monsters require grouping. And I think that is wonderful. But, if you are going to have “personal” stories, don’t design the story chapters such that they can only be completed by cooperative play. Not just talking about combat, but tasks that require cooperative coordination between 2 or more characters just to open a door or complete a task. If group play is going to be required for a chapter, it should be indicated prior to entering that story instance. Otherwise it is extremely frustrating to the player.

And Lastly —-
5) NO FEELING OF REWARD: Upon gaining the higher levels of character progression there is little feeling of being any more capable than one was a lower levels. The abilities available to the character don’t change after the mid-levels of progression. The Traits mechanic is progressive, but much of it is so hidden or actually quite useless that it is little thought-of during game play. This ultimately powerful hero now has a more difficult time exploring the world than before, takes the same or more effort to defeat PvE monsters than at lower levels, and gets little benefit from a long career of progression.

I am not really talking about the armor, weapons, or other magic stuff as inappropriate rewards. More like the “feeling” of having a high-level, and supposedly powerful character just isn’t present. While wearing armor of the greatest quality and highest grade magic enhancements the character can still be taken down by a lowly wolf, bear, or chicken. Wielding weaponry imbued with ultimate magic and spells of fabulous power, it still takes sometimes dozens of strikes to defeat simple single monsters just wandering around serving no purpose but to grind your time and patience.
The heroic cinematics show these heroes of legend cutting through swaths of enemies with single blows, leveling entire country-sides with devastating magic spells, leaping tall buildings with single bounds, & etc. None of that is possible in-game. Ever.
It is difficult to feel like a hero when all your efforts, time, and money to build a hero of legend only result in yet another monster on the road to fight and even less ability to manage your world’s dangers than when you were a neophyte.

And even upon completing hundreds of hours of grind, exploring the entire world and completing the in-game story line where one defeats the ultimate evil, the rewards are quite anti-climactic. A bit of mundane treasure is thrown at the character while one watches a movie about how one has just saved the world. Where is the changed world? Where is the acclimation from the masses for being a hero? Where is the ultimate magic thingy the ultimate evil was hiding? Where is the title to hover of your character that proclaims to everyone that “I Killed Zaitan” or “I have achieved something few others have yet achieved”. Where is the one-of-a-kind experience for having achieved all that there is to achieve?

Nope…nothing like that. Just another grind to get a few points on some achievement track which anyone can do if they put enough time and money into getting. Oh, there is another map from some expansion where I can do the same thing I just did over and over again. And they ramped up difficulty so one feels even less capable than before. Great. Wonderful. How exciting.

At least we still have the daily grind.

MartinusDraco.8379:

4) Group play REQUIRED for PERSONAL story progression: The personal story tracks are a wonderful innovation in MMO gaming. Sometimes you even feel like you have some control over how your story progresses (although this is extremely limited). However, it becomes less and less of a personal story when there is no way to complete the story objectives in solo play. The epic quest quality of the story is great. But, if it is supposed to be a personal story, the objectives should be achievable for the person – not the person and as many friends as he can get to go along with him at the time.

I understand that the very name of the game is Guild Wars, indicating that people would band together in Guilds. And so that should mean that people group together for one reason or another naturally in such a game. But, not everyone limits playing the game to when they can group together with their guild-mates. And not everyone is comfortable playing with people they don’t know.

I understand that the dungeon instances, events labeled [group], world bosses, and even some monsters require grouping. And I think that is wonderful. But, if you are going to have “personal” stories, don’t design the story chapters such that they can only be completed by cooperative play. Not just talking about combat, but tasks that require cooperative coordination between 2 or more characters just to open a door or complete a task. If group play is going to be required for a chapter, it should be indicated prior to entering that story instance. Otherwise it is extremely frustrating to the player.

Except for Arah Story every part of the personal story can be done solo.
Or at least I don’t know of any part that requires other players.
The same can be said for the LS2 except for some achievements.

And upon reaching 2025 and your satisfied with all theses changes can we go after Kralkattorik?

Seems like this post would have been relevant 2 years ago… I don’t have any of the problems the OP mentions.

I have to agree with the poster above. I have not encountered these ‘issues’. Which Personal Story quests/episodes (other than the final dungeon) require other players? If there are any, I must be super-fantastic, as I completed the entire story solo, and the final dungeon with only two other players.

Which monsters are you having difficulty with? Especially any that are below your level? My characters are certainly more powerful at 80 than they were at level 15…or any previous level.

Maybe we are playing different games….I am not sure. /shrug

lordkrall.7241:

I would say that Orr, Southsun Cove, Dry Top and Silverwastes are quite different from what you are describing there.

Orr and Southsun Cove are exactly what he described, only worse. Southsun Cove was so poorly implemented that, even after being reworked, it’s best avoided.

Test.8734:

Orr and Southsun Cove are exactly what he described, only worse. Southsun Cove was so poorly implemented that, even after being reworked, it’s best avoided.

I have not seen a single heart in any of those areas.
They are also rather different compared to the other areas due to the whole structure of the events and so on. They are basically group-zones.

Thank you all for taking the time to comment. Although it appears most of the commentary has focused on a single point, the most important one to me is my last one – item 5.

No commentary on that?

MartinusDraco.8379:

2) When you think you have explored the entire world – you have NOT: You have uncovered the entire map. You have seen all the points of interest, viewed all the vistas, uncovered all the way points, achieved all the skill points, and ground through all the hearts. But wait! You really only have 92% of the world mapped! What!?!?! How can this be? You MUST go into the World v World (WvW) areas, which are Player v Player oriented, in order to complete the Exploration of the World. So, even if you detest PvP style play, you must endure it if you want the once coveted title of “Been there done that”.

I detest PvE but I have to endure it if I want the title. Get over it – I did.