Guild Wars 2

I hope that Anet will find any useful feedback from this thread and apply it to the game later on. I don’t care if they put them all in an expansion…

dexored.8432:

I hope that Anet will find any useful feedback from this thread and apply it to the game later on. I don’t care if they put them all in an expansion…

Haha.

This has been discussed to death since the game came out. If Anet was remotely interested in what their customers have to say, something would have been done by now.

Heck, even a statement with a few promises would go a long way toward building up loyalty with their customers, but at this point they’ve burned so many bridges that I don’t think their word is taken seriously at all.

Hexes added a lot of depth and variety and it was a strange decision to not include them in GW2 and then try to make some sort of pseudo-hex like conditions instead

My first question would be did prophecies get you hooked or the full game with all the updates and expansions, for myself it was the latter.

aspirine.6852:

My first question would be did prophecies get you hooked or the full game with all the updates and expansions, for myself it was the latter.

I can answer that. I played GW1 since it came out and the game had all the good things right there since the beginning.

The big hook of GW1 was the profession and skill systems. Anyone who enjoyed the game will tell you that. Being able to experiment and mix-and-match as much as we were able to back then spawned hundreds of awesome builds with WIDELY different playstyles.

GW2 has a boring skill system, and instead of trying to overhaul it, Anet decided it was easier to add a gear treadmill.

clay.7849:

Even getting into PvP wasn’t hard. There were some easy to run builds like iWay that provided a low barrier of entry to get into HA but weren’t OP enough to cause any real problems for higher skilled players.

I got into Guild Wars after Eye of the North was released. In my first – and not coincidentally, last – attempt to PvP I joined match in the Random Arena with a hammer toting warrior/ranger (being new, the skills I had unlocked were limited).

In an attempt to prepare myself and minimize the “dead weight” effect I might have on my teammates I had read all I could. But reading about something and doing it during an actual (especially your first) match are two different things. I struggled, as any reasonable person would expect.

How did my teammates, veterans I’m sure, respond? Not with words of encouragement. Not with tips for improvement. But with a demand I quit. And when I didn’t, explaining to them I’ve got to learn somehow, they reported me for leaching.

I’m sure there were some very nice people who played the game, but the “it was easy to get into” notion with which you remember Guild Wars isn’t quite the walk in the park you remember it to be.

I’m just hoping they take my training wheels off soon. There old skill system was so rad, I have no idea why they wanted to ditch it. Even though the skills sorta got out of hand and were probably a kitten to balance, it allowed for some builds to go obsolete and new builds to shine resulting in gameplay changes with a lot of the updates. This made it so the game never really became stale.

The trait system is supposed to be your way to customize? Honestly at the moment you become very pidgeon-hold’d in going with mostly the same trait line for each individual weapon class, because there our obvious traits that are better. And the traits aren’t usually optional in a lot of cases. Sure, you could go with something different, but it won’t change your gameplay drastically instead it will make you less effective and it doesn’t take a genius to figure this out.

That skill system was like crafting for me. I could fudge around with it for days trying to find something that was unique and effective and when I did I was rewarded for it with effectiveness. The difference is, is that these combinations were more discrete and less obvious making you feel real good about coming up with it. Primary attributes definitely beat class mechanics as well. They actually helped instead of forced you to play a gimmick.

darkace.8925:

clay.7849:

Even getting into PvP wasn’t hard. There were some easy to run builds like iWay that provided a low barrier of entry to get into HA but weren’t OP enough to cause any real problems for higher skilled players.

I got into Guild Wars after Eye of the North was released. In my first – and not coincidentally, last – attempt to PvP I joined match in the Random Arena with a hammer toting warrior/ranger (being new, the skills I had unlocked were limited).

In an attempt to prepare myself and minimize the “dead weight” effect I might have on my teammates I had read all I could. But reading about something and doing it during an actual (especially your first) match are two different things. I struggled, as any reasonable person would expect.

How did my teammates, veterans I’m sure, respond? Not with words of encouragement. Not with tips for improvement. But with a demand I quit. And when I didn’t, explaining to them I’ve got to learn somehow, they reported me for leaching.

I’m sure there were some very nice people who played the game, but the “it was easy to get into” notion with which you remember Guild Wars isn’t quite the walk in the park you remember it to be.

Not saying you viewpoint is invalid, but most GW1 vets will agree that the game was long destroyed by this point in time. You got unlucky, and if you got into random arenas without a monk on the team you were mostly screwed and faced a lot of teams on winning streaks or teams from team arenas if you got on a 5 or 10 game win streak, i forget which one it was. Also a lot of PvX was being utilized with mostly hardcore gamers left playing the most optimal builds. When casual players crowded the game around the other three games you were probably less inclined to experience this and many people took me under their wing when I first started out and I had a lot of great friends in game.

Space Cow.2431:

aspirine.6852:

My first question would be did prophecies get you hooked or the full game with all the updates and expansions, for myself it was the latter.

I can answer that. I played GW1 since it came out and the game had all the good things right there since the beginning.

The big hook of GW1 was the profession and skill systems. Anyone who enjoyed the game will tell you that. Being able to experiment and mix-and-match as much as we were able to back then spawned hundreds of awesome builds with WIDELY different playstyles.

GW2 has a boring skill system, and instead of trying to overhaul it, Anet decided it was easier to add a gear treadmill.

GW2 has a boring skill system I agree. The gw1 part not so, there were not a lot of good skills/elites in prophecies alone. You had second professions that was the part that made it so good in my eyes. I just loved that part of the game.

^ Indeed. The posibilites we’re endless.

The “lack” of weapon skills is what caught my interest with this game. I honestly think I use more skills in this game than in any other MMO, even though it has less skills, but then in return they are all effective.

I played WoW for several years, before that I played DaoC and SWG. Somewhere in between I tried WaR and STO, after I quit WoW for good I played SWToR. I actually think the only games where I used the same amount of skills would be DaoC and SWG and maybe STO.

WoW and SWToR just had so many skills that were rarely used. 4-5 skills on a regular basis would be enough. In GW2 I use all my skills, easily 10+ skills at any given situation with any class, except when farming. With an elementalist it goes up to 25 skills, not counting the F1-F4 attunements, with them its 29 skills.

darkace.8925:

clay.7849:

Even getting into PvP wasn’t hard. There were some easy to run builds like iWay that provided a low barrier of entry to get into HA but weren’t OP enough to cause any real problems for higher skilled players.

I got into Guild Wars after Eye of the North was released. In my first – and not coincidentally, last – attempt to PvP I joined match in the Random Arena with a hammer toting warrior/ranger (being new, the skills I had unlocked were limited).

In an attempt to prepare myself and minimize the “dead weight” effect I might have on my teammates I had read all I could. But reading about something and doing it during an actual (especially your first) match are two different things. I struggled, as any reasonable person would expect.

How did my teammates, veterans I’m sure, respond? Not with words of encouragement. Not with tips for improvement. But with a demand I quit. And when I didn’t, explaining to them I’ve got to learn somehow, they reported me for leaching.

I’m sure there were some very nice people who played the game, but the “it was easy to get into” notion with which you remember Guild Wars isn’t quite the walk in the park you remember it to be.

You seem to miss the whole point of my post that I was talking about early in GW1’s existence, not later. Much of the PvP scene had become disenchanted by the problems of balance associated with the addition of new classes and skills in each new expansion. By the time you tried to get into PvP, I agree that it was a much different scene (and IMO worse) than during Prophecies and even Factions.

clay.7849:

darkace.8925:

clay.7849:

Even getting into PvP wasn’t hard. There were some easy to run builds like iWay that provided a low barrier of entry to get into HA but weren’t OP enough to cause any real problems for higher skilled players.

I got into Guild Wars after Eye of the North was released. In my first – and not coincidentally, last – attempt to PvP I joined match in the Random Arena with a hammer toting warrior/ranger (being new, the skills I had unlocked were limited).

In an attempt to prepare myself and minimize the “dead weight” effect I might have on my teammates I had read all I could. But reading about something and doing it during an actual (especially your first) match are two different things. I struggled, as any reasonable person would expect.

How did my teammates, veterans I’m sure, respond? Not with words of encouragement. Not with tips for improvement. But with a demand I quit. And when I didn’t, explaining to them I’ve got to learn somehow, they reported me for leaching.

I’m sure there were some very nice people who played the game, but the “it was easy to get into” notion with which you remember Guild Wars isn’t quite the walk in the park you remember it to be.

You seem to miss the whole point of my post that I was talking about early in GW1’s existence, not later. Much of the PvP scene had become disenchanted by the problems of balance associated with the addition of new classes and skills in each new expansion. By the time you tried to get into PvP, I agree that it was a much different scene (and IMO worse) than during Prophecies and even Factions.

Which is why I don’t really want to see a repeat of the Guild Wars 1 skill system again. No matter what, it’s just too hard to balance. People say this game is in unbalanced, but Guild Wars 1 was also..probably in different ways.

Basically people are going to want Anet to keep adding skills. By starting with what you had in Prophecies, and then having to expand it, you end up with a system with too many skills, too hard to balance.

By starting small, and hopefully getting the balance right over time, Anet might be able to stop this thing happening in Guild Wars 2…might being the operative word.

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

darkace.8925:

clay.7849:

Even getting into PvP wasn’t hard. There were some easy to run builds like iWay that provided a low barrier of entry to get into HA but weren’t OP enough to cause any real problems for higher skilled players.

I got into Guild Wars after Eye of the North was released. In my first – and not coincidentally, last – attempt to PvP I joined match in the Random Arena with a hammer toting warrior/ranger (being new, the skills I had unlocked were limited).

In an attempt to prepare myself and minimize the “dead weight” effect I might have on my teammates I had read all I could. But reading about something and doing it during an actual (especially your first) match are two different things. I struggled, as any reasonable person would expect.

How did my teammates, veterans I’m sure, respond? Not with words of encouragement. Not with tips for improvement. But with a demand I quit. And when I didn’t, explaining to them I’ve got to learn somehow, they reported me for leaching.

I’m sure there were some very nice people who played the game, but the “it was easy to get into” notion with which you remember Guild Wars isn’t quite the walk in the park you remember it to be.

You seem to miss the whole point of my post that I was talking about early in GW1’s existence, not later. Much of the PvP scene had become disenchanted by the problems of balance associated with the addition of new classes and skills in each new expansion. By the time you tried to get into PvP, I agree that it was a much different scene (and IMO worse) than during Prophecies and even Factions.

Which is why I don’t really want to see a repeat of the Guild Wars 1 skill system again. No matter what, it’s just too hard to balance. People say this game is in unbalanced, but Guild Wars 1 was also..probably in different ways.

Basically people are going to want Anet to keep adding skills. By starting with what you had in Prophecies, and then having to expand it, you end up with a system with too many skills, too hard to balance.

By starting small, and hopefully getting the balance right over time, Anet might be able to stop this thing happening in Guild Wars 2…might being the operative word.

I agree with this. One thing that people forget is that Prophecies WAS balanced. It allowed a really great amount of semi-OP builds that provided a nice way to enter into PvP without getting completely owned, but at the same time were not very threatening to highly skilled players.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the things people didn’t like about GW1 stay out of GW2. We already have groups that are asking for specific classes, builds and even play styles. CoF P1 is the most prominent one, but they exist almost everywhere and will continue to get worse, and we are less than a year in.

i honestly use more skill combinations in this game than any i have played before (MMO WISE) yes you get 2 weapon sets (bar elementalist & engineer) HOWEVER every class, especially ele and engineer have SO many ways of using there own combo fields it is unreal opening up a brand new set of combinations for different situations.

engineers can have around 29 (+ ? ) ’’skills’’ with kits at any one point, then thinkg of all the combo’s.

WoW had TONS of skills of which 50% were never used and/or just silly and useless ones.

GW2 has fewer skills however all have functions and combinations with everything else, skills are useful and well designed in this game, thats my opinion and i see a MUCH bigger variety of weapons / skill sets and builds than other mmos i have played.

GW1 skill system was, to some extent, repeated in The Secret World and quite succesfully I’d like to say.

Classes – one of the sources of imbalance – are not present in TSW; instead, every player can use every combination of skill with same effectiveness.

There are 9 (main) weapons, you can equip 2 at a time to have access to active skills they are linked to (you can only use active skill from of the weapon you have equipped). Passive skills you can use regardless of what weapon you have equipped.

While tehre are less skills in TSW than in GW1, deck (TSW name for build) building is much more in-depth and I have yet to see the great imbalance I remember from GW1, or from GW2 when I still played it.

Add to that the fact that TSW treats it’s players as more intelligent than the chair they are sitting in and dungeons are actually great: no, GW2 has not hooked me up either, it was a gaming dissapointment of the decade for me, but TSW hooked me up from day one so much that I bought Lifetime AFTER they went F2P.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

darkace.8925:

clay.7849:

Even getting into PvP wasn’t hard. There were some easy to run builds like iWay that provided a low barrier of entry to get into HA but weren’t OP enough to cause any real problems for higher skilled players.

I got into Guild Wars after Eye of the North was released. In my first – and not coincidentally, last – attempt to PvP I joined match in the Random Arena with a hammer toting warrior/ranger (being new, the skills I had unlocked were limited).

In an attempt to prepare myself and minimize the “dead weight” effect I might have on my teammates I had read all I could. But reading about something and doing it during an actual (especially your first) match are two different things. I struggled, as any reasonable person would expect.

How did my teammates, veterans I’m sure, respond? Not with words of encouragement. Not with tips for improvement. But with a demand I quit. And when I didn’t, explaining to them I’ve got to learn somehow, they reported me for leaching.

I’m sure there were some very nice people who played the game, but the “it was easy to get into” notion with which you remember Guild Wars isn’t quite the walk in the park you remember it to be.

You seem to miss the whole point of my post that I was talking about early in GW1’s existence, not later. Much of the PvP scene had become disenchanted by the problems of balance associated with the addition of new classes and skills in each new expansion. By the time you tried to get into PvP, I agree that it was a much different scene (and IMO worse) than during Prophecies and even Factions.

Which is why I don’t really want to see a repeat of the Guild Wars 1 skill system again. No matter what, it’s just too hard to balance. People say this game is in unbalanced, but Guild Wars 1 was also..probably in different ways.

Basically people are going to want Anet to keep adding skills. By starting with what you had in Prophecies, and then having to expand it, you end up with a system with too many skills, too hard to balance.

By starting small, and hopefully getting the balance right over time, Anet might be able to stop this thing happening in Guild Wars 2…might being the operative word.

I agree with this. One thing that people forget is that Prophecies WAS balanced. It allowed a really great amount of semi-OP builds that provided a nice way to enter into PvP without getting completely owned, but at the same time were not very threatening to highly skilled players.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the things people didn’t like about GW1 stay out of GW2. We already have groups that are asking for specific classes, builds and even play styles. CoF P1 is the most prominent one, but they exist almost everywhere and will continue to get worse, and we are less than a year in.

If Anet could get away with never adding a single skill, never adding more weapons, never adding anything, then the current system would be too simple. But if Anet does plan to expand it, then it’s good that they start this simple and hopefully get it balanced, slowly, correctly before they add to it.

I’d hate to see what eventually happened to GW 1 happen to GW 2.

Too easy, then move on and reget the money spent. Ele is fun for me, I play it scepter/dagger solo in PVE and staff in group play. Others love dagger/dagger. Changing attunement is something I only started doing at higher levels but it greatly improves the ‘fun’ factor. Most of the way I stayed in earth and while I rarely ran into problems it is much nicer to see the combos of earth/fire and use ride the lightning into mobs is a lot of fun (until the mob dies before ride is fully done and then you ride into the mobs behind).

cherrie.8907:

GW1 skill system was, to some extent, repeated in The Secret World and quite succesfully I’d like to say.

Classes – one of the sources of imbalance – are not present in TSW; instead, every player can use every combination of skill with same effectiveness.

There are 9 (main) weapons, you can equip 2 at a time to have access to active skills they are linked to (you can only use active skill from of the weapon you have equipped). Passive skills you can use regardless of what weapon you have equipped.

While tehre are less skills in TSW than in GW1, deck (TSW name for build) building is much more in-depth and I have yet to see the great imbalance I remember from GW1, or from GW2 when I still played it.

Add to that the fact that TSW treats it’s players as more intelligent than the chair they are sitting in and dungeons are actually great: no, GW2 has not hooked me up either, it was a gaming dissapointment of the decade for me, but TSW hooked me up from day one so much that I bought Lifetime AFTER they went F2P.

Everything I keep reading really makes me inclined to check out TSW.

Honestly, if ANet wanted to get rid of the trinity, they should have abolished the whole class system to begin with. As it stands now, we still have the same LF Zerker Warrior, LF Mesmer, etc. just like we have LF Monk in GW1.

It will continue to get worse as a meta is formed to complete content, in fact it really has been formed already. If you aren’t a warrior, guardian or mesmer in PvE, it is getting more difficult to find PUGS. It won’t be long until that spills over into more and more of the game as people get more familiar with the game and cease to do things for the fun of it and do it merely for the reward.

GW1 servers are still live. This is not GW1

clay.7849:

cherrie.8907:

GW1 skill system was, to some extent, repeated in The Secret World and quite succesfully I’d like to say.

Classes – one of the sources of imbalance – are not present in TSW; instead, every player can use every combination of skill with same effectiveness.

There are 9 (main) weapons, you can equip 2 at a time to have access to active skills they are linked to (you can only use active skill from of the weapon you have equipped). Passive skills you can use regardless of what weapon you have equipped.

While tehre are less skills in TSW than in GW1, deck (TSW name for build) building is much more in-depth and I have yet to see the great imbalance I remember from GW1, or from GW2 when I still played it.

Add to that the fact that TSW treats it’s players as more intelligent than the chair they are sitting in and dungeons are actually great: no, GW2 has not hooked me up either, it was a gaming dissapointment of the decade for me, but TSW hooked me up from day one so much that I bought Lifetime AFTER they went F2P.

Everything I keep reading really makes me inclined to check out TSW.

Honestly, if ANet wanted to get rid of the trinity, they should have abolished the whole class system to begin with. As it stands now, we still have the same LF Zerker Warrior, LF Mesmer, etc. just like we have LF Monk in GW1.

It will continue to get worse as a meta is formed to complete content, in fact it really has been formed already. If you aren’t a warrior, guardian or mesmer in PvE, it is getting more difficult to find PUGS. It won’t be long until that spills over into more and more of the game as people get more familiar with the game and cease to do things for the fun of it and do it merely for the reward.

I think the difference is, in GW you needed a healer. In Guild Wars 2 you don’t “need” a warrior. People may prefer it, but it’s not a need.

People say all the time here, you can put up an add on gw2lfg.com saying any profession welcome and you’ll get dungeon groups.

Milennin.4825:

In Guild Wars 2 I can create my own build, join any PUG, and run a dungeon without problems while playing the way I want to play my character.

really? Then why should I take twice as long (if not longer) to get into a CoF P1 group, because my main is not a zerker warrior or mesmer. Have you got kicked from any FOTM level 20+ groups because you are a thief/ranger/eng (those are not my main, but I’ve been in groups where the party leaders remove those classes)?

OP, I’m gonna address both 1 (Minimal Build diversity/customising ) and 4 (Depth of battle) as I keep hearing this “depth of combat” argument from GW1. This is coming from a GWAMM, mind you. I’ll be talking strictly from a PvE stand point

I submit that even with it’s 1300+ skills, GW1 did not have the “build diversity” that so many claim. It makes me cringe every time I hear this argument, because:

• Out of the 1300+ skills, 12 mattered. That’s right, 12. Maybe less.

• THE FOLLOWING 5 SKILLS (1. Shadowform, 2. Signet of Spirits, 3. Protective Spirit, 4. Discord, and 5. Unyielding Aura) make up OVER 90% of PvE in GW1. That’s not disputable. I challenge you to have an effective team without any of those skills.

• Due to the ability to dual spec, the every class could use these skills. That meant that variations of Discordway with some mesmer heroes for shut down and either ritualists or monks for support made the PvE facerollable, even through Winds of Change.

• You say you wouldn’t just blow through your skills…all you had to do was call target on the healer, use Assassin’s Promise + YMLAD>“Finish Him” @ <50% health and repeat. Forever. For anything outside of elite areas (in those, you used Shadowform…see where this is going?)

Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to say this:

GW2 is not exempt from these issues, but they are not as dire as my GW1 brethren make it out to be.

• I have multiple builds on my Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, Mesmer, Thief, and Ele. However, I use one build on my necro and can’t stand my ranger.

• Build diversity in GW2 comes from unique classes rather than 1300+ skills available to all. Each class has it’s own skills as opposed to every class having access to every skill (making balance undoable).

• Guild Wars 2 needs classes to be more balanced. I think the culprit is the decision to balance everything for PvP, which presents VERY different challenges than PvE (a single target stun in PvP can lead to a quick death and be very good; a single target stun in PvE may be quite useless with Defiant on bosses and multiple mobs during most encounters.)

• I really wish respeccing was able to be done when out-of-combat and out of a dungeon. The fee is not the issue for me; the need to go to a specific location to experiment is.

• Enemies need to be a bit tougher in open-world PvE areas. I understand that people hate CC on mobs, but it does force you to pay attention. I suspect that you are able to “blow through your skills” because you either play simplistic dungeon paths or stick to general PvE. Unfortunately, when ANet makes a dungeon path more difficult, people tend to just go to an easier path.

TL;DR:

• GW1 was not as diverse as people make it out to be
• GW2’s diversity comes from a variety of classes, GW1 came from 1300+ skills (12 mattered)
• GW2 needs better balance; balance issues stem from PvE being balanced for PvP
• Encounters need to be more difficult in GW2; however, then people would simply go to a different area or dungeon. Sad.

The depth of combat in PvE will be lost quickly in any game as people figure out a way to exploit PvE AI. This is nothing specific to GW1 and has less to do with combat mechanics and more to do with enemy AI.

GW1 was very diverse, Vorch. You are comparing the GW of today ~ dead and skills no longer updated, (of course same meta will exist.) instead you should look at how GW was played in its earlier years. I had all kinds of builds and it took months to get proper meta’s out, which were nerfed and people moved on to the next meta. It was ever-changing. Until they abandoned the game, that is.

Yeah skills like SF have been OP since day 1, but that is the fault of ANet not properly nerfing it not the community for wanting to be most efficient. Other builds were still used like DB sin not just AP caller. Remember hamstorm? Yeah people actually used that in the early days (rofl) and that is what really made the game shine.

Fact is, you could, if you wanted, run sub-par but fun builds and still get through the game. You only need to run meta in elite area’s, and even then you can be lenient with it. With pcons and other such things you can literally run w/e you want and still make it through, just don’t run with elitist PuG groups (almost all of them). But rather guild mates.

The beauty of GW was having the option to be diverse, the option. And I lovd it so much more than being shoe horned into 1 build in the never-changing meta that is GW2.

Vorch.2985:

• GW1 was not as diverse as people make it out to be
• GW2’s diversity comes from a variety of classes, GW1 came from 1300+ skills (12 .

Please name the team set up which only used 12 skills across all 8 players with different classes and which worked both in PvE – UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons and competitive PvP – HA and GvG.
I’ll be waiting.

Please don’t speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Just because 90% of the people lack imagination does not mean there wasn’t any build diversity. From your 5 skills I only use SoS and only if I bothered to bring my Rit. This is coming from someone else with GWAMM and 50/50.

The diversity in GW2 is false diversity though as you don’t need the other classes.

Meta builds were bound to elite ares as implied already before, no one forced you to run the newest hottest PvX build in regular missions, and almost never Hard Mode.

AND EVEN SO the build for Urgoz SC was different from UW SC and DoA SC and FoW SC, that already makes up 4 different team set ups alone.

Please just go to PvX and check all the “the best” builds for each profession and then come back.

Nick.6972:

Vorch.2985:

• GW1 was not as diverse as people make it out to be
• GW2’s diversity comes from a variety of classes, GW1 came from 1300+ skills (12 .

Please name the team set up which only used 12 skills across all 8 players with different classes and which worked both in PvE – UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons and competitive PvP – HA and GvG.
I’ll be waiting.

Please don’t speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

“THE FOLLOWING 5 SKILLS (1. Shadowform, 2. Signet of Spirits, 3. Protective Spirit, 4. Discord, and 5. Unyielding Aura) make up OVER 90% of PvE in GW1. That’s not disputable. I challenge you to have an effective team without any of those skills.”

“I’ll be talking strictly from a PvE stand point”

Please run " UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons" without using Shadow form, Sliver Armor, UA, or Protective spirit. I’ll wait.

Read and chill dude…read and chill.

Conner.4702:

Just because 90% of the people lack imagination does not mean there wasn’t any build diversity. From your 5 skills I only use SoS and only if I bothered to bring my Rit. This is coming from someone else with GWAMM and 50/50.

The diversity in GW2 is false diversity though as you don’t need the other classes.

The whole point of not needing other classes was to eliminate the “lf healer, experienced Shadowform Assassin” Outside of the ranger and necro (not very familiar with them), I can come up with teams consisting of one class for any dungeon.

Also, you didn’t use protective spirit or discord when you were vanqing? That’s leet.

Only way I could think of avoiding using those in Winds of Change would to go with Ether Prodigy eles and shutdown mesmers.

Simply not true. 12 skills mattered? GL playing with 8 people only using 12 skills. Honestly, I could make a great PvE team that can clear any content apart from maybe HM elite areas, without any skill you listed. In fact I never used those skills anyway.And yes if you really wanted you could bring boring builds like assassin’s promise/finish him, but then it’s your own fault. There were other builds at least as effective that were a lot less boring. GW1 had great build diversity, and the fact that you managed to find a few skills that are the pool of overall most powerful/useful ones, doesn’t decrease that diversity.

Also you say GW2’s build diversity comes from variety of classes. By this logic, you could even say Aion had build diversity. It didn’t, but you are saying that somehow having classes is build diversity. See the point? When people say GW2 lacks build diversity, they don’t mean it lacks classes. They mean it lacks different ways to “build” each class.

And for the issue about difficulty and people just going to another area exists a very simple solution: give more difficult content a better reward. This could easily be implemented by giving harder dungeon paths (CoF p3?) more tokens as a reward. I mean arenanet probably has statistics that say something like “CoF runs path 1 – 95%, path 2 – 5%, path 3 – 0%” is there nobody that every thinks “maybe path 3 should be more rewarding” ?

Some of you keep on comparing GW2, just one game with gw1 with full expansion. I don’t think that’s fair. Come up with competetive build with only prophecies skills and talk about build diversity. I still think the dual professions was more part of the build diversity than the skills of the class itself.

@Vorch

I was running FoW and UW quite fine before those skills even made it into the game. So, yea, about what you said…

aspirine.6852:

Some of you keep on comparing GW2, just one game with gw1 with full expansion. I don’t think that’s fair. Come up with competetive build with only prophecies skills and talk about build diversity. I still think the dual professions was more part of the build diversity than the skills of the class itself.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/

Veldan.4637:

Simply not true. 12 skills mattered? GL playing with 8 people only using 12 skills. Honestly, I could make a great PvE team that can clear any content apart from maybe HM elite areas, without any skill you listed. In fact I never used those skills anyway.And yes if you really wanted you could bring boring builds like assassin’s promise/finish him, but then it’s your own fault. There were other builds at least as effective that were a lot less boring. GW1 had great build diversity, and the fact that you managed to find a few skills that are the pool of overall most powerful/useful ones, doesn’t decrease that diversity.

Also you say GW2’s build diversity comes from variety of classes. By this logic, you could even say Aion had build diversity. It didn’t, but you are saying that somehow having classes is build diversity. See the point? When people say GW2 lacks build diversity, they don’t mean it lacks classes. They mean it lacks different ways to “build” each class.

And for the issue about difficulty and people just going to another area exists a very simple solution: give more difficult content a better reward. This could easily be implemented by giving harder dungeon paths (CoF p3?) more tokens as a reward. I mean arenanet probably has statistics that say something like “CoF runs path 1 – 95%, path 2 – 5%, path 3 – 0%” is there nobody that every thinks “maybe path 3 should be more rewarding” ?

When I said that 12 skills mattered, I will repeat: almost every TEAM had or required those skills.

• In PvE, Discord, Protective Spirit, Signet of Spirits, and Shadow Form or Assassin’s Promise were almost ALWAYS present. Period. Hero builds were built around those skills (i.e. assassin’s promise + YMLAD to make discord work on called target).

• I’d really like to hear these PvE team builds that people used that were not discord, sabway, SoS/Ghostly signet, or mesmer hero shutdown. You guys didn’t use protective spirit on your team? That’s leet. Honestly, I would like to hear them

• Shadowform, Protective Spirit, and UA are almost ALWAYS used in elite areas (UW, FoW, Urgoz, Deep, etc). Period. I honestly can’t remember the last time I did an elite area without a shadowform tank…oh, wait I can. The Ursan Debacle.

• As stated in the quotes, I have multiple (2 to 4) builds for every class except necromancer and ranger, which I don’t use b/c they both have serious balance problems and/or don’t fit a playstyle I enjoy.

clay.7849:

@Vorch

I was running FoW and UW quite fine before those skills even made it into the game. So, yea, about what you said…

FoW and UW are quite different now from release, back when FoW armor cost an arm and a leg.

clay.7849:

aspirine.6852:

Some of you keep on comparing GW2, just one game with gw1 with full expansion. I don’t think that’s fair. Come up with competetive build with only prophecies skills and talk about build diversity. I still think the dual professions was more part of the build diversity than the skills of the class itself.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/

So, you think that EVIL would use only prophecies skills against people with Factions+NF+EotN and remain competitive?

..

Vorch.2985:

Nick.6972:

Vorch.2985:

• GW1 was not as diverse as people make it out to be
• GW2’s diversity comes from a variety of classes, GW1 came from 1300+ skills (12 .

Please name the team set up which only used 12 skills across all 8 players with different classes and which worked both in PvE – UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons and competitive PvP – HA and GvG.
I’ll be waiting.

Please don’t speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

“THE FOLLOWING 5 SKILLS (1. Shadowform, 2. Signet of Spirits, 3. Protective Spirit, 4. Discord, and 5. Unyielding Aura) make up OVER 90% of PvE in GW1. That’s not disputable. I challenge you to have an effective team without any of those skills.”

“I’ll be talking strictly from a PvE stand point”

Please run " UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons" without using Shadow form, Sliver Armor, UA, or Protective spirit. I’ll wait.

Read and chill dude…read and chill.

Answer me how do you make up a team consisting of 8 player who only use 12 SAME SKILLS out of all 1000 skills.

Plus, Discord was only used in teams with 4+ Necros, and it didn;t work completely everywhere.
Healing Seed or Seed of Life were more viable options for PvE in speed runs than PS unless you’re thinkinh about meta game 2006-7.
UA was the best skill but HB was also equally good (Combined with the 2 skills named above).
SoS was certainly the best RT skill.

Vorch.2985:

FoW and UW are quite different now from release, back when FoW armor cost an arm and a leg.

That’s what I am trying to get at. GW1’s best days weren’t later on, they were early on. Combat in GW1 took a nosedive after each expansion.

It would be bad form to say GW1’s combat system was bad just based on one period of the game’s life and not to account for the good parts of that game’s life.

UA wasn’t the only viable monk build in PvE.
HB was, WoH was, ZB, numerous of Protection builds, Smiting Builds.
That alone makes at least 6+ Viable builds for one class and without secondary profession.

Yeah, well, that and my monk was my main for 5 years.
Both PvE and PvP.

Nick.6972:

Vorch.2985:

Nick.6972:

Vorch.2985:

• GW1 was not as diverse as people make it out to be
• GW2’s diversity comes from a variety of classes, GW1 came from 1300+ skills (12 .

Please name the team set up which only used 12 skills across all 8 players with different classes and which worked both in PvE – UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons and competitive PvP – HA and GvG.
I’ll be waiting.

Please don’t speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

“THE FOLLOWING 5 SKILLS (1. Shadowform, 2. Signet of Spirits, 3. Protective Spirit, 4. Discord, and 5. Unyielding Aura) make up OVER 90% of PvE in GW1. That’s not disputable. I challenge you to have an effective team without any of those skills.”

“I’ll be talking strictly from a PvE stand point”

Please run " UW/FoW/DoA/Dungeons" without using Shadow form, Sliver Armor, UA, or Protective spirit. I’ll wait.

Read and chill dude…read and chill.

Answer me how do you make up a team consisting of 8 player who only use 12 SAME SKILLS out of all 1000 skills.

Plus, Discord was only used in teams with 4+ Necros, and it didn;t work completely everywhere.
Healing Seed or Seed of Life were more viable options for PvE in speed runs than PS unless you’re thinkinh about meta game 2006-7.
UA was the best skill but HB was also equally good (Combined with the 2 skills named above).
SoS was certainly the best RT skill.

Ok…gonna make my list of 12 that I had when this argument popped up in guild chat in 2010. The challenge poised by another officer was to break GW1 PvE by removing <1% of the skills (1300+ skills, I picked 12). We were having almost this exact debate pre-Battle for Lion’s Arch WiK nerf.

* I repeat, The goal was the make completing ALL elite areas and hardmode vanqing/missions undoable by removing <1% of the skills in the game*

• Shadowform
• Protective Spirit
• Discord
• Signet of Spirits

• UA
• HB (healer’s boon, not hundred blades)
• Sliver armor
• Spiteful Spirit

• Panic
• Mistrust
• Death Nova
• Assassin’s Promise

I will repeat: I am not saying that every person on the team must have these skills. I am saying that if these skills were removed, PvE (I only considered Hardmode when ever talking about PvE) would not be doable. I maintain that.

In fact, I have my GW1 account still active (play about once a week). I would love to help someone make a team that proves this wrong.

Vorch.2985:

I will repeat: I am not saying that every person on the team must have these skills. I am saying that if these skills were removed, PvE (I only considered Hardmode when ever talking about PvE) would not be doable. I maintain that.

What is this – ? Were you one of those W/Mo with Mending Healing Breeze Frenzy and Healing Signet angry at people asking to play better?
Seriously, what is this bs. Have a good day, don’t reply.

Nick.6972:

Vorch.2985:

I will repeat: I am not saying that every person on the team must have these skills. I am saying that if these skills were removed, PvE (I only considered Hardmode when ever talking about PvE) would not be doable. I maintain that.

What is this – ? Were you one of those W/Mo with Mending Healing Breeze Frenzy and Healing Signet angry at people asking to play better?
Seriously, what is this bs. Have a good day, don’t reply.

hom.guildwars2.com

Vorch De Asph

And everyone knows you need to echo your mending.

Vorch.2985:

* I repeat, The goal was the make completing ALL elite areas and hardmode vanqing/missions undoable by removing <1% of the skills in the game*

• Shadowform
• Protective Spirit
• Discord
• Signet of Spirits

• UA
• HB (healer’s boon, not hundred blades)
• Sliver armor
• Spiteful Spirit

• Panic
• Mistrust
• Death Nova
• Assassin’s Promise

I will repeat: I am not saying that every person on the team must have these skills. I am saying that if these skills were removed, PvE (I only considered Hardmode when ever talking about PvE) would not be doable. I maintain that.

In fact, I have my GW1 account still active (play about once a week). I would love to help someone make a team that proves this wrong.

… really dude? This is so easy… in fact I did every HM mission, vanquish and most of the HM dungeons with 3 heroes and 4 henchmen without ever using any of those skills. Way off topic here, so if you are actually interested, I suggest you pm.

For my rit I used a spirit weapon build with splinters and barrage using a bow, spirit spammer build offensive/defensive/utility, item dropping build with glaive or kuurong, my restoration builds which could use any number of elites and skills and be effective only really requiring weapon of warding, spirit strength builds with daggers or spears, or just a straight up channeling build with spirit rift and ancestors rage. Minion bomber or minion master builds with necro secondary.

Now to my ele builds. Obsidian flesh for some mad tanking along with the other defensive skills, maelstrom and deep freeze with blurred vision and the rest of the bar was up to me, then basically most skills from nightfall were awesome and usable, invoke lightening builds, searing flames builds with all the fire aoe combined with deep freeze, use the ele’s energy pool and glyph of lesser energy to make a build of almost all other classes skills, infuse healer builds with ether renewal.

Show me where I have no build diversity in gw1. I could literally find something that worked for everything I wanted to do with great diversity and personalization.

Another post of mine got merged into this one but I would like to address your points directly.

1) Completely agree. In GW1 there were so many ways to change a build to get things that you would not expect from a class. I know that changes slightly with new classes and class goals. I miss being able to fit a perfect niche roll. For Rangers for instance there were AoE rangers, Interrupt rangers, Beastmaster ranger, Condition rangers, etc. I think this would be fixed if we got 2 more skills per weapon to choose from. Just 2.

2) I sort of agree with this one. Being able to save builds and just load them up when a different set was needed was heaven in GW1. Financially getting certain builds in GW1 was as costly as some builds in GW2. The one thing that I think would make everyone happier is if you had two builds to choose from. You could easily swap between these two builds in a town or when out of combat. If you wanted to change one of your builds you would still be required to reset your traits like you do currently.

3) I wanted my Warrior to have more health than my Monk in GW1. That seemed like something that just made sense to me. Armor values worked different in GW1 to make the squishies more squishy to balance everyone having the same health. In GW2 Armor seems much less important. I have not tested this very much but I believe that Armor basically does nothing. I like having more health as a Warrior. I now just wished me wearing heavy armor meant I could take more than one hit in a dungeon without being downed.

4) Dungeons and Fractals. Sure some fights are all about how fast can you kill something but many have to do with positioning, awareness and using your skills in the right order at the right time. On my Warrior I run a bleed build that relies on switching weapons constantly. When I get full adrenaline I switch to my bow and set up the AoE field. I then use my 3 to get Area Might and switch weapons to my sword axe combo, use 2 to jump in for the Fire Shield, then use 5 for spinning fire bolts of death. I hold off on using my blind until right before an attack comes. I use my immobilize and cripple when my teammates need to get away from the fight.

The fact that you do not look for combo fields to use means you are not a team player. Many times I have seen combo fields and used abilities because it will benefit my team even when it is not best for my personal damage. I think you need to try the harder content in order to experience the depth of battles you are looking for.

Also in GW1 all I did was spam all my abilities as a Warrior, there is much more depth now than there was in GW1.

ScottBroChill.3254:

For my rit I used a spirit weapon build with splinters and barrage using a bow, spirit spammer build offensive/defensive/utility, item dropping build with glaive or kuurong, my restoration builds which could use any number of elites and skills and be effective only really requiring weapon of warding, spirit strength builds with daggers or spears, or just a straight up channeling build with spirit rift and ancestors rage. Minion bomber or minion master builds with necro secondary.

Now to my ele builds. Obsidian flesh for some mad tanking along with the other defensive skills, maelstrom and deep freeze with blurred vision and the rest of the bar was up to me, then basically most skills from nightfall were awesome and usable, invoke lightening builds, searing flames builds with all the fire aoe combined with deep freeze, use the ele’s energy pool and glyph of lesser energy to make a build of almost all other classes skills, infuse healer builds with ether renewal.

Show me where I have no build diversity in gw1. I could literally find something that worked for everything I wanted to do with great diversity and personalization.

Saying there was no build diversity in GW1 is like saying that gravity doesn’t exist. It just isn’t true.

rchu.8945:

really? Then why should I take twice as long (if not longer) to get into a CoF P1 group, because my main is not a zerker warrior or mesmer. Have you got kicked from any FOTM level 20+ groups because you are a thief/ranger/eng (those are not my main, but I’ve been in groups where the party leaders remove those classes)?

Oh no, you take twice as long to get into a group for the single most farmed dungeon path in the game. It’s not like there’s 8 × 3 other dungeon paths to run. Even so, finding a group for CoF path 1 usually doesn’t take more than 5 minutes anyway, as a non-Warrior/Mesmer. Compare that to the hours I’ve tried to find a party to PUG Fow or UW in a normal balanced team. Lol, I’ve never even been able to beat Dhuum, because there never were people teaming up for UW outside of SC’s with ridiculous requirements.

I’ve recently got my Thief up to level 80, only up to level 10 Fractals with him. Also have done a bunch of dungeons (different dungeons and paths) with him, and never have had a problem with my team. These teams also often consist of other Thiefs, Rangers (don’t see so many Engineers doing dungeons), and we’re doing totally fine.

clay.7849:

aspirine.6852:

Some of you keep on comparing GW2, just one game with gw1 with full expansion. I don’t think that’s fair. Come up with competetive build with only prophecies skills and talk about build diversity. I still think the dual professions was more part of the build diversity than the skills of the class itself.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/

I dont care about pvp so I should have said PVE only.

aspirine.6852:

clay.7849:

aspirine.6852:

Some of you keep on comparing GW2, just one game with gw1 with full expansion. I don’t think that’s fair. Come up with competetive build with only prophecies skills and talk about build diversity. I still think the dual professions was more part of the build diversity than the skills of the class itself.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/gwwc/

I dont care about pvp so I should have said PVE only.

Fair enough, but I think that the elites and skills in Prophecies were some of the best in the game and that there were a lot of viable PvE builds in Prophecies.

Okay, I’m going to chime in here about build diversity in Guild Wars 1.

There were tons of possibles builds. As long as you weren’t doing the highest level content, that is UW, DOA, Slavers, or you had a guild of people who would run with you all the time, you needed specific builds to get into groups.

However, I was able to h/h or play with my wife and use 6 heroes pretty much everything in the entire game….even DoA I did with 2 people and six heroes. I ended up doing it this way, so I wouldn’t have to use a cookie-cutter build.

Those who ramble on about Guild Wars 1, aren’t really talking about Guild Wars 1. They’re talking about a period in Guild Wars 1’s time. The golden age of Guild Wars 1. A time they want to recapture.

The problem with that is that there’s almost never a golden age when people talk about the golden age. Memory tends to exaagerate the positive, while ignoring the negative. My dad used to talk about the golden age too, and he grew up during the depression.

It’s not that the game is good or isn’t good. It’s that Prophecies when it launched was Anet’s first game and they went overboard in the skills, and particularly in the second profession. They didn’t look ahead to see what that would eventually breed.

I know several people personally who walked away from Prophecies because it was too complex. That’s part of the reasons why PvX wiki was so popular. You’d see people in the Great Temple of Balthazar all the time asking for someone to ping them a build

And because the game was Build Wars, personal skill mattered someone less than the build you ran. In other words, and I said this while I played too, your victory or failure was often decided before you left an outpost.

If you had the wrong skills, you were doomed. If you went after Duncan Black without Swap or some similar skill, some sort of strategy, it was about a billion times harder. There were skills that were absolutely 100 needed to get through the Deep.

You may like that or consider that good game design…and in some ways it was. But once those builds got into PvX wiki (and today everything gets into a wiki), that entire type of game, PVe-wise anyway) becomes meaningless. Here’s the build, take these heroes, off you go.

There was so much trivialized PVe content because of this. 55 monks, 600 monks, sabway…the list is endless.

Yes, it was fun to make builds, but the very thing that made that game fun eventually became the downfall of that game. Because being balanced at one point is irrelevant if you can’t keep it balanced long term.

Guys like Clay say, oh yeah, by then the game completely fell apart. That’s because of how it was designed. Had it been designed better, it wouldn’t fall apart when you added to it.

GW2 has a severe lack of skill depth IMO.

The lack of a resource system and a big reduction in the number of conditional effects (onConditionGained, onConditionRemoved, and the like) plus fixed weapon skills and ineffectual traits makes GW2’s skill system a mere shadow of the first game.

I can only hope the spectacular failure of sPVP is the lightning rod that kickstarts some major changes but i’m not holding my breath.