Guild Wars 2

Those that weren’t heavily into the game around 1 year in just prior to the factions release have no right to talk about GW1 IMO. That was the golden age of the game where it was beautifully balanced, build variety was varied, about the time you saw the rise of WM with their standard 4 warrior, 2 crip shot ranger, 2 monk GvG build. That time. That period in the game was the pinnacle of GW1.
If you weren’t heavily invested into GW1 then you do not understand the comments by those that are comparing GW1 to GW2.

Jaxon.5392:

Those that weren’t heavily into the game around 1 year in just prior to the factions release have no right to talk about GW1 IMO. That was the golden age of the game where it was beautifully balanced, build variety was varied, about the time you saw the rise of WM with their standard 4 warrior, 2 crip shot ranger, 2 monk GvG build. That time. That period in the game was the pinnacle of GW1.
If you weren’t heavily invested into GW1 then you do not understand the comments by those that are comparing GW1 to GW2.

Those who say people have no right to talk about something, have no right to talk about it themselves.

Guild Wars 1 has been going about six years since factions and far more people have experienced it post Factions than prior to it. Does that make them all wrong and those other people who were there at the beginning right?

I’ll bet you I can find people who started the game and hated it right away. They never experienced Factions. Does it make them wrong?

Yes, the gold age of the great game. It was amazing. It wonderful. It was so good that no one can possibly have an opinion about it if they came a bit later.

Well, I came a bit later and I have an opinion about it, But more to the point, if the game got worse because of balance issues, that means it was probably not designed well in the first place. Good game design would assume that the ability to balance the game as it grows would have been taken into account.

Of course, Prophecies is Anet’s first game. They learned from that experience. That’s why they didn’t repeat it (in my opinion).

Bad logic is bad logic.

I think the market speaks when it comes to whether or not Guild Wars 2 has more “stickiness” with gamers over Guild Wars 1.

In under a year, Guild Wars 2 has generated over 3 million sales (as of last official count in January).

Guild Wars 1 had 1 million sales in the same timeframe.

That means that Guild Wars 2 has been 3x more popular than Guild Wars which also means that Guild Wars 2 has resonated better with gamers than Guild Wars.

Guild Wars 2 continues to sell at a solid pace which is good since it means more development time for Guild Wars 2 to continue to sell the game.

By the end of 2009 the Guild Wars “franchise” had sold 6 million “units.” I find it very interesting that NCSoft releases the sales figures like that for Guild Wars since it implies that they are counting each “expansion” of the game as another sale of the game. Guild Wars: Prophecies sold 1 million units by September 22, 2005. After that, NCSoft starts including expansions as additional sales to their figures. So, by June 19, 2006 there had been 2 million units solid of the Guild Wars franchise (by this point Guild Wars had released Prophecies and Factions).

So, basically, this means that Guild Wars 2 is definitely far more popular than Guild Wars was and, as such, ArenaNet has got to be doing something right. While I don’t think that the game is perfect as such it is a lot of fun and a good romp.

I am happy I bought the game and would continue to recommend it to people.

Edited to add some sourcing: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/NCsoft

pve is just super boring imo. by level 10 you have every weapon ability unlocked and with downleveling you basically just auto attack things and they die in two hits. there’s nothing to look forward to as you level just a mindless grind to 80 in ghost town zones after you leave the starter zones. I really wish you could gain xp in pvp.

I wouldn’t say there’s minimal build diversity. It’s just that most of the builds we can make, aren’t really viable, at least in sPvP. In PvE, and partly WvW, you can make quite a few builds. Obviously, Guild Wars 1 wasn’t perfect, or ells there would be no reason for ArenaNet to change it.

It’s quite easy to make gold in Guild Wars 2, as long as you play the right content. Armor can be acquired for free with tokens, by playing dungeons, or bought with karma from vendors in Orr. But unless you need to change your build between direct damage, condition damage, or bunker, there’s really no reason to get new stats. A lot can be done simply by changing your skills or traits, which only costs 3s50c.

Just look at Guild Wars 1? What’s the point of that if the games aren’t the same? Some professions have less health, to make up for the skills and abilities that helps them survive. The Guardian, Thief, and Elementalist are the easiest professions to survive with, despite them having the lowest base health.

PvE is too easy, that’s no real secret. But in PvP, it it does very much matter how you use your skills. Also, I use combos all the time.

Jaxon.5392:

Those that weren’t heavily into the game around 1 year in just prior to the factions release have no right to talk about GW1 IMO. That was the golden age of the game where it was beautifully balanced, build variety was varied, about the time you saw the rise of WM with their standard 4 warrior, 2 crip shot ranger, 2 monk GvG build. That time. That period in the game was the pinnacle of GW1.
If you weren’t heavily invested into GW1 then you do not understand the comments by those that are comparing GW1 to GW2.

Hey, GW1 veteran here who was with the game from Week 1 of the live release. I was trudging through Prophecies steadily at that point, and remember when Sorrow’s Furnace got added. I was, unfortunately, a PvE player primarily since I totally lacked the intuitive grasp of the metagame.

(Seriously, I got the “L2P” speech way too much for PvP of any stripe to be fun.)

I don’t get the comments saying GW1 was near perfect and GW2 is trash, not using the same words. The economy was practically nonexistant for anything but the rarest of drops or what was desired for use in certain builds. Gold items weren’t wanted at all unless:

- They were Unidentified. (Grinding Wisdom)
- They had good upgrades to salvage.
- It was a desired skin with a Req <11.

If it didn’t have any of that, better to vendor it than try to sell it even at the sell value. Also, good luck selling minis which weren’t gold or green for anything other than pocket change. I suppose the good thing was money got largely superfluous after a while. You know, unless you were sinking it into trying to chase Lucky.

The “build elitism” was worse at times. As a BM/Marksman ranger, I was told way too often by PUGs to go either no pet or traps. Skills/attributes were more important than gear, to the point where “ping your build” was followed by the hope they didn’t kick you because it wasn’t “a good build”.

(This is why when I got into a guild/alliance I was very pleased they said “play what you like and we’ll make it work”. This led to an epic fail of a 6 hour Urgoz’s Warren run but that’s a story for another time. It was also the most fun ever even though it was a failure.)

The titles were grindy as all heck. Especially Legendary Defender of Ascalon. And the luck-based Survivor (until it was changed recently). Many tears were shed by someone who hit a lag pocket with their Survivor . . .

Given the amount of people I saw who were only in missions for a run, rather than actually trying to do the mission legitimately? Or the people finding crazy ways of farming valuable things / title points . . . I have to really question if anyone played GW1 for the “non-grindy fun”.

I prefer GW2 over GW1 in regards to combat (love dodging and jumping) and that we don’t need to party up in open world PvE.

The scenery is absolutely beautiful in GW2 (except the higher level areas…they are gray and dreary and I tend to not spend too much time in them).

I prefer GW1 armors over GW2 in fact there are only like three armors I like in the entire game. Which makes it kind of difficult to outfit my eight characters, but I can live with it.

The quests/hearts are the same basically in both games although I prefer the dialog in GW2.

Both games have dailies.

I love the DE’s

WvW – although I suck at it – I find it quite fun. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to be there very often as armor repair can be quite costly for me.

Jumping puzzles – Stress me out completely, but I do enjoy the ones that are not timed and don’t have too many enemy that knock me to my death.

Dungeons are just not my thing as most groups are looking for skilled players and specific builds so they can grind them out quickly. (not that I blame them)

As you can tell I’m a casual player. I play for fun more than skill. I’m not competitive in my games, so leisure is my style and although there are things I would like improved, I do enjoy it and I hope to be playing it for many years to come.

Just because some skills were OP doesn’t mean it wasn’t awesome to have thousands of skills to choose from.

It kept gameplay from being BORING. I’m BORED of GW2 because the weapon skills is what you use the most, and they are ALWAYS THE SAME.

Space Cow.2431:

Just because some skills were OP doesn’t mean it wasn’t awesome to have thousands of skills to choose from.

It kept gameplay from being BORING. I’m BORED of GW2 because the weapon skills is what you use the most, and they are ALWAYS THE SAME.

Right and other people aren’t bored by Guild Wars 2. That’s what opinions mean. In your opinion, more skills make a better game. In my opinion, more skills make a harder to balance game that will eventually fall to the wolves. It’s not worth the risk.

At any rate, I find the combat in Guild Wars 2 to be MORE involving that Guild Wars 1, at least in PVe. As I’ve said in other threads, once you outfit your heroes, even before you could take 7 heroes with you, I could practically AFK even in hard mode content.

There’s no way you can tell me that standing there and pressing 1 repeatedly is any worse than standing there and doing nothing and STILL winning. If you brought a minion master, a spirit spammer and a healer with you, you were all but invincible in all but a couple of instances. If you played with the sabway build or the even more widespread discord team which came later, you were godlike no matter what build and skills you personally took.

You want to talk about boring combat? The imbalance in PVe was so bad, that I ended up not playing the game because it was too easy.

Vayne.8563:

Space Cow.2431:

Just because some skills were OP doesn’t mean it wasn’t awesome to have thousands of skills to choose from.

It kept gameplay from being BORING. I’m BORED of GW2 because the weapon skills is what you use the most, and they are ALWAYS THE SAME.

Right and other people aren’t bored by Guild Wars 2. That’s what opinions mean. In your opinion, more skills make a better game. In my opinion, more skills make a harder to balance game that will eventually fall to the wolves. It’s not worth the risk.

At any rate, I find the combat in Guild Wars 2 to be MORE involving that Guild Wars 1, at least in PVe. As I’ve said in other threads, once you outfit your heroes, even before you could take 7 heroes with you, I could practically AFK even in hard mode content.

There’s no way you can tell me that standing there and pressing 1 repeatedly is any worse than standing there and doing nothing and STILL winning. If you brought a minion master, a spirit spammer and a healer with you, you were all but invincible in all but a couple of instances. If you played with the sabway build or the even more widespread discord team which came later, you were godlike no matter what build and skills you personally took.

You want to talk about boring combat? The imbalance in PVe was so bad, that I ended up not playing the game because it was too easy.

I’m going to side with Vayne here. I took a Spirit Lord Ritualist to 50/50 in HoM (PvE only). You combine that with 4 or 5 minion master necros with discord, and it was easy. Each necro had up to 6 minions. I had all my spirits. The necros hit targets with discord. We just rolled thru most content in HM. You had food to buff your whole group before you started, remove any death penalty and rebuff. It was so easy, I played as a Ritualist/ranger so I could have a Fiery Hound of Balthazar. Not because he did any damage worth mentioning, but because I liked the way he looked. I could afford to kitten myself. It didn’t matter.

Guild Wars 2 is harder IMO. I can’t run around with a meat shield of 10 or 12 (or more) minions and 6 spirits or so. No helpful priest to keep me healed. Can’t send my heroes in front of me to take agro while I stay safe in the back. No Mesmer heroes to block skills before they even happen. There is no way now I would take a useless skill just for the lolz.

whiran.1473:

I think the market speaks when it comes to whether or not Guild Wars 2 has more “stickiness” with gamers over Guild Wars 1.

In under a year, Guild Wars 2 has generated over 3 million sales (as of last official count in January).

Guild Wars 1 had 1 million sales in the same timeframe.

That means that Guild Wars 2 has been 3x more popular than Guild Wars

this logic is wrong as the relative size of the mmo market at those 2 timepoints is markedly different. When market sizes and development budgets are factored in, gw1 is the more successful game

Yeah, skill depth is really the #1 issue in the game now. Diversity of zones is probably #2.

I like how GW2 doesn’t force you into a cookie cutter build. Yeah GW1 had a lot of skills, but only a few were optimal anyways so what was the point? If they wanted GW2 to be like GW1 then what’s even the point of another title instead of another xpac?

Anet did a good job here, combat is fun and more balanced between classes as a result of fewer skills.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

darkace.8925:

mekkanic.4759:

Its not really a matter of cost…its just unnecessary.

Gold sinks are absolutely, positively necessary.

Why?

So the trading post might go down or up? i’d have been fine with zero trading post as per GW1.

Even in Guild Wars 1 there were gold sinks. Identify kits, salvage kits, for some people con sets…there were plenty of things in Guild Wars 1 that took gold out of the economy. And the economy did suffer at times as well.

Do you know why Guild Wars 1 lost so many players? Because starting that game after the fact became really really hard. Everyone had a zillion gold and could charge anything they wanted for anything. New people could never hope to catch up. That’s why karma was such a good idea. You can get a lot of stuff for karma, without having to spend gold.

Those who played Guild Wars 1 for a long time don’t realize how hard it was to break into coming late to the party.

I never said Guildwars 1 had no gold sinks, and Guildwars 2 is the very same, i’m so glad i started playing this when it opened, if i started today i’d not have a hope of competing or even catching up to everyone else, so i’d just quit.. GW2 is exactly the same in that regard as GW1 was..

mjharrison.3209:

whiran.1473:

I think the market speaks when it comes to whether or not Guild Wars 2 has more “stickiness” with gamers over Guild Wars 1.

In under a year, Guild Wars 2 has generated over 3 million sales (as of last official count in January).

Guild Wars 1 had 1 million sales in the same timeframe.

That means that Guild Wars 2 has been 3x more popular than Guild Wars

this logic is wrong as the relative size of the mmo market at those 2 timepoints is markedly different. When market sizes and development budgets are factored in, gw1 is the more successful game

Guild Wars 1 was never a “household name”. Many players had neither heard nor tried it, even as a percentage of players back then. It didn’t snare a lion’s share of the MMO player base…even back then. Of course, it wasn’t a true MMO either.

I’d say that on several levels Guild Wars 2 is more successful than Guild Wars 1. It’s more widely known by percentage, it has more sales, and it’s probably made a good deal more money and profit.

I don’t know how you personally decide what’s more successful, but a bigger, more visible, more popular game is how I would decide it.

If you have other criteria….well, I guess that’s okay too.

I agree with OP. Thanks for post.

I miss my monk and the skill and teamwork needed for combat, particularly for gvg.

Interrupting, body blocking, KD locking, pre protting, spiking… all mechanics that are extremely satisfying that dont really show up in gw2.

I also miss spending time thinking of new skill combos to try out.

I’m not getting “hooked” either, but not because I have a problem with the game mechanics. I actually picked GW1 up again (for the birthday event) after about a year of not playing and now I remember what an absolutely terrible game it was in many respects. For all the crowing about how different it was going to be from other MMOs and what depth and strategy it was going to offer over other MMOs, the reality was that most professions only had two or three actually useful builds and the VAST majority of skills for each profession were completely useless in 99% of the game’s content. There are tons of warrior skills I haven’t even bought because they don’t do anything useful and even a lot of the ones I did buy/cap I never or very rarely use. Aggro management was apallinglingy silly and the rewards for playing ranged from outrageous (faceroll-easy solo farming grawl/raptors/etc. for event items, golds, etc.) to not even worth having (most of what dropped any time you were in a party). And it’s the most pointlessly grindy MMO I’ve played since Everquest once you get through the story. IMO, it was a fine game… until you finished the storylines at which point it was…. mediocre… at best.

GW2 I think is probably the only modern MMO I actually like anymore, but I can’t stay interested because there’s sooooooo many bugs. Did the Karka event. Truly ridiculous number of bugs and lag. Got frustrated with it and didn’t play again until Christmas. Not as bad, but still bugs. Didn’t play again until just this last week when I see this Flame and Frost thing going. Buuuuuuuuuuuugs. No credit for helping refugees, quests are bugging out, no mounds to loot and the Trading Post has slowed to a crawl…

I think the game itself is mostly fine, but geez…. after getting slapped down by the ninth or tenth game-breaking bug in one evening it’s really hard to maintain interest.

One of the big “hooks” this game lacks is that it doesn’t have enough depth to make theorycrafting interesting. The lack of the secondary class as well as tightly constrained utility types and weak traits means that builds are really limited in scope. Then only 1-2 of those builds are good enough to be viable in most classes.

mjharrison.3209:

One of the big “hooks” this game lacks is that it doesn’t have enough depth to make theorycrafting interesting. The lack of the secondary class as well as tightly constrained utility types and weak traits means that builds are really limited in scope. Then only 1-2 of those builds are good enough to be viable in most classes.

Viable is an interesting word. I think what builds are viable often depends on what area of the game you play, and what your requirements for a build are. I’m willing to wager I find more viable builds than you do.

Viable to me == performs at a reasonable level in WVW solo roaming and small-group situations.

On that basis, for Ele, only D/D Ele with cantrips is viable. S/D is fine vs baddies who can’t mitigate the DT burst combo, but it falls off hard versus better players. Staff is only good in a zerg/siege situation.

Overall, Ele weapons and traits are pretty kitten awful.

PS: With how bad the PVE AI is in this game, almost anything is “viable” in PVE.