Hello! I’ve played Gw2 since release and I decided to write a little review of the game after one year. I’ve played a few MMOs in my time. My longest spam was Gw1 and WoW. I beta tested a lot of other MMOs in my spare time. I also play a few sandbox MMOs (Darkfall, Mortal Online, etc) every once in awhile
So lets get into it.
-Gameplay -7/10.
Reasons: The game has some of the best leveling and exploration mechanics in the game. The interaction with NPCs in gameplay is great, though it has a lot of room for improvement. The biggest issue that keeps this game from being a 10 is the skill system. The game feels very spammy most of the time, and it looks that way too. With the cluster of animations, low cds, and low cast times, the game feels like a very spammy game. Is this fun? That is up to the player, though personally I find it somewhat fun, but I feel like it can be so much more.
-Graphics -10/10.
Reasons: The visuals in the game are amazing. The attention to detail in the world and in the skills is amazing. When it comes to the open world, Gw2 takes home the gold. Finding new things, exploring new lands, looking at the stunning scenery. Finding your first jumping puzzle unintentionally is great.
-PvP (structured)- 5/10.
Reasons: The games structured PvP is a great idea of allowing players to get right into PvP without having to deal with leveling up. However, this part of the game feels like the least amount of time was put into it. PvP doesn’t interact with any other part of the game except with titles. This means going into here means you’re not progressing in the other aspects in anyway. The reward system PvP is very shallow too. You rank up to a new bracket of ranks every 10 levels. As you get higher and higher it gets longer and longer. The time it takes to rank up past level 20 is very very long. This coupled with the lack of interesting gamemodes (currently only capture point) makes it start to feel “grindy”. Spammy gameplay never goes well with PvP either. The fights often become cluttered with animations and it is generally hard to see whats going on, both in game and when spectating. Skills don’t usually have big call animations, making countering something quite tedious. There are lots of AoE skills, low CD skills, and other things that really take away from the game. This of course depends on the players, but when I saw somewhere on the forums where someone calculated the amount of players in ranked solo que only reached around 4k (out of millions of copies sold), it really shows that something is alienating players from it. What it is? It could be many of things, each with support from different players (reward system, skill/spam, balance, etc).
-PvE (endgame)- 8/10.
Reasons: If it wasn’t for the living story, the endgame PvE would be a 6. While fractals and dungeons are quite cool, some of the rewards for such are lackluster. The games current progression revolves heavily around gold. As a result, not all dungeons are done a lot. This has greatly improved in the recent patch and we’re heading in the right direction, but farming champions currently reigns supreme. Though most of the dungeons are beautifully designed and very fun. Fractals offer a unique look into dungeons and offer players a more challenging atmosphere. The living story really adds to the overall endgame for players in the PvE world too. This coupled with a amazing open world experience, the game earns a solid 8/10.