Guild Wars 2

Only going to respond in relation to point 1)

Somehow the chase for a bone dragon staff, voltaic spear, frog scepter, etc. was enough to keep people chugging away at the GW1 dungeons. It’s time to add some dungeon specific skins as drops from the rewards chests. This chest-specific drop mechanic is already in gw2 in items such as final rest, signet of grenth, rhendak’s stuff.

Aegis.9724:

i don’t know if i agree to the other points, but loot is seriously lacking

Right now, for 99% of the drops, its either:
-blue, greens -> vendor junk
-rare -> either salvage for ecto, or mystic toilet fodder
-exo -> directly to trading post, unless it’s a pre or i like the skin ( in which case i probably already have one )

There is just no excitement to it, feels like i’m just dropping money in physical form..

Yet this is pretty much the way it is in any RPG, unless it has a loot system like that of Zelda or Dark Souls where specific gear is always found in exactly the same place guaranteed because there is only 1 of each item in the game and each item serves it’s own specific purpose; a system that simply won’t work in an MMO.

Bazookajoe.5624:

1. ) Dungeons are boring, lack of “exciting” and “meaningful” loot.
2.) Bosses are tiny and often overshadowed by larger scale characters.
3.) Waaaaay too many 1 shot mechanics. Takes away from interesting gameplay.
4.) Zero personal progression and a severe lack of “Reward”.
5.) Once you hit the gear wall, and have all exotics……. thats it…. lame.
6.) No large scale organized PVE, dare I say raids…… Inc Flame.
7.) Sorry excuse for world bosses with zero exciting loot.
8.) skins are only sooo exciting for soooo long….. /sadface.

Seriously, I love the art, lore, gameplay, but is that really enough to make someone log in and stay logged in? Trying to re invent the wheel can only go so far. I would love to see this game get more than a hundred views on twitch, and more people logging in and playing. But having to use a website to find a group for PVE content was kinda the nail in the coffin for me. What are some of everyone’s thoughts on this? I mean let’s all take our “Fan-Boy” frame of mind out and be no partisan on this topic and get some good discussion going, and who knows maybe arena net will take notice.

¹ All dungeons, no matter how dynamic, no matter how interesting the mechanics, will eventually get boring if you do them over, and over, and over again. Even if you add ‘meaningful loot’ they will still be boring. The only difference is that you will tolerate the ‘boring’ in order to obtain whatever ‘loot’ item you are after. As such, perhaps implementing some type of dungeon specific skin would make you, and others like you happy. In GW1, there were skins you could only get from UW, FoW , ToPK, and even DoA. [Chaos axes, eternal and storm bows, torment weapons, dhuum’s reaper (near the end), etc] Perhaps a DoA style mechanic for a dungeon skin (gemstones to armbrace to weapon) would be sufficient, since trying to do a specific skin per dungeon might be a bit much to ask.

² Boss size…. I don’t see an issue here. The foe doesn’t need to huge in order to be a badkitten. In fact, many will sometimes underestimate their foe is they look, small, meek, or petite in any way. Appearances can be deceiving, and I like that not all bosses are huge hulking beasts. Its unrealistic, even in a game, to expect them to all be monsters that stand out like a sore thumb. For asura bosses, it’s ludicrous. Can you imagine if Canach had been larger than a max sized Norn? The ‘go big or go home’ theory for bosses doesn’t really work….

³ 1 shot mechanics…. I don’t have this issue, but perhaps its the class I play and what I’m doing. Even when I scale down in lower zones, it still takes 3-4 hits to kill a foe. Yes, 1 shotting everything is boring as kitten, I won’t disagree, but since some of us don’t have the issue, maybe its a class balance thing. That very much would need adjusting in order to alleviate the issue.

⁴ Our personal stories could use more depth, yes. Overall, we could use some more depth to the world, but we might yet get there. I don’t have an issue with ‘lack of reward’. This seems to be an recurring problem for you. The game really isn’t about the loot, and it shouldn’t be.

⁵ This is how it was in GW1, and I like that they kept this in GW2. Once you reach the top tier of gear, that’s it. No more ‘prepping’ to play. Most grind is cosmetic, and therefore optional. I am rather pleased with this personally.

⁶ Not going to flame you for this. I agree we could use some larger scale, challenging content to keep us engaged. NOT WoW style gear locked raids, mind you, but something reminiscent of UW, FoW, Urgoz, and the Deep pre-Nightfall would be nice.

⁷ Again with the loot I see. I like the world bosses. Yes, I’ve done them many times (even before the guarenteed daily rare), and continue to do them (several times a day). Just for the enjoyment of killing them. For the enjoyment of their implementation and graphics. I think the loot is fine, the game is not about the loot.

⁸This is intentional design. The game is almost entirely cosmetic based, like it’s predecessor. If skin hunting is not your thing, then perhaps you are playing the wrong game, or maybe you’re just burnt out with what you have. (Not trying to be a kitten here, just looking at this from the game perspective of what is offered vs what be being looked for) There are many games out there about stat progression, gear locked raiding, etc. This is not one of those games, and many of us [and not just the ‘dirty casuals’] are very happy with that.

OP, IMO this game is made for casuals. It is made so you can just drop in every now and again and see what is going on. The game is designed to cater to people in this manner. Some people love GW2 for being casual friendly. I think the depth you’re looking for is not to be found here. Not yet anyways.

Grinding for looks / new skins is the time sink in this game. If you want to invest in your character, you can spend a lot of mind-numbing time grinding out that “legendary” look.

Xenon.4537:

Aegis.9724:

i don’t know if i agree to the other points, but loot is seriously lacking

Right now, for 99% of the drops, its either:
-blue, greens -> vendor junk
-rare -> either salvage for ecto, or mystic toilet fodder
-exo -> directly to trading post, unless it’s a pre or i like the skin ( in which case i probably already have one )

There is just no excitement to it, feels like i’m just dropping money in physical form..

Yet this is pretty much the way it is in any RPG, unless it has a loot system like that of Zelda or Dark Souls where specific gear is always found in exactly the same place guaranteed because there is only 1 of each item in the game and each item serves it’s own specific purpose; a system that simply won’t work in an MMO.

This is not necessarily true. In a raiding environment, i’ve had great excitement from looking for that next piece of gear that will up my stats. A raid boss will not drop the piece of loot I want every time. But, at least I know that the gear I want is on his loot table. GW2 is not this type of game.

JSmooth.7654:

This is not necessarily true. In a raiding environment, i’ve had great excitement from looking for that next piece of gear that will up my stats. A raid boss will not drop the piece of loot I want every time. But, at least I know that the gear I want is on his loot table. GW2 is not this type of game.

If you replace higher tier gear with cosmetic gear, then it is and it isn’t. Every open world boss has a chance to drop an exotic weapon that only that boss drops. Now the problem with this is that the lootables for open world bosses are too random (so you might never see it), but at the same time they drop the item too often (hence those special exotic skins don’t cost as much as they used to).
There’s also another problem of dungeons not acting in the same way. Sure you get tickets and you get to pick the item, that’s great. But maybe it would be better if hard dungeons would include more than one type of cosmetic item that can only drop in that dungeon into those lootables? After all that’s what flame and frost finale dungeon had. It had a chance to drop a molten backpack or a mini. Both are insanely expensive now. That chance made it especially exciting from the loot point of view.
TLDR version: in my opinion dungeons should both have guaranteed rewards (armor and weapons bought with tickets) and rare cosmetic drops specific to that dungeon (something that you can get as a drop in that specific dungeon only, that you can’t buy with tickets).

Anyone else here think that most people are misunderstanding point No.3?

If I’m understanding the OP right, its not that he is oneshotting enemies, or that he is complaining enemies are oneshotting him.

The problem is many of the GW2 bosses are built around a 1 shot mechanic. They do it over and over again, often having more than 1 oneshot (or very high damage) skill. Once you know to just get out of the oneshot, the encounters become trivial. The bosses don’t do anything else, just stay out of the oneshot. Because of this Tanking(control) and healing(support) are secondary to DPS because who cares about taking if you can just avoid the only damage that matters? same with healing. I personally blame the 1 shot mechanics for the surge in DPS only groups and builds. And I cannot fault the players at all, because for most encounters it doesn’t matter if I have 20k HP or 10k If I mistime my dodge or find myself in the circle of death with no endurance I’m still just as dead. Better to just not be in the circle of death at all… once you do that, no reason to have defensive stats at all. And dungeons become damage spam fest.

I don’t know about you guys but I always cringe a little when a person tells me “I’m heal spec” Does it mean they are bad? Nope. but even if they are a perfect player, They will not help as much as another DPS would have, (assuming everyone in the group is competent). It hurts a lot of the fun of the gameplay.

Lokki.1092:

Anyone else here think that most people are misunderstanding point No.3?

If I’m understanding the OP right, its not that he is oneshotting enemies, or that he is complaining enemies are oneshotting him.

The problem is many of the GW2 bosses are built around a 1 shot mechanic. They do it over and over again, often having more than 1 oneshot (or very high damage) skill. Once you know to just get out of the oneshot, the encounters become trivial. The bosses don’t do anything else, just stay out of the oneshot. Because of this Tanking(control) and healing(support) are secondary to DPS because who cares about taking if you can just avoid the only damage that matters? same with healing. I personally blame the 1 shot mechanics for the surge in DPS only groups and builds. And I cannot fault the players at all, because for most encounters it doesn’t matter if I have 20k HP or 10k If I mistime my dodge or find myself in the circle of death with no endurance I’m still just as dead. Better to just not be in the circle of death at all… once you do that, no reason to have defensive stats at all. And dungeons become damage spam fest.

I don’t know about you guys but I always cringe a little when a person tells me “I’m heal spec” Does it mean they are bad? Nope. but even if they are a perfect player, They will not help as much as another DPS would have, (assuming everyone in the group is competent). It hurts a lot of the fun of the gameplay.

This is entirely true and I hate it. Why would I have a healing/toughness spec mace/shield guardian if he isnt useful in a dungeon or fractal?
Everything is dps zerker and not having a trinity coupled with the mechanics of GW2 have made this.
GW2 is all about the skins and making your character look cool. As of now there are too few options. I would love challenging high risk high reward content. That is what made GW1 fun for alot of people.