Reason GW1 players feel so bleh in my opinion
Welcome to human nature, people strive to be unique, identify themselves in their own way. Many people don’t want to look the same, have the same hair style, same car, same house, same pay. Those restraints hold people in invisible chains that only civilization defined.
That’s not what a game is about though.
So the way you’re looking at it, GW1 players wanted the freedom to play the way they wanted, with their own unique style of traits, runes, and skills. I don’t see anything wrong with that on a player viewpoint.
You can play what you want in GW2 too, you just can’t do 200 different things with it. Fine by me, what matters is how good you can play (especially in PvP/WvW) not how much time you’ve invested NOT playing. The game should be Guild Wars 2, not Build Wars 2.
GW2 puts contstraints on the freedom a player has when it comes to build versatility. Not only because the lack of skills, but the required work to change a build if you don’t like it. In GW1 you had to get new inscriptions and runes, and unlock skills if you didn’t already have them. Here I have to not only get a new set of armor, I have to transmute if I like old skins, reset my traits, buy new weapons, get new trinkets, buy more runes/sigils. It’s expensive and/or time consuming just to try something else.
No one is forcing you to transumte your new armor into your old looks. That’s what YOU want, not what the game is forcing you to do. The traits reset costs only 3s, not much at all. And the only expensive part of everything you listed can be runes/sigils. Exotic armor/weapons are basically free and trinkets cost like nothing.
For instance, warrior hammer was changed recently. I had put a good amount of work and and gold into making my warrior. Since it’s changed, I have to now either ditch hammer all together, or re-spec to the new hammer stats.
Warrior hammer is perfectly fine. In fact, it’s still actually very strong, no need to respec into anything. These were just nerfs that should have be done long time ago.
I feel ‘bleh’ because pretty much everything I loved from the original game is gone.
(edited by Tru Reptile.6058)
First off, I’ve played both games from their Betas.
The reason I’m so often “bleh” about gw2 is because everything they need to make it a great game is available, but they haven’t done it.
Things about GW2 that make me go “bleh”.
- Skill hunting. They’ve said they’re adding more skills – why not make a “new” elite, call it signet of capture, and make all the new skills only available through “capture”?
- Replayable interesting content. Simply put, we need new dungeons. Not something hidden away in fractals, but done like the current dungeons. GW1 kept me playing for seven years, there was a LOT of stuff to do. I don’t feel that in GW2.
- Storyline. There’s been lots said about the Living Story, and it’s failures. I’d suggest they start adding content relating to the Orders, and more race based things. We’ve killed the dragon – give us OTHER stuff to do as well. (Please, no more Scarlet).
- Builds. GW1 had a feeling of Magic: The Gathering. GW2 has nothing that compares to that. Adding more build diversity is necessary. The CDI’s have addressed this in depth.
- Balance and classes. There are huge issues with balance in GW2. It’s been covered, repeatedly. Something has to be done to address the balance of classes and what each one brings to the table. Giving everyone the same potential damage, but vastly different health and defense is perhaps the worst balance decision I’ve seen in any game, ever. Then there’s the ranger – a class who’s mechanic is so broken that it’s been acknowledged by the designers, but they also said they have no plans to address it.
- Melee vs. Ranged. Melee is the way to go in GW2, with extraordinarily few exceptions (Shaman and ?). Everyone knows this. The difference in between melee and ranged damage is enormous. Add to this that there are very few ways for ranged users to maintain range (CC’s being too short-lived on far too long a recharge, gap closers being on insanely short cooldowns vs. their potential movement, and the lack of gap-openers meaning the ONLY way to maintain a distance is to kite) and we have an entire playstyle that’s basically invalid. Play your way indeed.
- Grind and BiS gear. I’m one of the ones who bought the game because “Everyone would have BiS gear by the time they were level 80.” Now that BiS gear is only available through prodigious amounts of money and crafting (grind grind grind), and hidden behind time-gating, they’ve completely turned their back on the whole premise of their game, in terms of gear.
Were they to address these, I’d likely list this among the best games I’ve ever played. (GW1, The Zelda franchise, Baldur’s Gate franchise, Dragon Age: Origins, Elder Scrolls series). As it stands, this game has everything it needs to be a true successor to GW, and there’s no reason for them not to make it that.
Anet, guys, I want to love your game!
More than anything, the potential to be what it could is what makes me go “bleh”.
Reasons I feel so “BLEH!!”:
1. Build Diversity is non-igistant – see the many posts on these forums and guru.
2. Story just sucks after the Orders chains.
3. Grind, Grind, and more Grind.
4. Basically this isn’t GW2 it’s an A-Net/NCSoft game using SOME of the old GW lore and made to milk people of their hard earned money.
Some ways to fix these:
Add more skills to each Profession and not just utility skills or new weapons. Make new skills for weapons we currently have and allow us to choose the 5 WE want.
Add the Story versions of the Dungeons to the actual story-line. We never hear anything about Destiny’s Edge after the racial story is over until we get to Arah.
Grind: Go back to Profession specific armor with an easy to get top set. If you want grind, that’s what the different looks are for(Obsidian Armor).
Go back and talk to the ORIGINAL Devs of Prophecies and see what they did right with GW and adapt that to GW2.
(edited by Galphar.3901)
Reason why GW1 players feel so “bleh” about GW2, is because it doesn’t give them the satisfaction of building something unique. It’s a general demand on gaming, people prefer building their specs rather than actually playing the game.
I used to think that, but after playing MMOs for so long, you start realising that in every game there will always be the one best build for each aspect of the game, and pretty much everyone will use that best build until the devs change the meta. So you aren’t really unique if you want to play efficiently.
It’s great if you want to play just for fun though. Good times where I made some awesome builds that are hilarious to watch unfold but are pretty much useless.
Reason why GW1 players feel so “bleh” about GW2, is because it doesn’t give them the satisfaction of building something unique. It’s a general demand on gaming, people prefer building their specs rather than actually playing the game.
I used to think that, but after playing MMOs for so long, you start realising that in every game there will always be the one best build for each aspect of the game, and pretty much everyone will use that best build until the devs change the meta. So you aren’t really unique if you want to play efficiently.
It’s great if you want to play just for fun though. Good times where I made some awesome builds that are hilarious to watch unfold but are pretty much useless.
That realisation comes from playing games in general, not just mmos. In MTG there are best decks, in MOBA games there are best champions and so on.
But I agree with you generally and that’s what I’m saying; you’re not playing a game to express yourself or anything, you’re playing the game for training your mind, reflexes and decision quality. I don’t want what I play to feel unique because that’s a way to express myself or anything, I want to play a good build and be as efficient as possible with it. If I want self-expression, there’s art for that, not games.
Reason why GW1 players feel so “bleh” about GW2, is because it doesn’t give them the satisfaction of building something unique. It’s a general demand on gaming, people prefer building their specs rather than actually playing the game.
I used to think that, but after playing MMOs for so long, you start realising that in every game there will always be the one best build for each aspect of the game, and pretty much everyone will use that best build until the devs change the meta. So you aren’t really unique if you want to play efficiently.
It’s great if you want to play just for fun though. Good times where I made some awesome builds that are hilarious to watch unfold but are pretty much useless.
That realisation comes from playing games in general, not just mmos. In MTG there are best decks, in MOBA games there are best champions and so on.
But I agree with you generally and that’s what I’m saying; you’re not playing a game to express yourself or anything, you’re playing the game for training your mind, reflexes and decision quality. I don’t want what I play to feel unique because that’s a way to express myself or anything, I want to play a good build and be as efficient as possible with it. If I want self-expression, there’s art for that, not games.
That self expression has taken form in making my toons look as unique (in a good way) as possible. I spend hours on that.
But I agree with you generally and that’s what I’m saying; you’re not playing a game to express yourself or anything, you’re playing the game for training your mind, reflexes and decision quality
I would say that’s a hard-core state-of-mind. Not saying constantly challenging yourself is good or bad, just that it’s one of many reasons people play MMO’s: escapism, social interaction, exploration, comradarie, immersion(rpg), self-expression…
And then there’s just plain ole fun.
Obsidian Sky – SoR
I troll because I care
I troll because I care
Reason why GW1 players feel so “bleh” about GW2, is because it doesn’t give them the satisfaction of building something unique. It’s a general demand on gaming, people prefer building their specs rather than actually playing the game.
I used to think that, but after playing MMOs for so long, you start realising that in every game there will always be the one best build for each aspect of the game, and pretty much everyone will use that best build until the devs change the meta. So you aren’t really unique if you want to play efficiently.
It’s great if you want to play just for fun though. Good times where I made some awesome builds that are hilarious to watch unfold but are pretty much useless.
That realisation comes from playing games in general, not just mmos. In MTG there are best decks, in MOBA games there are best champions and so on.
But I agree with you generally and that’s what I’m saying; you’re not playing a game to express yourself or anything, you’re playing the game for training your mind, reflexes and decision quality. I don’t want what I play to feel unique because that’s a way to express myself or anything, I want to play a good build and be as efficient as possible with it. If I want self-expression, there’s art for that, not games.
That self expression has taken form in making my toons look as unique (in a good way) as possible. I spend hours on that.
Looking good/unique/awesome, call it what you want, is nice. Building “unique”, is a completely other thing.
I’ll spend some time on deciding on some good skins about my characters, but that goes after I’ve burned myself in PvP and WvW.
Welcome to human nature, people strive to be unique, identify themselves in their own way. Many people don’t want to look the same, have the same hair style, same car, same house, same pay. Those restraints hold people in invisible chains that only civilization defined.
That’s not what a game is about though.
It is in fact. It’s one of GW2’s main points. The cosmetic endgame.
You can play what you want in GW2 too, you just can’t do 200 different things with it. Fine by me, what matters is how good you can play (especially in PvP/WvW) not how much time you’ve invested NOT playing. The game should be Guild Wars 2, not Build Wars 2.
It’s an RPG. Creating builds is half the battle in RPGs. An RPG with a lot of depth will lead to a system that allows players the freedom to create whatever build that suits their playstyle. An RPG that doesn’t do this means the game lacks depth and many people on GW2 and MMOs in general will admit this.
Compare GW1, Dragon’s Dogma, any 3.5 D&D game, Dark Souls/Demon Souls to any MMO on the market and you will see my point.
The traits reset costs only 3s, not much at all. And the only expensive part of everything you listed can be runes/sigils. Exotic armor/weapons are basically free and trinkets cost like nothing.
Trait reset is annoying from a user interface perspective. You have to manually choose your traits every time instead of having something like GW1’s build system where you can switch to saved builds on the fly. It’s preventing players to really experiment with build diversity because it’s not a seamless experience and requires too many hoops to jump through.
It has more to do with poor enemy design and a restrictive build system, IMO.
The traits reset costs only 3s, not much at all. And the only expensive part of everything you listed can be runes/sigils. Exotic armor/weapons are basically free and trinkets cost like nothing.
Trait reset is annoying from a user interface perspective. You have to manually choose your traits every time instead of having something like GW1’s build system where you can switch to saved builds on the fly. It’s preventing players to really experiment with build diversity because it’s not a seamless experience and requires too many hoops to jump through.
This is just one of the reasons it’s so much more difficult to try out new builds in-game. The other is you need multiple armor sets to test them effectively. In GW we had one set of armor for everything. I even used the same armor for both PvE and PvP and there was no difference. Each Profession had a max level set of armor with stats that corresponded to it’s unique playstyle. We had probably 100 different armor sets per profession but the only difference was the look not the actual stats on the armor.
You can play what you want in GW2 too, you just can’t do 200 different things with it. Fine by me, what matters is how good you can play (especially in PvP/WvW) not how much time you’ve invested NOT playing. The game should be Guild Wars 2, not Build Wars 2.
^ average dudebro CoDlo player.