Guild Wars 2

This took me awhile to realize honestly. It appears that the developers thought that this game would be awesome as the first, or one of a few, MMO’s to become a true MMOARPG.

This is how the trinity isn’t needed at all. It explains ‘everything.’ Look at how fighting a boss works with a group in Diablo III on any difficulty range. You don’t have tanks or healers, but what you do have is utility in addition to your classes unique skills. If you put together a very strong blend of utility and abilities with various classes in a dungeon it likely is a walk in the park. This is why there are veteran and champion mobs in the game world ready to eat your soul, even though they drop terrible loot. But the BIG problem is the difference here.

In an ARPG you usually have a top down view of a large area and can easily move around the area better to avoid damage. I honestly think that Diablo III’s dungeon system works better than Guild Wars 2; despite D3 being less MMO and more Co-Op. In this game they hope that you will be able to see what a mob is going to do, along with the other vet’s or elite mobs you are trying to kill, and this results in confusion many times. But in this game you also have a much closer view of what is going on which seems to me disorienting . This also eliminates any real need for skill as you only have to revert to kiting most champions in the world while slowly eating away at its health. The fight therefore becomes a snooze fest due to the large health pool of most champions in the world. It gets terribly frustrating with abilities that one shot or nearly do. Dungeon encounters do involve strategy, but the fights also can be difficult for those who don’t understand the design philosophy.

The biggest problem to me is that they took to risk to mix up the mmo with this type of combat over the older system. What we got wasn’t really new or revolutionary, but mostly it was just a cut and paste series of ideas that already existed. While this is faster paced and more action oriented it also just is likely to confuse the crud out of people that don’t play dungeon crawlers but mostly traditional MMO’s. It is no wonder that there are many people from Guild Wars 1 wandering what in the world Anet was thinking. Why would they make the sequel to their beloved franchise an over sized dungeon crawler when the first was nothing like that?

I implore ArenaNet to rethink this system, as it seems out of place not only in Guild Wars, but also feels strange. I didn’t want to buy another dungeon crawler, but rather an MMO with combat that feels more in line with an MMORPG.

endless.1376:

This took me awhile to realize honestly. It appears that the developers thought that this game would be awesome as the first, or one of a few, MMO’s to become a true MMOARPG.

IMO there is still room for a great MMOARPG to be made. GW2 doesn’t quite make it because it’s not littered with ever-ending loot. However games like Dragon’s Nest, C9 and Vindictus are even closer to a MMOARPG.

I am one of a few that feel Blizzard should have up’d the ante with D3 and made it where you can view from a 3rd/1rst person view. To me that is moving the genre forward, ala Borderlands, which is a ARPG in a more modern angle. Games like TL2 work great in the old fashioned overhead view, because it was priced properly. Bliz has the money of God but is way too conservative and never cutting edge it seems.

But that is all me. I would love a really well made 3rd person MMOARPG. Not be all end all, but it would be fun nonetheless.

Horrorscope.7632:

endless.1376:

This took me awhile to realize honestly. It appears that the developers thought that this game would be awesome as the first, or one of a few, MMO’s to become a true MMOARPG.

IMO there is still room for a great MMOARPG to be made. GW2 doesn’t quite make it because it’s not littered with ever-ending loot. However games like Dragon’s Nest, C9 and Vindictus are even closer to a MMOARPG.

I am one of a few that feel Blizzard should have up’d the ante with D3 and made it where you can view from a 3rd/1rst person view. To me that is moving the genre forward, ala Borderlands, which is a ARPG in a more modern angle. Games like TL2 work great in the old fashioned overhead view, because it was priced properly. Bliz has the money of God but is way too conservative and never cutting edge it seems.

But that is all me. I would love a really well made 3rd person MMOARPG. Not be all end all, but it would be fun nonetheless.

Is it only me though that feels their encounter design with champions and veteran mobs could have been better? You know like how in D3 we clearly see circles on the ground, or indicators of types of attacks. In addition I think that we understood how to counter the various elite affixes better too. There’s something that seems not fully fleshed out in their encounters that seem to need work.

And yeah I also think that loot really needs to be improved for world champions and vets! I mean if you took the time to kill them and challenge yourself then why not get rewarded for it? How about a buff, or improved magic find if you killed a champion. I mean hell they have a lot of room to improve this system, but the way it is at the moment leaves me wanting the old one back.

Yes, they took a fun combat system and stuck it into a typical boring MMO system.

I also find it funny how the unique features of GW2 (W3, Events) have become secondary systems to dungeons, which is what they said was the downfall of past MMOs at GDC in this video:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic

To me it seems like they’ve fallen into the same trap as Mythic did with Warhammer Online.

My main question to ANet would have to be: If you wanted to be so dungeon focused, why did you get rid of the Mission system from GW1?

It would simply be funner for avg joe gamer if vets on up simply dropped a chest with some goods in it. That would be well up there on my ways to make the Open World even better for players to play there. People love the loot, very hard to find people against it. We’re simple like that and it’s virtual any way. So why not dish out smiles? Forum rumor has it, we aren’t garnered with more lavishes because this game is part “Cash Shop” as well, so they try to keep you lean to spend real cash. I cannot speak for it’s accuracy, but I get the theory behind it.

I do see red rings with GW2, so that seems similar to what you mention with D3.

There are different variants, such as vindictus/tera (action 3rd person “MMO”) diablo (dungeon crawler) then Guild wars 2 (traditional MMO with light action based movement).

I’ve played (and actually plan on resubbing) Tera, and the one thing that game does right is the combat. I remember Penny-Arcade mentioning that if a developer could combine the combat of tera, the non-quest/grind of GW2, and the personal story-lines/character development of Swtor, that the “perfect” MMO would be out.

And to a degree I agree with them, I really love gw2, specifically how it handles loot, parties, the breaking of the trinity, and the skills based on weapons used. The combat is solid, but, overall still heavily follows on the traditional combat mechanics.

I think GW2 could’ve been a solid contender for a true action/skill based combat system such as Tera’s etc.. but we’ll see in time with other MMO’s coming out.

endless.1376:

I implore ArenaNet to rethink this system, as it seems out of place not only in Guild Wars, but also feels strange. I didn’t want to buy another dungeon crawler, but rather an MMO with combat that feels more in line with an MMORPG.

So in other words, you want a completely different game than what GW2 is. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you’re probably better off simply playing another game.

As to GW2’s combat mechanics, I personally like the more action-oriented style of combat, and I suspect many others do too, or they wouldn’t be here. Frankly, I’d argue it didn’t go far enough toward being more action-oriented, but that’s entirely subjective. But to expect it to be a mere continuation of the original game’s combat style when it’s an entirely new game is naive; in that case, a mere expansion pack for GW1 would’ve sufficed.

As to your assertion that combat is “confusing”, well… might I humbly suggest that maybe you’re just bad at it? I find nothing confusing about it. If I wanted to simply stand in one spot and mash a button sequence to execute some idiotic rotation, I’d still be playing “that other MMO” (you know the one). I want more than that, so I’m here, because GW2 offers more. And frankly, perhaps a bit of confusing combat — some chaos, if you will — is just what people need to kick them out of their brain-dead MMORPG ruts. This genre of gaming could be so much more than what it presently is, and it’s not the lack of imagination by developers holding it back, it’s players who refuse to adapt to new ideas and progress.

Jaer.1029:

Tera, and the one thing that game does right is the combat.

If you haven’t tried C9 or Dragon’s Nest, give them a shot if nothing more then to just get ideas from more freedom yet. The biggest problems with each was the AI couldn’t have been easier, making PvE seem like a total walk in the park most of the time. But to me it gave me a glimpse at the next stages of an action MMO combat model, that GW’s 2 or even Tera is just on the other side of.

For example when you jump, your skills will act differently then standing still. You can do several karate type moves while moving and using skills, while jumping and using skills. It really adds to the variety, skill and pleasure. It feels a lot like a fighter game and it feels good.

GW2 won’t be that and that is ok, they have their own set of things that are better then anyone else, just keep building off of them.

JunkyardWolf.4126:

endless.1376:

I implore ArenaNet to rethink this system, as it seems out of place not only in Guild Wars, but also feels strange. I didn’t want to buy another dungeon crawler, but rather an MMO with combat that feels more in line with an MMORPG.

So in other words, you want a completely different game than what GW2 is. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you’re probably better off simply playing another game.

As to GW2’s combat mechanics, I personally like the more action-oriented style of combat, and I suspect many others do too, or they wouldn’t be here. Frankly, I’d argue it didn’t go far enough toward being more action-oriented, but that’s entirely subjective. But to expect it to be a mere continuation of the original game’s combat style when it’s an entirely new game is naive; in that case, a mere expansion pack for GW1 would’ve sufficed.

As to your assertion that combat is “confusing”, well… might I humbly suggest that maybe you’re just bad at it? I find nothing confusing about it. If I wanted to simply stand in one spot and mash a button sequence to execute some idiotic rotation, I’d still be playing “that other MMO” (you know the one). I want more than that, so I’m here, because GW2 offers more. And frankly, perhaps a bit of confusing combat — some chaos, if you will — is just what people need to kick them out of their brain-dead MMORPG ruts. This genre of gaming could be so much more than what it presently is, and it’s not the lack of imagination by developers holding it back, it’s players who refuse to adapt to new ideas and progress.

I honestly don’t like that utility skills have cast times. I’d love to just press a button and not just ‘stand there, or wait’ for something to happen. That way I can do other things while that ability is active much quicker. This to me feels more alive and exciting.

I definitely don’t refuse to try new ideas though. I leveled my Charr up to 80 and experienced a good enough chunk of world content. But yeah I am not that good at the combat system cause to me something about it doesn’t feel that great. It to me doesn’t feel actiony enough.

I feel like I am waiting for spells to be available, and some skills for various weapons seem pointless in a highly mobile action based system. Some of them feel to restricted as well since they are only available on certain weapons.

Overall, to me I am a difficult person to please. It really takes a game that overall comes together well as a masterpiece of fleshed out design that cohesively comes together. This game is having issues keeping people in it because so many aspects of it don’t do enough. The zones events and reknown hearts don’t adequately tell a story in them. It seems too chaotic. The dungeon designs seem clumsy and hard to figure out, and the story modes would have been better left as easy content to get through; since its for the story more than the difficulty.

On top of that, I might be the only person who feels this but the underwater combat feels disorienting and difficult to deal with. I have the hardest time consistently doing damage and managing that combat in a 3d space.