The 5 best and worst things about GW2

The 5 best and worst things about GW2

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Posted by: Toroxus.9256

Toroxus.9256

Here is a list of my five best things in GW2 and my five worst things about it that is weighted for its importance in the game. Going to make this as concise as I can for the Devs while being specific. Bolded text is most important.
5 things that I think are best about GW2:

#5: The casual progression system. Being able to do all the content is important to me. Being able to do all the things my friends do, be it dungeons, gear, world bosses, whatever is crucial. Playing a game in which you don’t have to choose between productivity and fun is important to me.
#4: Character customization and re-customization: Please read my most hated thing about GW2 before commenting on this one. Being able to reset my skills, traits, weapons, armor appearance, armor stats, etc. are so important to me in order to keep a game fresh. GW1 did it better than GW2 does it, but I still have to give credit where it’s due, especially when you look at other MMOs. Being able to do what I want, when I want, look how I want, and play how I want is critical for me. This includes the wardrobe, transmutation, and dye systems.
#3: The UI. While the HUD isn’t adjustable like GW1’s was, the UI, especially the inventory, and Hero’s panels are incredible compared to other MMOs. CONCISE and navigable are the terms here. And every time I open the collectibles pane, I hear an angelic choir.
#2: Mentoring and Event System. Being able to play in the entire world and not one-shot things while doing real-time events with other players, including friends who are new to the game even though I’ve played for thousands of hours, is very important to me.
#1: Rewarding strangers for cooperating. Chests, resources, quests, skills interacting with non-party members, combo fields, etc. By rewarding people for helping strangers, it encourages a good community, and having fun with friendly people is why we play online games.
Honorable Mentions: Black Lion Trading Post (both the Auction House and the Cash shop), Megaserver, World Boss Event system, Daily and Monthly Achievement systems, Achievement rewards, Jumping Puzzles, Skill curve, Level curve (lack of), Wallet system, No subscription, Game uptime, GW1 references, PvP Normalization, and WvW.

The 5 best and worst things about GW2

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Posted by: Toroxus.9256

Toroxus.9256

5 things I think are worst about GW2:
#5: The optimization in the game’s engine interferes with the game’s scale. 20-30FPS, when in a large group, sucks. It severely reduces the grandness of large-scale WvW and Open World events when you have frame-rate lag and can’t even load all those players. And all of it traces back to the game’s primary computing thread maxing out a core of even the fastest CPU. It would do the game a lot of good, especially if you want to make bigger events, if you fixed this problem. I’d pay the cost of an expansion, if it only fixed the game’s optimization. I won’t joke and say there’s a simple fix for this one. But even if you have to pay Intel and/or AMD for consultation, you need to do something. The Megaserver shows me that Anet/NCSoft are interested in the game becoming bigger and grander. But there’s no point to making more people in an area if the game’s engine can’t process it. In computing terms, this is called a “bottleneck” and GW2 has one that needs to be fixed if the game is to grow. There is no excuse as to why the game’s engine is so bad. I’ve heard so many arguments ranging from “The CPU tech isn’t there yet” to “Need DX9 so people can play on Pentium 4’s” and none of them are legitimate reasons as to why the engine is the way it is. Here’s a related honorable mention of something I hate about GW2: FXAA is not a substitute for SSAA or MSAA.
#4: Secondary Story Telling: This is about side-quests, area lore, and even the living story. It’s very obvious which parts of the game that had more effort spent on. The events and quests in Ascalon are great. They give good information, have great lore, and are, most importantly, fun and interesting. And then you go to Kryta and it’s bad. You can’t possible compare Bria the Necromancer and the Ascalonian Ghosts vs. The Charr and the Humans vs. Charr to “Defend the Garrison” and Seraph vs. Centaurs and Bandits. Kyrtan side quests are generic and cookie-cutter; Ascalon is involving and compelling. Temple of the Ages was such an important place in GW1, yet, all it gets is a PoI, a Skill Point, and 1 quest. Was adding an NPC to weigh in on the existence of the Human Gods, since their shrines at ToA were destroyed, too much to ask for?

The living story is great, except that you fell into some bad-story making decisions. You’re putting lore that should be in the game (like Scarlet’s backstory) on a website as just a character Bio instead of part of an introduction to a new character. And when you meet her, she explodes onto the scene as a character more powerful than any other, and wields an army bigger than The Pact with zero explanations in-game until she’s about to die. A great comparison can be made in GW1. Imagine you’re trying to stop Nightfall and you show up at the Mouth of Torment and there is Varesh and it’s your first time ever hearing of or meeting her. Scarlet’s objective: Releasing a bad-guy, can almost happen without her. But you couldn’t even imagine the story of Nightfall without Varesh who had the same objective: Release a bad-guy. Varesh was a person who had a story, Scarlet was an after-thought in an attempt to bring about a means to an end. Simple Fix: I have to know a place and a character before I care about them.

#3: The Story. The story of The Pact is terrible. It’s literally a disgrace compared to GW1’s. The only time I actually cared, was when I was defending Trehearne with our NPC comrades while he was Cleansing Orr. That’s the only time I ever felt something. Well, other than… *sniff* Tybalt. I cried. Anyways, so many NPCs died minutes after meeting them, I couldn’t care less. And there is literally zero information on the story to be found elsewhere, such as side quests. Characters and Events need to be fleshed out for me to care, and in GW2, the only person is fleshed out at all is Trehearne, and he’s barely passable as a character I’d care about. As opposed to Kormir, General Morgahn, Varesh, Kurzicks vs. Luxons, Glint, Turai Ossa and the Ghostly Hero, Prince Rurik, etc. Simple Fix: I have to know a character before I care about them.

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Posted by: Toroxus.9256

Toroxus.9256

#2: Primary Story Telling (not the story itself): GW1 had an emote-driven cinematic system. GW2 went backwards and has… two people awkwardly facing each other, just reappearing and disappearing. So many times does this just ruin something, like the Battle of Claw Island, Cleansing Orr, or Fighting Zhaitan or just a simple conversation involving more than two individuals. People are visual animals. You made the game beautiful, now let me see it. Simple Fix: Don’t ever use this “interview-esque” cinematic system ever again. And I mean it, NEVER. It can’t be salvaged.
#1, my most hated thing: Not enough skill customization. The system needs to be more like GW1’s system that had a lot of choice. This is most egregious in regards to Elites and weapon skills. There is almost always one or two weapon skills on a bar with significantly reduced usefulness compared to the rest. Very Simple Fix: Double the amount of weapon skills and let me choose accordingly. Example: Make there be a total of 6 sword skills and let me have 3 on my bar at a time. Refrain from limiting this choice by making trait-specific skills.

Hated honorable mention: Armor inequality between the sexes in humanoid races, and Mystic Forge Precursor RNG.

And there you have it. I encourage discussion, whether you have a better example than I did, or think I’m completely wrong and explain why.

(edited by Toroxus.9256)

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Posted by: Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

The Devs responsible for the cut-scenes have stated that the ‘two-people talking-heads’ approach has been retired. I don’t think you will be seeing that much in the future.

While I may agree or disagree with your points, I think this is a well-written post. Thanks for sharing. =)

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Posted by: Teon.5168

Teon.5168

Gotta agree with you on #5 on the worst things about the game. The game engine does need to be improved, especially after the release of the megaserver patch. I have to drop my graphics down to medium quality or less in game to have smooth and playable dynamics in WvW/PvE zergs and/or in super populated cities.

As someone mentioned in a previous thread about this same sort of subject…..would be nice if the engine could take advantage of the 64 bit systems that a lot of people have.

And yea, some of the story telling and cut scenes between two characters gets old really fast. Although, you can skip those scenes easily enough.

Forum discussions -
Mmo players with a screw loose vs mmo players with two screws loose. All very important stuff.
-Zenleto-

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Posted by: Bloodlust.3672

Bloodlust.3672

GW2’s storytelling reminds me of sesame street. kid friendly, safe, and the puppet storytelling. which just doesn’t have the cool and awesome factor of most medieval fantasy games. this approach is rather boring for a teen rated game.

as for the engine, not only does it perform poorly, but it looks dated. the bloom lighting is also overdone and screams bad taste. anet likely needs to make a new engine from the ground up.

and yes they need to bring back the deep combat and skill system of gw1.

(edited by Bloodlust.3672)

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Posted by: Xillllix.3485

Xillllix.3485

Best:
1- PvP/WvW Fighting system
2- Graphic design (EOTM)
3- Jumping puzzles
4- Mac version
5- SAB

Worse
1- No GvG
2- No Guild Halls
3- Bad implementation of most new content (WvW ruins, temporary content, events you can’t play with friends, farming) (except SAB)
4- Lack of WvW content
5- PvP not as good as GW1 GvG

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Posted by: Asgaeroth.6427

Asgaeroth.6427

Best:
1. DAoC like WvW
2. Animation quality
3. Crafting
4. Tolerable leveling
5. Achievements system

Worst:
1. Price of upgrade remover is absurdly high. 250 gems to save your 5 laurels if you want to upgrade a ring or back in the mystic forge? Not even a remotely fair price.
2. Laurel cost on gear and infusions is absurdly high for WvW merchants. Don’t really agree with putting fairly basic gear behind such a draconian time limited currency. Would really like to see the laurel cost reduced and badge price increased for WvW ascended trinkets and infusions.
3. Teq and Triple Trouble are basically impossible with megaserver, they both scale out of control because of AFK double downs everywhere. Even if you have 30 people doing the fight perfectly there’s 30 more sitting around or outright trolling the fight every single pull now.
4. Can’t really think of any more, but those 3 are driving me batty lately.

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Posted by: Kaiyanwan.8521

Kaiyanwan.8521

Best:

1. No monthly fee. At least people can have a second look at the game from time to time.
2. Art Style
3. Shared ressources
4. As nothing you do really matters in the game or for your character, you can just log in and out whenever you want.
5. No reputations to grind.

Worst:

1. Currency inflation: Both the quantity of different currencies and the amount of each currency needed to get anything (→ grindy as kitten)
2. The story: Started weak with Trahearne and got abysmally bad with the LS and Scarlet.
3. Vertical progression: Ascended weapon/armor is a horrible grind, and crafting your stuff after farming the ressources does feel very little heroic.
4. Horizontal progression: Nearly no horizontal progression available. One new trait for each trait line in 18 monthes and one new healing skills per profession and one for all (that is useless).
5. Balancing: There is none.

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Posted by: Immensus.9732

Immensus.9732

Best:
1. Visuals, Graphics, Music
2. Community
3. Regular Updates
4. Interesting Classes (although un-balanced)
5. More dynamic content
Worst:
1. Everything is casual and easy
2. Storytelling is really bad
3. Combat feels empty since support is not viable and everyone goes zerker
4. No ui Addons. thats just stupid tbh, every decent MMO supports addons
5. rewards are awful, which is a result of small stat progression range and no challenging content that drops good loot, apart from 2 only world bosses 1 only dungeon path and fractals, which is really nothing compared to other MMOs challenging content.

Honorable mention: Heart quests are borng and is what prevents me from doing map completion. also the armor skin variety is very very small and any new skins we get are Gem Store based. Weapon variety is good. If you combine 1. and 3. from worst list with stacking and bugs, dungeons are super lame and boring after a couple of times. Also Achievement system is the best ive seen in any game not just MMOs by far.

Final conclusion. w2 does need harder content is essential for people that play more often than casuals to keep em busy, on top of that rewards got to change , no more tiers are needed but bigger chances for ascended gear that can be dropped by doing hardcore content. on top of that grinding gold and mats to craft ascended is boring and lame, but doing epic challenging content like wurm to get a full set, not just blues and greens with a very small chance for ascended, is much better!

Mesmers Shall Rule Tyria!

(edited by Immensus.9732)

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Posted by: papryk.6273

papryk.6273

TOP 5 worst?

well…numero uno…the worst of the worst is (drums in the background)
>>>> PVP <<<<
then comes:
- end game or the lack of it…
- no guild halls
- too few skills, lack of build diversity, lack of templates
- temporary content (LS)

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Posted by: Ykfox.3825

Ykfox.3825

Pros:
1)Graphics/Visuals – This game has a stunning world to explore.

2)Combat – Feels nice and fluid, and more realistic than mmo’s like WoW. I would not stand there and let the giant dragon chew on me just so others can hurl spells at it. I’d be dodge-rollin like crazy.

3)Casual – No massive grinds except for purely optional weapon/armor skins and titles.

4)Friendly atmosphere – Very few other games will have people just randomly help each other out, without one person QQ’ing about killstealing or the like.

5)No monthly fee – This is a big one, if you start to get burned out on the game for whatever reason you can take a break and come back whenever you want.

Cons:
1)Living Story – It was great, horrible villains, interesting new heroes, etc. The con is that they released it every 2 weeks, so you almost felt compelled to participate to get the rewards that were unlockable only by that content. This was a BAD thing since it left a lot of people who have limited time to play the game having to choose between the LS rewards and doing something else.

2)No new areas to explore really. We got Southsun, and that was exciting… until it turned out there’s no real reason to go there. Now we at least have the Karka Queen, but besides that basically nothing worth going there for. C’mon ANet, add some new zones with new hearts/etc.

3)Activities – I remember all the hype about bar brawls, polymock, some sort of Traveling circus, the shooting gallery…. c’mon ANet, these have been known since before BWE1 for some of them. Get some released at least.

4)Lack of variety in skills – Some classes have a lot of different skills, some have less. Some only have a few specific skills that are really viable. (Looking at you Guardian Spirit Weapons) Honestly I’d like to see ANet release if not more weapons for more classes, then at least release some new traits/skills that can radically change the way a class plays. How about a trait that removes the Ranger’s pet and let’s them play as a pure Archer type class like was possible in GW1?

5)But honestly the thing I dislike most about this game lately is the Champion Trains. I get that some people like them, but let’s be honest. Almost every map now has some sort of Champion Train going on, and if you kill a champion or the like without the zerg you can get abuse hurled at you.

This game has so much potential, and it’s easily one of my favorite games out at the moment. But the fact that so many people seem to only care about killing the champions for loot… Is that really what you want this game to be ANet? Nothing but follow the Commander?

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Posted by: wasted.6817

wasted.6817

Worst.
1. WvW being a complete zerg/stack fest with next to no strategy and progress in there.
2. Conquest being the only available PvP mode.
3. Lack of substantial new content (stand alone add on) for over a year.
4. Lack of sensible team-play in every area of the game, classes, in most cases, are too independent, lack of active meaningful roles for classes in group play.
5. Lack of tools for community to organise. (alliances, guild instances, guild halls, ability to choose districts etc.)
5.1 Complete stagnation in dungeons aspect of the game. xP

Best.
1. Sub free.
2. Entertaining for new players.
3. Quality of some of the art work.
4. Music.
5. Whatever.

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Posted by: Antharius.6950

Antharius.6950

Best:

1. No Subscription
2. Casual
3. Large Interesting World
4. Using DAoC RvRvR system (though it could do with a lot of improvements)
5. Leveling (pre 15th April 2014 patch)

Worst

1. WvWvW rewards zerg mentality too much. Terrible implementation of point system in WvWvW. Outnumbered buff should be useful and not what is currently is.
2. Jumping Puzzles or Trading Post manipulators (both equally annoying)
3. Awful crafting system.
4. Personal story is not personal if it requires a group.
5. Mega-servers.

Minion Master (Broken), Turret Engineer,
Guardian, Ranger, Warrior.

(edited by Antharius.6950)

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Posted by: hedix.1986

hedix.1986

Best:
1. No subscription.
2. WvW. really fun game aspect. Especially tournaments (not there there are some rewards).
3. Guilds and server communities. Social aspect makes the game. Hindered by the Megaserver.
4. Orr – used to have been fun, with chain events, interactive Temples, campaign feeling etc. Before the Megaserver!
5. Megabosses a’la Teq & Wurm. Excellent to have events that require coordination and player cooperation. Also hindered by the Megaserver.

Worst:
1. By far. The Tower of Babel that is MEGASERVER. It does not work. It breaks communities. It hinders remaining communities and events. It hinders recruitment for PvX guilds. It is not wanted.
2. No development on the dungeons.
3. Storytelling of the Living Story. Very naive and feels disconnected to the rest of the lore.
4. Temporary content that comes with the Living Story.
5. No instancing of Megaboss events.

[QQ] – ex RoS, current Piken Square
[DV] – megaboss community

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Posted by: Max Lexandre.6279

Max Lexandre.6279

One of the worst things must be the MegaServer since the 15th, the good side of populate the game maps, it sacrificed the World Bosses, the Hardcore Tequatl and Wurm event Organized Runs, Guild Missions on large guilds, do PvE guild run that got very complicated to get on the same megaserver… It’s one change requiring many changes to actually improve the game. We should not be sacrificing systems to improve one.

I’m The Best in Everything.
Asura thing.

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Posted by: Valento.9852

Valento.9852

“Dated engine”? I almost spit my coffee now, there will always be constraints when engineering an engine, and market is among those.

Attempts at ele specs:
Shaman
Conjurer

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Posted by: Neilos Tyrhanos.5427

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427

The five best things:
5: WvW. Easy to get into, dynamic, mass PvPvE.
4: Lack of the trinity.
3: Sub-free, meaning I can drop out for a month and return, and only a few AP have been missed.
2: The community. It has its problems, but it’s genuinely better than most other mass online game communities, and elitism isn’t widespread, relatively.
1: Design. Always Guild Wars’ strong suit. Fantastic design.

The worst:
5: Lacking in endgame. Eight dungeons and two megabosses can only be repeated so many times.
4: Tone. It sometimes hints at darker elements, but on the whole, the tone is feels too light-hearted. Far more so than the original Guild Wars most of the time. It doesn’t suit the lore, or the world that they have. Put Scarlet Briar in this category.
3: Mesmers, and their inexhaustible army of clones, which can be replaced instantaneously.
2: Ambiguity over expansions-vs-Living Story. This might be a personal thing of mine, but it bothers me quite a lot. I need to know what the future has in store if I’m going to invest a lot of time in a game… and I sincerely hope it’s in the form of expansions as expansions, rather than smaller, piecemeal releases.
1: Story. The Personal Story has some great potential, but the characters are two-dimensional and the plot as a whole is straightforward and predictable on the whole.

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Posted by: Thaddeus.4891

Thaddeus.4891

BEST
- No Subcription : I can give Anet some money if I want and get things that I want. I’m happy to give them my money when I do.
- Cooperation over Competition : There is no competition between player for ressources, rewards, events, quests, etc. That give us a better in-game community.
- Visual : The design, the style and quality is pretty good for a MMO.
- Alt Friendly : Character are easy to level up and gearing up in exotic take almost no time. Even casual player usually have more than 1 character and that’s great.
- Level Adjustement : You don’t end up throwing content and maps in the garbage because they are too low level. Worlds Events, Dungeons and other, even at low level are still done on a regular basis, while map like Queensdales are some of the most popular maps.

WORST
- Game optimization is horrible : All on the CPU, if you don’t have a good computer, you WILL lag.
- WvW poor organization : Fight for your server is a great idea, but the way they did it, you always dominate or being dominated. There is some exception when you can find 1-2 servers that is similar with you in numbers and coverage, but that rare and usually don’t last long.
- The Personal Story : Even the first time, its not best time of the game when you complete that. Bad storytelling, long boring actions, etc. And all that end up with one of the worst final boss fight ever in the video game history.
- New Content : There is bad choice in that. For me its simply a waste of precious developping ressources. Temporary content, achievement hunting, boring content. Not all new content were bad (fractal, Tequalt, Marionnette, SAB, etc). But a lot of money and ressources were thrown out the window.
- Bad Balance in PvE : With Necro and Rangers being so bad in PvE, with direct damage being the only way to go, with several gearing option being useless, with condition damage so useless, there is a lot to fix there to improve the game.

Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD

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Posted by: Valento.9852

Valento.9852

I’d like to remember people that ArenaNet has always considered experimenting, so nothing is simply discarded regardless of whether it’s good or not, it’s not like “throwing money out the window”… It’s actually pretty impressive how bold they are to try new things and polish to a state it becomes desired by the players, the problem is that innovating and trying new things may take time, and it’s not a good idea to keep players waiting on your experimentations.

Attempts at ele specs:
Shaman
Conjurer

(edited by Valento.9852)

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Posted by: Corian.4068

Corian.4068

Best in no order:

  • Jumping puzzles/Super Adventure Box
  • Visual/world/character design
  • WvW/PvP
  • Combat fluidity/animations
  • Music

Worst in no order:

  • Underwater combat (love the underwater visuals, wish it was just exploration and puzzling instead)
  • Stealth dropping UI target (just because the guy stealthed doesn’t mean I forgot that I wanted to attack him)
  • Ascended gear (it’s a lot of hassle for something that feels so necessary)
  • Trait point distribution (would rather see all 14 trait points available by level 60)
  • Elite skills (for the most part, too gimmicky and cooldowns are too high)
Hit level eighty
Priorities, what to do?
Spend hours with dye

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Posted by: Ellye.9123

Ellye.9123

My favorite things about GW2:

- The seamless level scaling. The fact that you never “outgrow” any part of the world, and can still adventure anywhere without it becoming a boring one-hit-kill-everything. This is by far the best thing about GW2 for me, as I enjoy exploring and that often means going back to places below my level.
- The separation between PvP and PvE equipment, level and stats. It’s the only decent way to have PvP, otherwise it simply becomes a matter of whoever plays longer has an advantage.
- The fact that the game rewards cooperation, even without the need of formally making a party. I can easily buff strangers, I can assist with events, I can revive downed players, etcetera.
- The community. While those forums often pass the wrong idea, being quite toxic and negative at times, the actual in-game community tends to be extremely friendly and helpful.


What I don’t like about GW2:

- Targeting. I don’t know how it could be improved, but sometimes it feels too hard to sticky to the correct target. It often feels I’m playing against the UI.
- Underwater combat. I don’t know why game devs even bother trying to make underwater combat.

(edited by Ellye.9123)

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Posted by: Lankybrit.4598

Lankybrit.4598

Best:

1 No subscription
2 Using the TP from anywhere
3 Deposit to collection from anywhere
4 Personal Nodes
5 Champion Trains

I have way more than 5, but those are the top ones.

Worst:

1 Gold is hard to come by
2 Farming items is tough
3 Dungeons are meh
4 Crafting doesn’t seem worth doing
5 Can’t come up with a 5th

My Life in Tyria: http://lankygw2blog.blogspot.com/
Updated every Monday

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Posted by: Onis.2418

Onis.2418

Best:
SAB
Combat/JP flow (comfortable, fun)
Shared exp/loots/nodes (grouping up with other people feels natural and fun)
Legal gem buying with in-game gold (win-win situation for all)
Alt-friendliness

Worst:
Dungeon/fractals forced mechanisms that require 3-5 players
Lack of good looking/revealing male clothes compared to females
Hard content only temporary (Liadri/tribulation)
Underwater battle/movement
Story is quite predictable and our character background/personality is decided for us

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Posted by: tigirius.9014

tigirius.9014

Best:

  1. Graphic design, visually pleasing world.
  2. Open world event system. (pre-Teq Changes.)
  3. Realtively quick leveling system. (if you do all of the tasks like gathering/crafting etc)
  4. Multiple Choice quest completions.
  5. Personal Gathering Nodes.

Worst:

  1. RMTAH style economy. (less obvious to most because of the exchange of gems to gold)
  2. No monthly permanent DE/metas.
  3. Terrible rewards system for completion of tasks.
  4. Enchants required for end game builds dependent totally on drops/enormous gold cost.
  5. Unbalanced PVE combat, specifically brought on by the lack of historic knowledge of previous MMO development teams and their struggles with universal combat concepts and the failure to correct major changes to the game that caused certain styles of combat essential to certain classes to become completely useless. (such as the boss’ immunity to CC and the early nerf of condition damage across the board.)
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!

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Posted by: rgraze.5169

rgraze.5169

To the op Point 5 on the worst. You do mean GPU not CPU. My cpu never gets maxed out when playing games but my GPU does. Games are GPU intensive not CPU. Unless you are using an integrated gpu which would not be recommended.

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Posted by: Hopeless.5403

Hopeless.5403

5 Worst:
-Light blob attacking bosses while in large groups is extremely annoying, you can’t see anything!
-Light blob
-Light blob
-Light blob
-Light blob

5 Best:
The game in general is pretty amazing

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Posted by: Chemical Rush.2569

Chemical Rush.2569

Best: Game itself is fun. I really like the ability to dodge stuff.

Meh: The traits work well, but the trait trees are just so boring. It seems like they just enhance your abilities that are already there and don’t give you anything new. Kinda lame, IMO. Sure there are a few noticeable and fun differences, but overall I gotta say, kinda boring.

Worst: Trahearne. Everyone I know hates Trahearne. He completely ruins the personal story. As one of my GW2 buddies put it: “After the first part of the story, it changes from your personal story to Trahearne’s personal story.”

He is a lame plant, he doesn’t really do anything at all that the player can’t do (you actually are doing basically everything, he just soaks up half the “credit” like a scumbag). He is pointless. He is lame. He is boring. He is ugly. His dialog and voice are annoying beyond belief. More importantly, he is the single reason that many people (myself included) never finished story mode. Please, for the love of God, get rid of that stupid, ridiculous plant from the story, and preferably the entire game. I don’t even want to see him as a Scarlet-esq villain who I can kill later; I am so sick of that accursed plant that I just want him gone! He ruined the story! Every single piece of dialog he is in is ridiculous. All of his story elements are beyond comprehension. Like the different orders:

“Gosh dern we don’t get along because we do things differently…..but my goodness do we ever need to….but we can’t! We just can’t get along! For some unknown ridiculous reason, we can’t put aside our differences so that we don’t all die! Wait a minute, guys…we found a solution. Let’s put a plant in charge and then we can get along for some other unknown, ridiculous reason.”

Don’t you see how terrible it is? He is so forced into the story that it’s not even funny. He has literally no reason for being there, and again, he completely ruins the player’s not-so-personal story. It’s like “Oh yeah, you are an awesome hero! But….you need a plant that doesn’t actually do anything to occasionally assist you with things you can actually do by yourself…and even though he only occasionally helps you, let’s make him the focal point of the story.”

He has ruined the story for so many people. I will never finish the story so long as that horrid plant is in it. A lot of people are leaving the game out of boredom recently.

Recommendations: Get rid of the cost to teleport places. The cost is so small that it doesn’t really matter anyway, but even still I find it deterring. In GW1 I used to travel all over the place and have fun. Now, even though I can easily afford the travel costs, in early game it was such a detriment that it really killed the feel for the game. Why would you even do that? Who’s bright idea was that? Sure it is cheap to do from one point to another, but I liked moving around a lot! I could easily do 50 jumps a day if it were free, and now that would cost over a gold for nothing, so I don’t do it, and I don’t have as much fun. The only reason you had to put in an LFG system was because you added in costs to teleport places. If it were free, people would have just hopped around until they found groups, because it would be fun and not cost them anything. But instead someone, not you reading this, but some scumbag decided add in a cost to teleporting. That made it so that some other poor guy had to program in a whole LFG system. Don’t get me wrong, I like the LFG system, but if I could port places and just wait outside and be like “Oh heyy, people are here, now I can start a group,” I’d have been having more fun and been a lot happier. AND leaving in the cost to teleport is also why you had to create the mega servers! Who is gonna teleport around when it costs them and they may not get a group? No one, is who. It was proven by the fact that everyone was just sitting around Lion’s Arch (RIP) doing literally nothing all freaking day. So not only did that make it so someone had to program an LFG system, now they recently had to create the mega servers for people to get on because no one was leaving the cities! And again, if the teleporting were free from the beginning, no one would have had this problem!

Also, get rid of that horrid plant.

I spent more time in the negative section than I wanted to. But that is what keeps me from playing anything other than WvW or sPvP. The rest of the game is either bad (teleport costs, horrible story, grinding gold endlessly) or….well, that’s about it. It’s just bad. I like the bigger world bosses, I suppose.

(edited by Chemical Rush.2569)

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Posted by: Teon.5168

Teon.5168

Come on, Chemical, tell us how you really feel about Trahearne.

If I hear ‘this can’t turn out good’ from that whiny plant again, I think I may scream! My wife and I constantly berate him when we hear that while doing the personal story……‘Buck up, you whimpy plant!!!!! Quit be so kitten negative!!!! Show some plant cajones!’……ad infinitum

Forum discussions -
Mmo players with a screw loose vs mmo players with two screws loose. All very important stuff.
-Zenleto-

(edited by Teon.5168)

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Posted by: Lankybrit.4598

Lankybrit.4598

Yeah, I forgot Traherne. He should have been my #5 on worst.

My Life in Tyria: http://lankygw2blog.blogspot.com/
Updated every Monday

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Posted by: Chemical Rush.2569

Chemical Rush.2569

Come on, Chemical, tell us how you really feel about Trahearne.

If I hear ‘this can’t turn out good’ from that whiny plant again, I think I may scream! My wife and I constantly berate him when we hear that while doing the personal story……‘Buck up, you whimpy plant!!!!! Quit be so kitten negative!!!! Show some plant cajones!’……ad infinitum

I love you.

Also yeah. I hate whiny characters more than anything, especially when it shows other characters rally around them. It reminds me of characters that are like “I just don’t want to fight, I don’t like fighting,” but are perfectly willing to let their “friends” fight for them. I always hate stories like that, and this one is right on that border. “Well, sure I know more about the risen than anyone, and yeah I know how to fight them…..but wahhhhhh I didn’t think I would ever actually be fighting them!” and then all of the other stupid characters are like “Oh he’s so good! Let’s rally behind him!” and I am thinking “….that mother effer was just sitting there when other people were fighting and dying around him, doing nothing.” He had to be peer pressured into helping people, and that’s the kind of stupid, moronic character they make the focal point of the game at your awesome character’s expense? I would despise this game if it were based solely around the story.

(edited by Chemical Rush.2569)

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Posted by: Teon.5168

Teon.5168

It would be nice, if say around level 62 in the personal story, if while Trahearne was blabbering on about how “we”(rather, everyone but Trahearne) can all defeat the dragon together, that he wandered off the edge of some towering cliff, muttered "this can’t turn out good’, and then whined all the way down as he bounced off the rocks to a horrible death in the shark infested waters below.

If that was the case, then from that point on, players would be saying…..“man, I can’t wait for level 62 of the personal story…..that’s when that weasely, whiny plant bites it!!!”

Forum discussions -
Mmo players with a screw loose vs mmo players with two screws loose. All very important stuff.
-Zenleto-

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Posted by: KarateKid.5648

KarateKid.5648

Gotta agree with you on #5 on the worst things about the game. The game engine does need to be improved, especially after the release of the megaserver patch. I have to drop my graphics down to medium quality or less in game to have smooth and playable dynamics in WvW/PvE zergs and/or in super populated cities.

As someone mentioned in a previous thread about this same sort of subject…..would be nice if the engine could take advantage of the 64 bit systems that a lot of people have.

And yea, some of the story telling and cut scenes between two characters gets old really fast. Although, you can skip those scenes easily enough.

Man! Just another post to agree on this – not only does the culling reduce the graniose-ness… err granidosity… ermmm “big-ness”, heh; our requirement to reduce graphics quality OURSELVES prior to getting into like a world event or a hugenormous zergy event like Attack on Lion’s Arch is a kitten shame!

Anet made a beautiful world, yet we as the players have to turn down the beauty just so we don’t hit 2 FPS??? Contradictory!

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Posted by: Dee Jay.2460

Dee Jay.2460

We had one of these a while back but I think it’s time for another.

Top
1. Value for money
2. Detailed animations and visual characterization.
3. Dynamic Events
4. Active combat (especially active dodging)
5. Art style

Flop
1. Downed-State/Hard-Rezzing/Rally mechanics
2. Focus on zerg-content
3. Lack of challenging mechanics in PvE.
4. Condition spam
5. Reward system (there is almost no correlation between risk and reward in PvE).

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Posted by: FenrirSlakt.3692

FenrirSlakt.3692

4. Orr – used to have been fun, with chain events, interactive Temples, campaign feeling etc. Before the Megaserver!

Excuse me, but before the Megaserver and after the first few months of this game’s release, Orr has been dead -no pun intended-. I’ve seen lots of people there post-megaserver, though and everyone’s doing those chain events.

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Posted by: Escadin.9482

Escadin.9482

What I liked

  • 5 Fast paced combat
  • 4 events
  • 3 major traits
  • 2 appearence customization
  • 1 jumping puzzles

Meh

  • 5 static and bulky UI
  • 4 rest of the trait system
  • 3 balance and build diversity
  • 2 Dungeon system
  • 1 lack of challenges and meaningful progress

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Posted by: Relshdan.6854

Relshdan.6854

best:
jump puzzles/vistas
massive and beautiful open world to explore
dynamic event chains that tell a small story
the dodge button
“potentially” diverse and interesting class mechanics and playstyles

worst:
world boss events (too easy before, now with megaserver its hard to even get credit)
guild options (no guild halls, guild combat, poor guild management system)
class balance (oddly tuned traits/skills that limit build diversity/viability)
unchanging PvE Meta (dps or bust, due to mob AI and attack style)
unfixed bugs (so many skills, traits, events, etc still bugged since almost release)

Chaos Organ (Ele), Pistol Opera (Thief), Modular Man (Eng)
MARA (EU) Gunnar’s Hold

(edited by Relshdan.6854)

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Posted by: Lheimroo.2947

Lheimroo.2947

Best:

5. Gorgeous world.
4. Actiony combat
3. The way group play simply works as it ought
2. The little convenience features and the UI in general
1. Asura

Worst?

5. Grindy ‘shopping lists’
4. Stat progression, arg!
3. Class balance feels wonky
2. No armor class filter in AH
1. Constant removal of cool stuff and accompanying time pressure to ‘get it done before it disappears’.

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Posted by: Sunspear Mars.1480

Sunspear Mars.1480

Still play the game nearly daily, still like much of it, but so many things that frustrate or annoy.

No 1 worst: the excessive RNG, esp. the forge (there’s a problem when the playerbase calls it Mystic Toilet). There’s an argument to be made that fostering gambling is immoral. Catering to those who want that thrill of getting a super drop or the “whales” who spend on massive amounts in attempting precursors seems like very bad design choices. Have over 3800 hrs played, little use of forge, no precursor.

No2: the engine limitations and lack of optimal use of users’ systems. Minor example, the same targeting problems that existed in original GW still exist. Tab or auto for nearest target and one much further away gets selected, even though a baddie is smacking you in the face. Larger example, the megaserver has made it evident again that large events are a problem. From lag to significant frame drop, to blobby effects blinding you to what’s going on in a fight. Is it surprising that many players just auto-attack? It’s not far removed from the beta event when the branded invaded Ashford or the huge lag and disconnects during Southsun’s intro. Optimization badly needed.

No 1 and 2 may account for No3: missed rewards in world boss events. Since megaserver, friends and I have missed champ bags, event credit or event chests. Sometimes event credit but no chest: sometimes boss credit but no event credit, even though defeating boss is the event. This has always been in background (before champ bags, you could kill champ solo and still not get credit or drop). Too many reward tracking systems that do not seem well integrated or are badly synched. The Frozen Maw in particular seems to fail awarding event chest often. (I keep track of which chars did which events on a chart, so no repetition.) If the reward threshold is getting in the way (that is, if even in a party you fail to qualify for enough damage), it needs to be aligned with other events that work well.

Too much tweaking of some events, while others are left alone. This leads to a lot of inconsistency across game. Too many timers and or multiple stacked reward systems don’t always lead to a smooth running clockwork.

No 4: the camera. This is the only game I’ve played where the camera made me nauseous. Doing some JPs on my norn is the opposite of a fun experience. First time it happened I thought I’d eaten a bad lunch. The auto-zoom functions like a body slam. Even when you chop down a tree, the cam zooms you in if the tree stump is behind you. Camera needs more customizability. At very least, get rid of the auto-zoom.

No 5: Tempted to cheat and say it’s a toss-up between class balance (don’t get me started on near perma-stealth thieves in WvW) and living story. Living story has had many problems however. To actually experience it properly, you have to play constantly, which is by design. This goes against the mantra of “play how you want.” How many complaints have there been from players busy w/ work, school or just life events not able to keep up w/ the too rapid pace of releases. Releasing so quickly is not a virtue, nor is it good game design to release buggy, untested, barely finished content. Which then disappears. The release that were fun, like Zephyr Sanctum, were only tangentially related to LR. They could’ve been added without it.

The LR events were interesting on a mechanical level. Seeing new game mechanics added was good. The story itself and the character of Scarlet were a problematic mess. The whole thing was a prelude to the awakening of a dragon, which was a pure retread of Eye of the North’s ending, just as Scarlet was a retread of Varesh in Nightfall. There was no originality on a plot level. Scarlet herself was a pure Mary Sue (a term I usually dislike). She appears out of nowhere, with no defined motivation, and operates at a level more powerful than any of the dragons. The writers should not take the wrong message from the fact that the playerbase wanted to kill Scarlet. It wasn’t because she was a good villain, but because she was a bad character.

I miss the epic feel of following a campaign as you progress thru the world from the original GW. Hopefully something similar can be accomplished in future, instead of this ephemeral, never to be accessible to new players or new characters model.

There are many more quibbles, major and minor. Like requiring a party wipe before WPs in dungeons become uncontested. (Unless that’s changed.) That one made me scratch my head and stop playing dungeons. Or combat mode, which slows you down when you need speed most, or are just trying to get somewhere. But have to stop or I’ll talk myself out of playing the game.

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Posted by: tota.4893

tota.4893

Best:

1. The combat feels great by MMO standards, even with the balancing and zerg issues.

2. The art is of high quality; good sound effects, music, character art and animation work everywhere.

3. The events are mostly an improvement over questing.

4. The community is still good by online game standards, helped by game design which rewards cooperation instead of punishing for it.

5. No subscription is probably why I’m still playing this, despite…

Worst:

1. The overall lack of direction is seriously harming this game. While a little experimentation is a good thing, the game’s post-release development has felt less like a cohesive effort and more like an undirected clusterkitten just drifting into random directions in an ocean of ideas, occasionally pushed around by storms of community feedback (and probably, hurricanes of publisher interest), randomly crashing into reefs made of dead Karkas and the remains of their disconnected victims.

2. Dungeons! Except for the few added since release, the dungeon experience is simply bad by 2010s’ standards. Not even the bosses stand out with any interesting mechanics, and the trash mobs are a chore at best; with barely any mechanics or dungeon-specific loot and fewer drops than event farming or something, avoiding the mobs — and possibly the dungeons — whenever possible is the only rational solution.

3. Poor ingame story content. Both the personal and living story had serious issues with presentation and story quality. Without quests and a GW1-style sequence of missions, the game has very few storytelling opportunities. The style and tone are inconsistent, probably caused to some degree by point #1. Some WoW quest NPCs made me care more than these characters could ever manage.

4. The casual zerg mentality. Maybe the game rewards anonymous cooperation a bit too much. Forget guilds, forget any organized efforts to meet challenges. You miss out on too much not running around in a blob.

5. The game engine is generally unimpressive, carried by the game design and art quality. Only the low view distance helps hide the fact there’s nothing beyond the maps’ rectangular boundaries (painfully apparent on the world map as axis-aligned lines of mountains). Effects are mostly limited to GPU-abusing particle spam and various deferred shading tricks, the camera is still buggy 2 years after the betas and there’s no way in the Mists anyone should have expected this D3D9 call stress test to run smooth.