Hi, I’m a filthy GW1 player of nearly 6 years now. I’ve quit GW2 on and off at times, making me a filthy casual of this game compared to the more experienced veterans. Regardless, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem.
That’s the gap between player expectation and game reality. There’s a trend right now for world events, and that’s “press 1 and reddit”. Most world events are simple enough that the activity portion of the world event is automated, move character to here, etc. queue the auto attack. This completes 6 World Events out of 8, conditioning the player to succeed with minimal effort, or even effort at all.
Guild Wars 2 has devolved into a cow-clicker, with the waypoints near each world events becoming the bloody building that takes 6:00 to complete a cycle of income. If there was a mod that put the world boss timer into the game on top of the waypoints, you would see the horrid reality.
So far, there is difficulty in implementing activity filters to events. AFK timers, etc. have long become obsolete and “contribution” is a set of numbers that need to be fulfilled. Make the game alive again.
Activity – There’s no need to make bosses more difficult persay (OHKO mechanics and deadly ground to demand players to move constantly) . Instead have players interact more with the events. Carrying things around without fear of being overwhelmed (like in the triple wurms) and Making players execute specific actions that don’t overtax the game mechanics (which as of right now are mostly working but vital elements like target locking are hopelessly broken) make the game more interesting and playable without making completion frustratingly impossible (See Tequatl with PUGs)
Controls – Where is the camera locking system that GW1 had that chased your targeted enemy for you? An “action combat system” is no excuse to force the player into manually steering the camera everywhere he wants to look. The mouse is an extension of interaction, not the absolute focus of interaction. Right now, moving the camera is basically the most important skill for your character to even work properly. That’s an overt focus, and does not synergize with the other control systems. Just because it’s a convention doesn’t make it the most effective. You’ll find that the third person cannot look for the first person accurately. There’s a reason why FPS are played in the first person. With the amount of character facing and awareness demanded of players, I’m surprised that viewing is so difficult. Bring back camera lock and auto-correction. The player is a decider, not an A.I. that executes everything perfectly. Execution has become too difficult for the game to even look like skilled players are playing it.
Game Mechanics – The lack of transparency in game mechanics is easily captured in the fact the in-game hints for me is stuck at 91%. I have played 4 characters already and for 600 days. What other hints did I need to discover? Is there a golden fleece hidden behind charr fur? The fact that the game can’t teach you things you need to know is already a symptom about a lack of clarity in communication of game mechanics. For example, twitching the camera will force your stupid character to cancel their moves since they have lost “line of sight”. The player cannot be a pilot and a driver at the same time. It’s ridiculous.
Community – I have never seen more rumors and toxic comments circulate in any other MMO. Some players claim to discover “hidden” features like “partying gives you better chances for loot in a world event” for example and insist they are correct – in map chat over and over again. This problem carries over into equipment, when players say that ascended equipment have better critical ratios, average damage rolls etc. as a matter of fact. There is a climate of hidden game mechanics and scheming “know it alls” that mislead the relatively newer players that is enabled by the lack of education that the game itself provides.
I know these are sparse suggestions, but I’m not being paid to fix the game. Forumites always tell me to get a life anyway.