Dear Sir and/or Madam at ArenaNet.
Had to cut some showing of affection towards ArenaNet.
Fan credentials:
Started playing GW1 5 years ago or so.
The things I found to be issues while playing GW2.
- Descent starter clothes for the elementalist, nercomancer and mesmer females.
- Skill challenges, I know there are a lot of these and you guys needed to mass produce these challenges, but in the end there are tons of skill points left over. What I see is unused skill points and repeating skill challanges, beat this guy, beat the whole group, commune, use an item, answer some questions. For years I have followed and read the articles posted on the GW2 website during the development phase. The biggest impression I got is that the players would have to hunt down there skills individually or maybe in pairs or packs, like some of the quests in GW1. I thought that these skill quests would have there own feel and maybe even a story behind each and every one of them, especially the Elite Skills. Why not make less skill challenges but more meaningful ones? My biggest hope is that the skill challenges will see a colossal re-work during the games life.
- Dungeons and story instances. GW2 dungeons are not challenging but merely a pain in the rear. Making mobs in a dungeon have lots of health and hit hard is the old MMO dungeon philosophy. Some idea of the top of my head that could spice up dungeons (these ideas are not original and you guys probably have it in some of your dungeons, I only completed 5 dungeons so far, and all I saw was kill, kill, kill, kill, kill….well you get the point):
– Jumping puzzles for the whole team or maybe just one person who need to go and pull a lever.
– Moving elements for boss fights, like turrets (thats without the party being swarmed while using the turrets, fight against Zaitan I’m looking at you).
– Custom items that need to be used.
– Getting turned into something else, like a Golem and have a fight like that.
– More traps, and I don’t mean the ones that instantly kill you or or knock you down and kill you on the next activation while you can’t act.
- So you guys got rid of the Holy Trinity but you are still using the old dungeon format, innovation doesn’t work by “removing one of the cars wheel and expect it not to tilt over”. You need to redesign the whole idea of “how it should work”, and not just go “hm, what will happen if we remove this” (not something you want to hear from a surgeon). Maybe implement different elements in the dungeons, like the ones I mention above, or really re think your whole dungeon systems, cause they really look like a certain other MMO’s dungeons mechanics wise.
- Story instances should not be difficult, since the players story is sort of personal, don’t force them call for assistance if they don’t want to, just make it optional.
- SPOILER! (last dungeon). The fight against Zaitan didn’t feel as epic as it should have. It would have been fun that the party needs to coordinate with the turrets and even let one of the player use the main cannon to shoot Zaitan down.
- O.K. This design chose I do no understand, no chest/big reward after killing a “Champion” type monster. Don’t you just hate it when 10-15 player join in one location, fight a Champion for 5-10 minutes and then the monster doesn’t reward you for your efforts. Its the biggest kick to the balls in GW2 in my honest opinion.
- WvWvW is just a cluster kitten, pardon the expression. That and starting characters shouldn’t be allowed in there, I mean the ones at level one, with no weapon skill, no utility skills and no gear. At least allow them to train up there weapon skill on some target dummies or something. It would be hard to do anything about the cluster f*** part, but the starting character problem should at least be thought about.
- Organized PvP doesn’t feel organized, everyone just runs off doing there thing. Idea read bellow.
- GW2 needs in game voice chat, it is essential for the improvement of organized PvP and dungeon runs.
- The auction house needs a preview for armors and weapons.
- This is really nit-picking but give the monsters some immunities, like the Destroyers are immune to burning. Maybe even multiple ones, like ghosts would be immune to poisons and bleeding. Golems would be unaffected by daze and so on. This would probably make the players read the monsters ability tag and forcing them to switch weapons or even utility skill in an area that is crawling with that type of monster.
- I read how extensively your costume designer worked on the outfits for the game, and I was thinking you guys should make the NPC clothes available to players. If nothing else, then as town clothes.
- This is a big one for me, First Person View. I like to look around.
With love, Ragmon.