Look, I LOVE Guild Wars 2, just as I loved Guild Wars 1 before it. I think you’re a capable, honest developer with a lot to offer its community. I’ve logged well over 500 hours and have no intentions of stopping. And it’s because of these things that I worry about the direction the game is heading.
At this stage in the game, we don’t need new content so much as we desperately need improvements on existing content. Yes, the Fractals are great. Borderline perfect, actually. But the rest of Lost Shores was comparatively lackluster and highlights major game issues or shows that game issues can be fixed.
Endgame lacks variety
“But didn’t adding a new area add more variety?”
In answer to that, the Fractals DID add a lot, but Southsun is just another stage with a low diversity of enemies. Currently, there are only 4 level 80 zones (counting Frostgorge and Malchor’s Leap). Of these zones, only Frostgorge has a large variety of enemies. Malchor’s Leap ONLY has undead, elementals, and Inquest. Cursed Shore ONLY has undead and elementals. Southsun is mainly populated by the same Karka, Drakes, and Reef Riders with the same Skelk, sharks, barracuda, etc. that we’re used to. It leads to a lot of repetition.
What Southsun Cove DID accomplish, however, is showing that you have learned your lesson on enemy density and can program and endgame area without a foe every 5 feet. It’s actually possible to navigate much of the island without having 5+ Karka on you, and for that I am thankful.
So why not apply that lesson to Orr, even if only slightly? One of Orr’s major problems is that it is a PAIN to navigate due to excessive enemies, almost all of which have CC.
Class Balance is still shaky at best
Jon Peters stated that there are only 2 staff members working on balancing professions. That’s really sad. Rangers (and all minion/pet users) currently suffer from bad AI companions that limit their worth in PvP and in high-end PvE.
This is just an example. There’s a lot more to fix. The biggest thing is my next point: build diversity.
Build Diversity is rather low.
Entire utility lines and weapons are underpowered to borderline unusable. We’re already limited by a small weapon selection and small utility + elite pool and this only compounds the issue. When combat gets repetitive, this is a direct threat to the game’s longevity.
Traits need work
There are still a large number of non-compressed traits in our line. Before the game released, you set a precedent for combining cooldown reduction traits with other traits for a weapon or skill type. Don’t let this end there. Keep compressing them. Never allow a trait that only offers CDR, even if you have to do simple things like add 5% weapon damage to it.
If a trait looks like it is somewhere it doesn’t belong (such as Traps in the Precision/Prowess tree, move it to the correct one).
A lot of these are common sense fixes. Will they immediately change the face of game balance? Of course, but it will also set a ground work for future balance work.
There is a lack of drop diversity
Ascended gear wasn’t the way to go. A lot of loot-oriented players are upset that there is no excitement to loot. Not no power. “Yay, this rare sword uses the same exact skin with the same generic effects as the last 10,000 common swords I found.”
What I mean to say is …. add more skins. Guild Wars 1 was known for, among many other things, a large weapon skin variety.
Quite frankly, I don’t care if you have to recycle these old Guild Wars 1 skins with Guild Wars 2 graphics. I’m sure most Guild Wars 1 players would appreciate the homage. Things like the Icy Dragon Sword, Black Dragon Sword, the gothic and jade weapons, crenallated weapons, and many others would make fine additions.
Orr was designed for large player populations
With its dangerous large-scale group events (temples) that must be captured just to complete basic tasks such as map completion, karma exotics, and trading karma for obsidian shards, adding the Lost Shores KILLED Orr.
Something needs to be done about this, lest the work of many players go to waste when their large stores of karma become useless and their maps hover at 98-99% completion until they have the good fortune of a guild doing these things.