My beefs with GW2 are many, but nit picky in most cases I’ll admit.
Unless you already have a level 80 that has run a few dungeons and don’t mind blowing wads of cash on transmutation stones, low level characters are going to be wearing the same looking garbage for at least 30-40 levels. They could have done with armor what they did with weapons and have had regional themed armors drop instead of the generic looking $#!%, but they didn’t. Most of the aesthetics of the game are locked behind dungeons (so I won’t even be spending gems on transmutation stones until after some effort in something I don’t enjoy anyway…)
This game’s group play is horrendous. I mean, at first I thought the idea of killing the Trinity was a good idea, but then it just turns into a “spam the hell out of it” exercise. Of course, maybe if anything lasted for longer than 2 seconds I could actually combo things together.
Controls themselves feel kitten. This game wants to be an action combat MMO but feels too timid to leave its tab-targetting roots. If they would just put in a little game play option to “always mouselook” so that I don’t have to hold the right mouse button down all the kitten time I could rebind my first skill and second skills to left click and right click respectively and the game would be 1271% more enjoyable for it. I haven’t ONCE needed to left click on anything in game since everything else works just fine. And no, I won’t download and install a mod – this is something Arena.net should do.
Of course, this doesn’t change that the enemies still act like standard fare tab-targetting mooks. But then, TERA and Wildstar’s enemies weren’t exactly raising the bar either. Control scheme takes precedence to enemy interactivity, though I’d still like to see enemies feel like they’re meant for action combat.
Another thing. Moving around and fighting feels like skating on glass. Attacks lack that certain crunch, the impact, like my character is actually hitting something. Instead I see that sword swing and my character might as well be striking air – with yet another generic, steel sword.
There’s also the issue of particle overload. No other game I’ve played seems to lose the enemy behind all of the particles.
The regional flavor weapons need to drop far more often. My Charr is running around in his lands, most of the sword drops better be of the region’s Charr theme, all rusted and put together piecemeal with scraps with serrated edges, not generic, unmemorable steel broadswords.
Still no body sliders, among other things. Selecting templates is a concept from 1999. Please upgrade character customization already.
And oh yeah, I’d REALLY like to skip the tutorial quest newly created characters go through already. It’s a real PITA.
I imagined dynamic events would actually change things in the world. Like failing an event meant the battle lines between forces would actually move. Instead, they’re just public events that happen at intervals and really, nothing happens either way.
The concept of the Living Story feels more like their masochistic attempt to keep to the idea of the world ever changing that they made dynamic events sound like would do.
Finally, WHY LEVELING!? Like… just why? If you’re going to revolutionize anything about MMO’s, get rid of the concept of leveling. It has been and always will be “get to max, THEN play the game” because everyone knows nothing is worth really spending time doing until this stupid little number is no longer growing.
I’m trying to justify purchasing HoT, but I’ve recently seen more design decisions, however minor, that suggest to me that the future only holds more pants-on-head stupidly disappointing decisions that should have been easy, reminding me that it’s best to let someone lead development on an MMO then fire them before they can f*** it up somehow. Every. F***ing. Game.
Just recently came back and kind of enjoying myself, but in the end, I’m just following hearts, doing inconsequential events that don’t really change anything about the world, and watching as my character replaces their $#!%%& looking hatchet and chainmail with the same $#!%%& looking hatchet and chainmail. You know, I’d pay a sub if it meant I could dress up my character any way I wanted without having to invest in stones. That alone would make the experience more enjoyable. I’d rather eat stones to unlock equipment appearances without actually having to obtain said equipment.
Goodness, I hope Everquest Next is everything the developers claim they are making it out to be. It’s [formerly SOE] though… so I’m not holding my breath.
EDIT: Aaaaaand I just found the game does have “action camera.” Only it has to be toggled via setting a keybind. This has to be the least intuitive way of discovering this function, but at least the game play has improved 1271%.
(edited by Timbersword.9014)