Guild Wars 2

(This is not a rant)

I have friends who used to play GW2 and quit a while ago, and they didn’t show the same level of interest when we played other games (MMOs, our last one was WoW before GW2), and although I still keep playing occasionally, they don’t even log in anymore.

I think this is an issue and I’d like to start this thread and maybe give the developers some ideas on how to reach the same level of enjoyment I/we had from other games.

I don’t know how “healthy” the game is so I’m not saying the game is dying, and since I like the game I’d also like my friends (and myself) to have a higher interest when playing it. When I asked all of them, they all said something along the lines of “I dunno, the game is missing something” but they couldn’t said exactly what. I’m going to post some ideas on what it could be.

So let me start saying that the game is really good in some aspects, like the awesome graphics and the great combat mechanics, but it falls short in some others, mostly content/design.

Story
Take this as a constructive criticism, but the story sucks. Not the world, not the setting, but the personal story and how it is told. It feels uninspiring, boring and simply cheap at times.
Also having it spaced between levels meaning you’re supposed to complete do a story mission, then complete a map, then story, then map, is kinda annoying because of the running back and forth and because sometimes you don’t want to do something else.
This is something a friend of mine complained “I want to finish my story but I can’t because now it’s 4 levels above me”.
Having a better personal story and allowing players to play it on their current level would please these players who aren’t interested in running around the world but want to learn about the world/their history. (The friend I mentioned cares more about history, and he’s new to GW so he was probably looking only for the story to see if it interests him as much as the WoW Lore he loves talking so much)

Lasting Content
The world of WoW is always growing. I also don’t really like Raids because of the idea of keeping farming it over and over again (and I was a hardcore raider during WoW BC/WotLK) and how they “reseted” items each patch/expansion.
But still, each new patch had new stuff to do, so there were always something new to experience, and even if you’re not a hardcore raider or you’re just playing casually, you could always do the older (and easier) raids to enjoy the content.
GW2 has the Living Story, which I found a pain to keep tracking, and mostly annoying because I missed a chapter here and there and then became totally uninterested in continuing it.
When I called my friends to participate in these events, they were too bothered with their map completion or personal story to start a new story on something else completely unrelated to what they know. And when they’re not, when they finally reach their 80, the content is already gone.
More lasting content would probably be better for the world and the players. If it’s fun, even new players can enjoy it at some point.

Character Uniqueness and Fun Items
When playing a character the player (most imo) grows attached to it. They want their character to feel unique and only, special to them. They’re investing hours on creating and playing that character, so that’s natural.
In WoW you have specific Talent Trees that you name your character class: “I’m a Destruction Warlock” or “I’m an Affliction Warlock”.
GW2 have Traits and Skills, but these don’t even compare in making an character unique. Weapons is what does the most difference, but with only 5 skills it’s really limited (not a bad thing, Monster Hunter is the same and is great as well).

I don’t walk around thinking “Oh I’m an awesome Fire Elementalist”, although that might be the point of the professions (not having a specialization that defines your whole character).

Something else that I think that falls into this is the items and unique stuff. Most of my friends complained about not having mounts, and they say how “unique” they are with their rare mounts in WoW. Or their rare gear, visually distinguished. You can have your character in a stunning gear, but no one knows how hard it is to get (you can’t see the stats, but you can know where the skin comes from at least).
Having an Inspect and showing off is probably what players want when they want to feel “good” with their character and showing all their accomplishments with it.

Community
The game has guilds, but they’re virtually useless except for Guild Missions. Those Guild Missions are really fun and a step in the “really fun” content, but I think they’re very restricted (only to Guilds who farm a certain amount of things) and limited (and has a minimum amount of players).
This might seems that I’m suggesting Raids in the game, but I’m not, any kind of content that you can enjoy as a group (and have more fun in a group) would be great.

Ending
Without permanent content, or clear short term objectives (such as Raids, but I’m not suggesting it), there’s no feeling of “Ah, I finished the game!”. Sure it is a MMO and there is no ending but, that’s a goal players can play for and keep interested until they reach it.
And by then there’s a new content/patch/expansion ready and the cycle repeats.
Not having this goal is one of the primary reasons of why I think people lose interest in the game.
Some friends of mine still go back to WoW every now and then just to play the new expansion’s content and then quit it again. They’re just interested in consuming all the story/bosses it has, and they’re not hardcore raiders as well, so it’s just about leveling, gearing a bit, doing the new dungeons and then they’re done.

Conclusion
When I asked my friends who quit, one of them mentioned that GW2 isn’t the kind of game that you can play for hours nonstop and doesn’t feel the time passing.
He said the game feels tiring somehow. I asked him what was that was causing this “not fun” and he replied with “I don’t know, but think of it this way: What is it in the game that makes you come home (from work) wanting to play?”

He added “In WoW, even if there wasn’t anything to do, I’d still log in and would browse the Auction House”.
If GW2 had this “something” I think it would be better for both the game and the players.

Share your opinions and ideas on this and let’s hope a developer reads it, if not for GW2 maybe for a future GW3…

First, to nitpick…

Danicco.3568:

Community
The game has guilds, but they’re virtually useless except for Guild Missions.

This is a pretty good sign you’re not in the right guild. I totally think there should be more functionality around guilds, but if you’re not getting value from your guild, perhaps that’s a sign?

I think this game overflowing with gigantic, anybody-gets-in, mapchat-spam-recruiting-400+-member megaguilds and people are suffering for it. But that’s just my personal opinion.

As far as what it’s missing, it depends on the person. My friends left because there was no obvious gear treadmill. They went back to Rift. I don’t get it – they always complain that “X MMO we are playing is sooooo grindy” but they quit GW2 because it wasn’t grindy enough.

If I had my choice, I’d be adding new zones every 2-3 months and adding 30-50 dynamic events around the world every month while cycling out an equal or slightly smaller number. (You want the number to grow slowly, maybe 5-10 per month, because of the new zones.) But they didn’t put me in charge of the Living World strategy, so there’s that…

It’s missing feedback, dev communication and new permanent content.
If you’ve been here since launch and haven’t fallen for the fractal illusion “permanent changing dungeon!..oh, same levels on rotation though” theres frankly nothing left to-do that you haven’t already done 500+ times.
It was amazing for a year, then you hit the wall and its game done.
Unless you have a high tolerance for repetition that is.

As to Personal Story, that has been changed in the China version. They have grouped up big swatches of the PS, so the swatches can all be done at once. I expect that will be brought to NA/EU eventually.

I think Inspect is a bad idea. If someone wants to ‘look’ at how cool armor is, they can just look at it. Or, barring that, you can always link it in chat.

I personally enjoy the Living Story and its constant updates with new things to do. Lots of things I have done once in this game, and not repeated, so the lack of permanence doesn’t bother me as much as others. There is, however, parts that I have repeated many times, because I find them enjoyable.

Lots of DEs that haven’t kicked off in ages because of population have started showing up again, so that’s new(ish) and entertaining. =)

It must be difficult to release content that satisfies everyone, as we all have different tastes. Some updates are not my cup of tea, but I realize others love them. It is good there is some variety in releases. There are lots of choices, so people can come and go as they please, and choose to play what they find interesting…and that’s a good thing (to me)! =)

Talissa Chan.7208:

It’s missing feedback, dev communication and new permanent content.
If you’ve been here since launch and haven’t fallen for the fractal illusion “permanent changing dungeon!..oh, same levels on rotation though” theres frankly nothing left to-do that you haven’t already done 500+ times.
It was amazing for a year, then you hit the wall and its game done.
Unless you have a high tolerance for repetition that is.

I’ll give you new permanent content, maybe (although other mmo’s can go a pretty long time between major content additions too – even with high monthly fees and expansion pack costs).

But I gotta say, I’ve actually been pretty impressed with dev communication and responsiveness. They may not share the same priorities as you (or me, or any given player) of course. Can’t please us all, all of the time. But I’d say this dev team is actually really well engaged compared to other experiences I’ve had. And those weren’t even bad experiences.

In my experience the WoW devs were largely silent early on except in early development and then spoke almost entirely to (and hired) guild leaders of the top EQ guilds. (Possibly a reason they’ve had to increase the accessibility and causalness of their game in every expansion.) In their later development (I played pretty hardcore up through LK) they had class mods that talked a fair amount and took feedback officially, but almost all broader communication was through big interviews and Twitter and such. Not much depth, in my experience. From those friends that still play I’ve heard it’s continued in that direction. I have nothing but respect for that company and those developers in every way, but they’re running a small country with $70mil+ in monthly rent paid, and it shows a little.

I also played a ton of FFXI prior to that, and there not only devs but even customer service reps were as gods on a lofty mountain. Sightings of either publicly were the stuff of legend. (GM’S literally wore suits of golden armor when they appeared in very rare situations, I kid you not.) I originally thought it might be language and time zone barriers, but I think it was actually just a decision.

Compared to FFXI I was amazed at how open the WoW team was. And compared to WoW frankly I’ve been nothing but impressed by how responsive the GW2 team is. About the only game I’ve seen with more engaged dev-to-player connection was (oddly) the ill-fated but highly innovative EQOA.

Running an MMO is a kitten impressive job for a team. I’m fascinated by the industry and the people who run it, and I love the games so maybe I’m a soft judge. But I gotta say that as far as pure engagement goes, all specifics of design decisions aside, the GW2 team is great.

Your mileage may vary of course. Maybe I’ve just been lucky and come in at the right times to see what I’m looking for. And maybe my expectations were different from the beginning given GW2’s unconventional business model. But, while of course there are all sorts of things I’d personally have done differently given the chance, I’ve been impressed by the team doing the work. Just my personal experience.

Dueling, and rewarding content.

I agree with some points. yes, permanent content would be a plus. If not that then at least the ability to replay the LS events. I missed several of them, and although I can read back and follow the story, its not the same and you miss out on a lot. The ending: the personal story was anticlimactic at best, but after that there was supposed to be the living story, which is a great concept, but there was no feeling that I actually accomplished something major and important at the end of the PS. looking back on it, it seemed that for the most part the PC is just there, watching it all happen. Its like Indiana jones and the raiders of the lost ark. He really didnt need to be there and events would have played out the same.

All that being said, I still really enjoy the game, the LS, the DEs, etc. Just feel like “something was missing”

What’s Guild Wars 2 missing?

Guild Wars.

Those MMO that focus on grind and gears give a sense of competitiveness. It is hard but there are people who are going through it with you. It is slow but there are people chatting with you. It is the difficulty of climbing up and obtaining the best gears that keep one interested. After you climbed up, there are still things for you to do and achieve.

Gw2 is just simply easy in everything. The so-called best gears isn’t amazing, it is very disappointing. When you reach 80 and go through most of the things, you will realise that there isn’t anything in this game.

The players that are more hardcore will continue be playing those games while the softcore players will continue to whine and whine and whine.

In those games, it is quite easy to lead 100+ players because these 100+ players will actually follow your command. You don’t really see that happening in gw2.

All MMOs lack end game content. Even the good ones eventually run out of stuff you can do. GW2 doesn’t enforce a gear treadmill, and doesn’t restrict access to content, so you have to make your own goals and that can be a problem for some players.

a development team that keeps their promises by following through on their pr statements and forum comments.

just a couple before someone asks (no, i’m not finding links right now)…

-on ascended gear from some mmo site… “minimal stat increase with the focus on zero grind”…

-“amazing” thing for rangers…

also, a development team that does not allow professions and combat to remain subpar, and focuses more on preventing end game stagnation as opposed to gem sales.

that’s just it. the story. zhaitain’s been dead a long time in the guild wars 2 universe. we killed him probably a month after launch. so that means orr should be being rebuilt, but it’s not. killing zhaitain was supposed to be …lasting, wasn’kitten why is orr left completely out of living story events? why can a city like lion’s arch be leveled for months now from a sub-plot. but orr, the main plot, can’t be …de-zombified? WoW did one thing right, when a boss like zhaitan is killed, the content flow moves on and acknowledges it.

I think it’s missing depth in the game play department.

Sophistication in mechanics for both PvE and PvP. More challenging instanced and cooperative PvE content in general(and by challenge I mean something cerebral, not bigger/faster/stronger foes). More variety in PvP that forces you to be more thoughtful about your approach, i.e. not conquest mode.

I think that’s really the crux of GW2, lack of sophistication for players who want something a bit more in-depth… and I think even just having that quality about the game would entire more casual players to stick around because they won’t feel like they’ve conquered it.

my list
1.Raids/not that open world bosses crap don’t like it at all
2.Guild halls /they where amasing in gw1 and it was place to talk chat have fun whit guilds while not doing anything
3. Dueling /while u sit and don’t do anything in pve u can have some fun and duel whit friends and that is so simple code to place inside the game i mean WHY they forcing the stupid arenas whic are totaly not fun for me
4.Mounts /Why not collecting them in every mmo is always fun
5.Housing/ Fun end game grind to fill up your house you can literrly add milion things to grind to place inside your home to always have some sort of progres

What I have found missing in GW2 is rare cool stuff. Such as..

Rare spawn ranger pets. Why are the all the ranger pets so easy to get? SO much fun to have rare ones that are hard to find, only show up occasionally or have to be unlocked somehow.

Rare armor that isn’t something you have to make. Useless but cool armor that people try and get for the skin. No I don’t mean the gem store stuff, let’s have lvl 20 bizzare-o hood with very low drop rate that you can farm for. I was hoping town clothes would go this way but that’s dead.

Really interesting odd items. In my last MMO I had a guild bank with nearly every book in the game in it, there were dozens of them. You could read them. They were often funny, and totally useless other than as fun presents. There is literally nothing to collect in GW2 other than the Wardrobe and dyes. And the few things that I’ve ended up with I thought were cute were inevitably soulbound trophies.

I would like a world full of stuff, lots and lots of stuff.. and of course in RP land this stuff is wonderful.

GW2 offers quite a lot in the what to do area, but is heavily lacking in the why section. I really miss the why part.

> PVP <

Instanced raids. And as of 15th April, real servers that it was made for.

What i think is gw2 has a set direction the devs want you to go, things they want you to do, and it’s not always what i want to do.

Take pve, there is little to no focus on dungeons (if there was we would have more than 8 by now) they don’t want us running dungeons all day (nerfs to loot and gold shows this) but what if i want to run them? were penalized, fracts is the same, poor rewards and nerfed ones if repeating.

Take champ trains, devs don’t want us running these again nerfs, want to go an area and farm, the devs don’t want us doing this either, nerfs.

It feels like they want us in the ls, which i find a bore or wvw, which i don’t play,
why can’t i (we) get more of what we want to play instead of nerfs and less pushing towards what i (we) don’t want?

Another thing i dislike is the ascended gearing laurels from dailys and ore from world bosses, why cant we get ore from the content the ascended gear is meant for (fracts)
you get dungeon tokens from dungeons, why should fracts be any different?

Does anyone think repetitive dailys are even fun?

I guess to sum it up, i feel im forced to do things i don’t want to do and anything i do want to do is nerfed and feels like the devs don’t want me doing this content as my main focus.

“The most important thing in any game should be the player, we built a game for them”

papryk.6273:

> COMPETITIVE PVP <

FTFY.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Dueling, and rewarding content.

Hah, while I think a well implemented dueling system would be absolutely great for the game, I don’t think it’s what it… Well, almost desperately lacks.

Currently:

• In sPvP it’s either Conquest or the awesome but currently makeshift Courtyard.

• In PvE it’s either Dungeons or… FotM, which is kind of the same thing. (Not a fan of the fairly unstructured GMs)

What we likely need:

• In sPvP I think we need more Game modes. Even though you may not play them all, I think it feels nice that they’re there; The game feels bigger.

• In PvE I think we need a bigger variety of experiences, and content that actively challenges you (Not just a rehearsal of predetermined tactics). You may not ever get to see the hardest of this content, but the fact that it’s there (again) makes the world feel more vast.

Narthexia.1836:

What I have found missing in GW2 is rare cool stuff. Such as…..

Algreg.3629:

GW2 offers quite a lot in the what to do area, but is heavily lacking in the why section….

Gele.2048:

my list
1.Raids/not that open world bosses….

mooty.4560:

I think it’s missing depth in the game play department….

thaooo.5320:

What’s Guild Wars 2 missing?

Guild Wars.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Dueling, and rewarding content.

Apparently, I agree with a Lot of people on this thread =)

The last time gw2 had any point to me playing was when i bought a sword and shield skin from some living story event, the one where you fought different kind of bosses in an arena. I then set out to decide on which character a shield and sword combo is good. A warr wasn’t so bad so i made a condi war with those two skins aaaaaaand that was it.

Running trains was a pass time, doing world bosses was a hassle and eventually i asked myself “what do i even get by farming champs or world bosses” and the answer for me was some gold, and maybe an exotic that has a different skin. And i don’t really need that. So WvW i don’t like cause i feel it’s a zerg fest and a time waster, the pug arena pvp or w/e it’s called is fun for couple of games and i’m not doing the competitive pvp since i’m no good at it, if there’s such thing as good since i think there’s only button mashing involved (don’t flame if i’m wrong for 1 class or certain build).

I do miss better pve stuff like dungeons or better scaled bosses so a zerg doesn’t necessarily mean free loot. Stale pve content, what’s up with jormag, we only got to kill his claw a zillion times, when will he show up or some other body part of his?
For pvp i miss the random team arena from gw1, you go in get a team and if you win you stick with the same team until you lose, i just think it’s a very good experience.
Didn’t do any gwg in gw1 but i guess that was fun aswell for those that did it

Jeff Strain is missing.

Oh and mybe Anet shouldnt have swapped game designer with monetization manager, economist and stat analysts…..

Gazillion

Easy: An expansion.

Guilds Content.

One way to Organize Hardcore Events without the incredible MegaServer limitations.

Make World Bosses challenging again, the massive zergs of Lag and Auto-attackers destroyed any fun we could have with them.

MORE CONTENT.

I had the same experience, almost all of my real friends bought the game, some quit right after a couple of hours, others played a bit – maybe to 80 – and quit. All those people expected something ‘similar to other MMOs’.

I think this game is just not made for the average MMO player. I myself enjoy other MMOs from time to time though I think most are just expecting to have more defined roles and dislike zerg content. They also told me that the fighting was ‘just not right’.

Nothing feels like it’s MINE in this game what so ever.
I feel like Barbie showing off my new outfit while in the Mattel hq

A lot of what GW2 is missing is plan out as such and would take more vertical progression to fill in what GW2 is missing say vs a game like WoW. “End game” to most ppl is about getting better loot and gear that the ideal behind raids you get gear up for the raids to get better gear from the raids to do higher level raids that gives you even better gear etc… GW2 not about vertical progression on that scale and more then likely you will see small amounts of it but nothing that is “needed” to do the next level.

This is just the blunt truth about mmorpgs and even just stander rpg online or not its all about the loot grind if you have no real will to progress the story line and that the cool thing about GW2 the story line is being progressed (LS) over added in a new set of gear ever 6 months (what you see in WoW and WoW like games.) So more then likely games with raids are going to have gear progression to get to the next raid etc.. and beyond the starter story or “box story” (story you get from buying the game or exposition) your not going to get that much but you will get an endless progression of gear that you need to progress to the next set of gear.

Jski.6180:

A lot of what GW2 is missing is plan out as such and would take more vertical progression to fill in what GW2 is missing say vs a game like WoW. “End game” to most ppl is about getting better loot and gear that the ideal behind raids you get gear up for the raids to get better gear from the raids to do higher level raids that gives you even better gear etc… GW2 not about vertical progression on that scale and more then likely you will see small amounts of it but nothing that is “needed” to do the next level.

This is just the blunt truth about mmorpgs and even just stander rpg online or not its all about the loot grind if you have no real will to progress the story line and that the cool thing about GW2 the story line is being progressed (LS) over added in a new set of gear ever 6 months (what you see in WoW and WoW like games.) So more then likely games with raids are going to have gear progression to get to the next raid etc.. and beyond the starter story or “box story” (story you get from buying the game or exposition) your not going to get that much but you will get an endless progression of gear that you need to progress to the next set of gear.

but sadly it seems such a system is necessary for long term enjoyment. Grind does not have to be grindy, if you excuse that paradox for a moment. You can place items behind challenging content with only a little bit of RNG for example. The one special thing about MMORPG: They don´t have an ending. So sooner or later you outrun new things to experience. Or things you want to experience. GW2´s premises sounded nice on paper, but the longer I play, the more I miss incentives to do anything. And I still have not done everything. But I just cannot bother. Play because it´s fun simply does not cut it for an MMORPG in my opinion. These games are usually inferior to other games from a gameplay and lore/storytelling point of view. I am really at a loss just now. I like the game in theory, but it even takes some overcoming to log in, take 15 minutes for daily, and then go to Darksouls, Warframe or whatever else currently is in my gaming systems.

It’s missing the Trinity. I know I’ll get flamed for saying it.

I am all for not copying WoW or for the Trinity to be gone because the Trinity was the actual problem, which it isn’t. We’re told by the Devs and loyal GW2 players that we shouldn’t have the Trinity unless you want to wait 30+ minutes in a dungeon queue because you can’t find a tank or a healer. That isn’t a problem because the Trinity is broken.

When Blizzard made WoW they didn’t really bring anything revolutionary to the table, they evolved existing ideas and perfected some of them. Anet’s answer to the ideas that don’t fully work in WoW was to just throw them out completely. It’s the wrong mentality. Instead of trashing the Trinity they should have refined group making systems.

I actually do like the GW2 combat in PVP, where it makes sense, both in gameplay and weapon skill sets, it’s a decent rock/paper/scissors dynamic. However, it completely falls apart in any PVE scenario with radically shifting agro, skills that don’t even work on some mobs, little build variety, skills tied to weapons limits player options both in appearance and build. A big problem in an open world environment.

Without the Trinity my alternate characters lack any real purpose, no real reason to play a different class when another class can do the content much easier and with essentially the same play style, especially in a group situation/dungeon/raid.

The feeling of importance with a particular character is gone, no one is relying on me to heal them or to keep a mob off them or to cc a mob from the group or require my burst damage at a certain time. This isn’t to say that I play this game to feel important either, I have plenty of things that do that in reality, my kids and wife, my job. But when I play a game, I look for that feeling of being important, making a difference in the outcome of something. I can honestly say there hasn’t been a single instance of that feeling at any point in PVE for me. I’m either in a huge zerg of a group just clicking relevant skills on cooldown or I’m providing backup to a group of NPC’s in my personal story.

As it is though, unless there’s a SWG style combat revision, I think it’s too late for GW2. It’s a shame really because I had really high hopes for this game, I was hoping for something better with the lack of Trinity that maybe Anet had figured it out. They haven’t. Yet. Maybe with GW3.

GW2 is missing:

1. Guild Halls
2. Mid-sized, meaningful PvP
3. New dungeons/raids

Algreg.3629:

Jski.6180:

A lot of what GW2 is missing is plan out as such and would take more vertical progression to fill in what GW2 is missing say vs a game like WoW. “End game” to most ppl is about getting better loot and gear that the ideal behind raids you get gear up for the raids to get better gear from the raids to do higher level raids that gives you even better gear etc… GW2 not about vertical progression on that scale and more then likely you will see small amounts of it but nothing that is “needed” to do the next level.

This is just the blunt truth about mmorpgs and even just stander rpg online or not its all about the loot grind if you have no real will to progress the story line and that the cool thing about GW2 the story line is being progressed (LS) over added in a new set of gear ever 6 months (what you see in WoW and WoW like games.) So more then likely games with raids are going to have gear progression to get to the next raid etc.. and beyond the starter story or “box story” (story you get from buying the game or exposition) your not going to get that much but you will get an endless progression of gear that you need to progress to the next set of gear.

but sadly it seems such a system is necessary for long term enjoyment. Grind does not have to be grindy, if you excuse that paradox for a moment. You can place items behind challenging content with only a little bit of RNG for example. The one special thing about MMORPG: They don´t have an ending. So sooner or later you outrun new things to experience. GW2´s premises sounded nice on paper, but the longer I play, the more I miss incentives to do anything. And I still missing a few things. But I just cannot bother. Play because its fun simply does not cut it for an MMORPG in my opinion. These games are usually inferior to other games from a gameplay and lore/storytelling point of view. I am really at a loss just now. I like the game in theory, but it even takes some overcoming to log in, take 15 minutes for daily, and then go to Darksouls, Warframe or whatever else currently is in my gaming systems.

How to put it all work is going to be seen as grind and if you do not like it then its going to be called out for being grindly its not important how hard or how easy it is.

RNG is needed to give an item worth beyond what on it each person must feel as if they got something worth there time and if its just handed out at the end of an event the worth of the item is less then if it was an rare drop.

If your playing GW2 for loot only you maybe wasting your time and GW2 is made to be played with other games. So its not a bad thing that your doing it that way and really should not be looked as if its bad GW2 is such that you can play it in such a way.

The games you named are not mmorpgs so maybe your not really into mmorpgs. Its easy to get cough up in hype of a game mmorpgs are very good at doing this trying to get non mmorpgs players into there game but often mmorpgs are nothing like a single player game even if that game has some team play.

Jski.6180:

Algreg.3629:

Jski.6180:

A lot of what GW2 is missing is plan out as such and would take more vertical progression to fill in what GW2 is missing say vs a game like WoW. “End game” to most ppl is about getting better loot and gear that the ideal behind raids you get gear up for the raids to get better gear from the raids to do higher level raids that gives you even better gear etc… GW2 not about vertical progression on that scale and more then likely you will see small amounts of it but nothing that is “needed” to do the next level.

This is just the blunt truth about mmorpgs and even just stander rpg online or not its all about the loot grind if you have no real will to progress the story line and that the cool thing about GW2 the story line is being progressed (LS) over added in a new set of gear ever 6 months (what you see in WoW and WoW like games.) So more then likely games with raids are going to have gear progression to get to the next raid etc.. and beyond the starter story or “box story” (story you get from buying the game or exposition) your not going to get that much but you will get an endless progression of gear that you need to progress to the next set of gear.

but sadly it seems such a system is necessary for long term enjoyment. Grind does not have to be grindy, if you excuse that paradox for a moment. You can place items behind challenging content with only a little bit of RNG for example. The one special thing about MMORPG: They don´t have an ending. So sooner or later you outrun new things to experience. GW2´s premises sounded nice on paper, but the longer I play, the more I miss incentives to do anything. And I still missing a few things. But I just cannot bother. Play because its fun simply does not cut it for an MMORPG in my opinion. These games are usually inferior to other games from a gameplay and lore/storytelling point of view. I am really at a loss just now. I like the game in theory, but it even takes some overcoming to log in, take 15 minutes for daily, and then go to Darksouls, Warframe or whatever else currently is in my gaming systems.

How to put it all work is going to be seen as grind and if you do not like it then its going to be called out for being grindly its not important how hard or how easy it is.

RNG is needed to give an item worth beyond what on it each person must feel as if they got something worth there time and if its just handed out at the end of an event the worth of the item is less then if it was an rare drop.

If your playing GW2 for loot only you maybe wasting your time and GW2 is made to be played with other games. So its not a bad thing that your doing it that way and really should not be looked as if its bad GW2 is such that you can play it in such a way.

The games you named are not mmorpgs so maybe your not really into mmorpgs. Its easy to get cough up in hype of a game mmorpgs are very good at doing this trying to get non mmorpgs players into there game but often mmorpgs are nothing like a single player game even if that game has some team play.

I can assure you I have been playing MMORPG a LOT in the last decade :P And even the bad ones never gave me the feeling of “oh well, why would I do this” like GW2 does recently. Funnily enough, I love sandbox style games, look at Eve, the game does not tell you what to do at all, PvE barely exists, still, you can find what you enjoy and a reason to do it.

Algreg.3629:

I can assure you I have been playing MMORPG a LOT in the last decade :P And even the bad ones never gave me the feeling of “oh well, why would I do this” like GW2 does recently. Funnily enough, I love sandbox style games, look at Eve, the game does not tell you what to do at all, PvE barely exists, still, you can find what you enjoy and a reason to do it.

Only a few mainly GW2 and FF11. Ff11 was a super grind game just to get max level with quest after the first level 50 to get to level 60? etc..

I find sandbox style games gets a free pass most often they can be bad very bad with lots of glitches etc.. but often just because of the type of game being sandbox like makes ppl rave over it.

EvE: I watched a steam of that game i still have no ideal what going on other then ppl flying in spaces and i often hear its a spreadsheet game.

For me i like action combat games with combos. FF11 had skillchans and magic burst it was a lot of team work and a great feeling when it worked well. That why i like GW2 because of combo fields and finisher what i feel that GW2 needs is more fields and finisher types lets expand this type of team work play.

IMO
It sorely needs new perm content. This needs to be more of the world, not simply more of the same zones altered in minor ways.
If the devs are worried about population spread, there’s ways to keep players coming back to older areas. This is called: Rewards!
Devs could also take a look at WvW and grab some ideas to apply them in PvE worlds.

Take some of the outposts for example. Add walls that players could stand on and fire down on a mob zerg (Centaurs perhaps) as they try to take an outpost.
If Centaurs take the outposts more than players defend it, then the next week those areas are in Centaur control.
Success rewards players unique skins and items fitting that area.
Similar situation fitting for all other racial areas where conflict shows up.

A mob zerg can be far more interesting than a PvP zerg in WvW with the addition of over powered mob abilities players don’t have access too – as well as defending a wall and seeing Giants stepping over the wall where we are standing.

This in addition to new zones to hit up will give players more things to do besides following the Train trying to scrounge up enough coin all day. Players rallying to defend or attack outposts makes more since to me at least.

Tabula Rasa had something like the above and it was probably one of the most fun times I had in the game. Trying to defend some of the quest hubs from a constant flow of mobs that came in at all angles was intense. Even later when the mobs became so large they easily towered above the higher walls – this could really fit in GW2 with it’s constantly in strife theme.

Playstyle variety. As someone who loves tanking, I was always worried and skeptical about the claims that the “trinity” is oh-so-bad and boring and restrictive so GW2 would do away with it and be better for it. What happened to that lofty claim? Please make “control” and “support” meaningful at long last, make defensive stats meaningful. Get rid of melee-zerker-stacking as the One True Way. Solve the condition stack limit problem and make conditions affect anything and everything. “Realism” is of no concern in MMO combat anyway. If ghosts and ambulatory rocks can bleed, so can doors and non-ambulatory rocks.

Depth. This is closely related to the above. Give us more options and ways to affect a fight. First and foremost, that means getting rid of Defiance, which was a terrible idea from the word go and single-handedly makes bossfights boring and “control” characters pointless. I’m not saying that a tiny silly mortal should necessarily be able to knock a giant or dragon on its butt (though see “MMO combat and realism” above), but against a humanoid or roughly humanoid-sized boss that should absolutely work.

PvE balance divorced from any and all PvP considerations.

Mounts or some other easily and equally available movement speed boost, be it karma-bought consumables or the addition of movement speed signets and traits to all classes that lack them. In fact, I’d like to see the traits and signets even if mounts were added, too.

Housing via an improved, customizable, interactive home instance. Mining a candy node once a day does not count as “interactive”, I am referring to books, furniture, etc.

Fun in-game collectibles. I know that, this being a free-to-play game, there must be incentives for players to spend real money to keep the game going and add to it. Paying for, say, character slots or makeover kits or name changes is perfectly fine and fair. Still, there’s a special satisfaction in being rewarded with a neat toy, mount or pet after a long questline, or as a side-effect of an otherwise annoying grind, or as a rare drop or encounter. Buying such things with real money would not give me any satisfaction at all, I want to find/earn them through actual play.

Permanent content. With the exception of the Bazaar of the Winds, the living story did not do anything for me, and even if I cared about its events and characters, the whole thing would still feel like a neverending rat race that, if you came in late or ever took a break, you’ll never really catch up with. Give us more content that anyone can enjoy in their own time and on their own schedule, please.

More instanced single-player, small group and medium group content. Dungeons. Bosses. Class- or culture-specific challenges. Guild stuff. I’d love to see something like Big T but in an instance intended for maybe 10-30 people.

Instanced guild missions, at least puzzles and challenges. Since the arrival of the megaserver, it seems you need to wait in line or try to luck onto a map where the mission is not currently active. That gets annoying (especially since getting guild members onto the same map still needs improving), and the same goes for having 50+ strangers from another guild stampede into an ongoing puzzle. Can it be fun for two smaller guilds to help each other with missions? Absolutely. But that is hardly the same.

Player presence in the living story. With the lack of player voiceacting, we essentially do not play any part in it because all the cutscenes and voiced conversations that move the story forward completely shut us out. If I wanted to watch a bunch of NPCs blab and emo(te) at each other, I’d watch a movie. Don’t make me the One And Only Chosen One Who Can Save The World (that boring trope has been beaten beyond death and even undeath), but let me be an actual character instead of a mute, invisible lackey.

More decent armor for female characters. In fact, gendered armor can die in a fire. Want to leer at panties and wardrobe malfunctions? Then make the same armor set nothing but a banana hammock on the boys. Want a stylish, impressive, full-cover armor with a unique design? Then give it to female characters, too.

More decent armor for charr. Tail-clipping and distorted textures can join gendered armor in the blazing pits of hell.

More performance optimization and better options for culling excess characters and especially particle effects. During big events and zergs in particular, the fireworks get old, cause lag and eyestrain, and routinely lead to deaths because people often can’t even see their enemy, nevermind see it winding up its killer skill.

Trinity, Raids, Mounts…I kid.

For PvE:

For WvW:

They could easily fix a lot of these complaints by taking the old living story missions and instancing them. It would give meaningful raid like content for guilds to do together. They could even offer a hard mode that gives tokens for an ascended reward at the end for people that can’t stomach crafting.

By all means keep the current living story the open world zergfest it is for people that don’t like organized play, but give the rest of us something to do with our guild, and give the people that missed sections of the LS a chance to play them.

What is GW2 missing?

A clear design vision.

Before launch, I think a lot of people got excited about this game because ArenaNet presented a passionate, bold vision for the game with clarity and energy. That’s why, four years later, people still bring up “the Manifesto” when talking about the game.

Sadly, that kind of solid direction has given way to vague statements and the sense that GW2 is lurching about between opposing design goals.

Even if they decided to go in a direction I oppose, I would welcome it if presented with the conviction and confidence that they presented the original vision for the game.

Jski.6180:

Algreg.3629:

I can assure you I have been playing MMORPG a LOT in the last decade :P And even the bad ones never gave me the feeling of “oh well, why would I do this” like GW2 does recently. Funnily enough, I love sandbox style games, look at Eve, the game does not tell you what to do at all, PvE barely exists, still, you can find what you enjoy and a reason to do it.

Only a few mainly GW2 and FF11. Ff11 was a super grind game just to get max level with quest after the first level 50 to get to level 60? etc..

I find sandbox style games gets a free pass most often they can be bad very bad with lots of glitches etc.. but often just because of the type of game being sandbox like makes ppl rave over it.

EvE: I watched a steam of that game i still have no ideal what going on other then ppl flying in spaces and i often hear its a spreadsheet game.

For me i like action combat games with combos. FF11 had skillchans and magic burst it was a lot of team work and a great feeling when it worked well. That why i like GW2 because of combo fields and finisher what i feel that GW2 needs is more fields and finisher types lets expand this type of team work play.

lol, yeah, there are quite a lot of “sandbox” games that are more or less like “well, here is your character, then we have this map here, soooo… enjoy” :P I´d say we are not that far apart. I like the action combat part too. But it feels like it has just not arrived where it wants to be. I´d enjoy a mix of the best of GW2 and TERA (minus the motley crew patchwork anime crap world and style plus the thousands of weirdos such a scenario draws in) combat. I still think GW2 is very important for the genre and hope later games will go the whole way.

There’s a lot of great suggestions and ideas and opinions in this thread.

Some of it has been brought up hundreds of times.

It’s sad that the players care 500x more about the game than the company.

And that is mainly what GW2 is missing. Passionate staff.

Jski.6180:

Algreg.3629:

Jski.6180:

A lot of what GW2 is missing is plan out as such and would take more vertical progression to fill in what GW2 is missing say vs a game like WoW. “End game” to most ppl is about getting better loot and gear that the ideal behind raids you get gear up for the raids to get better gear from the raids to do higher level raids that gives you even better gear etc… GW2 not about vertical progression on that scale and more then likely you will see small amounts of it but nothing that is “needed” to do the next level.

This is just the blunt truth about mmorpgs and even just stander rpg online or not its all about the loot grind if you have no real will to progress the story line and that the cool thing about GW2 the story line is being progressed (LS) over added in a new set of gear ever 6 months (what you see in WoW and WoW like games.) So more then likely games with raids are going to have gear progression to get to the next raid etc.. and beyond the starter story or “box story” (story you get from buying the game or exposition) your not going to get that much but you will get an endless progression of gear that you need to progress to the next set of gear.

but sadly it seems such a system is necessary for long term enjoyment. Grind does not have to be grindy, if you excuse that paradox for a moment. You can place items behind challenging content with only a little bit of RNG for example. The one special thing about MMORPG: They don´t have an ending. So sooner or later you outrun new things to experience. GW2´s premises sounded nice on paper, but the longer I play, the more I miss incentives to do anything. And I still missing a few things. But I just cannot bother. Play because its fun simply does not cut it for an MMORPG in my opinion. These games are usually inferior to other games from a gameplay and lore/storytelling point of view. I am really at a loss just now. I like the game in theory, but it even takes some overcoming to log in, take 15 minutes for daily, and then go to Darksouls, Warframe or whatever else currently is in my gaming systems.

Its easy to get cough up in hype of a game mmorpgs are very good at doing this trying to get non mmorpgs players into there game but often mmorpgs are nothing like a single player game even if that game has some team play.

Its easy when devs say things like “If you love mmos, you will want to check out gw2, and if you hate mmos, you will really want to check out gw2”

what GW2 misses is immersion, there is absolutely no immersion whatsoever.
this is partly how the world map is build, partly how the gameplay is done.

world map
the map is simply to empty and wildlife is to static, it’s like the world froze over and only reacts when you get close.
worse, it’s not even feeling natural, a deer doesn’t fight back, it runs for it’s life.
i know this game is based on a fantasy settings but at least keep some things realistic so it doesn’t feel to much off, i would love to see drakes hunt fish and black panthers chase a deer.
raptors don’t stand around randomly in an open space, they stay in a group while the females stay close to the nest as protection.

in terms of map build, it would be nice if we have an actual forest to play in, not a grass field with some trees randomly placed.
i don’t say that everything has to be filled with bushes, there are plenty of open forests that look allot more natural then what we have in GW2:
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs46/i/2009/166/8/4/Open_Forest_by_kjherstin_stock.png
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-93P6mGBiSa4/UNI0vn86kcI/AAAAAAAACNg/8gHS8iJeo9Y/s1600/IMAG2281.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/59973130.jpg
more full grass and better looking ground really doesn’t hurt, better yet, it adds immersion.

gameplay
i know that it’s all everybody’s own preference how they like to play a game, personally i think that they should’ve made a mixture of what GW1 has and what skyrim has.
when you fight an enemy it’s hardly immersive when the enemy can’t be fought the way you want to, attack and all you can do is what the skills allow you to do.
one way to solve this is by making sure you can block at any time, a press of a button and you’re on your way to say alive that much longer.
this will also add allot more strategy, surely allot more then what we can right now.
you will be able to attack within timing and come up with a more communicative strategy, like “you distract the enemy with small hits and blocks while we build up powerful spells, when we’re ready ill give you a sign and you roll away while we nuke the place”.
this will also make more tougher enemies possible, no more braindead zergs because they will only kill anyone who doesn’t use their brain.

this will not only improve on the immersion, it will make the game allot more dynamic.

Gibson.4036:

What is GW2 missing?

A clear design vision.

Before launch, I think a lot of people got excited about this game because ArenaNet presented a passionate, bold vision for the game with clarity and energy. That’s why, four years later, people still bring up “the Manifesto” when talking about the game.

Sadly, that kind of solid direction has given way to vague statements and the sense that GW2 is lurching about between opposing design goals.

Even if they decided to go in a direction I oppose, I would welcome it if presented with the conviction and confidence that they presented the original vision for the game.

Fully quoted because this is short yet brilliantly to the point.

Purgatory.5296:

It’s missing the Trinity. I know I’ll get flamed for saying it.

Certainly not by me, because I fully agree. Though I too could live without the traditional trinity as long as the game offered some other form of role and playstyle variety.

We’re told by the Devs and loyal GW2 players that we shouldn’t have the Trinity unless you want to wait 30+ minutes in a dungeon queue because you can’t find a tank or a healer.

Instead we now have a system in which people are routinely insulted for even daring to ASK for help with builds that do not march in perfect lockstep with the current “meta”, and derided for doing anything but perfectly “optimized” speedruns with lots of cheese and skipping. It’s such a toxic atmosphere, and makes the profession forums worse than even WoW’s forums back when I played that. Why is it okay to say “tanking does not work and should not work”, or healing, or CC, or conditions, or ranged, yet melee direct damage is the one and only playstyle that must be “allowed” to remain “viable”? Yeah, I know, much of that is player attitudes and the devs cannot be blamed for those — but they can be blamed for making false claims and unbalanced content.

Snipped the rest, but I second pretty much every word of it, especially the feeling of missing that satisfaction of having a role, a purpose. I also miss the interplay between the roles. And I’m perpetually baffled and dismayed how, in a game with such a small “toolbox” of only 10 active skills at a time (5 of which come in a non-negotiable package), long cooldowns and short durations, many skills and traits don’t even work in many PvE situations. The fewer skills I can have, the more impact and every one of them should offer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay.

Otherwise known by GW2 designers as dungeon map exploits and terrain exploits.

To be fair, quite a bit exists in the form of consumables – imo it needs more of this. Not that I am in favor of broken mechanics like spam spikeroot.

It’s soul.

I’m trying to think of some other way to put it, but .. what? vision? Clear philosophy? Something like that. I don’t know if it’s this schedule they’ve been bruising themselves up against but the last few updates.. heck, the last six months, have felt like five steps forward and four back.

Who wanted ascended armor..? But who wanted it as grindy and gold intensive as it is?

Who wanted town clothes useable in combat..? But implemented so you can’t mix them with your hats any longer?

Who wanted bosses on timers? And now.. everything but a single waypoint in ashford is contested permanently?

Who wanted zerg raid bosses in the open world? .. That fail 9 times out of 10 because it somehow requires players to be prescient about where everybody else is, or have perfect communication?

Who wanted increased dev communication? That consists of ’We’re reading, stay tuned?’

The only thing I do nowadays is a dungeon run or two and flip some stuff on the tp cuz it’s the only semi-fun way of making enough cash to keep up with inflation or to get some spare crafting mats.

Somebody else said it in a different thread. It feels like we’re getting our wishes granted by the monkey’s paw.

Everything that we love from Guild Wars.