Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing since 1st beta and followed gw2 since the first word of its making. Before this I had played gw1 for years. One area I feel GW2 is lacking is the weaponry. I know each weapon can give separate skill set like with a ele or engi but imo its still very limited. I would like to see a much broader range of weapons for each of the class’s. 1 handed hammers for guards and warriors. scythe for necros, throwing stars for assassins etc. and I don’t mean 1 more weapon pre class I mean at least another 2-3 weapons. I am aware of the skills etc that would have to be designed and included but that’s the point. Anet already has all the ideas for sills etc from gw1. Anyway just my thoughts.

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons? Your 1h handed hammer for guardian and warrior for example. They both already have the mace but when was the last time you saw one run around with that in WvW or something? Even some of the new HoT weapons probably wont see much use because others are so kitten meta and good.

Meta? not sure what you mean but I don’t play wvw or pvp. Have little to no interest The weapons all have their own uses and I prefer a axe mace warrior personally. more weapons gives more customization imo. I’m not the type to follow like a sheep just because its main stream or considered the best combination. with skills, gear, traits and weapons you can make up your own just as effective builds I think. For example I have a Guardian I use in dungeons, its fully geared traited skills and and weapons for heals, I can Aoe heals a group like it was a trinity style game.

I agree that we could use more weapon variations instead of the common-type weapons we have now.

2 handed axes anyone?(despite this kinda being common as well)

The meta doesn’t matter in this factor, some people run their own thing and to be all honest, somewhere in the game each weapon for each class is in use in some viable build, or used to be in any case.

More variation isn’t a bad thing.

That said most likely Anet will not do this for quite some time, or at least some time after HoT, and that’s saying all the features they mentioned release at HoT, which they might not, meaning said features may come after the actual expansion.

So yea far future as they said they wouldn’t add new weapons right now

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

I’ve been playing since 1st beta and followed gw2 since the first word of its making. Before this I had played gw1 for years. One area I feel GW2 is lacking is the weaponry. I know each weapon can give separate skill set like with a ele or engi but imo its still very limited. I would like to see a much broader range of weapons for each of the class’s. 1 handed hammers for guards and warriors. scythe for necros, throwing stars for assassins etc. and I don’t mean 1 more weapon pre class I mean at least another 2-3 weapons. I am aware of the skills etc that would have to be designed and included but that’s the point. Anet already has all the ideas for sills etc from gw1. Anyway just my thoughts.

I’ve been playing GW1, I spent moneys for the GW2 Manifesto, then realized how much subpar was GW2 and stopped spending my time on it.

In 3 years they didn’t PROPERLY manage to fix the content of skills, abilities traits, nor adding new skills. They kept bandaiding the broken parts, filling with more farm mechanics the empty spaces AND “updating tooltips” for countless months.

Soon they will add 1 weapon to every class and somehow they decided to give a SMALL twist to the old boiled and reboiled soup.

The message is clear: Don’t expect anything. The old Guild Wars and its spirit is dead, replaced by a lame cashmachine.

They are releasing a new weapon for each class with HoT and I can only assume they will continue this trend going forward.

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons? Your 1h handed hammer for guardian and warrior for example. They both already have the mace but when was the last time you saw one run around with that in WvW or something? Even some of the new HoT weapons probably wont see much use because others are so kitten meta and good.

Uh, mace is an excellent weapon on both warrior and guardian in WvW, featuring stuns and support which are some of the best things you can bring to a small group fight. Are you confusing WvW with PvE, where they are largely unused?

Also, only a small percentage of players actually play by the meta. Its just that they are the most vocal. There are thousands of veteran players that don’t even care about it, and even more almost any newbie will have no idea about it.

Anyway, people shouldn’t confuse “weapon types” with “weapon skins”. Two-handed axes for example would just be an alternative greatsword skin. Weapon types are just a generic term for “a weapon that does something in this order”, e.g the greatsword is always a big slicing weapon, so a two-handed axe would still fit it, just as a one-handed hammer would be nearly identical to a mace in all respects.

What we need are more functional weapon skins in the game. Although I am excited to see the new weapon types that are being added in HoT, as they really fill in some holes in classes (e.g, Necro cleave being limited, Engi having no good melee).

I will readily admit I was quite disappointed when HoT revealed that no actual new weapons would be released, just classes being able to weild a new weapon. I do agree that the current weapon system is very restrictive and could be made better

That would be nice to see more variety, it would be nice to see more tweaks to what each class can do, rather then just seeing the same things from the same classes.

You’re an assassin, you have ninja stars right? Or nunchucks?

I struggled with this in the beginning. It seemed like I learned the weapon skills, and how to use them, so fast, that the rest of my leveling experience was completely dependent on Utilities. I kind of liked how the first Guild Wars did it. In the end, you had a giant list of skills and you used what you wanted. It wasn’t messy (like WoW). It was genius.

Now we have skills based on what weapon you have. That’s okay at first. But pretty soon I’ve got nothing new to unlock! I don’t need something unlocking every two seconds to keep my interest, but it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen anything new. So.. so long. :P

Let’s see some new weapons! I’m down for that!

I liked the part where the cinematic clearly shows spears, yet Anet came out and said “we told them not to add them….but they did…..but no spears”.

I dont find the issue being the weapon skills. At most I’d say that instead of adding more weapons, would be a very large under taking since you’d need to add so many new models, to instead give each weapon ten skills rather than 5. As in each button has two choices, giving you more variety in what your weapons an do.

Failing that, more utilities to choose from. The issue here is variety, and there isnt much. But, you dont need to add weapons for variety, just tweak what you can do with existing ones.

Namica.2951:

I dont find the issue being the weapon skills. At most I’d say that instead of adding more weapons, would be a very large under taking since you’d need to add so many new models, to instead give each weapon ten skills rather than 5. As in each button has two choices, giving you more variety in what your weapons an do.

Failing that, more utilities to choose from. The issue here is variety, and there isnt much. But, you dont need to add weapons for variety, just tweak what you can do with existing ones.

This has been mentioned before and I’m all for it. I’d love to be able choose different weapon skills on the same weapon.

What I’d like to see is underwater weapons being adapted for land use. Few reasons for that:
1. This fixes the fact that the game has a lot of end game underwater weapons that are currently mostly useless due to a lack of end game underwater content.
2. The models are all already in place, and this change would in fact allow a lot of really quality but currently unknown/unappreciated assets to be enjoyed by the player base at large.
3. A decent number of the underwater skills can be ported over with some adjustments.

I think there are more than enough weapons, already.

Where I think the game falls short, is that they’re not all created equal.

So, say I would like to play a longbow and shortbow combination, as Ranger; tough, because it’s not the “meta” (or anywhere near it).

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

I think the skill system in gw1 was hands-down better.

The skill system in GW1 was more freeform customization, but it was messy and there were a LOT of skills not used. Also, you had a lot of gimmicky builds that Anet had to nerf or change the way things worked in high end missions. Take 55 monk builds for example.

To me GW2, while it too has underused skills, is more balanced in my opinion.

As to adding new weapons, I am sure at some point Anet will add new weapons. But you must consider that adding a new weapon type is harder than adding an existing weapon to a profession that previously couldn’t use it. By doing the later you only have to create and balance 5 weapon skills. By doing the former you will likely have to balance a lot more. For example, if they added greataxes, I doubt Anet would only give it to one profession, otherwise there would be complaints from many of the other professions, so it is highly likely that they would need to create several new weapon types and give each type to at least two professions. This means that each new weapon would have 10+ skills that needed to be balanced.

Not only that but they would need to create a large variety of initial skins, to allow people to customize their looks better. An existing weapon added to a profession will already have a ton of skin options to choose from.

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

I’ve been playing since 1st beta and followed gw2 since the first word of its making. Before this I had played gw1 for years. One area I feel GW2 is lacking is the weaponry. I know each weapon can give separate skill set like with a ele or engi but imo its still very limited. I would like to see a much broader range of weapons for each of the class’s. 1 handed hammers for guards and warriors. scythe for necros, throwing stars for assassins etc. and I don’t mean 1 more weapon pre class I mean at least another 2-3 weapons. I am aware of the skills etc that would have to be designed and included but that’s the point. Anet already has all the ideas for sills etc from gw1. Anyway just my thoughts.

Funny what you say about GW1 because GW2 has more weapon types available. Also, in GW1 professions were severely limited in the weapons they could use, sure you could use all of them, but there was no point in doing so.

Adding more of the old weapons to more professions is a better choice in nearly all aspects and I’m glad that’s what they are doing.

Luke.4562:

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

I’ve been playing since 1st beta and followed gw2 since the first word of its making. Before this I had played gw1 for years. One area I feel GW2 is lacking is the weaponry. I know each weapon can give separate skill set like with a ele or engi but imo its still very limited. I would like to see a much broader range of weapons for each of the class’s. 1 handed hammers for guards and warriors. scythe for necros, throwing stars for assassins etc. and I don’t mean 1 more weapon pre class I mean at least another 2-3 weapons. I am aware of the skills etc that would have to be designed and included but that’s the point. Anet already has all the ideas for sills etc from gw1. Anyway just my thoughts.

I’ve been playing GW1, I spent moneys for the GW2 Manifesto, then realized how much subpar was GW2 and stopped spending my time on it.

In 3 years they didn’t PROPERLY manage to fix the content of skills, abilities traits, nor adding new skills. They kept bandaiding the broken parts, filling with more farm mechanics the empty spaces AND “updating tooltips” for countless months.

Soon they will add 1 weapon to every class and somehow they decided to give a SMALL twist to the old boiled and reboiled soup.

The message is clear: Don’t expect anything. The old Guild Wars and its spirit is dead, replaced by a lame cashmachine.

So you’re on their forums why?

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

Yes, it is what happens. But you know what? It made GW1 a hell of a lot more fun. It was more work for the dev team for sure, but it was also a great deal more fun and interesting for the players.

maddoctor.2738:

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

I’ve been playing since 1st beta and followed gw2 since the first word of its making. Before this I had played gw1 for years. One area I feel GW2 is lacking is the weaponry. I know each weapon can give separate skill set like with a ele or engi but imo its still very limited. I would like to see a much broader range of weapons for each of the class’s. 1 handed hammers for guards and warriors. scythe for necros, throwing stars for assassins etc. and I don’t mean 1 more weapon pre class I mean at least another 2-3 weapons. I am aware of the skills etc that would have to be designed and included but that’s the point. Anet already has all the ideas for sills etc from gw1. Anyway just my thoughts.

Funny what you say about GW1 because GW2 has more weapon types available. Also, in GW1 professions were severely limited in the weapons they could use, sure you could use all of them, but there was no point in doing so.

Adding more of the old weapons to more professions is a better choice in nearly all aspects and I’m glad that’s what they are doing.

That’s largely because in gw1, it wasn’t the weapon that was important, what was important was the skills you brought. Even then, every class could find a build that required use of any sort of weapon.

Namica.2951:

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

Yes, it is what happens. But you know what? It made GW1 a hell of a lot more fun. It was more work for the dev team for sure, but it was also a great deal more fun and interesting for the players.

It made Guild Wars 1 a whole lot more fun FOR YOU. Not for everyone. There were a number of reasons why it was less fun for me.

I knew if I would success or fail before I even left an outpost based on my build. I could spec heroes to do all the heavy lifting and have almost no risk at all through most of the game. I could AFK and my heroes could take care of anything that cropped up, even in hard mode.

The game was called Build Wars for a reason and if you liked making builds (as I did), then it was great. For everyone who wanted to play a game and not just make builds though, it completely sucked.

Now I’m wondering if there were more people who liked that sort of thing, or more people who couldn’t get into it at all and walked away from the game.

Vayne.8563:

Namica.2951:

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

Yes, it is what happens. But you know what? It made GW1 a hell of a lot more fun. It was more work for the dev team for sure, but it was also a great deal more fun and interesting for the players.

It made Guild Wars 1 a whole lot more fun FOR YOU. Not for everyone. There were a number of reasons why it was less fun for me.

I knew if I would success or fail before I even left an outpost based on my build. I could spec heroes to do all the heavy lifting and have almost no risk at all through most of the game. I could AFK and my heroes could take care of anything that cropped up, even in hard mode.

The game was called Build Wars for a reason and if you liked making builds (as I did), then it was great. For everyone who wanted to play a game and not just make builds though, it completely sucked.

Now I’m wondering if there were more people who liked that sort of thing, or more people who couldn’t get into it at all and walked away from the game.

Oh. You played late guild wars when they started adding all the hero builds and pve only abilities. That would certainly explain why you didn’t care for it much. The game went way downhill around eye of the north time, because at that point the devs largely didn’t care (EotN was a big “wait on thesequel now, we’re done” expansion). The PvE abilities and the OP stuff they added ruined things quiet notably.

Namica.2951:

Vayne.8563:

Namica.2951:

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

Yes, it is what happens. But you know what? It made GW1 a hell of a lot more fun. It was more work for the dev team for sure, but it was also a great deal more fun and interesting for the players.

It made Guild Wars 1 a whole lot more fun FOR YOU. Not for everyone. There were a number of reasons why it was less fun for me.

I knew if I would success or fail before I even left an outpost based on my build. I could spec heroes to do all the heavy lifting and have almost no risk at all through most of the game. I could AFK and my heroes could take care of anything that cropped up, even in hard mode.

The game was called Build Wars for a reason and if you liked making builds (as I did), then it was great. For everyone who wanted to play a game and not just make builds though, it completely sucked.

Now I’m wondering if there were more people who liked that sort of thing, or more people who couldn’t get into it at all and walked away from the game.

Oh. You played late guild wars when they started adding all the hero builds and pve only abilities. That would certainly explain why you didn’t care for it much. The game went way downhill around eye of the north time, because at that point the devs largely didn’t care (EotN was a big “wait on thesequel now, we’re done” expansion). The PvE abilities and the OP stuff they added ruined things quiet notably.

Even without the heroes, though, the game was still build wars. It appealed to those people who liked it. I’m pretty sure more people walked away because it was that way than stayed. I can’t prove it though.

Vayne.8563:

Even without the heroes, though, the game was still build wars. It appealed to those people who liked it. I’m pretty sure more people walked away because it was that way than stayed. I can’t prove it though.

I played GW1 almost from launch and stayed with it until GW2’s release. I really enjoyed the game, but prefer GW2’s build system a lot more.

I agree with the princicple point of what you’re making though. Both games have very different systems and will appeal to different players in varying degrees, or not at all. It’s personal preference at the end of the day. Neither system is better than the other, because they are both very different to each other.

Rin.1046:

Vayne.8563:

Even without the heroes, though, the game was still build wars. It appealed to those people who liked it. I’m pretty sure more people walked away because it was that way than stayed. I can’t prove it though.

I played GW1 almost from launch and stayed with it until GW2’s release. I really enjoyed the game, but prefer GW2’s build system a lot more.

I agree with the princicple point of what you’re making though. Both games have very different systems and will appeal to different players in varying degrees, or not at all. It’s personal preference at the end of the day. Neither system is better than the other, because they are both very different to each other.

I suppose that was the problem many people had with GW2. GW1 the gameplay was built around how you could build your character. They completely changed that in GW2. GW2 is sequel in the same was, say, wow is a sequel to wc3. Same setting, but absolutely everything else has changed. though some may even debate the setting part, since so very much has changed for human, charr, and norn from both a lore stand point and a theme standpoint that its hard to look at their gw1 counterparts and say they’re the same, and of course sylvari have been the story focus and they werent even in gw1

Its why you constantly have these threads. People want at least some of that GW1 complexity back. Because as of now, GW2 has some of the least depth of any MMO, whereas GW1 had the most depth.

Namica.2951:

Its why you constantly have these threads. People want at least some of that GW1 complexity back. Because as of now, GW2 has some of the least depth of any MMO, whereas GW1 had the most depth.

I do not agree with the complexity statement. You may have had more variety of skills, more choice and freedom in what skills to take. But I think GW2 has a more complex system. People seem to only look at the skills when comparing GW1 and GW2, but don’t forget that traits play a big part in your build in GW2. We have more rune and sigil choices in GW2, more stat choices (though some are underused in certain parts of the game), and we can change weapons in combat giving us more skills in combat at any given moment. In GW1 you have 8 skills, in GW2 you can have a minimum 15 (14 on a non-kit engi, soon to be 15).

GW2 may not offer the same freedom of choice, but it does offer a complex system, that more importantly is more balanced and in my opinion offers a larger number of viable builds than GW1 did. In GW1 you had a handful of meta (often gimmicky) builds that in some cases you needed to run in order to beat certain content. This in turn left you with literally hundred of unused skills. We do have unused skills (and traits) in GW2 as well, but it doesn’t feel as bad as it did in GW1.

To be honest, I preferred GW1 when it was just prophecies. As they added more and more skills, things started to get watered down more and more and the amount of unused skills increased. I think Anet made the right decision to limit the number of skills you could select. I just hope they don’t undo that by adding more and more specializations.

Its a difficult thing to get right at the end of the day. You want to give players choice without it having a negative impact, and you don’t want to keep things the same for too long without people getting bored. Offering new stuff without it ruining the game is a tricky balancing act, and I do not envy Anet this task one bit.

Adding new weapons would require lots of work…

• New skills for each class that can use this new weapon.
• Balance these skills with existing traits / weapon combos.
• Add a skin for each dungeon.
• Add skins to to each existing region

Rin.1046:

Namica.2951:

Its why you constantly have these threads. People want at least some of that GW1 complexity back. Because as of now, GW2 has some of the least depth of any MMO, whereas GW1 had the most depth.

I do not agree with the complexity statement. You may have had more variety of skills, more choice and freedom in what skills to take. But I think GW2 has a more complex system. People seem to only look at the skills when comparing GW1 and GW2, but don’t forget that traits play a big part in your build in GW2. We have more rune and sigil choices in GW2, more stat choices (though some are underused in certain parts of the game), and we can change weapons in combat giving us more skills in combat at any given moment. In GW1 you have 8 skills, in GW2 you can have a minimum 15 (14 on a non-kit engi, soon to be 15).

GW2 may not offer the same freedom of choice, but it does offer a complex system, that more importantly is more balanced and in my opinion offers a larger number of viable builds than GW1 did. In GW1 you had a handful of meta (often gimmicky) builds that in some cases you needed to run in order to beat certain content. This in turn left you with literally hundred of unused skills. We do have unused skills (and traits) in GW2 as well, but it doesn’t feel as bad as it did in GW1.

To be honest, I preferred GW1 when it was just prophecies. As they added more and more skills, things started to get watered down more and more and the amount of unused skills increased. I think Anet made the right decision to limit the number of skills you could select. I just hope they don’t undo that by adding more and more specializations.

Its a difficult thing to get right at the end of the day. You want to give players choice without it having a negative impact, and you don’t want to keep things the same for too long without people getting bored. Offering new stuff without it ruining the game is a tricky balancing act, and I do not envy Anet this task one bit.

Thats the thing. There are many options in GW2, but most of them aren’t worthwhile. PvE, you pretty much stick to zerker gear and a very small few types of runes. There may be many runes, but you’ll never use the vast majority of them. Likewise many traits you wont ever use.

In GW1 you had hundreds of builds for each class. In GW2, rather few. Some classes have very pathetically few good builds.

GW2 has -potential-. It has had potential for years. But things haven’t changed much, still, so very many things in the game are simply useless.

Namica.2951:

Thats the thing. There are many options in GW2, but most of them aren’t worthwhile. PvE, you pretty much stick to zerker gear and a very small few types of runes. There may be many runes, but you’ll never use the vast majority of them. Likewise many traits you wont ever use.

In GW1 you had hundreds of builds for each class. In GW2, rather few. Some classes have very pathetically few good builds.

GW2 has -potential-. It has had potential for years. But things haven’t changed much, still, so very many things in the game are simply useless.

I think this all comes down to perspective. On my GW1 warrior I had 2-3 really effective builds I could use. While I could make many more useful builds, they didn’t compare to the 2-3 strong builds. Not by a long shot. In GW2, my warrior has a strong damage build, condition build, bunker build and heavy support builds. And all of those builds can be adjusted slightly with different skill or trait choices, without losing too much effectiveness.

Another difference with builds in GW1 is that they often revolved around 1-2 focused purposes. For example, if you build a warrior shutdown mesmer build, you had little room for any other purpose. You could build with a larger variety of functions (knockdowns, cripples, interrupts, healing, etc) but the ‘jack of all trades’ builds were always outperformed by the more focused builds, and by a noticable margin too. Builds in GW2 on the other hand are much more flexible and adaptable. You can build for high damage and control, yet you can still be very supportive and your build will not suffer because of it. And because no one build can fully focus on 1-2 tasks, no build can out perform others in a particular field.

Like I said, neither system is better than the other. GW1 had more importance of team composition and skill synergy between team members, and the combat was more tactical than reactive (though reactions were required). While GW2 is more reactive and adaptable, and team synergy comes more from combo fields than skills synergy with each other. Neither is better, they are just different. I personally prefer GW2’s system over GW1’s. I did enjoy the combat and build system in GW1, I just do not think it would suit the gameplay and mechanics in GW2.

My personal Pros and Cons about GW2:

Pros:
Great graphics/world
Exploration
A lot of little ‘side activities’ to do such as jumping puzzles and brawling
Great WvW
Great character customization (aesthetics)

Cons:
Poor dungeons
Poor Boss mechanics
Poor weapon variety (hence the topic)
Poor meaty content (hopefully the expansion takes care of this)

tldr:
IMO, GW2 excels at appetizers, garnish, and dessert. It suffers on the actual meal.

cesmode.4257:

My personal Pros and Cons about GW2:

Pros:
Great graphics/world
Exploration
A lot of little ‘side activities’ to do such as jumping puzzles and brawling
Great WvW
Great character customization (aesthetics)

Cons:
Poor dungeons
Poor Boss mechanics
Poor weapon variety (hence the topic)
Poor meaty content (hopefully the expansion takes care of this)

tldr:
IMO, GW2 excels at appetizers, garnish, and dessert. It suffers on the actual meal.

For some of us, that IS the meal and the stuff you think of as the meal is a side dish. In fact, dungeons were never part of my meal in any game. Boss fights bore me and always have. So my meal doesn’t consist of that.

From my point of view, those are garnish.

i’m still willing to bet if GW1 had GW2’s graphics & movement (including the ability to jump), noone would be playing GW2.

GW1 was just a deeper, more interesting game. WVW was pretty good (emphasis on “was” because WVW has been largely neglected and/or left to go stale due to bad/no changes) but IMO the majority of GW2 has been pretty kitten shallow & mediocre.

My top list of GW2 shortcomings in no particular order:

• really pathetic mob AI, world PVE is unbearably dull
• lacks the cerebral combat/skill depth of GW1
• downed state ruins PVP
• spammy/messy combat
• conquest

Lol! I would understand the statement that we need more weapon variety if the skills for one weapon are the same across all classes. But in GW2 weapons are just skins and methods of damage delivery wildly differ and are in no way tied to weapon. Just look at GS.
- you can whirl and swing like a maniac
- shoot lazorz out of it
- shoot chains that pull your enemies toward you
- block and leap
- etc etc etc

So it has nothing to do with weapon variety. That being said I wouldn’t say no to more methods of damage delivery like long range maces, melee scepters, throwing daggers (no, not thief lame one), martial art staves, main hand throwing shields (well discs of energy or something).

scerevisiae.1972:

i’m still willing to bet if GW1 had GW2’s graphics & movement (including the ability to jump), noone would be playing GW2.

GW1 was just a deeper, more interesting game. WVW was pretty good (emphasis on “was” because WVW has been largely neglected and/or left to go stale due to bad/no changes) but IMO the majority of GW2 has been pretty kitten shallow & mediocre.

My top list of GW2 shortcomings in no particular order:

• really pathetic mob AI, world PVE is unbearably dull
• lacks the cerebral combat/skill depth of GW1
• downed state ruins PVP
• spammy/messy combat
• conquest

That is ofc your opinion.

This is my opinion.
I would prob still play GW2 even if you they did what you said becouse GW1 has way to many skills and it is way to hard for the devs to balance them all with all combinations that is possible. I don’t wanna play a game where one Monk can solo a dungeon or a PvP team just becouse he/she has found a super build.
GW1 isn’t realy an MMO as all maps except cities and outposts are instanced, and I realy like how I can play and feel that the world is filled with other players.
GW1 has Henchmens and heroes and makes the game pretty boring as you don’t need other players anymore. GW1 is more or less an unbalance Solo game.
I realy like the Living World wich GW1 never had and there where no meaningfull updates in the game ever as updates mostly where only balance fixes. Every now and then you had to change your build becouse a balance fix made your build bad.

GW2 has it flaws but in my opinion GW1 could never be as good as GW2 is.
And so to follow with the OP and not to get of topic too much I will name the flaws where GW2 falls too short imo.

- No Build save/Load/Copy mechanic.
- Too few new maps for PvP.
- Too few new Dungeons.
- Condition damage is too bad in PvE (Hopefully Expac will change this).

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though?

Probably not, that’s why I used the question mark :P

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

So you’re on their forums why?

I’d imagine he / she and similar persons basically stick around in order to complain and criticize.

cesmode.4257:

Cons:
Poor dungeons
Poor Boss mechanics
Poor weapon variety (hence the topic)
Poor meaty content (hopefully the expansion takes care of this)

In the case of dungeons I do very much think ANet agrees with you, hence the lack of dungeon love.
Boss mechanics are getting better though. We saw a large improvement in S2.

scerevisiae.1972:

i’m still willing to bet if GW1 had GW2’s graphics & movement (including the ability to jump), noone would be playing GW2.

I’ve got 2 character pre-searing. The combat is so horrid (well for me, but even my own personal opinion is still sufficient to counter the absolute claim) I’m not sure if I’ll ever return (probably only for HoM points but… eh).

And that is what it boils down to… a significant cadre of GW1 veterans who really would have been content with their old game rebooted with new graphics, and remain very upset that Arena.net changed the whole game entirely.

chemiclord.3978:

And that is what it boils down to… a significant cadre of GW1 veterans who really would have been content with their old game rebooted with new graphics, and remain very upset that Arena.net changed the whole game entirely.

Yep. Of course, some of us GW 1 vets, even the ones who enjoyed the game, were ready for something new. I mean from following the game I knew it would be completely different.

There are a lot of things I like about this game that Guild Wars 1 didn’t have. The TP, jumping puzzles, not being pathed (I hated that).

I prefer dynamic events to static quests too.

And of course there were things the first game had that I liked but aren’t here.

At the end of the day, though, I knew the game would be very different long before it was launched.

chemiclord.3978:

And that is what it boils down to… a significant cadre of GW1 veterans who really would have been content with their old game rebooted with new graphics, and remain very upset that Arena.net changed the whole game entirely.

Yep, pretty much. I’ve no doubt i would have enjoyed GW2 a lot more had I never played GW1.

The depth of GW1 skill mechanics and how one could exploit those deep mechanics through secondary profession choice really opened my eyes to a whole new level of MMO game mechanics, a level that GW2 has still failed to reach.

Theorycrafting/testing new builds in GW1 was just as much fun as actually playing the game; in GW2, traits/skills are so narrowly defined everything can only ever be used in a single, prescribed way, and consequently there’s only a handful of builds and builds are very static, & the meta never evolves.

scerevisiae.1972:

chemiclord.3978:

And that is what it boils down to… a significant cadre of GW1 veterans who really would have been content with their old game rebooted with new graphics, and remain very upset that Arena.net changed the whole game entirely.

Yep, pretty much. I’ve no doubt i would have enjoyed GW2 a lot more had I never played GW1.

The depth of GW1 skill mechanics and how one could exploit those deep mechanics through secondary profession choice really opened my eyes to a whole new level of MMO game mechanics, a level that GW2 has still failed to reach.

Theorycrafting/testing new builds in GW1 was just as much fun as actually playing the game; in GW2, traits/skills are so narrowly defined everything can only ever be used in a single, prescribed way, and consequently there’s only a handful of builds and builds are very static, & the meta never evolves.

Actually by percentage there are more builds in GW2 than in GW1

scerevisiae.1972:

The depth of GW1 skill mechanics and how one could exploit those deep mechanics through secondary profession choice really opened my eyes to a whole new level of MMO game mechanics, a level that GW2 has still failed to reach.

I think they never even attempted to reach for it, so not sure if one could say they’ve failed to reach it. I think they actually tried to go in the opposite direction.

CureForLiving.5360:

scerevisiae.1972:

The depth of GW1 skill mechanics and how one could exploit those deep mechanics through secondary profession choice really opened my eyes to a whole new level of MMO game mechanics, a level that GW2 has still failed to reach.

I think they never even attempted to reach for it, so not sure if one could say they’ve failed to reach it. I think they actually tried to go in the opposite direction.

Very much this. Guild Wars 1 was a nightmare to balance and it was too confusing for too many players. So Anet made an intentional decision to make it easier for people to have builds. That’s what attaching skills to weapons is all about.

Anet is choosing five skills for you every time you change a weapon. That means at very least, no matter what anyone does, they have five working skills that sort of work together.

This wasn’t necessarily the case in Guild Wars 1.

Anet succeeded in what they were trying to do, to a point anyway. They didn’t fail because they did what they set out to do.

In GW, I never had the sense that my choices were on rails the way I often do in GW2. I never felt that ANet was holding my hand and dictating that if I want to do X, then the only real option is Y. I don’t know how anyone can argue that. The goal was to limit options to make balance easier. Is anyone surprised that if the goal was to limit options, then the result is limited options?

Sure, GW2 has some complexity — what it lacks is depth, by design.

If I want to change my build… GW: enter town/outpost; change stats if needed; change headpiece if needed; change weapons if needed; slot desired skills (later, slot template). In GW2; buy/craft new gear; ensure I have storage space for multiple sets to the tune of anywhere from 1-18 bag slots per desired stat allocation; leave combat; change 1-18 pieces of gear if needed; change 1-4 weapons if needed; change traits if needed; change utility/Elite skills if needed.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In GW, I never had the sense that my choices were on rails the way I often do in GW2. I never felt that ANet was holding my hand and dictating that if I want to do X, then the only real option is Y. I don’t know how anyone can argue that. The goal was to limit options to make balance easier. Is anyone surprised that if the goal was to limit options, then the result is limited options?

Sure, GW2 has some complexity — what it lacks is depth, by design.

If I want to change my build… GW: enter town/outpost; change stats if needed; change headpiece if needed; change weapons if needed; slot desired skills (later, slot template). In GW2; buy/craft new gear; ensure I have storage space for multiple sets to the tune of anywhere from 1-18 bag slots per desired stat allocation; leave combat; change 1-18 pieces of gear if needed; change 1-4 weapons if needed; change traits if needed; change utility/Elite skills if needed.

In Guild Wars 1, I always felt I was on rails when it came to starting a game and going anywhere. I didn’t feel like I was on rails with my build. Different rails I suppose.

The idea that you couldn’t even jump over a log and continue on your way never ceased to bother me.

IndigoSundown.5419:

In GW, I never had the sense that my choices were on rails the way I often do in GW2. I never felt that ANet was holding my hand and dictating that if I want to do X, then the only real option is Y. I don’t know how anyone can argue that. The goal was to limit options to make balance easier. Is anyone surprised that if the goal was to limit options, then the result is limited options?

Sure, GW2 has some complexity — what it lacks is depth, by design.

If I want to change my build… GW: enter town/outpost; change stats if needed; change headpiece if needed; change weapons if needed; slot desired skills (later, slot template). In GW2; buy/craft new gear; ensure I have storage space for multiple sets to the tune of anywhere from 1-18 bag slots per desired stat allocation; leave combat; change 1-18 pieces of gear if needed; change 1-4 weapons if needed; change traits if needed; change utility/Elite skills if needed.

Although GW1 required more planning to create a working build, in GW2 you change your build multiple times during a single run. GW2 is more about the combat gameplay and adapting to any situation on the fly, in GW1 you had to plan for the entire run before it started.

As for build changing, you don’t need anything other than going out of combat to switch to most of the different builds during a run. Not all of them for sure, but the amount of change you can make just by swapping a few traits (for free when out of combat) is really great.

Vayne.8563:

In Guild Wars 1 … the idea that you couldn’t even jump over a log and continue on your way never ceased to bother me.

I don’t think there was a single GW1 player that ever said they liked not being able to jump.

maddoctor.2738:

Actually by percentage there are more builds in GW2 than in GW1

not a chance. you have to multiply skills x traits in GW2 for a fair comparison, and even then, there were more builds in GW1.

also worth mentioning there was a lot more “wiggle room” in GW1 builds compared to GW2, even the “most meta” builds in GW1 usually had 1-3 free skill slots that left plenty of room for customisation/experimentation.