So, here are what I have noticed after playing GW2 for 120 hours and consistent visit to reddit and this official forum.
Tyria is too peaceful. There aren’t arguments between players and there aren’t big guilds fighting against each others. After slowly learning about the system of GW2, I am shocked by how protective the system is.
- sPvP
All players are scaled up to level 80 and equipped with the same gear in PvP instances. It feels like a sport or board game here, seriously. So fair, so boring. I like games that require player skills, like Monster Hunter. However, I dislike games that require only players skills, like DotA, LOL and CS. I prefer to be destroyed by some old players with good gears rather than having so much fairness in PvP. Low level or weakly geared players are supposed to be defeated by older players easily (even I am the low level guy here). That said, sPvP is a perfect platform for competitions or leaderboard.
- No open world PvP
Probably the main reason why Tyria is so peaceful.
- No KS
Another reason Tyria is so peaceful. I am having a love hate feeling with this setting. I have played enough MMORPGs to know how annoying KS can be. However, without KS, the PvE gameplay feels empty. I don’t have to find a group, I can just drop by any events and walk away anytime I like. I even saw a lot of players in the forum say they simply AFK and auto attack the world bosses. Where is the fun in that???
- No GvG
WHY??? I am looking for something like the Band of Brothers war in EVE Online. I want big guild wars (it’s fine even I am not part of the war, I want to at least see something like this!!).
- Easy leveling
I learnt this from my previous post, “GW2 leveling is way too fast”. Now I understand why leveling in GW2 is so fast. “It unlocks all the contents for all the players quickly, so every players can play all the contents in the game.”. That’s my conclusion from my previous post. I am actually pretty shocked by this answer. “Access to all the contents”?? Isn’t this an MMORPG? From my previous MMORPGs experience, only top ranked or top level players can access to “all the contents” in the game. Why make all players accessible to all the contents in the game? It makes GW2 feels like a Single Player RPG with multiplayer feature enabled.
- No world channel
This is one of the features I like the most in MMORPG. This is where the arguments happened and where the guild wars started. I love watching those fights. However in GW2, world channel is not there. I guess the reason is “players will spam here and argue here, we don’t want this to affect other players”. Yeah, I can play Single Player games if I don’t want to affect by other players.
- Conclusion
All these settings make me feel like Anet is trying their best to make the game as easy as possible for the players. They don’t want players to feel any discomforts throughout the gameplay. You can have access to all gameplay, no one can disturb you, you won’t be bullied by old players, you can play casually and still get stuffs. In short, have fun.
If I am still a hardcore player like I used to be, I have probably quit GW2. I am a semi-casual player now because of my work and study, so I don’t really mind the peacefulness in Tyria. However, it still bothers me sometime during the gameplay. GW2 is easily the most protective MMORPG I have played or even heard.
ps. I am looking forward to Guild Halls in HoT (limited guild halls to be claimed only by strong guilds??). I hope it will turn Tyria into a war zone. * evil laugh *
From the replies, I think I need to clarify my post here. I am NOT complaining. I am sharing differences I observed in GW2 compared to the older MMORPGs I played and wondering has the MMORPG market demand shifted. If I don’t like GW2, I would have left. I won’t even bother typing so many words.
(edited by Katalos.5038)