Guild Wars 2

I quit gw2 a long time ago, but am considering trying things out again. Just for dev consideration, I will explain what I thought when I read about new fractal update coming tomorrow.

1. That sounds interesting, I might finally log back in to check that out. I always liked fractals. Sounds cool that the fractal level is shared between all chars, so I can get my alts in on the action. Sounds like some new loot and rewards and that looks good too, maybe I can get rewarded finally for doing something I like.
2. …but now that I think about it, I really don’t like the combat, so I don’t think I will log in after all.

I have this nebulous dislike for gw2 combat which is hard for me to describe. I think it is based on 2 things: the skills and a lack of combat organization.

What follows are some statements that readers may not agree with, but these are as close as I can come to my reasons for not playing gw2. It’s not about rewards or leveling or cosmetics or legendaries or map completion or living story or minigames or whatever else other people do in game, for me it is simply about the core game. I can live with a lack of features and game modes and other things, but I can’t play a game that is fundamentally unfun, no matter how much icing is on top. Here goes in no particular order:

• Weapon sets in general are boring: the skills often lack synergy and are unchangeable
• Depending on the profession, the elites could be borderline useless. Regardless, the long cooldowns are unfun.
• Utility skills are sometimes interesting and sometimes have synergy, but there are many that are boring too.
• Trash mobs are boring to kill because both my skills are mostly boring and have a set rotation no matter the enemy, and/or the enemies themselves are not especially interesting.
• Support and control roles are huge jokes. There is little point in even experimenting with that.
• Without any needed roles, or a new trinity of some sort, it feels like I can’t stand out for skillful play. What I mean is, no one will remember you for saving their kitten .

So to summarize my main problems with this game: Skills are generally uninteresting and often on long cooldowns, and there is little opportunity to have meaningful teamplay.

What could help is the addition of new mechanics that skills could interact with. The game is quite shallow and there are not enough moving pieces to have interesting fights.