SO I got GW2 on release, and up until xmas this year, I have barely touched any other aspect of the game really. I had an Ele at 80, but in half greens and yellows. Never went back to the pve, so like all my chars (the rest a collection of level 2s and the like), sat in the mists ready for some pvp.
Well the last 4 months I haven’t been playing the game at all really, so with the recent changes I decided, as PVP was still as stale as ever and doesnt look like its going to change a lot, lets explore the other side of the game. Plus with all the glory I had saved up, I auto leveled a warrior, a thief and a mesmer to max level. Also had a fair chunk of gold so I decked them out in full exotics, figured I may as well spend it rather than let it sit there. Plus people might moan if I have bad gear. Anyway, here is what happened.
My first port of call was the pretend pvp side of things called WvWvW. I was on my thief, mostly wandering about. I spotted a warrior, a red one, he had to be fought. So I ran up to him, he charged me, he bull charged me into 100b, havent had this in a while. But something strange was happening, my zerker thief was barely taking any damage. So I figured “ahh, a bunker, this will be fun”. Stealth backstab, DEAD. What the hell, how did my backstab hit so hard? Hmm, who knows. Next few fights were zergs, then another single fight in the middle of nowhere. Bam, insta killed him. Is my thief hacking, am I hacking, why are they dying so easily. Oh, I forget, gear. Yep, thanks to WoW we now have to live in a world of gear grind, in which time is rewarded rahter than skill. Those poor players I was fighting most likely were low level dudes with blues on, how can they hope to compete against me, and I dont even have the best in slot. The whole idea is flawed, this mode is stupid, this is why most “bad kitten ” videos are done in WvWvW, I can look a bad kitten when I am fighting some low level no gear, I can go tank and still own them. This mode is stupid and appears to want me to hit doors, run supply, and group up into huge groups and just zerg stuff. Awesome. This is not real pvp, this is a joke.
PVE – I went for fractels first, and I was instantly reminded of the gear treadmill of WoW. In fact, I recall that GW2 made a statement about level 80 exotics being best in slot and more put upon changing styles and stats to explore the game. No, because that means I need a full few sets of armor (including rings and amulet and 2 “things” that appear to be draped across me). Now, I know they removed the triple force (tank healer dps), but in many ways they have done nothing but make it a simple form of that set up. Why is every boss a one shot set up type thing? is that the ONLY way ANet can design a PVE instance? If thats the case, they why give up the holy trinity if you have nothing to go towards in its place. Any new boss will just include more red circles to avoid, and more big hits to avoid. So dodge on both of them, great, good old dodge, lets just rest all the game play dynamics on a single button press. Its like QTE, WOO HOO WE LOVE QTE!. 99% of the garbage gear that dropped was just sold off, one thing that was a rare was a stupid stat set up that appeared to be for no class spec that uses it. Who uses healing gear, its of little help with the simple “DPS until its dead, the faster the better” gameplay.
Crafting, well what a waste of time that is. Most of the crap you make is utterly pointless. Yeah you can resell it, but it will be salvaged for the most part, and the gear looks ugly. Most of the good stuff is locked towards the end, you know, that end game that doesnt really exist. Why is everything grind? why not reward based loot tokens. In fact, just do away with gear stats, its a stupid hang over from the “we want to live in your wallet world of credit card thief craft”. It should be like “kill the big boss dragon baddie dude, do it in less time and not getting hit, better looking gear skin”. All geat should just be skins, do away with stupid stats, let people, freely, change up builds and promote diverse playing styles, instead of “DAMAGE DAMAGE DAMAGE”.
And what the hell is green master work gear? Think about the gear levels and green is pointless, rare is fast becoming that as well, in fact exotic is now a stop gap for the grinded gear. At no point will green gear be worth getting (unless skins), blue will be leveling with the odd green you find, but as soon as you hit 80 you will need AT LEAST rare to get going, but in WvW that will not be enough.
So the gear grind is back, the very thing that made me hate WoW and its kind, that “time played” is better than “playing well” reward system, that awful felling that you have to grind out to stay in the race. Not to mention your alts will sit doing nothing, more so once you have geared up a char, because you will know exactly the time investment involved.
So, back into the mists it is then.