Guild Wars 2

Ok, people are saying that it’s step in a right direction, but still need work or that it’s GW2 at it’s finest.
Let me just say that at the very beginnig there was no global events and people adored the game because it was their characters that mattered (well, not for Trahearne for sure :P ). Dungeons and fractals are for parties of 5. You tried new builds, experimented, enjoyed playing your toon.
Step in a right direction was Helloween because even the labyrinth map with zerg in it allowed single character to survive and fight monsters alone.
I actually wanted to join a bigger group because it gave an opportunity to face greater dangers with many players.
That was deformed to an abberation we have now.

We have massive battles, single person don’t count at all, you just wanna tag enough monsters for a loot. If you’re not lucky, you gen stunlocked and die in 2 seconds, no skill will help you survive. Loot is flowing like a tsunami, in these 45 minutes I must constantly salvage hundreds of items. How long before people will forget about what this game was one year ago – pristine and beautiful.
I was so excited when an exotic dropped, I was feeling joy of finding it, I was pleased because I was rewarded for my efforts. I earned it.

This loot we have now is shameful. Exotics were deprived of their status of being hard to find.
There’s no sense in it fighting for certain item, because of RNG. It’s better to buy it on TP, not counting that it will drop alongside with many others. The game now is about joining faceless zerg, following blue symbol on map hoping to be in favor of RNG.

This is to what was this game reduced. Because nothing else matters now. What other activity can reward you more than getting hundreds of items, many rare, dozens of exotic boxes full of materials, gold and chance for rarer equipment, a lot of experience, skill scrolls and neverending fighting?
Yay, rejoice, because you revisit old maps where almost no one was playing because there was no sense to. You go there and for what? For this blissful activity.
There are events going on these maps, champs and vets roaming. Everyone is passing them by hasting for another red circle because the reward there even after failing is bigger than rewards for succesful completing all the the events on map combined.
That didn’t help to bring life to maps. They died and you just put new things on their carcasses.

I hope that this may lead to constructive discussion. I’m open to hearing how experience may be improved. What should be added IMO?
Things that will again let your character matter, your build matter, your effort matter, not time because what you get depends now how long will you pew pew on mobs from the distance.

But the thing that was biggest let down for me is level of the history behind all this. It’s childish. It’s flat, shallow, it’s predictable.
We have chaos now but in bad meaning of it. Chaos for people to enjoy simplest of things that you can think of. Pressing buttons without thinking.

Let’s get one thing straight. A lot of these changes were a result of player feedback. Prior to the recent patches, there were lots of complaints about how fighting champions was unrewarding, how difficult it was to get good loot, how there’s no incentive to keep playing, etc. While you may not be one of those people, ArenaNet acted on them.

Champion loot was introduced to give people a reason to actually fight champions outside of dynamic events. The problem was that it worked too well. So well that people farm champions to the exclusion of everything else. The people that asked for this are happy about it. I’m not one of them but you can see how players can negatively impact the game now.

Players complained that dungeons were unrewarding so ArenaNet added a larger gold reward for completion. I doubt that it is as rewarding as farming champions but at least those who enjoy dungeons can feel like they’re appreciated. The daily reward wasn’t meant to nerf CoF 1 but rather to encourage people to run more than just CoF 1. Did it work? No, because people who ran CoF 1 over and over were just farmers and they never were into dungeons in the first place. You can probably find them in the big champ zerg trains.

As for the current living story arc, I think it’s there to give players the feeling that something big is going on. Some people might find all of this to be mindless but others actually enjoy being with a large group of players. It’s all about personal preference. Just note that the event is temporary although the invasions will continue in the future but to a lesser extent.

Keeping players interested in revisiting lower level zones has been a challenge for almost all MMORPG developers. If anything, ArenaNet has probably found the most success at getting people to do non-max level content. Level scaling, getting rewarded for doing low level content, big dynamic events like world bosses, etc. all contribute to this. Human nature will ultimately prevail. Why do lower level dynamic events when they don’t reward the same as higher level dynamic events? If they did give the same rewards, why do the high level dynamic events when the low level ones are easier? Do you see the dilemma that ArenaNet faces?

The Living Story has delivered a variety of content. You’ve seen new dungeons, jumping puzzles, mini-games, Super Adventure Box, scavenger hunts, individual skill based content like the gauntlet, and really big and epic dynamic events like the invasions. Not all of this content will appeal to everyone but there’s probably something there that will appeal to at least someone. So yes, I think ArenaNet is going in the right direction.

When I play a game I’m looking for quality entertainment.

All these LS contents have replaced everything else with lust for more loots/gold. There is no ‘soul’ in the story, just some placeholder evil guy giving you an excuse to zerg some more.

A good story leaves you with satisfaction and praise for the game, though there be bugs and whatnot. A shallow story just leaves you empty.

GW2 started with an interesting story about the dragons and the races of Tyria. That quality story is shelved and we are handed these cheap stories for 12 year olds.

I guess it really comes down to whether you want to make a great game, or a game that makes money. Now it’s looking less and less like the former, can’t say about the later.

I’m collecting all this stuff, these rewards, achievement points, skill points, and all the other stuff, for what now ?

byjiang.1260:

I guess it really comes down to whether you want to make a great game, or a game that makes money. Now it’s looking less and less like the former, can’t say about the later.

A game that is exactly what the majority of players asked for, which is also the path to a game that makes money (for now, at least). A pity that means making a game for farmers, exploiters, addicts and grinders, but those are most of the players ArenaNet got. It makes sense for them to focus on adding farming content instead of quality content, since it appears more players want to farm than to have fun.

They didn’t slow down, they even quickened the release of content.
I get a feeling like they don’t know what they should do. It’s like going to extremes of the things that players asked for without a plan – let’s go for it! Let’s see what happens.

It’s creating complex problems because there are still existing the old ones – like killing mobs in low level areas with fully equipped 80.
Besides thanks to mixing new events and old ones we get this situations like Molten Alliance is invading but still Dredge in Dredgehaunt Cliffs ignore this massive movement and do what they always do – shot few mortars on settlement or just wander.

The game is losing it’s class. It’s getting the mix of everything, it’l losing it’s wonderful taste. It’s becoming a quick implementation of things some people yelled for. It’s not for improving game. It’s for quickly filling the needs that players get from the beginning.

What was wrong was to concentrating on festivals, on events that will return once a year. This game needed and still need a lot of work on every aspect.
Was it just to entertain from the beginning? It’s this stupid boom on holidays, other MMOs also gave content based on it.
I know that it was a tradition but strenghtening the core systems IMO should have been priority number one! Not experimenting with new things that came bugged and temporary for a whole year. We get simple entertainment in a superb game that lost it’s magic.

It’s like this game was getting content that wasn’t supposed to last because people will get tired of it. You know – placing meatloaf on different plates won’t make it taste different. We still are getting the same old thing – activities for a big group to do and extreme rewards for them. But this time this big group may fail and receive a little less shinies. Maybe in few months, maybe in a year or two, this content will be good, activity will need for zerg to spread, dangers will require for groups to organise, protect themselves, choose appropriate targets if they want to win or just survive. Now – you die, quickly respawn and joy the ‘fun’ again.

I want for things that I may do with different characters to have different experiences. Apart from Fractals there is nothing of that kind that was added to the game. I always choose necro because he is best at tagging big groups of mobs and I’ve get him all bag slots in inventory. With engineer I play SPvP, with fresh lvl 35 ele I play WvW.

I’ve got zero feeling of something bigger that is coming. There’s no surprise, no feeling of dread of fighting for life. It’s fighting for loot, nothing more. Why these massive armies spawn on entire continent and not in a single capital? They want to conquer or just stretch their legs?

As I’ve said, it’s shallow content, it’s wasted year on getting temporary stuff and leaving key problems behind – like simple targetting. It’s very hard to select a champion in this massive groups of mobs.

Erasculio.2914:

byjiang.1260:

I guess it really comes down to whether you want to make a great game, or a game that makes money. Now it’s looking less and less like the former, can’t say about the later.

A game that is exactly what the majority of players asked for, which is also the path to a game that makes money (for now, at least). A pity that means making a game for farmers, exploiters, addicts and grinders, but those are most of the players ArenaNet got. It makes sense for them to focus on adding farming content instead of quality content, since it appears more players want to farm than to have fun.

They must add quality content for smaller groups, content that is challenging and demanding. But something that requires communication, socialising, not this faceless zerg who only respond to – “[Waypoint] all get there!”.

It was supposed to bring players together but now this is like saying that you get to know people at sales in supermarket because it brings people together. It’s ridiculous and simply offending. I’ve invested 1000 hours in this game, many people a lot more and what we got after this whole year is a zergest without sense! What can I do with tons of useless loot? What’s worse – what can I do with all these exotics?

Devs are people with passion – I will not deny it. So to those people who gave their best I turn asking – is it what you wished your game to become?
Deep down I hope that you’re answering it silently “No! But what can we do when our players demand shallow content?”.
It’s your product and people will recognise quality and will appreciate it. Others will have their period of adjustment, some will leave with hatred. But just don’t answer with months of work to those who say that this game is great now. It isn’t! It was, but now it’s not.
Just… do what you WANT to do, not what this ruck is asking. Democracy is not the best method of ruling!