The current design and gameplay philosophy of dungeons (and wvw to an exceedingly high extend as well) is what made me lose interest in the game. Granted, I am not usually an mmo gamer who seeks out the highest end content, but I do want to engange in encounters that are both challenging and interesting. And I don’t feel like I have the opportunity to do that in Guild Wars 2. It is not like opportunities aren’t built into the game, but there’s usually one or two playstyles that the community accepts, because they are the most efficient ones. That fact alone is not the problem. It is quite common in any multiplayer game to stick to the tactics that work best.
However, in Guild Wars 2 especially, there is much more potential variety than in most other games, that is left unutilized. The build system in the game is beatuiful and really supports the player’s own creativity. The thing is, that many different builds for each class could be effective, if the community wouldn’t focus solely on tactics, that are clearly not intended in a game that promoted build diversity as much as Guild Wars 2. Look at how the spider boss in AC is done these days. An entire room full of fire projectiles is completely ignored in the process. The fight boils down to stacking in the corner and watch clustered up effects of a battle that runs almost automatically. It’s just not fun to play. Look at the amount of changes they did to CoF during the first two months of the game, because there was just so much stuff that didn’t work as intended. I bet ArenaNet is still not satisfied with the way things are, but of course that’s up to debate.
So to summarize, there are three issues with the current meta: 1. It undermines an incredible amount of otherwise beautifully working builds, and therefore the core philosophy behind the game. 2. It exposes design flaws, resulting in a gameplay experience, that’s clearly not intended by the developers. 3. It’s no fun.
Now of course fun is subjective. Stacking up in corners or just running around in giant balls of plate armor in WvW while mutually agreeing on taking SM castle back and forth from each other is not fun in my opinion, but it may very well be to other gamers. I’m not even trying to convict the community for what it’s doing, because, like I said, it’s only natural to approach a challenge from the most efficient approach. I am going to point the finger however, and that is in ArenaNet’s direction.
I don’t feel entirely comfortable doing this, because clearly developers can’t have an easy time designing a game as big as this, and clearly pointing the finger towards the creators of a game is all too often done too quickly in my opinion. Here however, I do think that it is warranted. While many people may not have a problem with how the game is being played right now, ArenaNet must be noticing the amounts of players that don’t appreciate the way things are. So why not change them? Like Nemesis has pointed out, there are probably (notice my use of the word “probably” here, because every change in design could potentially lead to unforseen consequences) a couple of relatively easy changes that can be made in order to increase the variety in builds and playstyles. Many people would find renewed interest in the game, and the happy user base of the current meta would just hop on to the next best thing, that hopefully wouldn’t be that much better than the alternatives and wouldn’t hurt the underlying design philosophy of the game as much.
I am convinced that ArenaNeta is at least aware of the problem. Whether or not they are going to do something about it remains to be seen. I don’t expect changes to be made quickly however, because meddling with balance or the design of intended gameplay is a delicate matter. It’s going to take some time, which is why I won’t be jumping ship just yet, even though I quite frankly don’t enjoy the game the way it is right now. We should all just try to raise our opinions and concerns as loud and as constructive as possible at this point.