Guild Wars 2

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Something better than an expansion? This can only be a campaign, like Factions and Nightfall

If it’s not a campaign or expansion, I doubt it will be anything special. But against my better judgement, I’m hoping!

New GW1 campaign.

Uninstall GW2
Install GW1
Enjoy a good game after the grind

A Guild Wars sequel is in the make?!

Hate – Not a proper sequel
Like – Graphics

Despite it being open world GW2 is ironically actually less social than GW1.

The whole free mission structure is gone, which was a lot of fun to do with guildies. Dungeons are limited to 5 players instead of 12, do not require a massive team synergy setup but can be beaten by just a combination of 5 individual cookie-cutter builds. Helping and exploring with friends is discouraged by making waypoints cost money. There’s no longer a vast variety of builds and PvP modes to discuss. No guild halls and no strict party doesn’t really add to the group feeling. Cities are WAY too big for their purpose which makes them feel desolate. Trading post completely removed the one-on-one bartering.

People running around you for rewards is not social. People grinding the ‘living world’ is not social. Playing WvW is not social. Even the events are not social. If they replaced all players with automated bots I would not notice the difference, because this game is inherently non-social, desolate and cold. I’d rather be in an instance with 7 other people who actually talk to me and express themselves than be in an open world with 200 people that just walk around minding their own business and never even talk.

There is no basis for a community, the desperate feeling and thematics of the areas is completely lacking. In GW1 with the whole searing, fellowship to the north, jungle, desert, shiver peaks people were ENCOURAGED to stick together. It actually felt like there was a whole community thing going on and you could really notice that. People bartered with each other rather than running up to an auction house, people created parties to do hard missions, people talked to each other for advice and builds, people all hated Alisia ( for good reasons ). There was a feeling of fellowship that this game will simply never have. It feels cold, it feels desolate and it feels like this game will never be that kind of game you would call home, that kind of game where you would call your fellow players friends.

Sure you can add gear, grinding goals, new content but you can never create a feeling without actually loving what you make. That is exactly what the few veteran developers did when they left Blizzard and started to create what they always wanted to create. Unbound by economists, concerns of popularity, thoughts about ease of use or ‘design’. They just made what they loved and always wanted to make.

The manifesto was one big lie. They basically said all the core points that were valid in GW1 to attract the veterans who were already getting suspicious since the poor release of EoTN.

In the end they made a totally opposite experience to that. Even the first dungeon implies ‘swing a sword, swing it again’ as every single monster takes just that to kill. Monsters don’t have complex grouping systems or skill sets, they just have an attack and a very large health pool. Just like any other MMO in the market.

Decrypter.1785:

Ill sum this up for you folks

GW1 had a lot more skills/builds/teamwork/strategy/gametypes

GW2 has a lot better combat but lacks the above

there fixed this for you

Being able to run around and jump doesn’t make combat better.

Somehow I feel a lot of you haven’t played high end PvP. Limitations are not disadvantages, static combat meant you actually had to put thought into where you stand while casting a spell. Heroes Ascent is a very good example of how complexity can make a more rewarding and deep experience, something which will never be possible in GW2. For this reason alone GW2’s lifespan will be rather limited, since it attracts the kind of people who hop from game to game. Also the core reason why this game never developed a community around it.

ArenaNet has been dead since Eye of the North any way. Wouldn’t surprise me if most of the good developers left and people like Isaiah Cartwright stayed. You can notice the change in thematics, writing, priorities. Much the same as in GW2 it’s just a run off the mill game.

I played GW1 for 5000 hours, got a gold cape, got pretty much everything I wanted and I am done with it. I hoped GW2 would be more of the same revolutionary formula, but it became very clear GW2 is envisioned by business men instead of gamers. The whole ‘manifesto’ was based on lies: the game was developed with an appeal to the masses and ease of use from the beginning, ultimately making it a rather shallow experience that is interchangeable with pretty much any other MMO in the market.

You know why people are angry? They supported ANet and made them big, they played and waited for GW2 for over five years. This is the thanks they get.

tolunart.2095:

I am very, very grateful that the Anet devs know a lot more about how to design a good game than you do.

Heh, in the GW1 era maybe.

The manifesto was actually about Guild Wars 1. In 2 they reversed all the unique and revolutionary elements that made the first so good and made another run off the mill mmo, or ‘WoW killer’ how they like to call it.

Finally a proper sequel to Guild Wars 1?

Veltoss.9135:

My god people.. they added one tier of gear as a one-time gameplay improvement, why the kitten is everyone acting like this is the apocolypse?

Arenanet has lost the connection with their original fanbase from GW1 by making GW2 a run off the mill grinding MMO. This is why people are pissed, and the gear threadmill is just another testament of that change of heart of Arenanet. They had something so unique, yet they make something so generic.

The biggest trouble is that they are losing their niche. The gameplay found in GW2 can be gotten from just any other MMO, while the gameplay from GW1 was really unique. All the people I know from GW1 disgust GW2. All the fun challange and strategies have been replaced with grind and artificial difficulty ( 1 million hp mobs are joy! ). The spirit of the game has been eliminated in the pursuit of making a ‘wow killer’.

The game is now all flash and no substance. The first 10 hours most people will be like, “this is the best game ever!”. Then the flaws start showing and people will simply leave. Add arrogant designers who have lost their connection to the player base and this is the result. You can’t tell us what is fun, take the hint dungeon designer, we know very well what is fun. Fun was the challange and strategy based gameplay of GW1, and not generic grinding gameplay that can be found in any mmo.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

This is a particular problem in dungeons, but not as great as you might think. We allow you the option to change your tactics, try new things, learn new skills, and work through things to your hearts content. I personally like that philosophy.
That being said, you can spend a lot of coin to learn lessons (in the form of repairs), but that is all on you.

But is it fun?

Please focus on actually making dungeons fun. GW1 dungeons were absolutely perfection and a lot of fun. When a dungeon is fun they do not need massive rewards and the likes, that is what we call treating the symptoms. Why the GW2 dungeons turned out to be such a disaster is beyond me but the issues are very clear. The only thing that is stopping them from being fixed is sheer arrogance.

krojack.4920:

My question to those that seem to be crying because they can’t buy or grind to make a legendary.

Why do you want the legendary? Is it for the weapon stats or do you want it for the cool look?

Also do you ask the same questions to your government in real life as to why it won’t buy you that fancy sports car because you can’t afford it or won’t grind out the work hours to make the money and buy it yourself?

Just wondering.

It’s mainly because people want something to strive for in a game, it keeps them busy on the PvE side, just like how rankings keep the people busy on the PvP side. Although I must say it’s quite a comedy how much they dumbed down the game and now want to make it a sport. Would be like turning Chess ( GW1 ) into Checkers ( GW2 ) and then marketing it to be competitive, it’s a big joke for any big time competitive player in GW1. In GW1 I got a gold cape because it was something to strive for AND it was fun, the combination is what matters. In GW2 there is simply not a lot to strive for and the path towards your goal is very shallow.

Zzulu.5489:

GW1 didnt have much of an endgame either beyond pvp. Arenanet said they wouldn’t be focusing on endgame progression in GW2 either. This is only news to the uninformed

The difference is that the GW1 base experience had zero grind, so you really weren’t grinding towards an ‘end-game’. Whereas in GW2 the game starts feeling like a grind after lv20 considering the low veriety in skills, tasks and missions so people are expecting that grind to pay off in the form of end-game content. You can’t cut corners on two ends and expect it to be received well in the long run.

All those arts are nice and all, but in the end it’s all about the art of grinding. This is like GW1’s obsidian armor but ten times worse. It would’ve actually been an art and support GW’s reputation if these would be for fighting to the top in PvP.

Not only the bosses have this issue, the whole dungeons have this issue. The problem is that they are trying to fit 15 minutes of original content into a 60 minute timeframe by artificially lengthening it. Very bad game design, something which I would not have expected from ArenaNet, especially considering how good dungeons in GW1 were. Did they even have someone properly design these dungeons?

PvP is supposed to be the end-game, but the removal of a lot of complex elements really killed the longevity of it. Making your unique dual-class character with the choice between hundreds of skill on a full bar was most of the fun. Skills were complex because they all had specific activation times, recharge times and energy usage. This allowed you to order specific attacks into eachother based on those properties. Not to mention there were literally hundreds of different hexes and enchantments, rather than the streamlined approach of only about 10 different modifiers.

I realize that it is designed for a group that just wants to jump into the fight and be able to do good by whatever they do, but they are not pleasing GW’s fanbase by this. I still remember that moment when Nightfall came out and I put a scythe on my assassin with a few specific critical strike attacks. I was literally wrecking faces doing 200 damage crits in an arc. Sure it was nerfed later, but finding out effective combinations is the most fun of the game: the thinking game. GW2 is simply not designed to be a thinking game, it’s streamlined for a new generation of gamers.

But ArenaNet is forgetting one thing with this group they are aiming at. As easy as they like just jumping into a game to play, as easy they will jump onto another game and forget about GW2 altogether. It’s the loyal fanbase where their future lies, that fanbase that allowed GW1 thrive into what it is now. To me it would only be logical to cater towards them and offer the truely unique and original GW experience, rather than to cater towards a new group for a short-lived profit.

ref.8196:

Fox.1054:

I can explain you why:

In GW2 they pretty much removed the biggest customization features ( gameplay wise ). In Guild Wars 2 you could pretty much love any class, since you could duo-class and play pretty much anything you want on it. In Guild Wars 2 your choices are extremely limited, melee is only really useful in specific circiumstances and most of your skill bar cannot be changed. There is no energy specification and all buffs and debuffs are streamlined towards a few generic ones.

You’re now forced to be a jack of all things rather than being able to CHOOSE what you want to play. In GW1 you could choose to join the holy trinity OR be a jack of all trades, heck you could even heal and support your party with a N/Rt or N/Mo. In GW2 you do not have that choice, you are all forced on a singular option to make pugging easier, and in the end making every class feel the same. The removal of an essential mechanic ( energy ) does not help either.

That’s not really true.

Care to explain? There are legions of GW1 veterans who agree with this. A lot of new players are hyped up at the start, but the decline has already began, a much faster decline than GW1 ever had despite not being such a mainstream game. I am a high ranking PvPer in GW1 and we managed to earn a gold cape, you could say we were quite dedicated to GW and really looking forward to GW2, but it seemed to streamline all the revolutionary elements of GW1 into a more MMO-like formula. This literally killed off a lot of the customization features as a specified. I doubt there is any way around this since they are just plain facts as-is. Being able to dodge and jump will never make up for all the things that were removed or made easier ( tactical positioning vs attacking and moving ), etc.

GW2 doesn’t require teamwork to thrive in most part of the game, even though it can help a lot. You can run any dungeon without talking even once. A very big contrast compared to GW Propechies, where you could not even finish a regular mission without grouping up, henchmen were out of the question. It was chaotic but a lot of fun strategizing and messing around. GW2 misses this by streamlining literally everything. Despite not being instanced, GW2 is a lonelier experience than GW1 ever was unless you are playing with friends.

I can explain you why:

In GW2 they pretty much removed the biggest customization features ( gameplay wise ). In Guild Wars you could pretty much love any class, since you could duo-class and play pretty much anything you want on it. In Guild Wars 2 your choices are extremely limited, melee is only really useful in specific circiumstances and most of your skill bar cannot be changed. There is no energy specification and all buffs and debuffs are streamlined towards a few generic ones.

You’re now forced to be a jack of all things rather than being able to CHOOSE what you want to play. In GW1 you could choose to join the holy trinity OR be a jack of all trades, heck you could even heal and support your party with a N/Rt or N/Mo. In GW2 you do not have that choice, you are all forced on a singular option to make pugging easier, and in the end making every class feel the same. The removal of an essential mechanic ( energy ) does not help either.

They said they were not going to make a grind based game, yet they make dungeons to please people who enjoy korean grind mmos. It just doesn’t make sense when they had the perfect formula for dungeons in GW1.

What I find even more ridiculous is that the designer for dungeon here is trying to fix dungeons by increasing the rewards. Let me ask you: shouldn’t playing the dungeons be a reward itself? you know, reward you with FUN. That is the main lacking component in GW2’s dungeon. Unless you enjoy grinding for ‘exclusive’ gear obviously. But what are you enjoying then? The elitism or the actual dungeon?

The perfect example for a good dungeon design is Urgoz Warren. It was very long, took some very good teamwork, a huge veriety in enemies and subquests, really enjoyable boss fight. Still, the rewards were pretty bad. There was only one good drop and the rest of the rewards got you like 5k – 10k tops for a two hour run. But that didn’t matter, because it was FUN!

It’s probably because of the way GW1 and GW2 store their data. Everything is compiled into one .dat file. Every time a file loads it has to de-compile it out of the .dat to put it in the cache. This puts a lot more strain on the CPU which is probably the bottlenecking factor here.

GW1 dungeon – hard because of the variety of enemies and the skills they have.
GW2 dungeon – hard because of insane enemy health and high damage numbers.

Guess which of the two was actually fun.

Is 100% world completion really an issue when you need pretty much 500g worth of materials and recipes combined with almost 1 million karma ( considering gaussian distribution with clovers )? I doubt a 100% completion is your biggest worry, there’s an insane grind after it.

BCDragon.5614:

Uh no, I am not returning anything and you all can stop posting here now since all I am getting are rude comments. Its no wonder I hardly post anything on here

There is nothing rude about the truth, you got scammed VERY badly. So badly that I find it hard to believe to begin with. A sum of 2200 could’ve gotten you a custom high-end system complete with peripherals and a high quality display. If you bought this system recently I would seriously consider taking some steps against the seller to get your money back, considering you paid almost tenfold the system’s worth. I would never let a scammer walk away with the spoils just like that.

I totally agree with you. In GW1 dungeons such as Urgoz Warren had pretty awful rewards for the time they took ( over 2 hours ). But you know what? They were a ton of fun to do!

What made them fun: playing with a group of 12 people, talking about your strategy and team setup, adapting your play for every single encounter, the tension that was created by fast and deadly encounters (no corpse running), mobs had a large variety and much skills instead of a ton of health, there were constantly new objectives and sub-quests instead of just ‘kill mini-boss x’, environmental hazards were actually original and required thougt instead of ‘you lose health if you stand here’.

Monsters actually felt they were like the player, not some magical guardians who only auto-attack and have 2 bazillion health. They carried the same skills, had around the same health as a player ( except for huge encounters or bosses ), did the same damage, etc. This made the fights fun because the enemy actually had a strategy too. Their difficulty came from complexity ( skills and variety ) rather than grind ( base damage increase, base health increase ). Quality vs Quantity is what they call that, and I well prefer the enemies to have quality.

Furthermore, their whole obsession with trying to get rid of the ‘holy trinity’ has gone way overboard. The dual-class system was the perfect solution for the holy trinity. Even a necromancer or elementalist could heal if they wanted to. Sometimes having a role is fun and makes more options for making a strategy. Right now everyone is just a ‘jack of all trades’, which foregoes all need of complex teamwork. I believe this was made only to casualize teamplay, so any well geared pug can run a dungeon without any thought to it. Sure pugs were a bit of a pain in GW1, but they were fun and made the game more social, until heroes were released ofcourse…

Ironically, GW1 was much more social than GW2.

The whole free mission structure is gone, which was a lot of fun to do with guildies. Dungeons are limited to 5 players instead of 12, do not require a massive team synergy setup but can be beaten by just a combination of 5 individual cookie-cutter builds. Helping and exploring with friends is discouraged by making waypoints cost money. There’s no longer a vast variety of builds and PvP modes to discuss. No guild halls and no strict party doesn’t really add to the group feeling. Cities are WAY too big for their purpose which makes them feel desolate. Trading post completely removed the one-on-one bartering.

Weirwynn.2390:

As someone who played the first Guild Wars I find this silly.

As someone who played the first Guild Wars when it came out and you had to actually fight stuff with your botched build to earn respec points, I find this thread silly.

Not sure if that’s what you meant.

Which was a bad idea and later scrapped.

Much the same asking gold for respec, travel and the whole repair thing is a bad idea. The only possible reason it could be there is to funnel people towards the gem store, I can’t believe people are actually justifying it.

I find it way too simple. You choose one or two weapon sets, choose a few slotted skills ( of which usually only 10 utility and 2 elites are viable ) and then choose what you want to boost in your build with traits. There is only so little free choice you can make, and only so little team synergy you can create with those setups.

You’re not making whole team builds of 64 skills anymore. You do not have to adapt your build towards a multi-stage event such as HA. You do not need multiple weapon sets for the purpose of fast casting, defense, anti-condition, low energy, high energy, etc.

Most importantly, there are no longer over a hundred different enchantments and hexes. They were all integrated into a generic buff / debuff system. This totally removed all the complexity from the mesmer and necromancer, which is shown by how simple and generic their play is now.

You blame people for thinking it would be a sequel to GW1’s proven gameplay?

1) Dynamic Events. They are pretty quick, you can do them whenever you like and you can quit whenever you like while still getting rewards. Sometimes the medals are not very well balanced: i.e. you may get gold for 15 seconds of participation, while others participated for 5 minutes and got the exact same reward. Other than that it’s perfect.

2) Lack of strategic elements: Mainly the lack of dual-class, lack of skills, lack of an energy system and grindy dungeon design rather than strategic design as in GW1.

MainFrame.4803:

Again, what MMO, or even game, is COMPLETELY PERFECT upon release? You know the answer.

Guild Wars 1

The cutest thing around has to be a motherkitten.

Ruien.9506:

It was already done in the last patch. You guys wont quit till the dungeons are like WoW’s where everyone beats them and we all move on to the next game.

Whats the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Every new game that comes out, you WoWian’s™ turn it into WoW and its clones and then get bored a month later.

Anet please please quit giving in to these people.

Have you heard about the original Guild Wars? No?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It is frustrating and unfair that it is happening, and we’re working on it (it has happened to me as well, and I share your pain). As a dungeon designer, it’s pretty upsetting to see dungeons being thrashed to pieces on forums due to this bug.
People are rightfully upset, and we have the best tech-priests on this side of the Imperium, and we’re all working to resolve this thing ASAP.

EDIT: Let’s keep things on topic, people.

I’m sorry but if the vast majority of people can only enjoy a dungeon because of it’s reward, there is something seriously wrong with the design of the dungeons themselves. They should be a fun experience on their own, and I hope ANet can make it one in the coming months.

Take a look at Urgoz Warren for example: it was hard, rewards were not that great, took long but it was a lot of fun. No one had a problem with it, and a lot of people enjoyed it. That’s how dungeons should be: deadly, risky, fluid and team based. Increasing the rewards is only trying to heal the symptoms instead of the cause.

Reducing monster hp by a LOT, slightly increasing monster count and removing waypoints ( no more corpse running ) would go a far way in making dungeons much more fun.

Remember when people discovered quick weapon swapping? That assassin setup with backbreaker was just insane. Not even talking about the skill needed to have distracting shot on a monk to interrupt a mesmer annoying you. Things like that is what the true Guild Wars experience is about. The spirit of Guild Wars is creativity and strategic thinking, not hacking and slashing away with a generic build.

A really big part of this issue along with the low skill pool and removal of dual-classes is the removal of energy which removes a lot of strategical choices and the simplification of enchantments and hexes which removes a lot of complexity.

Any dungeon mob, almost zero threat but way too much health.

Cultural armor cost is fine, 120G seems quite balanced, especially since gold can be attained on any character you like ( karma and tokens should be made account-bound arenanet ).

What really needs change is the waypoint cost, it’s simply only preventing the player from having a more fun experience. I’m losing money for helping my friends. It’s not stopping me from doing it, but it’s not supportive at all, and totally against the design principles of the original Guild Wars. Do not add rubbish that only hurts the player, only to funnel them towards some sort of premium gem shop.

They do not want us to grind, yet they want us to go through dungeons where every random mob has more health than a soviet era nuclear bunker. Even a random veteran mob in a dungeon puts Abaddon to shame.

I share your sentiments. The true revolution to the MMORPG genre was GW1 itself, it was a fresh breeze; much different from the regular MMO experience. To me a much more tactical, intellectually compelling, fluid en fun experience than what is offered in GW2 right now, where grind and big numbers have taken the place of tactics and teamplay. Calling this a revolution is a joke because GW2 basically turned into an improved generic MMO, instead of an improved GW1. ArenaNet’s definition of revolution seems pretty out of this world.

There is barely any room for creativity, which together with dual class and more than a thousand skills was the most important thing that kept GW1 alive. The experience felt fresh and fun even after rolling my eight character, while at GW2 I am already getting bored running around with my second character.

Dungeons are simply ill-designed. Take the dungeon design in GW1, they were absolutely perfect. Why on earth would you change a perfect formula?! Now every dungeon has basically turned into a grind-fest, where people are actually complaining about the rewards they give. They are not even focussed on the fun of the dungeon itself anymore, as if rewards would make an unfun experience fine! First announcing that this wouldn’t just be another ’I swung a sword, I swung it again, and again…" grinding kind of game and then releasing these kind of dungeons is an offense. Thinking up strategies and using teamwork to beat dungeons, many different sub-quests and bosses is fun. Having to wait 2 minutes at every trash mob because they have a million health only to be greeted by an auto-attacking boss with 100 fold the health is NOT fun, and you know that very well ArenaNet.

Final point: the story, it’s just ridiculous. GW1 portrays a whole new world to explore, believable people and many plot lines coming together with quite a few twists. GW2 feels like a bad joke, as if the story was written for a cheesy comic book. The only thing that interested me was the history of Orr, but I’d rather actually have my character be there when Orr fell. At level 20 it was already pretty much clear how the story would end ( playing as norn ), not really fun at all.

- Dungeons now follow the design principles of GW1.

-Hanging out with friends
-Teamwork accomplishment
-Beautiful and unique scenery
-Interesting and diverse story
-Unforgiving mess your face up difficulty

Play Urgoz, Deep or DoA and get this plus the base experience actually being fun and not a mind bogglingly boring grind.

AC is pretty do-able for a lv30, but it’s a mind numbingly grind even to run through it once. People are asking for lv80 geared players so that their boring experience is shorter.

All dungeons need to be rebalanced, they are simply not fun at the moment. Balance is totally out of whack between dungeons too. A perfect example of what is fun is what we saw in GW1, not sure why they messed up big time this time around.

Personally I do not really find them hard, many do. But for both sides on the spectrum, they are not fun to do because every trash mob has a million health. Most bosses are unoriginal auto-attackers with only one unique skill. It’s simply not fun except for those who enjoy grinding, which is exactly against what they said what would be the design principles of this game!

Dual-class was the ultimate fix to the holy trinity in Guild Wars 1. Even a necromancer or a elementalist could heal if they wanted to. What truely happened is that things were casualized so ArenaNet could step on and shove aside their old fanbase to move onto a bigger one by ‘revolutionizing’ ( i.e. making it more like a generic mmo ) the genre.

It’s not a big secret that many players (especially on the forums) are (becoming) very unsatisfied about some ’’broken’’ key elements that should otherwise keep the game alive on the long term. I do understand that it is impossible to make every single player happy, yet nearly 90% of the complaints address the same issues. I won’t go into detail about these points because they are well flooded on these boards. (Dungeons, Rewards, Tokens, Traveling, Loot, Repairs, Grind).

What I was wondering myself were a few questions;

• What is your opinion regarding these topics?
• What are your experiences regarding these topics, have there been any changes so far?
• Have there been any discussions lately within the team addressing these issues / topics?
• Do you wish to perform any updates on the game suggested by the players, or do you wish to perform any updates on the game, so that it will be played as you intended it to be played? (simple; Do players have any influence on the gameplay / design?)
• What will the future hold for the unsatisfied part of the playerbase / Any upcoming changes that will be active on a later date and most likely satisfy these players?

With kind regards.

The best sound tracks are remixes from GW1 tracks. It doesn’t really feel as good as it used to, all the random people running around and the sound effect spam kinda ruins the mood for me.