Guild Wars 2

Insane calc nerds are killing MMOs to a certain degree.

Consider the ridiculous contortions GW2 goes through to determine what your stats are for a zone, while at the same time totally removing any kind of actual RPG simulation feel to your character’s stats. Any sense of character has been replaced with ‘big number good, don’t bother your pretty little head about the maths anymore’.

All for nothing more than to ensure “progression” happens at some theoretically acceptable rate.

Add to that a game design that ultimately is focused more or less around ‘what color circle is on the ground right now?’* that creates a laggy visual eyesore with too many players zerging around, and some of the worst writing and voice direction ever (It is PAINFUL to hear some of the best V.O stars in the business have to deliver the lines they have in GW2. PAINFUL.)

And yet it’s still, very strongly arguable that this IS the best MMO in the last four years.

Things are bad now, and the genre might be dying, but it’s only because the development has become inbred and terrible. The genre itself still has the most potential out of any videogame thing anywhere.

*Honestly I still can’t believe they removed the skill system from GW1, which was sheer genius, replacing it with ‘weapon swapping into far too many weak random placeholder skills’.

To be frank, it would be frikkin amazing to be able to play GW2 or Diablo3 or anything with characters from League of Legends**. That game’s simple, tight, four button design still murders anything any current MMO has to offer in terms of fun gameplay. And that’s truly said.

• Yes I know the LoL community is hella toxic don’t @ me.

I hate the character responses in Guild Wars 2.

They aren’t clever, interesting, and they certainly don’t make you feel like you’re in any kind of a fight.

But even if they were, hearing them every minute would still be too much.

How is this not dealt with yet?

It is purely about the skills sets (and to some extent, the animations associated) and general game design.

Guild Wars 2 is horribly kitey, and there is literally not a single kit on any character in the entire game that has anything like the tightness and personality of even a mediocre League of Legends champion.

Tying skills to weapons sets to make it impossible to customise builds (other than which set of compulsory 30+ second cooldowns you want) AND relying on so many ‘big circle on the ground’ combos were both SPECTACULARLY bad moves from any point of view, PvP or PvE. You literally cannot show someone a Guild Wars 2 PvP video and see something that makes sense and looks graphical impressive.

It’s just a bunch of people jumping around circles quickly with the occasional ludicrously fast weapon animation going off, for not very much effect.

Add to that the even more ridiculous stuff, like perma-stealth (not even WoW suffered from something so dumb) and the fun killing zerginess of WvW and it’s clear that Anet needs to completely clear out its design team and start over with people who have even the faintest clue what they’re really trying to build.

My thanks, Gaile. =)

Hi.

I have uninstalled this game and do not wish to play it again, at least not without incredibly major revisions.

The link for unsubscribing from your email system leads to http://guildwars2.ncsoft.com/ which is a website that does not exist.

I would love for you guys to stop spamming me. Please unsubscribe me from your email list or create a method that allows me to do this.

Because, sincerely, this is INCREDIBLY kitteny.