Guild Wars 2

Many Guild Wars players were cautious and suspicious when the idea of an in game store was first introduced way back in GW1. Alarm bells started ringing almost immediately as soon as fancy dresses and fun items started popping up that you had to pay for. Immediately players started wondering if all the free Halloween masks and Wintersday hats that they had received up to now, would soon be locked behind the iron bars of the store. Especially the Halloween costumes that popped up in the store, and the store only, did not seem entirely in the spirit of Halloween. Having to pay, to dress up during Halloween? Fortunately, we still received our free hats on a yearly basis… but our worries were not entirely unfounded.

Fast forward a few years later, and we have GW2. A game in which the Gem Store has infected the game like some sort of illness. And this isn’t really about whether the store is necessary to fund the further development of the game. This is more about how deep the Gem Store’s muddy fingers reach down into the reward system of the game, and ultimately destroy it.

We first run into the problem of the store when we receive Blacklion chests. For a while we still get free keys for doing our personal story. But then we soon learn that this source of keys quickly comes to an end, and after that you have to pay. And while we may have no inclination to buy any keys, the unopened Blacklion Chests still start filling up our bank, and it doesn’t feel like we are being rewarded. Instead, it feels like every drop of a Blacklion Chest is an ad for the store, a never-ending attempt to draw us in. And still we refuse, and so the blacklion chest pile starts growing and growing. How many of us have a pile of over 250 unopened Blacklion Chests in their bank?

But the problem reaches much further than this. The game seems to lack a lot of actual rewards. Most of the fun items, mini pets and cool armor skins are locked in the Gem Store, leaving the rest of the game rather barren, like a wasteland after a plague. Many of the valuable items that a player might wish to craft, require insane amounts of grinding, which is made easier with just a few purchases. There are a lot of things for which you will need to spend vast amounts of gold in other to obtain them. Many recipes seem to require such insane amounts of crafting materials, that buying them from the tradepost seems like the only option. This drives up prices, and ultimately undermines any desire to get these items.

Something that me and a friend discussed the other night, was how GW2 has guaranteed no rewards, and this really bothers me. Whenever you are exploring the world, and find that hidden cave, you are almost guaranteed to find nothing of interest what so ever.

There may be a treasure chest filled with the same useless green and blue items that drop from any other enemy (if there is any chest at all). There may be a veteran monster, that just takes longer to kill, and doesn’t provide a meaningful reward worth the effort. And all this does not encourage me to explore the world. What’s the point of discovering a cave behind a waterfall, when the cave contains nothing that I wouldn’t find anywhere else?

The game needs better rewards overall, but it certainly needs to reward exploration better. This could be done in the form of achievements, but also in the form of an extra page in your journal. When I discover a cave, let there be something special in it that makes me feel rewarded for my trouble.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention this yet, but those red circles during the Twisted Marionette battle are so much clearer! Thanks for making those better to see. I can see some of the criticism regarding Liadri, did not fall on deaf ears. Please do this with more large boss battles. Completely filled in red circles are way better than those subtle red outlines that we’re used to.

We had our try at the Wurm bosses, but the final verdict does not look good. I enjoyed the new Tequatl battle (even though it scales badly), but this is a whole new can of wurms, pun intended.

Simply unplayable. See our live review of the battle in the picture below. No one was able to hurt a single one of the wurms, because the performance was so bad, and the mechanics so poorly conveyed.

Apparently lessons not learned:

• Make content playable on lower spec CPU’s. FPS matters.
• No more one-hit kill mechanics!
• Explain the mechanics of the battle in-game, instead of trial and error.
• Make it scale for lower amounts of players
• Don’t spam trash mobs all over the arena, along with circles of death and hundreds of players!
• Platforming + heavy performance issues = Unplayable
• Team Speak is NOT a GW2 feature. Stop designing content around it.

I’ve asked Zommoros, and he wanted me to relay his answer to you:

“Hahahahahahahahahahahaha”

He then asked me if I was serious, and then he added a further:

“Hahaha”

and a

“No really, are you serious?”

I know we’re probably not going to see anything Elder Dragon related this Wintersday, but we’re ready! We’re ready to move on from the Scarlet plot, and get a taste of the other dragons. Winter is coming, and it is about time Jormag made his move. Perhaps this is an opportunity to drop the first couple of hints that his army is moving south?

We are ready Anet.

I think it’s a rubbish thing to do. The Fractals aren’t even that long anyway. If you’re not going to be on board for the whole ride, just don’t join at all. If you know your group is trying to do the whole thing, and you know they aren’t aware that you only want the daily… then yeah, they are right to be angry with you. It’s not a bannable offense of course, and not something I think you can get reported for. But it is just bad form, and I think you do owe them an apology for acting so selfishly.

Here’s an idea to implement player housing. Players carry a portable magical door, which they can place on any wall in a town or outpost, to claim it as their own. Even houses that have no interior (since a lot of houses in towns are just decoration) can be claimed, but you can only use the door once. You can place your magical door on top of an existing door, or simply place it in an alley as some sort of secret access to your house.

Once the door is placed, it will forever be the entrance to your private home.

Multiple players can claim the same spot as their house, if they want. They can place their door anywhere they like, as long as it is in one of the existing cities. Touching this door takes them to their very own private house, which would be a separate instance.

Players that are in your party are allowed to join you in your home as you enter it, much like joining a story instance or a dungeon.

Each player receives one such portable door for free. And it can only be used once. Players can buy a new portable door from the Gem store if they change their mind.

Again with the Defiant, seriously? Can we remove this from the game already? Every single boss is Defiant, and it breaks the whole idea of having control skills in the first place. I’m sick and tired of bosses being immune to one of the core combat mechanics. Wasn’t there supposed to be a trinity of damage/support/control? What happened to that concept? Mai would be much better and manageable as a boss, if players were allowed to use control skills against her, to get her inside the electric fields. Also keep in mind that for several classes control is their main source of defense. We rely on being able to knock an enemy back, or fear an enemy away at the right moment. The fact that every single boss in the game is Defiant, breaks this entire mechanic. Defiant really needs to be redesigned.

That said, praise for everything else in the dungeon. The enemies are fun and challenging to fight, but they don’t take too long to kill. The environment looks awesome, and there’s even some jumping. And I love the first boss fight with Frizz. The idea of constantly staying on the move and avoiding the lasers is fun and it’s fair.

The only thing I don’t like is Mai. Not because it’s hard, but because:

A: Defiant is lazy design, enough already!
B: Carpet bombing is an annoying mechanic. Many people have trouble seeing all the overlapping red circles.
C: Insta-kill attacks that are badly telegraphed are unfair
D: Having to kite, and avoid aoe, and lure her into that aoe, directly conflicts with each other on a conceptual level.
E: And perhaps worst of all: I hate having to inspect tiny icons underneath the health bar of a boss, to figure out how to kill the boss. That is bad design, and shame on you for not thinking that through better.

Now I have beaten Mai, but after countless wipes that were no fault of my own. You see, when everyone else dies, there is no way I stand any chance against Mai. I keep getting slaughtered by her, through no fault of my own. I can’t tank Mai as a necromancer, and keep the rest of my party alive. I just can’t. It feels unfair to be defeated countless times, just because you are the only one left standing. And I can’t blame my party for not being able to survive the insta-kill attacks, or carpet bombings.

I’m excited to finally see interesting characters that have some attitude. Finally a story with a bit of an edge. Assassinations, people dying. I love it! Where was this writing throughout the personal story? We need more of this, this is good stuff.

Let me start by saying that the entire effigy ceremony was excellent. I loved the quick transition between cut scene and playable, where the dialogue continued straight into the game. And the chaos that erupted really had a lot of energy to it. Npc’s running all over the place, orders being yelled, it was great. The timing was good too. No weird pauses in between dialogues, or dialogues overlapping. It all ran smooth and felt fast paced. I totally got into the experience.

This only improved with the new cut scene where we meet Marjory. I love the style of the cut scene, and it feels a lot like the old cut scenes from Thief the dark project. It is great to see this style again. I also noticed how no 3d models were used, which always was an odd mix in the personal story. By making the entire cut scene 2d, including characters, it just looks way better. The dialogues also have a lot more humor to them, and I really enjoyed the film-noir feel of it all.

Kasmeer to me is a bit of an enjoyable airhead. I wonder if perhaps that is just on the surface. Maybe she is really a lot more clever than people assume. But it is just funny when ever she shows up. She is a character I enjoy, maybe for all the wrong reasons.

I never liked Logan, because he just has no personality what so ever. But surround him with characters that ARE interesting, and he becomes tolerable.

But then comes the investigation, and again this is such a strong plot-driven experience. This is what I wanted to see with the living story. Twists and turns, murder and mystery. Keep it up. I’m looking forward to seeing more. Now hopefully it won’t get predictable with Mai Trin being the villain. Because that would be way too easy. I hope it is a distraction, and in a twist it turns out she isn’t a villain at all.

Let me also say that it is great to get some more use out of Divinity’s Reach. That city needs more adventures, and it is great to see the story take us into the darker corners of it. I’m hoping the next installment of the investigation takes us further around the city, to many new places we haven’t been before.

Southsun Cove is currently this tiny little explorable, completely separated from the rest of the world. Please link it to the adjacent zones. Bloodtide Coast is adjacent, and Caladon Forest is really close. It would make sense to have the Dominion of Winds as an outpost between the two zones. And I would love to see what the Dominion of Winds looks like. But please link it to the rest!