Guild Wars 2

Forums haven’t logged into the game in weeks bored senseless same old same old I check the forums maybe once a week in the vain hope something mind blowing changes.

Ever played is a sweeping statement and subjective…. ever played by whom I wonder…. In my opinion GW2 had the potential to be awesome sadly it hasn’t delivered on that potential.

It’s simply become a wow type wannabe done in the rift style… and basically a mess sharing nothing with GW1 except the GW’s in the title. Rather than build on the best bits it’s removed anything good the two games might have had in common apart from some recycled music.

There’s a total lack of balance or challenge. The game is evermore forcing players into playing the game in a narrow, lemming minded way and this is why there are large areas devoid of players. The no subscription model is the only possible reason it could be called successful – we don’t know how it successful or not it would be if it required a monthly fee….

I agree with many of the OP’s points. The storyline is weak and the challenge, sense of purpose and that sense of fun just isn’t in GW2 for me. GW1 really took off after max level and there was always a huge amount to do titles, vanquising, armour sets, skill captures, hidden treasure hunts, rep grindsthat actually had a purpose, new storylines and events and skill decks were awesome. Not much to do here at 80 and alts are pointless.

Sure it looks prettier we have beautiful, huge and empty cultural cities that are deserted in favour of sitting in LA busy doing nothing. We’re just being pushed down narrowing alleyways to all play the game just one way Fractals, Ascended, forced into big guilds and slipping increasingly closer to the old and tired MMO format of other games. The news that they aren’t working on expansions and have dumped any plans of ever adding Cantha gives me little hope there will be any improvement.

Seems pretty clear to me GW2 does not want it’s GW1 player base perhaps intitially the idea was to pay lip service but GW2 has more in common with the same old same old MMO’s than GW1 and even that’s not done very well…

Not happening – but the return in some form of heroes is about the only thing that would give me an interest. I’m an altoholic but find the whole alt levelling thing boring and way too frustrating.

Most other MMO’s encourage alts – GW2 discourages alts and the game is reduced to being controlled by fractals and it’s all about LA – the racial cities are huge, beautiful and empty. Events in the open world are left undone.. tumbleweed everywhere the only reason to go outside is karma zergs – a small number of events that can be run between with the least downtime.

GW1 events huge fun GW2 events lag bug fests.

Spiky.8403:

I would like to tell something to all people that think: “end forced grouping”
MMO is not for you.

What’s more, with some “individuals” abilities, making dungeons soloable for everyone would require an empty instance.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen ppl on map chat ask for help in killing x-y or z only to have a flood of “you can solo that” “why do you need a group” replies. A prime example was the Mad King Dungeon.

Since Fractals fewer ppl are doing dungeons at all. And gl to a new player trying to do a story mode or a Fractals lv1 o.o – Not everyone has hours to waste spaming chat or waiting for someone to have dinner, go to the loo, answer the phone and the normal gtg sorry… etc etc. Not including heroes and henchies from GW1 or replacing them with an alternate system for single play was a missed opportunity.

MMO’s are evolving away from the traditional and should be because their biggest claim is always “play the way you want”… and it’s about time they delivered on that claim imo. Why? Because the casual market is huge and has disposable income – to be successful games need both the player numbers and their money.

TBH Orr is totally boring yep they made it easy but easy doesn’t equate to fun for me. Still nothing going on but the Karma rat runs.

Ansultares.1567:

Sokar Rostau.7316:

(and I still might, just not sure how long 7 fractals will take)

Depends on the level, but just forming seven individual fractal groups would probably take upwards of an hour itself, and runs average an hour or so, depending on the quality of the group, the individual fractal maps you’re faced with, and whether you’re running odd or even (it’s easier to find even level groups, but even level fractals take longer).

Actually, if you’re looking for fractal difficulty 1…well, good luck. Unless you have a day off coming, I don’t think you’ll be finishing that monthly.

And herein lies the problem Fractals should not be included in the dailies or the monthly. Simply put if you opt out of Fractals your PVE is then limited because you can’t complete these quests which is yet another exclusion tactic meaning the new currency is tied to Fractals as well. The same is true of WvW it impacts on PVE exploration. So much for “other ways” to get Ascended and so much for play the game your way lol.

Alts are replayability for me and GW2 has managed to kill alts. There’s simply no point to them and more frustration than fun in levelling them. Fractals and Ascended huge mistake imo yeah sure it filled up LA but left most of the open world full of tumbleweed. I’d personally rather rip my arms off than do Fractals with my alts and when all’s said and done what else is there to do. Making Orr and dungeons easier may help get ppl in them for a short time but there’s no real challenge in either and WvW is dire.

Rambodacious.7495:

Hello all,

Here is as close to proof as you’re going to get from an individual who spends their time keeping track of and reporting the goings on in the game industry. Enjoy:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/112012/24237_NCSoft-Sold-Arenanet-and-GW2-Out-For-Nexon-Investment

After reading that, perhaps you can begin to see why some people express disappointment in the current direction of this video game. Further, before stating your counter-argument(should you be planning to), please come up with at the least, anecdotal facts to support a counter-theory. Thanks!

Ok… finally I see an explanation for the massive change of game philosophy between GW1, the marketing and manifesto of GW2 and the current state of the game – something in the absence of any explanation from ANet I’ve found puzzling.

The cash shop had the potential to be huge simply by providing an abundance of fluff! Armours, pets, town clothes etc. The problem is it’s full of stale old nothingness and the brilliance of the two way conversions is lost.

Seems to me changing the game won’t help the cash shop but what do I know

I don’t hate it and it would be an okay mechanic if it actually delivered. In my experience it doesn’t and therefore it’s pretty pointless overall.

darkace.8925:

TheDaiBish.9735:

I sense a lot of rage building that’s going to manifest itself into a billion threads.

Anyhows, thanks for the update. Looking forward to them posts.

There are petulant children who are going to throw a tantrum no matter what. Make precursors too hard to get, and the game sucks because it requires too much grinding. Make precursors too easy to get, and the game sucks because it panders to casuals. It’s literally a lose/lose scenario. If I were the devs I’d not let the whining cacophony from the peanut gallery sway me too far from my original vision.

This would be great advice… but you’re too late they already did and straying too far from the original vision is why there’s a player divide and an unhappy forum.

Red Falcon.8257:

People have the habit to comment on stuff they don’t know yet.
Ascended for instance. They are not a new treadmill, just the final tier before legendary that adds progression to PvE only with infusions.
It was a great idea to put a progression for PvE.

And you know this because….. it’s pretty pointless to asume what they’re saying now is accurate when what they said for years during development wasn’t. For me gear progression in PvE wasn’t an idea at all but merely a cloning of other games and certainly not anything great! A total contradiction of the game idea they advertised.

Fractals…. concentrating everyone in LA leaving tumbleweed zones and taking the fun factor away for levelling alts and making any new players feel they’re playing a dead game…. genius… nope again not a great idea just a half baked way to rush the gear progression into the game. The side effect that I like to think they didn’t see coming was gated content.

There was a time to react while it was still salvagable and to embrace the concept of communication with the community is so divided now I think it’ll take more than a second chance to make any difference.

Gehenna.3625:

I don’t know if a chart of greenmangaming.com is reliable but to me it doesn’t matter if the game is selling more copies or not.

Me either… but on their website GW2 doesn’t feature in their top ten best sellers list nor in their top ten top rated list.. that makes me skeptical.

Pets need fixing that’s all. While no doubt not easy and just one thing on a long to-do list of things that need to be fixed it’s still simpler than the idea of completely changing the whole prof design. Ranger has a pet that pet is a substantial portion of the damage and personally I don’t want that changed. By swapping pets in combat there are two pet life spans in longer fights the cooldowns up so in effect you have more than 2. If ppl don’t want a pet there’s warrior which is good both ranged and melee – the best warrior type I’ve played in any game.

Trying to balance for pvp and wvw imo is the problem here it creates a constant nerf cycle and instability to pve characters.

It’s not rocket science to realise that actual players react differently to the AI. GW1 managed to seperate the two by having some skills work differently in pvp. But it seems like GW2 is copying the old formula of a twin pve/pvp balancing act where in trying to make pvp "good"pve becomes the less favoured, less loved twin. Where have I been here before…. /Yawn.

Sparky Sights.9174:

I couldn’t think of a better title but here is quick question for you all.

Do you think ANet would have used their time better by adapting GW1 instead of creating a game that many people appear to hate now (I’m not one of them, I like the game) or have they done the right thing in making a new game?

GW2 had a lot of potential the mistake for me was the change in direction it became advertising one type of game and actually selling another.

Tolmos.8395:

Would I have personally preferred they followed in the steps of GW1, with a stat plateau and set level that will never change in expansions? Absolutely.

However, I’m sure their stockholders are more happy with them following in the more successful WoW’s footsteps after Nov 15th. Precedent says it will sell more copies because of it.

Truth is, being unique really doesn’t pay near as well as people like me who try to romanticize it might lead you to believe

Sure WoW clones may sell more units initially but they never make a dent in the original and don’t survive very long. Here the Gem Store I’m pretty sure is intended to be more of a money spinner than sale of the original unit and for that to translate it needs players to keep playing (and ofc something actually worth buying helps too )

I agree there is a real lack of boss mechanics replaced by just giving them hp’s.

There are so many clones out there so if you absolutely must have a healer, tank, dps or must play a healer, tank, dps why on earth buy a game where it’s widely advertised it’s system removes the trinity and has no traditional tank, healer, dps roles.

Dr Ritter.1327:

i think an easy fix would be to add npcs to replace missing people

Pretty much the only option imo. At this point in time there’s not much fun in levelling alts and any new players that try out the game don’t get to experience it as intended without other players in the zones and the events left undone.

I think it’s is more likely to be the way the numbers are calculated is causing them to show “Full”. 15 days is ridiculous tbh the time scale has to be much, much longer I recently popped into Rift for a few free days I’d not played that for over a year all my characters were still there just where I left them and on a full server after server merges. Plus booting ppl off a server as you suggest is a sure way to ensure they don’t return and no game should ever want to stop players returning…

Azjenco.9425:

That is my gripe. ANet had something so inventive to build upon and rather than being innovative, instead we now have something utterly generic. A very interesting event in the world of Tyria has been replaced with an overly familiar concept that mirrors our world far too acurately.

Therein lies my disappointment

Exactly this…. lost potential.

The one thing I was convinced ANet would do exceptionally well and better than any other MMO was the event part so far I’ve been pretty disappointed.

A simple toggle would solve it failing that have it display in WvW only.

As the number of commanders increases and more huge blue dots are running round a map it’s not even helpful for events imo which blue dot of 5/10/20 does one follow O.o

Fuz.5621:

To OP: I, and many more, share your sentiment.

They had an amazing game in their hands, and they’re destroying it piece by piece.

I agree sad to see all that potential just flushed down the toilet.

No they aren’t the same games but after years of WoW and WoW clones there is a significant market ready for something different especially on a ftp model… This is what GW2 promised and this is also what they have failed to deliver it’s getting more and more clone like with every patch.

So much fun that it’s hard to find a group that doesn’t want to skip as much of every dungeon as is humanly possible.

There’s a serious lack of diversion in the boss mechanics too. Playing with guildies is not always an option my guild that had been around in GW1 for 5+years have all up and left so for me to join another would be much the same experience as running with pugs.

I’ve yet to find anything in the gem shop that gives any advantage. Other than being able to buy ingame gold with real life money this has always been available in every MMO I’ve played just not in a legitimate way which game doesn’t have gold sellers? And why are they there because people buy gold from them. I’d much rather this was in Anets hands than the bots, farmers and account hackers.

The gem store is a 2 way street you can buy gems with real money and convert to ingame gold or you can use ingame gold to convet to gems so depending on your style you never have to use your credit card ever if you chose not to.

And actually just to be a bit controversial here I’m leaning towards the play to win model anyway something I’ve always been set against.

If person A says the game should reward me for playing 24/7 with better gear because I invest all my time in it….

Why shouldn’t person B say well I have to work for a large portion of my day so I can’t invest so much time but I do have plenty of money….

Not such a big gap between the two after all.

Oreoz.2573:

Impatience is the reason for your anxiety. You want the gear NOW instead of later.

Your fault. Not Anet’s.

Actually no…. I want the game I bought which advertised itself as being a different kind of MMO with horizontal progression and no gear treadmill. Anets fault.

I don’t like this change of direction and I don’t like the way it has been done when they’ve admitted on reddit they knew there was going to be a negative reaction to it. I don’t like the total lack of communication between Anet and it’s customer base.

Oreoz.2573:

So with all that in mind here’s a central question to ask some of you complaining about ascended gear.

If it was in the game prior to launch, would you still be angry?

If so, why?

If they had been honest about what type of game they wanted and had advertised it as all your old favourites like gear treadmills and gated content (heck now the are whispers have started about bringing in a holy trinity) and if they had said the vast majority of players would be sat in LA day in day out leaving a virtually empty pve world after 3 months I would not have bought the game. So would I be complaining no.

Veldan.4637:

if they added subscription AND removed gem to gold exchange… now that would be a plus

For the gold sellers yes it sure would.

I prefer waypoints to mounts. So far no mounts is pretty much all that’s left to separate this game from every other MMO that’s innovation right there!

Snix Spoonman.3871:

Yes, although its still installed and I have done everything I wanted and needed to do. I can still pop in when it takes my fancy.

Things I miss
Gameplay – Having goals and being able to do them goals without the worry that my maxed gear will shortly become obsolete. Actually knowing what goal to go for, for the same reason, always logged on and had some goal to go for, now I just sit on GW2 wondering whether its worth going for this, that or the other just to find it will be obsolete by the time I get it. Basically I miss the pure Horizontal progression, I knew where I was and knew if I took a lengthy break for personal reason I could come back without feeling I was left far behind and need to grind to catch up and can just enjoy the many things to do in the game without worrying about increasing my gear stats.
I miss the solo friendly feeling GW1 had too. If there was parts of the game you didn’t want to group up for you didnt have to with the Heroes/Hench facility. In GW2 I am forced to group up and PUG in a party with random peeps to do dungeons and even my own Personal story. However I do prefer the open worldness of GW2 where you can just help other people you meet (without having the feeling I was forced to help or join)
The community – it was less stressy and less anxious, no segregation due to mixed progression, no elitism (coz grinding shows your awesomeness more than skill right?), GW1 seemed more sociable and less bickering.
Builds/Skills – The freedom of being able to mess and experiment with a multitude of builds without the need to spend everytime I wanted to change a build. Plus collecting the skills and capping the Elites.
The Guilds – Probably my biggest miss. I loved the guild structure, the guild halls etc. I played with my guildmates for nearly 7 yrs, we became like a family. There feels none of that in GW2. Guild mates and friends from GW1 have all but left now due to recent ascended addition.

Edit: forgot to add
Communication – Miss how the devs communicated everything clearly and often. For example patch updates and game changes. Just at the moment we don’t seem to get any clarity from the devs with regards to patches and updates. Too much vagueness and kept in the dark.

Excellent answer thanks it has saved me a lot of typing

Yes I miss all of these too and ditto with the guildmates!

I’m an altoholic and sadly at the moment I think yes I’ve wasted my time. A spin off of the Fractals/Ascended update is that it has turned this into a very alt unfriendly game. Not only alt unfriendly but new player unfriendly too. There are fewer and fewer people outside of LA, more and more contested waypoints and zone events large and small left undone and difficulty getting dungeon groups for story modes.

cesmode.4257:

I am on Stormbluff isle, arguably one of the most populated servers, and there are only small groups doing events. I havent seen a large zerg in a while, since the patch. I am having a tough time getting to some areas for map completion, including skill points that are flooded with risen and vets, that normally more people would stop by and help out.

A problem.

I think it is a problem contributing to this game being increasingly alt-unfriendly. The"oh but you can solo it" argument doesn’t really wash either – yes you probably can but it becomes very tedious, very fast. Orr needs a reworking for this new vision of the game which has drastically reduced the number of players outside of LA.

A game’s success or failure only relates to the amount of income it generates. Game companies allocate resources based on the revenue they get out of it. With no subscription GW2 relies on sales of the game itself and ongoing cash sales via the Gem Shop. 1,000 ppl playing but not spending is worse than 500 playing and spending.

I’m on a so called Full server and it’s not easy in the low level zones to find dungeon groups and really only do events I can solo.. to level my alts and I can go hours without seeing another player. Still, I wouldn’t say the game is dying but I’d say it’s disappointing overall.

Desolation (EU) – which often says Very High or Full on the World Selection screen theres usually an overflow for LA and lots of LFG Fractals spam hardly any other dungeon spam getting story runs is nigh impossible. Outside of LA I don’t see many ppl I’m levelling an alt without doing any of the big events just because I’m usually alone at them

Martin Kerstein.3071:

I changed the title to reflect that it is a personal opinion.

“We” is not “Everyone” or “No-one”… When I read -we- in a forum context I assume it means some people the thread itself would determine the extent of the -we- I would expect posts saying – yes I agree – and other posts saying – hey you don’t speak for me -

Certainly the OP is not alone in wanting bugs fixed before new content the word first is there too and there have been other threads about this. I personally agree and as a subscription free game I’d like to see the core game fixed first and foremost and new content limited most of the work in this area going into paid expansions. If I was paying a subscription I would have different expectations.

Bluestone.7106:

Regarding the vertical progression comment I have been reading everything I could find from Dev posts and interviews and it is my understanding that Ascended was intended fro launch and is the highest tier of gear. If it had been in at launch this would be a non issue but they made the regrettable decision to not include it at launch because their content that needed it (such as fractals) wasn’t ready.
It is my understanding that there will never be a higher tier than Ascended (Infused). But that the various slots of ascended gear will be added gradually.

""Ascended Gear is designed to fill the ‘Time’ gap in regard to the distance between exotic and Legendary in terms of progression and in retrospect would have been better to have been rolled out pre launch."" – Chris Whiteside AMA on Reddit

Ultimately there will be Legendary… never say never. The gear grind was something GW2 was billed as NOT having. So ppl are understandably skeptic about anything said now.

FTP would be a disaster imo what I’d rather see focus on on is paid expansions and the GW1 model of paid expansions where they open new continents and maybe profs but are not needed you can still play quite happily in the original continent if you so chose. But everytime an expansion comes out sales of the original unit increase.

Ben K.6238:

GW1 sold over 7 million copies. Not as many as WoW, but still one of the most successful PC games of all time.

And if GW2 sold 2 million at launch it’d be interesting to know how many of those sales were to GW1 players. ANet knew or hoped they had a ready made loyal fan base and tbh communication was better during development than it is now. But it’s GW1 players that were duped.

I didn’t expect it to be the same for obvious reasons but I did expect them to continue with their core game philosophy had I known they would they would slide into the same tired old MMO format and WoW clone bracket – that spells doomed to fail – I sure wouldn’t have bought GW2.

Legendaries are skins and as such are optional – it’s intended to be a long term goal it shouldn’t be easy or what’s the point. It doesn’t matter if it’s a real player farming or a bot gold seller both have the potential to disrupt the economy. The DR is easily avoided by moving around zones.

It’s a ftp game yes there’s a cash shop and yes it buys you fluff and yes you can buy in game money nothing wrong with that. Ppl do buy gold in any game that’s a fact and isn’t it better to be able to buy safely rather than from credit card and account thieves.

As for skill it can be argued ppl that have jobs and lives are more skilled in real terms than those that can play a game 18 hours a day and feel they’re owed something.

LA is already the only zone with any significant number of ppl in it having Flavour of the Month on the acievements list is plain silly imo considering the lack of low level groups. Yet another attempt to force us into it. Less people are running standard dungeons now too thanks to FotM I’ve hit both these walls on my alts. I don’t like WvW but at least that’s doable and suprisingly less frustrating than sitting in LA.

It’s not a problem anywhere else but LA easily solved by giving a map toggle. When I pull up the map in LA it’s because I’m looking for something and it’s not how many commanders don’t know how to turn of the icon in town…

There really is no need to group (apart from karma zergs where it is worth it)… but mob tagging here is not like other MMO’s. You can play with others while you’re all doing the same thing and just move on when you’re done or just when you feel like it and no-one has to wait for you to make coffee, get a sandwich, eat dinner, bio, let the dog out, answer the door etc etc….

Waypoint costs are moderate. I’ve always got more than the cost back just in the sale of crating mats and event reward silver.

I did and the ones that bought it have all left. From a guild of 40 there are 2 of us that log in sometimes. Would I now… no… not in a million years.

Bluebird.1890:

Thus, the apology from Chris Whiteside, stating that they should have closed the time gap between exotic and legendary attainability prior to launch by implementing ascended gear beforehand.

Then, perhaps it could have been better balanced and less of a grind.

People are literally angry over something that has already been openly apologized for and is being worked on. It’s absurd.

I’ve not seen an apology I’ve seen a lot of PR fluff elsewhere it could have been hidden there I suppose along with confirmation of the treadmill and gated content…. but these are the official forums the place where it is simplest for ANet to communicate directly and they choose not too.

The GW1 community spent 5+ years of being told what kind of game GW2 would be we hung on the devs every word and waited expectantly. I’m one of those and yes I’m very disappointed that they turned everything on it’s head after just 3 months but what I’m angry about is the lack of communication – that has done more harm to the game and community than anything else IMO because now it’s very hard to believe anything thats said and difficult to undo the damage done.

Budchgon.2108:

I have one Character at level 80 and currently working on getting him into Exotics, but i also know if i don’t run some low level fractals now i’ll be left behind for future content…

Now, i want to make an alt char but i worry that by the time i get him to 80 it will be virtually impossible to find low level fract groups (already difficult now) and since the new content will be all about Fractals this is something i will need (Want or not) .

I had thought to totally ignore the whole infusion gear but i have a feeling in the future new dungeons with great rewards will be added that are infusion only – making the current old dungeons obsolete.

What are peoples thoughts?

I’m an altoholic but you’re right already it’s harder finding dungeon groups maybe the revamp will help some of them were overly long and in general a dumbing down improves numbers. Everything in the world that can be contested is sometimes for days hugely annoying trying to find a WP and there’s no-one much around for the bigger events. Anyone who missed the fractals boat when it launched is in for a frustrating time. Infusions are only needed for Fractals (so far) the problem is the increase in base stats they added had they not done that we wouldn’t be here.

1) 0
2) 0
3) 0
4) 0
5) 0

This is a FTP game paid expansions are the way to go imo not cobbled together gamebreaking “free” content. (I say 0 because they shouldn’t be used to bring in more exclusion and elitism)

Quite apart from the fact they did something they said they wouldn’t do (youtube GW2 manifesto) they’ve done it in such a way that they’ve introduced exclusion and elitism the 2 ugliest faces of any MMO.

There is a market for that different kind of MMO they promised. The best revenue return would likely come from sticking to that and doing it well. The other revenue maker in any game is a loyal customer base and love it or hate it WoW has that, GW1 had that – and GW2 is losing it and doesn’t seem to care enough to communicate beyond fluffy PR statements.

[Edit]

You don’t NEED the infusion for anything but Fractals – the Ascended gear item has increased stats as well as the fact there are no other decent back slot items in game thus far. Everyone needs an increase in base stats don’t they or why have Exotics… we’d all be happy in Blues?

[Edited by CC: Quote removed]

The Gem Store generally has been a disappointment for me. It’s all a bit bland and those Black Lion Keys have always been so overpriced considering the drop rate on chests – I’d like to have seen some armor skins and costumes ala GW1.

I had been buying gems monthly to support ANet as I felt the game was well worth a monthly fee until last weekend – I’m hugely disappointed in ANet for their changes in game direction and their silence on the issue means they’ve done nothing to address community concerns so I am voting with my cash and no longer buying gems. I converted all my gems to ingame gold.

Sounded very much like a PR exercise to me when I read the article. Fractals was a really good idea and could have been amazing if not for the exclusion/elitist attitude it’s brought with it into the game and sadly no mention of addressing these aspects – just adding more.

Hmmm…. C is the best option there…. but I’m guessing if anything is said at all – it will be more like B or D.