Guild Wars 2

The tab target nearest enemy part made me laugh. It’s been my pet peeve since original GW and the same (bad) targeting got baked into GW2’s engine.

Just today, was fighting the mob of Svanir near the chest in Wayfarer with about six of them directly in front of me. Pressed Tab and target selected was the furthest away on the opposite side of the clearing.

This target mis-selection happens so often, my gf is tired of hearing me say it.
My point is that this can go wrong as advice to new players who find out it doesn’t work as advertised.

Still play the game nearly daily, still like much of it, but so many things that frustrate or annoy.

No 1 worst: the excessive RNG, esp. the forge (there’s a problem when the playerbase calls it Mystic Toilet). There’s an argument to be made that fostering gambling is immoral. Catering to those who want that thrill of getting a super drop or the “whales” who spend on massive amounts in attempting precursors seems like very bad design choices. Have over 3800 hrs played, little use of forge, no precursor.

No2: the engine limitations and lack of optimal use of users’ systems. Minor example, the same targeting problems that existed in original GW still exist. Tab or auto for nearest target and one much further away gets selected, even though a baddie is smacking you in the face. Larger example, the megaserver has made it evident again that large events are a problem. From lag to significant frame drop, to blobby effects blinding you to what’s going on in a fight. Is it surprising that many players just auto-attack? It’s not far removed from the beta event when the branded invaded Ashford or the huge lag and disconnects during Southsun’s intro. Optimization badly needed.

No 1 and 2 may account for No3: missed rewards in world boss events. Since megaserver, friends and I have missed champ bags, event credit or event chests. Sometimes event credit but no chest: sometimes boss credit but no event credit, even though defeating boss is the event. This has always been in background (before champ bags, you could kill champ solo and still not get credit or drop). Too many reward tracking systems that do not seem well integrated or are badly synched. The Frozen Maw in particular seems to fail awarding event chest often. (I keep track of which chars did which events on a chart, so no repetition.) If the reward threshold is getting in the way (that is, if even in a party you fail to qualify for enough damage), it needs to be aligned with other events that work well.

Too much tweaking of some events, while others are left alone. This leads to a lot of inconsistency across game. Too many timers and or multiple stacked reward systems don’t always lead to a smooth running clockwork.

No 4: the camera. This is the only game I’ve played where the camera made me nauseous. Doing some JPs on my norn is the opposite of a fun experience. First time it happened I thought I’d eaten a bad lunch. The auto-zoom functions like a body slam. Even when you chop down a tree, the cam zooms you in if the tree stump is behind you. Camera needs more customizability. At very least, get rid of the auto-zoom.

No 5: Tempted to cheat and say it’s a toss-up between class balance (don’t get me started on near perma-stealth thieves in WvW) and living story. Living story has had many problems however. To actually experience it properly, you have to play constantly, which is by design. This goes against the mantra of “play how you want.” How many complaints have there been from players busy w/ work, school or just life events not able to keep up w/ the too rapid pace of releases. Releasing so quickly is not a virtue, nor is it good game design to release buggy, untested, barely finished content. Which then disappears. The release that were fun, like Zephyr Sanctum, were only tangentially related to LR. They could’ve been added without it.

The LR events were interesting on a mechanical level. Seeing new game mechanics added was good. The story itself and the character of Scarlet were a problematic mess. The whole thing was a prelude to the awakening of a dragon, which was a pure retread of Eye of the North’s ending, just as Scarlet was a retread of Varesh in Nightfall. There was no originality on a plot level. Scarlet herself was a pure Mary Sue (a term I usually dislike). She appears out of nowhere, with no defined motivation, and operates at a level more powerful than any of the dragons. The writers should not take the wrong message from the fact that the playerbase wanted to kill Scarlet. It wasn’t because she was a good villain, but because she was a bad character.

I miss the epic feel of following a campaign as you progress thru the world from the original GW. Hopefully something similar can be accomplished in future, instead of this ephemeral, never to be accessible to new players or new characters model.

There are many more quibbles, major and minor. Like requiring a party wipe before WPs in dungeons become uncontested. (Unless that’s changed.) That one made me scratch my head and stop playing dungeons. Or combat mode, which slows you down when you need speed most, or are just trying to get somewhere. But have to stop or I’ll talk myself out of playing the game.

Behemoth not spawning on Stormbluff Isle for 4 or 5 days. Sister Brenda is indeed stalled. Maybe get rid of her as a pre-req. What’s a brew shipment got to do w/ a monster spawning anyway?

Here’s an interesting passage in a discussion with Arenanet’s economist, John Smith:

http://lopezirl.com/2013/02/08/the-economics-of-video-games/

“Inflation controls could create a more sound economy in the long run, but they would also go against the primary purpose of a video game — fun. To limit the amount of money obtainable in Guild Wars 2, strict inflation controls would have to diminish the volume of rewards players can seek out. Just imagine an MMORPG in which enemies rarely drop valuable items and don’t drop money or “vendor trash” — useless items that can be sold to non-playable characters (NPCs). Players would — very reasonably — get fed up and quit as the experience fails to be quantifiably worthwhile.”

Isn’t this what’s happening already?

I said during beta that Arenanet should look at City of Heroes/Villains’ mastermind class. It allowed for up to six pets to be out at all times (including keeping them spawned thru zoning) and sometimes a seventh timed pet. They did not auto-spawn unless summoned. It also had a much more robust system of control, including essentially a flag for them to defend an area of ground. That’s similar to the flag system in the first GW. So the tech already exists, no need to reinvent the wheel. Having to choose “Guard” as a utility skill is a poor substitute. It should be an inherent ability.

Maybe Arenanet should consider buying CoH/V. Not necessarily to save it from closing at the end of November (though that would make 20,000 or 30,000 players very happy), but to gain access to the design of the mastermind class in any future tweaks for rangers.

No one has an answer for this? Should I move it to guild section if it’s not a bug?

Chiming in with me reaction: I ‘ve never experienced nausea in a game before. First time it happened here was with the dredge scaffolding jump puzzle at SW corner of Dedgehaunt map. At the time I thought I’d eaten something bad for lunch, but it happened again later that evening when I tried again. Got so annoyed with it that my gf did most of it for me.

This ties in to the larger issue of the camera spazzing out when it trieds to draw something behind my character, especially bad on norn and charr. The auto zooming in-and-out loop looks like an epileptic fit and may trigger a fit in those suffering from that condition.

The camera in original GW was fine. Just give us that much. Let me zoom further out and let me have a true first person view. There are times I want my character off the screen.

Our guild has had the first guild stash for awhile. A few days ago we began researching the architecture level 3 for 5K. At the time there was a second guild stash for 5K listed under it. Once Level 3 finished the storage increase option originally displayed disappeared.

The wiki says total guild storage is 250 items. A second stash of 50 would make that 300. So why was it displayed and what’s the point of a level 3 architecture research if it doesn’t unlock anything, except absorb influence?

In a larger context, I’ve been puzzled since the first beta about why we lose all skills and weapons when swimming on the surface or treading water. Even the underwater downed mechanic of “swim to the surface” is silly, cause you have nothing when you get there.

Same experience here Gokki. I placed two orders for the same item, two yellow/rare greatswords and two yellow/rare longbows (weapons mid-40s and 50), but only one of each was delivered. Got network error message for both transactions after the money was deducted as if they were bought.

Tonight I tried buying an Adept’s manual. The “buy” button greyed out after pressing it, but no sale confirmation and nothing delivered. Tried closing market screen and attempted twice more, with no results. The buying price was deducted all three times.

(Side note: I guess I just don’t understand why the market wasn’t tested more in beta. There should’ve been more extensive periods, rather than the short, limited stress tests and roughly one beta weekend per month. This is a common complaint against most MMOs not doing anywhere near the beta testing they should be doing. Expense is a huge factor, but in this case Arenanet had a huge pile of pre-purchase money.)