Guild Wars 2

Arkham Creed.7358:

dimgl.4786:

One of the major points in the Guild Wars 2 manifesto is that this is a game that you can play how you want.

No it was not.

When was the last time you watched that video? A year ago? Because I just watched it and at no point was the phrase “you can play how you want to play” ever uttered. Nor anything similar. The whole video was about fun content, not methods of play nor rewards. It spoke of grind, but Colin said, and I quote “the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff” did you catch that? “To get to the fun stuff.” It wasn’t talking about grinding for mats or rewards, it was talking about grinding to unlock content.

I think everyone who has been bringing up that video of late needs to take six minutes to actually watch the kitten ed thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

I don’t get what your point is? What do you consider fun? Mindlessly playing the game for no reason? Grinding to unlock content and grinding to get rewards are two completely different things.

“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again! Hey I swung a sword again.” That sounds to me like he was speaking about gameplay. Him and Roesbee both mention that this
game is a unique experience that is unlike anything you’ve ever played before. Why then is the combat a cookie cutter mess?

I’m not gonna bother watching that video again I already watched it A MILLION TIMES before launch.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/336987/The-Tao-of-Arenanet.html

There it clearly says: 3. Play with who you want, when you want, how you want.

THIS IS AN INNOVATION ARENANET BOASTED ABOUT.

In the manifesto they also told us that there would be no grinding and would rather have players go to any part of the world and quest there and yet… there are areas that are more lucrative than others, legendaries require an obscene amount of materials to make and areas are distinguished by level.

If this was truly a game that would follow the manifesto, the following would be true:

- The game would have no levels.
- All areas in the game would have unique mechanics to encourage players to play in different areas.
- Characters would be free to select skills and would not be limited to cookie-cutter builds.
- Drops would not be determined by random arbitrary numbers and instead by a number of different factors, such as number of people who have received the drop in the past hour, etc.
- The game would not have rarities and fixed items and instead would allow players to craft their own types of stats into armor…
- Dungeons would not have optimal paths…
- Legendaries would be rewarded based on extremely difficult challenges rather than time spent grinding for materials…

And way more.

Arkham Creed.7358:

dimgl.4786:

The point is, no one cares how you play. We’re talking about mechanics and design flaws of Guild Wars 2 as a whole that affects the way everyone plays.

Unless you play as intended. It is pretty obvious by the way the game is designed and promoted that no body is supposed to play for rewards. I understand lots of people have a hard time understanding that because of what has been drilled into their skulls by the MMO industry so far, and I don’t blame anyone for it, but it is what it is. I realize that people tend to get offended when you imply that they are playing the game wrong, but those same people need to get over it because they are playing the game wrong.

Depending on how the game was designed there can be and often is a wrong way to play. That is simply a fact of the technology. And the best way to tell if you’re playing wrong is to look and see how often the way you play is getting nerfed.

Nerf = stop that

Getting nerfed = you’re doing it wrong

Farming spots (for example) getting nerfed = STOP KITTEN FARMING YOU DOLT!

You do understand that it’s not the MMO part that is incorrect but rather the RPG aspect… RPGs are meant to be rewarding and or progressive in nature.

In the original Guild Wars, you had a sense of progression by collecting skills and armor sets that would be functional towards different playstyles or dungeons. Similarly there were titles, albeit better than the ones in Guild Wars 2, that you can work towards to show off your commitment to the game. In other games, you are rewarded with additional skills as you level up and additional challenges. Also, once you reach the level limit your quest doesn’t just end; you then have additional challenges that you can partake in that have purpose and continue to progress your character in other ways.

In other words, telling players that they should not play for a reward is simply foolish in a game that rewards you loot that is categorized by rarity… If Guild Wars 2 was really intended to have no grind and to satisfy players who can play however they want, their design would be completely different. Why have rarities if rewards don’t matter? Why have unique loot? Why have Ascended gear? Why the emphasis on dodging for every character if we should be able to play the way we want? Why do we need a mandatory heal button? Why can’t we have a selection of weapon-based skills?

One of the major points in the Guild Wars 2 manifesto is that this is a game that you can play how you want. Other games that have role-based trinity structures allow for this type of choice too. Do you want to be the tough guy engaging in battle? Do you want to be the guy at range doing damage from afar? Do you want to be the one providing support for those actively engaged in battle? These were tangible choices that you had to those types of games and in Guild Wars 2, all of that has gone out the window.

You will forever argue that we’re playing the game wrong, but you basically sound like Steve Jobs saying “you’re holding the phone wrong”.

Gathslan.1870:

EmmoGee.1809:

Perhaps it’s just because the novelty has worn off. We’ve explored all there is to explore and now the game become people wanting their tier 6 mats and all that crap. Actually, thinking about it, legendaries are basically a major cause of our issues. They cause people to farm and that’s it. I had a friend who played every day for months since release and when he finally made his legendary, after months and months of grinding, he rarely plays anymore. But this is the real question – would people still be playing if items that take a long time to get (such as legendaries) weren’t in the game?

No they would not play, many people who are just in the mindset of old MMOs will find the biggest grind there is in a game, and do it, once that objective is done they will quit. It is pointless and stupid yet people do it in every MMO all the kitten time.

Also really, i still play and the game is still magical to me, but this is mostly due to me always playing with a friend. Playing with people who are not even remotelly like minded as you will ofcourse get you to do things you do not want.. and hence make a painfull experience.

The magic in the game is still here, it just wont be there unless you play for the fun of it.

I can play Barbie: Horse Adventures with five friends and it’ll still be a kitten game. Frankly, Guild Wars 2 is not a kitten game, it is simply a game that is not fun for a lot of people. If you have the ability to play with other people in-game, why should a game only be fun when you play with a friend? It makes no sense.

I think there’s a general misconception that people in this forum don’t seem to understand:

Grinding can be fun.

I’ve never liked the way Guild Wars 2’s combat worked, but what OP is saying is that the game has gotten progressively worse. We’re straying more into the topic of “people should enjoy the game objectively” and not “the developers are not paying attention to attitudes that ruin the game”.

The problem isn’t that grinding isn’t fun, but rather other people are finding ways to more grinding more like a job format, where if you aren’t qualified or experienced you can’t do it. You also can’t do it if you don’t do it a certain way. The ArenaNet developers now have more work to do than just make the game more interesting in its mechanics, but expand and polish its existing content. We’re nine months into release; it’s unacceptable that CoF is STILL the preferred method of farming.

Vayne.8563:

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

nethykins.7986:

Vayne.8563:

It really is about finding people who share your play style and playing with them. I can’t stress this enough. No new MMO is going to have enough content to keep people playing indefinitely without some sort of “gimmick”. In most games that’s a raid and then a new raid, with the gearing up in between. That doesn’t work for me, and people like me.

Guild Wars 2 is doing it with temporary content and dailies. It’s not ideal but I’m not sure how they can do it better.

In six months to a year from now, they’ll have a bunch of new cool stuff that will bring back the fun to the game. I think the difference between me and others might be that I expected this phase and I’ll ride it out.

But it helps a whole lot to have like-minded people to share that time with.

Now while I agree with the “finding people who share your play-style”… that can only last so long. I’ve been jumping between multiple guilds, both big and small because time after time, my “play-style” gets boring for those, who have more time than me to play, thus progressing forward, and considering that rewards are not very favorable for those who help newbies, there’s no incentive for them to even bother trying to guide me or even play things for the fun of just doing an activity together.

It’s the reason why I’ve never done COE/COF story. The reason why people aren’t willing (and i do mean a LOT of people) to let me join a fractal run at their level when i explain due to work and living in the real world, I have not had the time to gain the experience for doing higher fractal runs, which results in me asking them to drop down to my level, and them quickly declining.

Regarding the No new mmo will have enough content. Isn’t that where User Generated Content really comes into it’s own? Obviously GW2 doesn’t and is not likely to have it, but Neverwinter doesn’t and STO didn’t seem to have a problem on that front. I feel that the emphasis on temporary, will only garner temporary players. They will come and go in one swift motion.

I agree, that in six months time-a year they will have cool stuff, but will it be “living-story” kinds of cool – enough to pop your head in for another week, and then right back out the door again – or will it be enough to pull players away from any new mmo’s that may have released in that time?

You’re in the wrong guild. I never get tired of helping newbies, because I don’t play for rewards. Or, more importantly, I find helping newbies rewarding. I’m not the only person in my guild who feels this way.

Have to reiterate. I’ve been jumping around in Multiple guilds, I’m still jumping around as we speak. They start out with completely “all inclusive” intentions, but slowly devolve to “want to do fractals 20+?” or “want to farm xyz dungeon?”…
I personally am in the boat for helping newbies, running low level stuff for the hell of it, and keeping it fun in the long run, and it seems like you’re the same…the problem is, there’s so few of us.

PS: Are you EU? Would love to break out of the “TPWars” mentality and play the the game…well…like a game, If you’ve got a decent guild to join in on, or want to run some thing together?

Sorry I’m on Tarnished Coast (US). But I’m like you…I just play the game. I don’t think I’ve ever done a speed run, and I don’t remember kicking anyone from a dungeon run. I don’t think I have. Nor have I been kicked. Though that’s probably because I run with guildies about 90% of the time.

It seems to me you spend more time lurking on the Guild Wars 2 forums blindly defending ArenaNet and this game. Maybe you should apply for the community manager position?

Also, you don’t like playing for rewards and you have never had a negative experience in an ever-changing online game. I call bullkitten. I’m happy for you, but please stop trying to discredit other people’s opinions. People don’t like this game. They come on this forum, and they give the developers their complaints and their criticisms because they have had bad experiences.

You’re doing 0 to contribute to the discussion by telling others “how you play” and “how they should play the game”, especially when you “don’t play for rewards” and you “just play”. What the hell do you even do? Also, many players don’t have the time to start a social network or become part of one. Who cares if you play with guildies? The point is, no one cares how you play. We’re talking about mechanics and design flaws of Guild Wars 2 as a whole that affects the way everyone plays.

Core i7-3770K
Geforce GTX 670

Game runs like kitten on Ultra settings at 1080p. Have to turn off features to get a decent framerate (60+).

No, I will not buy any expansions until the core game is improved.

Vayne,

I’ve been reading through a lot of your posts on these forums, and I can see you make it a point to defend ArenaNet for their decisions and game design. The problem is that it really sounds like you have no idea what you’re talking about, even though you may have years of experience with MMOs.

I think this needs to be cleared up right now: just because another game did it, does not make it okay to do it again. You make comparisons to other MMOs but why can’t you see Guild Wars 2 as a standalone product?

It’s not hard to see that Guild Wars 2 was released unfinished and unpolished to make a quick buck for its publisher, NCSoft. And yet, you’ve given the excuse that other MMOs were released mostly unfinished as well and had a plethora of problems. The big hole in your argument is that we’re in 2013 and the MMO market is a fairly saturated and mature market.

We’re nine months into Guild Wars 2 and the game still largely remains the same. While many improvements were made, the game is still essentially flawed at its core. This is pretty unacceptable given the fact that ArenaNet is no longer a fifteen man operation and currently has 300+ employees at their disposal.

If OP were to ask me the question, I’d say not much has changed. We haven’t really gotten anything for permanent content other than Fractals of the Mists, Southsun Cove, a few new items and some UI changes, character balancing, and that’s about it. For a game that’s nine months old, it’s simply inexcusable. What makes it even worse is that ArenaNet did not deliver on many of the promises that were made in the ArenaNet manifesto and maybe even regressed from it.

“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again” yeah, sounds like what you’ll be doing in Guild Wars 2 for the next two years. Maybe Guild Wars 3 will get it right.

ArenaNet unfortunately has diehard fans that will play goalie and are willing to throw money at them no matter what decisions they or their publishers make. Even with those 300+ employees, bad management can ruin any company. And what you’re seeing is the product of bad management, plain and simple.

Guild Wars surely was NOT a perfect game… It definitely improved as the years went by. But I think that Guild Wars was in better condition nine months from release than its successor.

You’re done, you’ve beat the game! Congratulations!

Vayne.8563:

dimgl.4786:

Vayne.8563:

The problem is, Guild Wars 1 was instanced and Guild Wars 2 is open world. So the more interested stuff has to be in dungeons. You can’t have mixed mobs respawning in the open world, no matter what players want, because far more players will be annoyed by it than players who want it.

snip

1
Sure there were challenging runs in Guild Wars 1 (like the Droks run). Except it’s not challenging at all with a full party once you know it and have the right build. It’s only fun/challenging with a smaller party. You’ve changed the rules of the game.

So do the same thing here. Test yourself. Take off half your armor and then try the Cursed Shore. Try to solo a veteran karka. Try to run the Grawl tunnel in Frostgorge.

The last many years of Guild Wars 1, the game was so easy as to be unplayable. Those who fondly remember the Droks run, or the hydras in the crystal desert, are remembering a point in time.

Very often there are harder creatures and groups in dungeons in this game…but people don’t want to run the hard paths. They’d much rather repeat CoF path 1.

I don’t think you have any idea of what you’re saying.

Firstly, content became irrelevant in Guild Wars because more and more skills were introduced into the skill pool as expansions came out. This meant that more efficient builds were found and eventually, many areas became faceroll easy. It also did not help that players can select two classes. From a balancing perspective, this is a nightmare, and that’s why invincitanks and other forms of super players existed.

Instancing has absolutely nothing to do with game design and combat mechanics. With the correct implementation, the old Guild Wars skill system could have been used in Guild Wars 2. Unfortunately, they opted for a simpler system for the sake of having scalability in the open world.

Your argument is that content is too hard, and therefore people will stop playing it. This has nothing to do with combat mechanics. Many mobs in Guild Wars had trivial skill sets and could be solo’d by a single character.

The real problem is that with the current system, we have mobs that mostly function the same, are incredibly boring to fight, and are generally avoidable. The fact that ArenaNet decided to those with this slapdash mechanic of creating mobs that have modifiers and not actual player skills is hurting the PvE metagame.

There are so many ways that the original Guild Wars system could have been implemented into Guild Wars 2. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that it would have been in their best interest to do this, as it would make fights more interesting and dynamic. Nothing stopped them from having monster skills in the first game “Spectral Agony anyone?” and I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 should be any different.

I have every idea of what I’m saying. The problem here is that YOU don’t know what I’m saying.

The reason why the game as it stands can’t have mobs the way Guild Wars 1 did is down to the mechanics of the open world, combined with dynamic events.

For example, an event goes up someone wants to get to. This is something that never happened in instanced Guild Wars 1 since everything was for the player. If people couldn’t run by mobs, if they had to stop and fight every mob, and they couldn’t get to the events they wanted in time, they’d feel frustration and get angry. This happened in Rift with people getting knocked off mounts and slowed while trying to run through areas. The playerbase complained until Trion fixed it.

Imagine someone saying the maw is up, people teleport to the waypoint, they get hit by same low level grawl and miss the maw altogether. Yeah, happy player base.

The other problem is the respawn rate, or that creatures respawn at all. In a game like Guild Wars 1, there were no respawns. There were a few hidden creatures that drop, always in the same place and basically mobs that could easily be predicted. But here creatures respawn and the respawn rate, as noted by many people, is often very fast.

Imagine if there were healers here, in this game, and rits and minion masters, and they were all respawning all the time, and some poor solo guy playing off hours had to deal with that. It’s not possible.

You can’t have heroes because of the open world, because if everyone had 7 heroes, the game would lag so badly as to be unplayable. You can’t have a game that you can’t solo the open world because so many people do solo. There’s even a Q&A in the Guild Wars 2 FAQ about soloing.

I’ve yet to see any MMO with particularly interesting encounters in the open world. Most of those encounters are reserved for instances.

Again, I’m not sure why you’re talking about respawn rates and think that players would need heroes if Guild Wars 2 had the old skill system… Your post is blowing my mind.

Jski.6180:

The players mainly the forum ones both who are playing and mainly the ones who are not but still come to the forums. They at best are hyperbolic and there points of view are pushing the game into something that it is not. Even if they are happy about something they do there best to find something wrong with there own happiness. They tend to not even think about the far reaching consequence of what they want but they still want Anet to deal with every thing that goes wrong because of the players point of views and ideas.

If you think the game has no problems, you need to take your rose-colored glasses off. Just because there are people playing the game does not mean the game has no problems. Hell, there are people playing Star Wars: The Old Republic right now. Please do not try to derail the thread with your goalie post and instead contribute to the discussion.

Vayne.8563:

The problem is, Guild Wars 1 was instanced and Guild Wars 2 is open world. So the more interested stuff has to be in dungeons. You can’t have mixed mobs respawning in the open world, no matter what players want, because far more players will be annoyed by it than players who want it.

Take a look at the krait. Anet made the krait harder and afterwards people complained. Look at AC. Anet made the dungeon harder and people stopped running it.

In an instanced game, you could make stuff hard, because first of all, no one was ever alone. You had henchmen with you and later heroes. And so you always fought in a group against groups.

You can’t really give everyone five or six henchmen in the open world, because if you do, you could end up with 12 guys together and you have an army of sixty. It wouldn’t work. You can’t have different professions healing each other in the open world, because one guy might not be able to do much against that, and how is that fair to him. Maybe someone plays at 3 am and there’s no one around. You were never alone in Guild Wars 1.

Guild Wars 1, in the later years, was far easier than Guild Wars 2 is now. It was complete yawn mode. People don’t remember, but things usually appeared in the same place. You pretty much knew exactly there this group was going to be and pretty much knew exactly how to tackle it.

Sure there were challenging runs in Guild Wars 1 (like the Droks run). Except it’s not challenging at all with a full party once you know it and have the right build. It’s only fun/challenging with a smaller party. You’ve changed the rules of the game.

So do the same thing here. Test yourself. Take off half your armor and then try the Cursed Shore. Try to solo a veteran karka. Try to run the Grawl tunnel in Frostgorge.

The last many years of Guild Wars 1, the game was so easy as to be unplayable. Those who fondly remember the Droks run, or the hydras in the crystal desert, are remembering a point in time.

Very often there are harder creatures and groups in dungeons in this game…but people don’t want to run the hard paths. They’d much rather repeat CoF path 1.

I don’t think you have any idea of what you’re saying.

Firstly, content became irrelevant in Guild Wars because more and more skills were introduced into the skill pool as expansions came out. This meant that more efficient builds were found and eventually, many areas became faceroll easy. It also did not help that players can select two classes. From a balancing perspective, this is a nightmare, and that’s why invincitanks and other forms of super players existed.

Instancing has absolutely nothing to do with game design and combat mechanics. With the correct implementation, the old Guild Wars skill system could have been used in Guild Wars 2. Unfortunately, they opted for a simpler system for the sake of having scalability in the open world.

Your argument is that content is too hard, and therefore people will stop playing it. This has nothing to do with combat mechanics. Many mobs in Guild Wars had trivial skill sets and could be solo’d by a single character.

The real problem is that with the current system, we have mobs that mostly function the same, are incredibly boring to fight, and are generally avoidable. The fact that ArenaNet decided to those with this slapdash mechanic of creating mobs that have modifiers and not actual player skills is hurting the PvE metagame.

There are so many ways that the original Guild Wars system could have been implemented into Guild Wars 2. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that it would have been in their best interest to do this, as it would make fights more interesting and dynamic. Nothing stopped them from having monster skills in the first game “Spectral Agony anyone?” and I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 should be any different.

I don’t know why people have made this generalization that “casuals” do not want hard content. It makes no sense to make a game that is not challenging. ArenaNet needs to strike a balance between having content that is challenging enough for the general population and having content that is incredibly hard for the players who have the time to create builds and set up teams.

This would have been easily done if the core game design was different, but unfortunately the combat in this game is too simple and many classes will forever be imbalanced due to the fact that every class is viable for every situation.

A good example of making content that is both viable for “casual players” and “hardcore players” are world bosses in the world. Take a world boss that isn’t limited to one area, is very challenging and requires many players to take down. Players who want the challenge and the adventure, both casual and hardcore alike, will have a go at taking it down. Other players, who don’t care for dying or simply want to get something else accomplished before they get off, will instead leave that boss alone and go on about their business. This is the type of content Guild Wars 2 needs.

Unfortunately, not many of these bosses exist. Sure, world bosses spawn and it takes a dozen or two players to take them down, but there are no consequences or challenge; fights with these bosses consist of standing around, press a few buttons and after a few minutes they are sure to go down.

There simply is no challenge. You don’t need a specific group of people to take them down, because everyone does the same thing. You don’t need to meet any sort of threshold of players to take the boss down, because the boss scales to the amount of players in the area.

To make things worse, the loot in the game is simply not rewarding. For instance, all loot is based on vertical progression through rarity; the rarer the loot, the better it is. This means that much of the loot that drops will get sold to a vendor and will never be put to any use whatsoever.

I think that many game design issues need to be looked at to ensure that the game is replayable. Just my two cents, you don’t have to agree with me.

As a PvE player, I’m incredibly bored with the game. I have 0 interest in playing WvW or SPvP as I simply do not care for it (I rather play a true competitive game like Dota or CS).

Some things off the top of my head:

• The PVE content in the game is incredibly boring or repetitive. All mobs generally function the same and are not challenging.
• Low level PvE areas are now empty because there is no content that is relevant for high level characters.
• While the trinity does not exist in the game, only certain classes get accepted into groups because of their ability to be versatile (guardian, warrior, etc.)
• Dodge is your one-trick pony to getting out of any sticky situation. You can even dodge some spells.
• It is incredibly hard to organize a group to do dungeons. And there seems to be no one wants to play them. Who can blame them? I only want to play the dungeons for the armor tokens, not because they’re fun or engaging.
• Selected targets are deselected when the camera is moving.

Eh these are just a few things that bug me about the game. I’ve stopped playing completely for several months now and I occasionally log on to see how things are doing.

Sorry but, this is just another reason why Guild Wars 2 is inferior to Guild Wars.

Why didn’t they just go with the Guild Wars model? You buy a set of gear, you get armor points from it (and negligible stats). You then fully customize it to work the way you want with runes… Runes gives you the stats, not the gear. I mean, you get runes now, but the bonuses are so freaking weird and have little to no impact on gameplay…

This would eliminate having to create the same item several times but with different stats. It also seems pointless to me that certain gear that I think looks aesthetically pleasing is useless to me because it doesn’t have the right stats…

KeikoTerada.1963:

Quarktastic.1027:

I like how you completely ignored the bulk of his rant and jumped right to this minor point.

Naturally. Because it was the starting point for his post, and it is absurd – implying that it would make the skills system the same or similar to GW1.

We knew for YEARS before launch, that the whole skill and profession system would be massively different.

OP is several years too late coming out of the cave they’ve been hiding in, to be surprised by this.

Doesn’t make it any better that it was known. This game is so kittened boring and a huge departure from Guild Wars.

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Omg! A game that makes players think?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

Honestly, I’m a GW1 player and I just don’t like anything about this game. I probably will never play it again. I come on the forums to check how ArenaNet is doing but I really don’t see myself ever getting into it again. My friends and I are all playing other games while we wait for the “next best thing”.

I’ve come to terms with it. As a GW1 veteran I feel insanely betrayed but that’s okay, because they’ve managed to make millions of new fans and there are many people who actually love the game. I wish only the best for ArenaNet and I hope they perfect their vision of what Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be.

Ath.2531:

Dragon events: I call it the pedicure time. Thats when a dragon comes down to get some service and we all run and furiously try to provide it.

Because really, all we do in essence is await in agony until those dragon feet are shiny and fresh again.

Because really, all we do is attack a dragon’s foot for half an hour.

This made me laugh so freaking hard. It’s incredible ArenaNet didn’t come up with something better, like making the dragons appear in different parts of the zone or allowing players to climb the dragon and get sent flying when the dragon begins flying. Lol that would actually be so SICK!

I love everyone who says that ArenaNet should not have stuck with the Guild Wars model.

Obviously, no one here even fathoms the amount of potential this game had if they would have stuck with what they know and added new features to attract more players.

The biggest reason why many people did not play Guild Wars was because it was not a persistent world, it had a level 20 cap, and there was no jumping. Those are literally the main reasons why Guild Wars never took off and became the next big hit (not to mention many hardcore players would not devote themselves to both World of Warcraft and Guild Wars).

Why does everyone complain about Guild Wars players wanting this game to be like the original? The original was epic, consistent, exciting and had a stable community for many years. If there was no instancing, and instead the world would have been persistent, it would have been one of the most immersive experiences ever. It was also an incredibly easy game to understand and it always made sense what your next goal was.

Sure, it had its flaws, like too many useless skills and an optimal metagame, but because ArenaNet overextended, Guild Wars 2 has much more flaws. It feels like Guild Wars 2 is the jack of all trades, master of none almost.

Idk that’s just my opinion. I just get on the forum like once a month to see how the game is doing and it looks like the situation has not changed.

I Fuzion I.2546:

“Except most of GW1’s skills came from future expansions. There wasn’t so many options when GW1 was released. We had about the same amount of options.”

This comment is so far from the truth.. I mean, we probably had more skills in no attribute that the whole of the profession for the mesmer.. The art work of this game is magical, the game itself is bad and needs some major changes if they want to keep a big following else slowly 1 by 1 people will drift back to other games.. Im going to give it a few more weeks of my time, before i make the change and invest my time into something more like guildwars 1..

Guildwars 2 was supposed to be a predecessor of Guildwars 1, I can understand them making it a like they did to attract Tera, Wow etc players.. But They have totally forgot there grassroots, and more shamefully there old fanbase.

You mean successor, but I agree with the fanbase comment. I don’t understand what they could have possibly been thinking? Why not make a game that will make your fans happy AND attract new players?

Nayru.3947:

GW1 since ‘05. I have several GWAMM’s and my GW1 friends also all have GWAMMs’. None of them play GW2 any more, including myself.

All the GW1 people I know find GW2 boring. One of many reasons is that GW2 is nothing like GW1, in any way, at all. (Yes, it’s a sequel, it’s supposed to feel like its predecessor.) And of course, no variation in builds and lack of content – probably the #1 reason.

However, even though it’s not like GW1, it’s still just boring in general.

I went back to GW1 months ago. Of course I tried GW2, it’s just horrible imo. GW1 is rapidly becoming a lot more active, seems a lot of people are going back.

In my opinion, the only improvement in GW2 was that you can scroll on the world map.

I also went back to Guild Wars after playing Guild Wars 2 as it doesn’t feel anything like a Guild Wars game. I would gladly still be playing this game if:

- It was Guild Wars, but with a persistent world
- There were no levels
- There was no dodging (wtf am I playing? an FPS?)
- It had modifiable skills on weapons
- It had better itemization and player statistics that actually make sense
- It had no traits, just attributes
- It had exciting dungeons (wtf is the point of story mode?)
- It had an exciting story
- It had no servers (districts work JUST FINE)

Idk man. Maybe this game is never gonna be the Guild Wars game for me.

Czar Peter.7961:

GW1 is superior to GW2 in all respects except:
-Graphics
-You can jump
-WvW

The saddest part of this is I completely agree.

I played GW1 and I despise the kitten out of this game. A lot of my friends who came from WoW and GW feel the same. I love the ArenaNet studio and want to see them succeed, but other than the art and sound, this game is pretty garbage.

cesmode.4257:

Elthurien.8356:

I’ll still be here.
I didn’t buy this game for a lobby and dungeon crawl, I could play Countless other MMOs for that experience.

I think you nailed it with this sentence. I bought the game, primarily because of the “Nothing is ever outdated” notion. Even though no one has ever said those words, through all the interviews, through all the webcasta and videos, I got interested in guild wars 2 because I thought, at max level, I would be just running around the world, exploring all zones, and being properly rewarded for it. A 30% reward is hardly worth it. Extra XP to get that much closer to another skill point is not worth it. The little amount of kharma, and the 1.5 silver I might get from completing a low level event is not worth it.

You’re right, it is a lobby game. And I bought this game under the impression that it would not be a lobby game.

Hell, I was some what disappointed after the first BWE when I realized I couldnt go anywhere in game, and be up leveled. None of you remember this, but there was a time in GW2 development, not too long before the first BWE, where it was stated that in open world pve content, you would be upleveled. They took this out last minute before the first bwe, because it removed the “fear factor” of fighting higher level mobs. Fine, OK, I dealt with it. But that was the first straw in a long line of straws where they walked the tight rope between what they said, what they mean, and what they are actually going to do.

So while I love this game and I cannot think of many games that compete with it, I hope they revitalize the current open world of Tyria and give me, on my level 80 characters, a good reason to head to zones like Timberlane falls or Iron Marches.

Otherwise, like someone said, out of principle I might put the game down for a while, a long while. I did that with WoW once they announced pandas and never went back.

Solution: Remove levels. There is absolutely 0 need for levels in Guild Wars 2. This is extremely important and I don’t understand why they didn’t just remove levels. The amount of time it would’ve saved them is ridiculous.

cesmode.4257:

Gorwe.9672:

Those two patches are indeed make or break for me.

If they stick to their GW1 ideas, I’ll stay and buy expansions, etc.
If they abandon their GW1 ideas, I’ll just pack my things and leave.

Hey, by the time second Patch rolls out, I’ll have played for 400 hours(or so). It’s definitely not a bad Dollar spent/time spent ratio. On the contrary, it is splendid!

So ANet-“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” eh?

Why would them abandoning GW1 ideas make or break the game for you? This is not Gw1. And they said that the way Gw1 was structured influenced their decisions, and that the way GW2 is structured now they have more freedom to go about and do many different things. It is also why the game was released with 80 levels, not 20. I would not expect many GW1 things in an entirely different game. You’ll be disappointe.d

I don’t understand your reasoning. Why make a Guild Wars game… if it’s not Guild Wars? It has nothing to do with levels. It has to do with metagame, with consistency, with core elements of the game that function on a horizontal scale and not vertically, removing things that enable elitists to discriminate against other players. There are many things that Guild Wars did right that Guild Wars 2 blatantly does wrong, like guilds/alliances, PvP, guild halls, dungeons and itemization.

I am with all of the Guild Wars players who have left and simply do not like Guild Wars 2 because of its huge departure. It is a monumental achievement when it comes to art and sound, but the lore is garbage, the gameplay is boring and there is hardly a metagame.

2/10 would not read again

There’s a mount thread every other thread. There will most likely be no mounts in this game and if they are eventually implemented I’ll be greatly disappointed

Grunties.6841:

Expanded bugs? No, they need to master some basics.

I agree. Some design choices are freaking horrid.

No… Not until they fix many issues with the game.

Gab Superstar.4059:

fefner.5729:

Best thing about GW was the pvp cause it was about guilds at war, nothing in GW2 has that aspect. The ladder system was a great feature in GW just wish they carried it on in this game. Every guild wanted to be top and that made ppl carry on trying.

I think they tried to hard to make it this sandbox game for casuals. I mean, titles are barely visible, no real PvP stats, no way to gain fame within the game, and the “rare & cool” skins often boil down to doing whatever you want for long enough. The game doesn’t separate the effort in doing something truly awesome and challenging with just doing a monotone grind for hours.

In the end no one is special because there is no way to really prove that you are good at anything in this game. But remember all the tournament statues in GtoB? The Challenge Mission leaderboards? People had a real chance to stand out from the crowd, something that a majority of gamers want to. I don’t think you need radical changes to “fix” this game, a start would be to add cosmetics that actually reward player skill. Win 10 tPvP games in a row? Gain a cool weapon skin that is not available anywhere else. Manage to complete a dungeon in 1/4 of the time a pug would do it? The be fricking rewarded for it.

There is room for skill within the current combat system, but there is just no kitten way to prove you have it.

I agree with you on a lot of points but I don’t agree on the room for skill part. This game is so shallow there really isn’t much to it. You pick a balanced build, you dodge at specific moments and blast all of your cooldowns and you win fights.

Please don’t tell me I don’t know how to play the game, not a valid argument. I am equally viable with all classes in combat. That’s just freaking lame. Nothing counters something in specific, everything counters everything.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

This game is extremely frustrating for me because, like many, I bought into the whole “GW2 takes everything you love about GW1 and puts it into a persistent world” part of the manifesto.

If they put up a survey asking players what the best and most loved features of GW1 were…I think they would find that almost -none- of them are in GW2. Either because they just aren’t implemented or because they have been blatently thrown out the window.

Don’t get me wrong, GW2 is absolutely brilliant in a lot of ways. But in the areas it falls short…it -really- falls short. And possibly unrepairably short (looking at you gem shop).

This is exactly how I feel, except for the part that it is absolutely brilliant. So many design choices go against their manifesto that it makes the game unplayable for me.

Why create a scaling system if the whole game is endgame? Why have levels? Why is there a Magic Find stat? Why do you have the option to join multiple guilds? Why not have guild types, like PvE, PvP, PvX instead of the clusterkitten of a guild system they have now? Why are dungeons split into two modes? Why do item rarities vertically scale? Why do traits provide nothing more than statistical bonuses? Why does my mace have a heal? Why can’t I choose relevant skills to my weapon? Why was dodging made so important? If the manifesto claims players can play the way they want to, why is strafing around enemies constantly moving while trying to land hits the only effective way to play the game? Why can’t I provide decent support? Why are there six rarities?

I just have so many questions for ArenaNet and all of their dumb design decisions that I came to the conclusion this is simply not the game for me, or all of my friends for that matter. I was so blinded by their promises, I forgot to take off my rose colored glasses from levels 1-79. After that, it was over.

I haven’t logged in or spent a dime on this game for three months now. Can’t say I miss it. I miss the kitten out of Guild Wars though. The game design in this game is abysmal.

This game should’ve had no levels. If they really wanted the entire game to be end game, levels are pointless. You’re 80 levels in. So what?

Snowy.9580:

So funny that the cries are going out against mounts cause “They didn’t have them in GW1!”!!!
Is this the same GW1 that the same 1s are crying about that is nothing like GW2? Really? Awesome!
A lot of people seem to miss that fluff like mounts is (wait for it…) optional. There, I said it!
Do you all walk to your work/school/home/mental hospital? I bet not. But hey! Keep thinking all about yourself, at least we had the kittens to give you a choice, take the red mount pill or the blue walk pill…

Here we go.

By adding anything to a game that allows you to do something more efficiently will make it pointless to do anything any other way.

Mounts on land aren’t so bad, but they’re not needed. That’s what waypoints are for. And it doesn’t help there’s literally like 15 waypoints per map.

Blizzard even stated themselves that they regret making flying mounts because it makes their world seem smaller than what it really is. It trivializes content because you can avoid it.

You can already run through mobs and avoid agro. Imagine using a mount. If you want mounts, go back to SW:TOR, WoW, and all of the other games that provide them.

bantapoo.1093:

alas i’ll have to agree. I made up my mind that this game was not a dignified successor to gw1. dubious design choices and bordeline stupid balancing, and a focus on pumping out stupid events instead of fixing the metagame, pushed me out of the door.

Design choices are ultimately what hurt this game the most. So many elements to the game, so few are done correctly. Dungeons are such a joke. I don’t understand how you can go from the king of instances (Guild Wars) and just take huge leaps backwards.

Yawn.

I’ve pretty sure accepted that it will never be the game I wanted it to be.

Yep, I miss Guild Wars 1 like crazy.

No mounts, please.

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Did people not learn from mistakes made with SW:ToR and Diablo 3? I mean Trion pumps out quality stuff for Rift so fast why cant people just take after them?

It’s not about quality. It’s more about design. ArenaNet is trying to make their game appeal to everyone, so in essence the game is the jack of trades but the master of none, making for a really lackluster game that gets boring quickly.

Great visuals, great technology, kitteny design. It all comes back to design. They should have made a Guild Wars MMO, not a SW:TOR/WoW/Rift/Guild Wars mash up.

Katostrophe.3274:

JMadFour.9730:

at all? even a little bit?

Reading this forum as a new player, I get the impression that this is one of the worst MMOs on the market.

The forums represent less then 10% of the actual GW2 population. And this is confirmed in multiple threads by GM’s who have said the forums are a strong minority but are not ignored.

To listen to ANY forums in any mmo is the dumbest thing you can do. There are like 15 servers in gw2, 8 are completely at max capacity 24 hours of the day and the rest are usually high population. So yes, there are millions who love this game.

We’re still going on about this? The forum posters may be a “small minority” but they are usually the ones who care about the game and its future. Many players will play the game, get bored or get frustrated with certain issues and never log on again.

Sure some people are happy with the game and don’t need to log on to forums to express their opinion. But let me tell you, there are equally as many who are not…

Hekken.4153:

Moved on to better things. Gets old waiting for Anet to uphold their promises…

So true.

Cause the game really doesn’t have any lasting value to it… Everything everyone was lauding in the past has now become its worse enemy: repetitive combat, repetitive gameplay, major design flaws in regards to vertical progression, etc.

No. I actually got on today on the forums for the first time in weeks and it’s hilarious this is the first forum post. All of my friends have stopped playing and I can’t see myself ever logging in again. This isn’t a Guild Wars game and it depresses my friends and I to no end.

Azzrael Deathbane.4965:

To all those who aren’t motivated and are contemplating leaving or have already left the game…Cya

For me, well the game is great and i am busy getting the mats required for the legendary GS. i have done the 100% map clearance, Full storyline on two toons and done most of the dungeons on story mode. Still lots to do.

i am loving it

Cool story bro, I haven’t logged in for two months.

I just don’t play it. It’s not fun. Guild Wars had this huge feel to it. This game feels small in comparison, even though it’s bigger. It’s probably because every inch of the map is covered in something that keeps your progress.

For me, this game is a monumental disappointment. It doesn’t even feel like Guild Wars. I haven’t logged in for about two months and I’m actually disappointed I got all of my friends hyped for the game. I probably won’t ever be logging in again and my friends aren’t either.

Azjenco.9425:

You’ve touched on some thing’s I’d personally see focus on:

• Dungeons are poorly designed and are not fun. High level fights are generally uninteresting and involve dodging and reviving players.

• World events have no real consequences and there is no real incentive to complete them. There is no challenge in them and they eventually become stale.

• No guild halls.

• Dungeon bosses need a serious once over. Long fights of dodging the big hit, then reviving those who didn’t, well, one or two bosses like this would be great, but the majority are like this.

A boss battle needs unique mechanics, even consecutive battles needs to be enticing and have some surprises and dire moments. It needs to be challenging without one shot kills and huge health bars, because when you finally figured the boss out, then it becomes a five minute war off attrition, and that is not interesting at all.

• I think each zone needs at least one sweeping, zone wide meta event. There should be danger and clear changes that raise the stakes. Perhaps they can even add an escalating system, so for each event in the chain you participate in, the greater the reward will be for the following events.

Speaking of events, the game definitely needs better karma awards. Right now, the only worthwhile goal appears to be the exotic armors.

• Guild halls are a must. It seems the inclusion of these are on the back burner, but I don’t think ANet knows how important guild content actually are. WvW forts and flags are minimal compared to what guild benefits aught to be.

There needs to be GvG content. Perhaps even guild invasions, where one guild invades another guild’s hall. Not only this, but large group content, more than five man dungeons would also do a lot of good. This will allow guilds to actually have guild events, and tackle difficult PvE content as a larger group.

I’ve never understood why karma was implemented in the first place. Is it so players can have a soulbound currency?

Eveningstar.6940:

@Creslin,

I’ll give you Reflection, Condition Removal and Stability. I mentioned Kohler in my first post actually, but it’s true—Stability really does trivialize that fight. I found this out when I decided to equip Stand Your Ground.

Kohler is an example of a fight done right. You need to be on the ball with rez, positioning and dodging, but you also need to time your utilities right, and you need to pick the right utilities for the fight.

It’s not that your skills make categorically no difference in fights across the board. It’s that your skills, your profession and therefore your build make consistently less of a difference in a fight than dodging and environmental awareness.

The result is disheartening, because all the toil you put in to fine-tuning a build really doesn’t mean anything. As a Guardian, I can be Spirit Weapons, Altruistic Healing, Pure of Voice, Deep Virtues, whatever. But fundamentally, my choice of build, my choice of weapon, my choice of utilities don’t make nearly as much of a difference in a fight compared to whether or not I dodged telegraphed attacks or ran out of red circles.

And that’s the problem. Dungeons are overtuned toward coordination via environment, dodging and spatial awareness, and far undertuned for profession/build/skill synergy.

When a game overemphasizes dodging and spatial awareness, and underemphasizes build diversity, and doesn’t reward timely use of utilities, you end up with a shallow combat system rather than a deep, tactically rich combat system.

Consequently we have a glass ceiling on player skill that’s about as pernicious as the old tank and spank model (in which your abilities/build didn’t matter so much because there was always one perfect build and one perfect rotation.)

We don’t have to go back to the tank/spank model. GW1 had a system where (with some notable exceptions) your build mattered and most professions could swap builds on the fly, and your role wasn’t pigeonholed into healer/dps/tank. City of Heroes had a system where a team of eight of any given profession could clear any given content; they’d just do it differently. Even Champions Online emphasized build diversity by rewarding builds that were balanced, with damage abilities on top of control and survivability.

It can be done. GW2 can do better. The combat system has amazing potential, but overdependence on dodging, environmental awareness and profession-agnostic tactics leads to a shallow system.

+1