Guild Wars 2

Well I think I gained a bit of perspective and I want to thank everyone for replying to this thread. I suppose I came of rather ranty, but I tried to be objective and pose my dilemma in an semi un-whiny way which is hard when you feel strongly about perceived grievances.

In the end I hope this game continues to improve and who knows, I might come back when the time is right.

CandyHearts.6025:

Is there anything anyone could possibly say that would make your tastes and preferences change so that you want to play the game? No.

So you’re going to have to really explain to me what intent this thread has other than wanting others to seek you out.

Well to start a dialog and see if anything I mention applies to anyone else, possibly rekindle my love of GW2 but that is a long shot, At most I might play it again if the expansion is good but that’s just me being cynical.

Ben K.6238:

I think you are missing something – the build system in GW1 was just as cookie-cutter in the end. Despite all the diversity that was possible, there were a handful of builds that were head and shoulders above the pack… and an inexhaustible number that were useless.
And the end-game content, like GW2, consisted of repeating old content for loot or achievements. Outside of PvP, what you could do in GW1 was pretty much the same thing. The difference is in the enjoyment.

So I’d suggest you look at it from a different angle: What did you do in GW1? What made it enjoyable? And where does GW2 fall short in making it enjoyable?

Ben K, while your point is valid about the Meta of GW1, what I and I hope others found enjoyable about GW1 was the sheer potential of what your character was capable of doing.

The best example would be if your took three warriors from Guild Wars 1 and three from Guild Wars 2 and all of them where using swords for example. Chances are the Warriors from GW1 are using 1 or two of the same skills, but the rest would be up to their inclination, they could be rolling adrenaline junkie or they could be focusing more on energy abilities or even the common mix, not to mention the second class which allowed for more possibilities. Now if you go to the sword warriors of GW2, they essentially have to run condition damage or else they would do no damage. They might have different utility skills and have different specializations, but essentially they have to do a specific build. FYI this excludes elite skills, if you wanted to in GW1 you could base your whole build around 1 elite ability, the “game changing” choice of elite skills is limited to 1.

As for the end game content of GW1 you are right that it was grind-able but the skill cap was higher, regardless of whether you were a hard core gamer or not. The difference is it that didn’t make the bold claim of having no grinding in an MMO, which is more else less impossible unless you don’t mind people not playing constantly. Ironically GW2 has both.

On a side not all you need to do is watch the GW2 manifesto video and see if anything they say applies, around 1:30 Colin Johanson talks about " having really fun tasks ocasionally and the rest of the game is a boring grind to get to the late game… I swung a sword, I swung a sword again yay!" and yet this is literally warrior combat if you leave your 1st ability on auto attack. Hell right after there is Ree Soesbee talking about the player not feeling like a hero because a zerg is fighting a boss that re spawns 10 times – tell me this isn’t what happens with the event timers.
So to answer your question what GW2 lack from GW1 is the lack of possibility and forcing people to adopt play styles or to make them stay away. What I am surprised that Anet has not done yet is to come out with alternate weapon abilities, for example if you used a sword you can either use skills set 1 or two for example, allowing for more builds and more fun. I realize I may be overtly critical in this particular response and I apologize if it seems rude.

Thanks for the reply and thanks for the chance to elaborate!

Cyninja.2954:

Honestly, I don;t think GW2 is the game for you. I’m not saying this to troll or anoy you, simply going by your arguments and anoyances with the game, I think you’d be much happier with a more traditional MMO.
May I suggest Final Fantasy XIV or even WoW. Both of those games have more traditional endgame content and you might enjoy those more.

You missed to mention:
- complete skill and trait revamp
- Living Story 2
- recurring Events (SAB, Wintersday, Halloween, etc.)
- all of Living Story 1 (granted, if you missed this it’s not available atm to you)
- new Edge of the Mists WvW area
- many quality of life improvements to WvW (WvW map revamp) and sPvP (major PvP system revamp as far as rewards and tracks go)

Most of those are no cookie cutter “do this because it’s endgame” things but more of “dp this if you enjoy it, and you’ll get rewards”. A system the game uses in most ofit’s approach and which will likely not change after HoT once you’ve completed the story there.

Cyninja, for the most part your right, and if I gave an example of an MMO which annually gives new content I would give the example of FF14 ARR. On the flip side while the content is good the combat is so formulaic and repetitive that its pretty boring to play until to get to level 50. Eh no game is perfect!

You gotta admit that half of what you mentioned is revamps, while which is nice in the place of new content leaves one wanting. The other things you mentioned like edge of the mists and the living stories, it pretty much follows the same chain of reasoning as what I mentioned in the great northern wall which is to say that it doesn’t feel like much and gets old. What your saying is valid though, I just don’t feel like its enough to keep me engaged on something which can potentially take up a lot of my time.

Thanks, I appreciate the honesty

Yeah what kept me coming back was the big events, the WvW tournament, PvP, etc. When I do come back I play obsessively and it was because there was new things like borderlands , dry top, silver wastes and borderlands kept me going, but eventually it just becomes so repetitive I lose interest.
I don’t find there to be enough challenging content to keep me occupied for long.

Thanks for the advice, I’m glad its not just me out here.

Hi guys welcome to my sad little story of a GW1 fan boy who bought GW2 expecting it to be a major influence in his life only to have it be a huge point of disappointment and regret. Welcome to today’s round of. . .

WHY – SHOULD – I – COME – BACK – TO – GUILD – WARS – 2! ( studio audience cheers & applauds)

Ok so light hearted joking aside I am quite serious about this, I am an avid fan of the guild wars 1 series and I really enjoyed guild wars 2 when it came out, I even pre-ordered it and playing on the beta weekends. It was the time of my life while it lasted- I had so much fun. So in the beginning everything was great, the game was fresh and I got a lot of friends to play with me, we started a guild and would play together all the time. They, like me, bought into all the pre-release hype and in the beginning everything was computer screen sunshine and rainbows. Then eventually after 2 months or so most of my friends simply lost interest, they didn’t find the game fun, they found the story to be boring and uninteresting, the combat to be dull and super repetitive and the dungeons to be one hit wonders if a hit at all. I tried to convince them otherwise but in the end I think I was trying to convince myself… The ones who toughed it out to magic numeral of 80 had similar thoughts but gave the game a chance, they did all the story stuff, the dungeons, PvP, WvW, even “dynamic” zone quests from start to finish and we had a bit of fun, but in the end they left too. same reasons, and I just couldn’t find any justification to make them stay. I am the only one who keeps giving Guild wars 2 chances. I managed to get them back for a little while with the Super Adventure Box but since it was so short lived in the end result was the same, we had a little fun then they moved on again. So my current plight is this, I don’t mind playing by myself, I have a maxed out guild that will always let me rejoin if the have a free slot, but I cant seem to get myself playing for more than a month. I play for maybe two weeks- and month max get fully updated on the current game then I just simply stop playing unconsciously. I simply don’t realize I stopped playing until later. and the later is months… this has happened to me repeatedly ever since I first stopped playing.

[->] So lets change up the pace and talk about why I like Guild Wars 2:

I definitely enjoyed the fact they tried to make a different type of MMO, they promised some things and they technically delivered (see *1) combat is very fluid and active so its very interesting compared to other MMOs. On top of being free to play I find that there is a lot of content for a one time buy.

People are generally friendly and helpful, I find GW2 has a great community and you can always feel free to ask if you don’t know something.

The design is amazing! everything is so nicely crafted I just love really looking closely at so much in the game, there is a lot of little details that people can miss, whether its funny dialog while passing npcs to beautiful vistas ( and I generally mean the non obligatory ones) GW2 is beautiful!

[*1](I speak of the no- grinding- the “living environments” with the dynamic quests and so on) but really all these can be disproved by a quick analysis – Players are required to get exp to level, there’s no buts about that, but everything you do late game is a grind, and not even a fun one at that! just find the fastest way to complete something and turn on spin cycle ladies and gentlemen! For the most part things are well balanced, if you are good at exploiting the combat system and meta you are rewarded and that is completely fair, its what the people like! but the problem with this is that there is little to no breathing room, there are only a few valid choices for builds, other than that you are stuck with being completely outclassed and playing competitive stuff for the fun of it or sinking into the lowest chasm of self pitting and bowing to a build which disgusts you but lets you make people cry. FYI I put this in the like section because I like the combat, I simply dislike the complete lack of freedom to make interesting builds like in GW1. Whatever this is my topic I don’t have to justify meself to ye! ye just be internet shrubbery!

[->] Why I dislike Guild Wars 2:

The personal story has no depth, It was meant to add to your character and give your a fun an interesting backstory but in all honesty they all lack punch on top of the fact that some of them are so dumb I restarted the character because it ruined the experience. Not to mention that it has no impact whatsoever on anything, the choices you make simply choose which arc you get- and don’t even get me started on the personality system- what a huge pile of kittens that was left to waste.

The main story is quite boring as well, and this is in due part from the uninteresting cinematic system and out appalling design of some of the main story quests which STILL have bugs and broken parts!

Elite skills are a complete waste and barely have any impact, except for the one really obvious choice that you should pretty much always take, every class has one and if you take another elite skill people yell at you and rightly so.

In essence the only new content has been 2 new zones, which are made to be grinded more than a cannibals cleaver, some system changes, 1 new trait for each spec tree, fractals and LOTS OF SKINS AND GEM STUFF. The only significant content is coming out with the new expansion and I so – SO hesitant to buy it- it is why I am making this giant monstrosity of sadness and jokes – my heart has a scar and jokes are the only band-aid I have.

Another big weakness I find is that there is no outright need to use most of your racial abilities, besides the fact that they are mostly limited to PvE where they barely make a difference and WvW where the only thing that matters is what Kerrigan tells us (the Zerg) to do. And this ties into the fact that they could of easily doubled or tripled the amount of racial skills and easily fitted in a talent tree. One of the things that combat and more specifically PvP is missing is a choice of builds and options- Racial skills and talents could have been the wild card to make it more interesting and fun.

Now what I have said so far aside this does not mean I am unaware of the changes Guild Wars 2 has had , there have been many additions in a multitude of places and the game has improved, but in three years for such little improvement and content – why shouldn’t I just play something else, my dilemma is that I just end up doing so!

In the end I simply always have to push myself to play, why should I play a game which forces me to go through mental gymnastics to keep giving it more chances? I hope you guys can help me – this is a sincere plea to ask If I got it all wrong, did I miss something? am I playing wrong? should I just amputate the leg and move on? please notice me sempai’s this might be my last leg!

FYI for the ladies out there I am single- wink wink.

and FYI – FYI if you read the whole post you are a blessed and caring person and I hope you have great day.

Thanks for reading and hopefully posting,

Falcedge

Has anyone tried sending a letter to Arena Net asking them to bring SAB back? if enough people do it they might put some resources into bringing it back. that is if ANET listens to its community and all….

JoshuaRAWR.4653:
I would advise against buying the first guild wars 1 just basing it off GW2, you will be sorely disappointed.

I wish I realized that 3 years ago. Band wagons are a scary thing

I definitely understand what your saying in this wall. Some of these are why I cant get into guild wars 2 fully, I play for 2 weeks maybe a month max then take a year break. So far I am disappointed with my GW2 experience.

I think an idea like this is definitely on the right track, the “Personal Story” has no affect on anything, besides the fact that most of them are so boring that it ruins a character.

Something that adds depth to a character whether its simply cosmetic or not is a plus hands down. unfortunately I don’t think ANET will do anything about it, But hey I hope they prove me wrong!

confirmed 5v5 PVP in the normal Q. looks interesting but not what many people wanted to see.