Guild Wars 2

It’s been 2 years and they’ve been going the wrong direction the whole time. The game is worse than at launch because at least at launch I trusted ANet to fix the issues and move it in a direction that would leave the core of the game solid a year in, and add a ton of new content 2 years in. Instead it’s gone backwards.

I’m uninstalling the game, unsubbing from the GW2 subreddit, and leaving it be for a year. Unfortunately, the core mechanics of this game are so good that every other MMO is stale. I couldn’t get a couple hours past Rift, it was so generic. Maybe I’ll go back to GW1. That game had so much done right and I never got bored of it.

Arah story mode is pretty great up until Zhaitan. Zhaitan isn’t just the dungeon end-boss, he’s the campaign’s end-boss (at least of GW2 vanilla). For one, he’s a lot smaller than expected. And two, you never fight him, you just watch him die from nothing. It’s so unbelievably disappointing. It kind of killed the mood of the game for me for a while. I played GW1 for the story, but GW2’s story ended on such a poor note.

General dungeon suggestion:

Update the AI. The Living Story AI is excellent, while the current dungeon AI is mind numbingly simple. The PvP in this game is the best I’ve seen in any online game, and the Living Story AI makes PvE fights seem like PvP. Bringing that to explorable dungeons would give veterans a challenge without being frustrating i.e a blast.

AIs using dodge would lower the effectiveness of DPS unless there’s someone who can CC in the group. CCing is much more fun than DPS but currently it’s useless. Its great in PvP, you can completely shut someone down with CC while you massacre them. In PvE, larger creatures are unaffected and smaller ones are weak enough were its much faster to just dole out large damage.

I absolutely love the PvP in this game, and the PvE world is crafted beautifully. Unfortunately the gameplay doesn’t stand up nearly as much because of the AI. In GW1, the AI would be programmed to stand there and use its skills normally. This was fine in GW1 because the gameplay was more like a traditional MMO where you simply go up to an enemy and then stand and cast until they die, then move to the next enemy and stand and cast until they die etc etc.

GW2 is completely different though. Positioning is everything. The biggest indicator of that is the use of dodging. The biggest difference between a good player and a bad player is their use of dodging. This is what makes PvP so great, when I throw out a large attack I can never predict whether or not my foe will dodge. This is what leads to all the problem with PvE. It’s stale because enemies aren’t just worse versions of real players, they have none of the same behaviors, even in endgame zones like Orr. It’s stale because if enemies don’t move around and dodge, CC is negated and DPS is the only way to go. Why bother CCing if the enemy is just going to stand there while you can DPS the hell out of him? I think if the AI had a good dodging behavior, PvE would instantly become better. Dungeons would have more of a challenge, the open world would be more exciting, builds would become much more varied. Let me know what you think about this.

The last suggestion is the most important. Like other MMOs such as PlanetSide 2, it’s a CPU heavy game but for whatever reason doesn’t use multiple cores. I know for myself my GPU is great but my CPU is only a dual-core i5. Most games are more GPU heavy so my computer can handle them fine on medium-high settings.

Agreed. Getting all the dyes is an actual achievement, and it’s something players should be rewarded for. Perhaps a pack of special dyes that can only be obtained by completing this achievement?

I agree with this. Why is explorable mode easier than story mode? Story mode of CoF is pretty tough and discouraging, while explorable mode can be done in minutes. Story mode should still be decently difficult, explorable mode should be really tough, and hard mode should be impossible for quick PUGs.

One huge plus of GW1 was its achievement system. The title tracks were generally geared around significant strides in character progression, and far less in number. GW2 achievements have taken on a more modern-360 approach, like in Halo Reach where you get an achievement simply for using a standard weapon a very small amount of times.

One simple comparison is between the Salvage Master achievement in GW2 and the Wisdom title track of GW1. With Salvage Master, you can reach the top tier by salvaging just 500 items (which fills the monthly requirement as well). For the Wisdom title, the maximum rank (7) requires you to identify 10,000 rare items. On top of that, the title granted bonuses to salvaging, giving you up to 20% better chance at recovering runes and better materials. For those of you who think you can easily buy a Wisdom title, think again. The average price per unidentified rare item(only rare items counted) was 750g. For 10,000 of them, that’s 7.5 million gold. In GW2 currency, that’s 750 gold, although gold in GW1 was slightly more scarce. I believe even the richest of the rich generally had a couple million tops. Even the most expensive armor in the game, Obsidian Armor, which had players farming for hundreds of hours, cost about 1.5 million gold.

Another point to made in the differences can be found in the comparison between the Gladiator achievements in GW2 and the Gladiator title in GW1. Both are related to points earned through standard PvP matches. The numbers themselves are comparable, as getting the max in GW2 requires almost twice as many points as it takes to get to Rank 80, and getting max in GW1 requires tens of thousands of victories. The difference lies in the intervals between minimum and maximum rank. In GW1, there are 12 tiers from 500 to 200,000 points. In GW2, there are 90 tiers from 50 to 15 million points. Achieving a new tier in GW2 simply doesn’t mean anything. This holds true for a lot of achievements in the game, where you don’t really care about the achievements because it seems like you keep getting one every 10 minutes.

The problem with modern achievements is that points are awarded for making progress on something as a separate achievement. While progress should be encouraged, it is still just progress. Going back to the Halo example, you get separate achievements for completing each level of the game, and then one for completing the game. Similarly, you get a different achievement for each boss in the Boss category. A lot of those bosses don’t feel like an achievement. And yet, when you beat all the bosses, and you actually feel like you achieved something, you get nothing. What gives?

This brings me to my main points:

• Much higher maximum for some achievements (salvager, every slayer achievement, revives etc)
• Less tiers, for only very significant milestones. Allegiance Rank is a perfect example of how to do this right.
• Achievements that can be bought should require a ludicrous amount of money.
• Reward achievement, not specific progress. You get an achievement for doing all paths for each dungeon and all paths for all dungeons. Combine them into one dungeon master achievement where I still get points for each tier but not as a separate achievement.
• Achievements that should be there just aren’t. Why don’t I get an achievement for unlocking all the dyes?
• Increase rewards for certain achievements. People did the Lightbringer title for a reason. Higher Lightbringer rank increased the potency of your Lightbringer skills quite a bit. There should be meaningful incentives outside points. What if completing the proposed dye achievement gave you a pack of special dyes that had particle effects, or completing a slayer achievement gave you a minipet of that creature?

tl;dr Achievements in GW1 were far more meaningful than in GW2 and worked well in keeping people playing.

There is pretty much nothing of great value in the gem store. The only thing worthwhile is the bank and bag slot upgrades, but those are ludicrously overpriced, they’re worth half what they’re listed for. Give me some cool goofy armor or weapon skins, or some silly skill effects. Maple Story is a poorly designed game in almost every way except their cash shop. The cash shop had all sorts of cool little things like a football player costume and rainbows that would appear when you used a certain skill. I would gladly pay for those things if they were available. I don’t want town clothes, I want what we had in GW1. Why has the cash shop gone backwards from what it was in the previous game?

Grimwolf.7163:

Full health, no cooldown. Half health, half cooldown etc.

Came here to suggest something similar. This would solve all the mobility issues. When you pick up a turret, you should be able to instantly place it down. The longer you keep it stowed away, the more health it regenerates. The cooldown is instant, but the health regen is not. If your turret is at 25% health, and you pick it up and put it back down 50% of its detonate cooldown later, it’ll be at 75% health. This would increase mobility and incentivize using the tool kit to heal turrets.

Currently, there is no point in bringing turrets. They have a decent damage output for utility skills, but there’s no mobility. You can go pick them up to reduce the cooldown, but it’s barely a reduction. What it should be is that picking up turrets reduces the cooldown tremendously, to 5 seconds at most. It should also heal the turrets over time so a person isn’t picking up their turrets and then placing them down at full health immediately to cheat the AI.

This way, turrets become mobile, the pick up function has a use, and it keeps it balanced. If the tool kit could heal a little bit more that would make it even more useful.

Pro-tip 1: Tool kit as a melee weapon is equivalent to the warrior greatsword. If you want a melee ranged weapon for raw power unlike the bomb kit’s conditions and delays, go with Tool kit.

Pro-tip 2: Grenade kit throws two grenades, three if traited, and has a range of 1200. Get to higher ground to increase that range tremendously. In the Legacy of the Foefire map, the center point has a cliff next to it from which you can grenade the entire point.

Pro-tip 3: Place your turrets well. Well placed turrets keep the battle in range and only in range. Remember they are utility skills and your main source of damage should still be from your weapon skills, but they can effectively double your damage output.

Pro-tip 4: Maintaining distance is key in this game and especially with the engineer. The Flamethrower’s #2 does tremendous amounts of damage but only if you’re at the right distance. Underwater combat relies almost entirely on positioning.

Pro-tip 5: Don’t think of your toolbelt as some extra junk, it’s a part of your skill bar. The rocket boot’s TB does a lot of damage, and Elixir R’s TB can revive players, including yourself(if timed correctly).

LFG was in GW1 too, it’s not just a WoW thing. I’m surprised they didn’t get rid of all the LFGs in the chat by doing a server-wide dungeon LFG. I see people all around looking fr groups in dungeons and it really clutters up the chat, which is why the Trading Post is so wonderful for organizing, facilitating and cleaning up chat spam.