Guild Wars 2

Part 2:

The removal of culling was a very welcome update, but the game still lags horribly on full maps. WvW on reset night is a nightmare. I realize server optimization is a difficult problem, but it’s been a year.

Speaking of WvW, the Bloodlust addition is Orbs 2.0. It was, I think, supposed to discourage zerging and give roamers and small groups something to do, but I have mixed feelings about how it’s working in practice. I think it has, at least, made WvW a little more dynamic, but it’s done little to change the underlying dynamics of zerging that many complain about. And the W-exp buffs are simply unfair: character bound, fairly powerful, hard to obtain without participating in the capture train for W-exp, which further encourages zerging. The entire reward structure leaves much to be desired.

Communication with the community is abysmal. Anet keeps its people on a very tight leash. They do not interact much with the community on the forums or anywhere, and when they do, it’s usually in the form of canned, sanitized responses. There is much ambiguity and very little honesty. They frequently announce changes which garner a large negative reaction and implement them anyway, without discussion or modification.

Anet would probably say that I should appreciate what has already been fixed or added to the game, that I should be patient, that they are trying to do more than other games and things move more slowly overall as a consequence. I would agree with them, but I think that trying to be too much for too many is becoming, increasingly, a detriment to the game instead of a benefit. It has been very profitable for them so far, and the so-called “casual player” will appreciate the diversity of activities and play styles that are available, but I think more dedicated players are left wanting more depth and polish.

It’s not that I think there has been no positive development since launch. The dungeon reward revamp I sort of like, because it diminished the primacy of CoF p1; on the other hand, DR on dungeon tokens was met with justified criticism. The wallet and UI improvements were not bad. I haven’t tried the LFG tool yet, but it’s also good to have in the game. And so on. However, I’ll say again: I think the game is trying to do too much.

I have tried to be as constructive as possible in my criticism here. GW2 was an excellent value for money and I would buy it again. I am writing this post because I still like the game and think it has potential to be really great, but I think a lack of transparency and direction is causing it to suffer. I welcome your responses.

Recently, there was a post on reddit.com/guildwars2 that expressed a lot of what I’m currently feeling about the game. It stayed on the front page for a bit and generated a fair amount of discussion. It’s largely criticism of the game, but also largely polite and thoughtful. And, while it’s a small sample size compared to the total population, I believe it resonates with what many players have been saying there, here, and in-game. I hope that players and Anet employees will read it, with an open mind, and not dismiss it out of hand for being criticism. Please remember to keep any discussion civil and thoughtful!

I originally posted just a link, but it was moved. So I’m copying the content in the hope that it will have more exposure:

I thought GW1 was one of the more innovative and enjoyable games of its time. Sadly, I am coming to dislike GW2 and the direction the game is headed. After a year of playing, the problems that I see are:

Much was promised before launch that was eventually scrapped or toned down. Renown Hearts and Karma vendors were greatly simplified. The much-hyped Living World consists of a few event chains and does not seem to be progressing to anything beyond the somewhat-incoherent “Living Story”. PvP as an e-Sport never materialized, although that’s not entirely Anet’s fault.

The personal story was supposed to be very dynamic depending on player choices along the way, but it’s more like choosing from among a small number of set paths through the game, and after a certain point they converge anyway. And the story in general is lackluster, the writing and voice acting sub-par. There is nothing really memorable about Trahearne or any member of Destiny’s Edge; I barely know who they are. The final fight with Zhaitan is unsatisfying.

Like GW1, the game was supposed to NOT be a grind; however, with Ascended gear and (increasingly) character-bound rewards, it feels like it’s becoming more of one, not less.

Classes seem to be balanced around PvP, which almost no one plays, leading to issues in PvE and WvW. And some seem to be favored by the dev team, like warrior, while in a recent talk they couldn’t even find a ranger minor trait that many people run and which hasn’t moved since launch. Engineer has many bugs from launch which are still unfixed. In GW1, I played a ranger, a monk, and a mesmer, and each class felt like it had a unique and important role to play in both PvE and PvP. And the builds for each were so much more varied; there were many more possibilities for how to play each class.

It feels like the frequency of content updates is stretching Anet’s resources thin. And the rewards for participating in that content are often lackluster: minis, achievements, consumables. Although, with some of that being recurring content (like Dragon Bash or Halloween) which will probably require less development in the future, hopefully next year more resources will be available for other aspects of the game.

Every balance update seems to introduce more bugs than it fixes. The improved tool-tips from the latest patch look very good, but they contain so many inconsistencies and inaccuracies that I think I would have preferred those resources go to fixing existing bugs. We’ve been promised a major re-working of trait lines that has yet to happen. For a game that promises you can play how you want, most (or all) classes are pigeon-holed into a small number of builds/roles at more skilled levels of play.