Guild Wars 2

1) WvW is a mindless zerg vs. a door.

2) You get PvE buffs that… you can’t use because you’re in WvW.

3) Terrible lag/invisible players

HeeHee.5208:

Also, arguably, GW2 requires a higher skill ceiling because you have to be self-sufficient and constantly vigilant. You cannot rely on a tank or a healer to save you. You have to help yourself.

It may require a higher solo skill ceiling… but that’s the problem. This is an MMO. There is no GROUP skill ceiling whatsoever. Helping yourself == single player game. Without team mechanics, it’s a very poor MMO.

That’s what the trinity can help bring to the party.

Also, relying on healers isn’t lazy – it’s part of the gameplay that players (healers, especially) happen to enjoy.

TheDaiBish.9735:

I personally don’t mind a non essential grind for a pretty weapon. I’d much prefer though if Legendary weapons:

• Had a story driven process – What’s the story behind them? Why are they Legendary? The sheer lack of context for Legendaries is wierd, considering they’re supposed to be Legendary and not just pretty Exotics. Flameseeker Prophecies excluded.

• Achievements played a bigger role – Reduce the material grind and replace them with Achievement Grind. Emergency Response Hero, certain Slayer, all dungeons and paths complete, all Jumping Puzzles done, all Boss Achievements ect.

• Include surefire ways of getting Account Bound higher level mats – small quests, vendors(karma, fractal, dungeon) that only sell the item once you’ve met a certain criteria (All paths done / entire armour set purchased / reached a certain level of Fractal) ect.

This is honestly my biggest problem with “Legendary” items – the utter lack of any creativity whatsoever in the design of their acquisition. It’s just one monstrous grind. No story, no teamwork… nothing to make it feel like you’ve got something in your hands that all of Tyria will know the story of.

Working as intended – it pushes people toward the cash shop to buy gold.

Marikus.1875:

Nayru.4537:

No mounts because it isn’t true open world. It has loading screens every 3 minutes if you didn’t notice.

True what you guys say about the flying mounts. It does make sense that it would make the world appear smaller. Not to mention the devs took a lot of time to add the littlest details so yeah flying would take away from that.

But Nayru what loading screens do you mean? I haven’t seen any except when you use a teleporter.

This is part of the problem with the game world, players mostly barely remember there are zone portals at each zone line – and a loading screen to go with it.

Still, this wouldn’t matter nor hinder the inclusion of mounts.

There are no mounts, but, I suspect it’s something Anet will be adding in the first expansion. Too much opportunity for customization not to mention a cash shop windfall for them.

TWMagimay.9057:

A few things…

1. Anybody who thinks trinity is “tank and spank”, “hp whack-a-mole”, “no skill/challenge”. You are right. You also must be extremely bad players. What trinity does is give you options. You can be bad and bored or you can be good and take encounters to the next level.

2. I frankly didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I bought GW2. I knew they didn’t have a “holy trinity”, but nobody could tell me how they did it. I had it down to 2 possibilities. Everybody is a dps with wanna-be support. Or every class can fulfil any role. I figured, it must be the second one, which would’ve made it the perfect game for me since all my healers(at least those I played for more than 2 days) could tank, support and dps at a decent lvl(basically, i’d build a jack of all trades from a healer). Sadly, it was the first option. I love everything else about this game or at least could love if I had the option to play the way I wanted to. Instead I’m just getting hyped about ArcheAge and hoping it comes out in 2013.

There was more, but I got distracted xD

This is a great post… and really, what I thought as well.

The roles should still exist, but they should be able to be filled by any class at any time. This would be a step enough away from the traditional trinity and class based roles, but also give that structure, depth and variety to combat that it currently and totally lacks.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Zeldain.5710:

Completely agree with the OP. the abandonment of the trinity is a huge problem for GW2.

However, the entire game and combat would have to be redesigned and quite frankly, it’s not worth wasting time on this game… it’s too far gone. Move on to another game.

4 months is ‘too far gone’?

Runescape just redone their combat system after having the same system since 2001.

Kinda puts things into perspective, no?

Besides, nothing wrong with the combat system as that encounters need encounters that force teamwork and communication.

With encounter mechanics as such, you don’t need the Trinity to have teamwork.

I haven’t seen a single example of teamwork, and it’s specifically because combat is a free-for-all DPS zerg.

projectcedric.6951:

Zeldain.5710:

Notice we haven’t heard a peep out of Mike O’Brien since all of the boasting interviews about how GW2 will be #1 and beat World of Warcraft?

GW2 beat WoW on sales? Oh come on, its never gonna happen. GW2 market is a niche.

Justin Bieber sells much more albums than Erykah Badu. You think one of them is better than the other?

Hey, Mike O’Brien said it, not me.

eisberg.2379:

Nayru.4537:

eisberg.2379:

Nayru.4537:

Did anyone else forsee the white knight brigade on this thread?

Anyway, OP, the game not having tanks, healers, dps is a big factor in why it’s only sold 2m copies. (probably more than half of those quit)

So if they want to see their game fail, let them. Why let it bother you?

2 Million copies in the first couple of weeks since launch. We do not have any numbers for after that.

Also, no Trinity is one of the reasons why I bought the game.

Because it hasn’t gone past 2m sales. Also, no trinity is why millions of people didn’t buy this game.

Got any proof of that? You are the one stating a fact, you better have proof to back it up.

Oh, they’ve sold a few more, sure.

But, since they haven’t boasted about anything further, it’s anemic at best. And notice they do not state anything about active players because that number has (and is) dropping like a rock.

It’s becoming more and more clear to me they intend this to be an “on sale” game, where players come back for monthly updates where they will pitch them on cash shop sales. Their revenue will be spikey per month, because they can not count on box sales.

Notice we haven’t heard a peep out of Mike O’Brien since all of the boasting interviews about how GW2 will be #1 and beat World of Warcraft?

Completely agree with the OP. the abandonment of the trinity is a huge problem for GW2.

However, the entire game and combat would have to be redesigned and quite frankly, it’s not worth wasting time on this game… it’s too far gone. Move on to another game.

Mahaedros.7085:

mjharrison.3209:

No chance of e-sport while PVP zones still have downed state IMO.

you mean “any” downed state- or just the current implementation?

I sort of like the downed state because it just adds another layer of strategy. It’s true that it is too easy for some situations to raise players… but so far we only have one style of play on a limited number of maps. There’s more variations for Fractals of the Mists than there are PvP maps

How is dying a strategy? IO can’t see any condition where this would work, especially in competitive environments.

This game? No.

ShaiHulud.7410:

But how you will know that DR is gone if not farming again? Because going to dungeons and waiting for a rare to see if the DR is gone may be not relevant if you are on a bad luck strike.

Will you guys look at yourselves? Look at what you’re saying!

You don’t have to accept this kind of game design.

This is not a sub-based game, they don’t have the resources.

It’s not Nvidia’s problem…

VOLKON.1290:

1000 hrs strong and still having a blast. Millenials, represent!

Pretty sad, spending that much of your life in a game… even sadder, this game.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Why does this bother you? It doesn’t affect you in the slightest.

Stop worrying so much about others, and focus on yourself.

This is an MMO.

pencapchew.5432:

Obly.9243:

So reading through the whole postings here, nice to see many different opinions, however I see a lot of similarities as well.

The game is 4.5 – 5 months old (since launch) now, and the END GAME is more then most MMO’s had ever before at this stage of the game’s age, some seem very good at ignoring this fact.

Secondly many compare End Game content to what they are USED TO, meaning, what we know from previous MMORPG’s, I would never compare GW2 to the old mmo’s, If you really look at the core of old MMO’s endgame it was but 1 thing, get the best gear and weapon. That was it PvE wise, then you went to the PvP places and showed it off, get killed, and become better as a player. Stand AFK in the main city doing trading and chatting all day long and WoW players would do raids to get more money to spend on……..what exactly? you had the endgame gear.

In GW2 end game is a entirely different concept in itself, so stop thinking about what you are used to and try and adapt your view to what is end game here, and it is most definately NOT just running Fractals all kitten day.

Because of the upscaling (in certain situations and places) and downscaling you can utilize all of Tyria as end game zones, this makes it a lot bigger then getting super gear and facerolling through dungeons.

A 100% this ^^

That’s like saying you can still play with your baby toys when you’re 37. Sure, you can, but they lack challenge, interest and surprise.

“The whole game is end game” is not good design.

karma.8763:

^^This is why condition stacks need to be increased, because as it stands now for example my condition bleed warrior is useless for dynamic events, because with all the bleeds being thrown around its VERY easy to hit the 25 stack cap, and therefore all that wasted bleed damage………

This is another example of the poor design of the buff/debuff system, especially when combined with the open-world zergfests. All of that time/energy you spend into specing your character, developing optimal skill rotation, switching weapons… is absolutely useless when in practice.

Caedmon.6798:

Zeldain.5710:

Rhysati.4932:

I can’t really speak for your server, but Tarnished Coast is jam-packed with people. Try jumping to one of the busier servers.

Typical denial response. The game is horridly empty in every non-starter and non-end game zone… on EVERT server. And the game design depends on people. It’s failing on all fronts.

On every server ? wow nostradamus,have you jumped to all servers to go and see ( On All maps btw ) for you to be makign such a statement ? No ? Ohh then you know you’re full of it right ?

On 8 servers, yes. That’s enough of a sample size for me to make the call.

Rhysati.4932:

I can’t really speak for your server, but Tarnished Coast is jam-packed with people. Try jumping to one of the busier servers.

Typical denial response. The game is horridly empty in every non-starter and non-end game zone… on EVERT server. And the game design depends on people. It’s failing on all fronts.

Karizee.8076:

There is no proper end-game and/or guild progression in GW2, no matter how many words you want to type.

Braggo.7819:

Although i have had GW2 since the first beta i haven’t played much as i have a WoW subscription. Im looking to cancel WoW and using GW2 as my MMO and playing alot of other single player games.

What is the end game like here? from what i can see it is mainly PvP based as i havent heard of raids other than the world boss style of things.

Do you Queue for instances or is it finding your own group? as finding your own group sounds difficult.

Is the “lack of players” i heard about troubling or just people talking crap?

Finally i am mainly a pve player so does this game suit me or do i need to be a pvper?

sorry the the wall of text and questions.

You will not find any form of satisfying PvE endgame here. What you do at level one is waht you do at level 80. The story doesn’t get better, the gear doens’t get better.

If you enjoy WoW, you will not enjoy his game. It delivers none of the satisfaction and fun.

The creature comforts and quality of life features – industry standard in other games – are woefully lacking or completely missing here. Terrible.

Minibiskit.6158:

I would not mind a system that puts players into overflow if a zone has almost no players, that way we can effectively have cross-server zones.

WoW has been doing overflow and underflow servers since MoP… way ahead of the game. And now Anet can’t even get guesting to work, so clearly something is major wrong with their tech.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Can you provide specific examples of non-soloable events? At scale 1, they’re all soloable, or should be. Are other players in the area scaling up the event without helping?

Shouldn’t “metrics” tell you that?

Vasham.2408:

Rannulf.9417:

Vasham.2408:

Rannulf.9417:

Vasham.2408:

Nurse.1085:

I realize Anet must have done something to increase the cap or filtered it out or something, since the other week they all went from Full to Very High.

However, now they’re filling up again and I can’t get on the server my husband and Guild transferred to (which is Tarnished Coast). Neither can my sister-in-law.

Are these servers stuck at Full? Every time I look, it never moves from Full. Any Tarnished Coast members know what times I should be aiming for to camp the World Select screen?

Server status is based on the number of accounts tied to a server, not the number of players actively online. Even if Tarnished Coast was completely empty of players it would still read full. Shame Arenanet chose to lie about their subscriber numbers like that. : /

Not sure if serious or trolling. anet doesn’t have subscribers, and the server status do base on number of players online.

One of the community managers admitted to it being based on number of accounts. Denying the truth won’t change it. It’s probably all Arenanet can do to prevent NCsoft from shutting the game down after it failed.

Show me a link until then you’re a troll.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/first#post703192

Right there. Last post in the thread. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Arenanet is lieing to you, and the game is bleeding players at the throat. Arenanet needs to fix the wound somehow, and fix it fast, or this game will be shut down by February.

Funny how that shut him right up.

The severs labeled full in this game are of no indication of how many players are playing.

Kirrlaos.7380:

Zeldain.5710:

There isn’t very much of a guild structure in GW2, and it is to the detriment of the game. There’s no reason to play with others, it fosters playing alone.

The chief reason is there is no form of guild/team progression like raiding… there’s no reason for your guild to get together and play together so… you get what we have here: an amazing world with no purpose to be in it. I’ve moved on long ago.

True that there is not much of a guild structure in GW2 I agree on that part. But your wrong about the progression part. Sure most guilds are there for the progression and raiding, but the guilds I was in in other mmos (save for a few) wasn’t built around progression based terms, sure they wanted to work on it, but it wasn’t that, that made me and others stay. It was the kitten things we did .. IE Naked runs through places, sitting around town doing silly things… Other random things.

Just as I already said, its just to easy for people to go to other guilds … Oh I like guild A .. and they check out guild B cause they offer something guild A doesn’t and they find out they reather stick with guild B.

That’s just the point – there is no glue to keep guilds working together and progression is that glue. Wether you do it or not, it’s the foundation and it’s utterly missing in GW2.

Headline: Under-achieving game needs to spur sale. Story at 11.

There isn’t very much of a guild structure in GW2, and it is to the detriment of the game. There’s no reason to play with others, it fosters playing alone.

The chief reason is there is no form of guild/team progression like raiding… there’s no reason for your guild to get together and play together so… you get what we have here: an amazing world with no purpose to be in it. I’ve moved on long ago.

Rustypipes.6238:

The biggest issue I see for this type of server would be PVE AoE, you would technically be killing those who are helping you in group events.

I think the idea is a reasonable one for people who would like that sort of thing, but would that number be large enough to warrant a dedicated server for it?

A few thousand dollars for hardware to satisfy a few thousand players? It’s beyond worth it.

As for the AoE, that’s part of it… if you’re truly playing as a team, and being tactical about it, you will have to avoid that kind of thing. Just as the opposing team would. You’d be forced into switching to weapons that focus on single-target combat more frequently, and that to me is a good thing.

Amra.6028:

Zeldain.5710:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/19/where-guild-wars-2-goes-wrong/

I think this is an excellent basis for the foundational problems with the game. Try and read it objectively and see if you agree.

Half way crappy.
If you need someone to point you to the next area even if it has levels written on it, you’re outright dumb.
If you don’t manage to craft, you’re dumb as well. There’s lots of things to complain about, but half of what this article covers is a themepark crybabby that can’t ever use his own head when playing.

Hint: it’s the fault of the game, not the player.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

I just get a kick out of all the players who come to a new game, and complain that it is not like the game they left and want it changed so it’s like thier old game.
Makes absolutly no sense at all as it seems all they want is ever game to be a clone of every other game with nothing new or original. I think it must be something to do with not being able to adjust to a new game, so they just want the game to adapt to them instead.

No, you’re not grasping what’s going on here.

The game as it stands isn’t fun or satisfying to many people as a whole. There are individual features or ideas that are cool, but they either are executed poorly or simply don’t work with the other game systems well.

An example: Weapon swapping is a cool idea, based on situation. Obtaining a legendary works directly against the players desire to use different weapons. Therefore, that’s bad design.

There is stuff like that all over the game design, and even if you don’t realize it, it’s working against your enjoyment of the game.

So, keep in mind: the developers aren’t always right, and the players aren’t always wrong.

Decrypter.1785:

How come everyone feels the need to post there gaming history ?

W v W v W is a FFA server in a kinda way

Not even close.

Anyway, WvWvW is instanced, not in the open world. It’s a game-mode at best not an emergent world that the OP is looking for.

And I happen to agree with him. Sandbox (of any sort) is the future.

Silentstorm.7531:

Don’t confuse depth with a over abundance a million buttons. I’ll give you another classic example. I play rift a cleric in the game. Rotation Bolt of Judgement,Vex, Sanction Heretic etc..The new max level came along BOJ was replaced with another bolt. Vex was replaced with another spells named scourge. What really happen there is the old skills got replace but you still have them. Which gives you a false thinking that you have a lot of choices. Almost every mmo is like that. Like I said GW2 is the first game not to smoke and mirrors it.

And don’t confuse depth with variety and choice – which Guild Wars 2 provides none.

johnpickard.2836:

I know it is common with mmo’s but seriously? i just bought the game and now i have to wait 36hrs to play it. so far its been downloading for 10hrs and is 27% done downloading, or 2.5gb done.

Well your first mistake was buying it, but yeah. Modern MMOs like WoW and RIFT and most have streaming play so you can play within minutes.

ZeroArmada.9426:

I will never understand why people would prefer to go full offensive without ANY vit/tough and constantly grief the team they’re in. I was just in AC with 3 glass cannon warriors, and wow that was the most horrendous experience I’ve ever encountered. I don’t see how glass cannon even helps the team if you’re constantly going down, even IF you put out burst damage before being flicked by the slightest enemy.

Just why?

The combat system (i.e. no roles – just 8 DPS classes) fosters this kind of thinking.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Zeldain.5710:

kRiza krimos.1637:

Ned Stark.9356:

In all honesty GW2 is a knock off of Rift just set in the Guild Wars setting.

Only that GW2 development started much earlier than Rift, and Rift was rushed with publicizing so nobody could say they nicked dynamic event concept from gw2. And suuuureeee they didnt.

You sir, are delusional.

If random internet guy says so then it must be truth.

Besides, can you back up your claims with anything or you just like to troll?

Doesn’t matter. RIFT came out WELL OVER A YEAR before Guild Wars 2… GW2 lays no claim to dynamic content. RIFT beat them, period.

If anything, GW2 had a chance to take cues from RIFT.

gotdamned.5318:

As the title says.

The purpose of a Legendary is to be something special, something you had to put a lot of work in.
Not just a lot of money.
Now, since they can be sold on the TP, everyone can buy them with a kittenload of money
(and those people will mostly buy the gold from 3rd Party sellers )

Instead, you could make them Bind-On-Pickup and Accountbound

I think many players will agree with this.

PS: sry for my english, it isn’t my mother tongue

Just pixels man, sorry. Nothing special about them, and if you got one for any other reason than “you liked it” you did it for the wrong reasons.

ArenaNet knows they can sell gold for cash, and people will buy that gold to buy the Legendaries that people build…it’s win/win for them.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Ned Stark.9356:

In all honesty GW2 is a knock off of Rift just set in the Guild Wars setting.

Only that GW2 development started much earlier than Rift, and Rift was rushed with publicizing so nobody could say they nicked dynamic event concept from gw2. And suuuureeee they didnt.

You sir, are delusional.

Relentliss.2170:

I agree. Gw2 does indeed feel like a tawdry f2play game. I’d rather it was better made and paid a sub.

Word.

It is indeed a f2p game.

Sollith.3502:

Vix.6730:

I agree on all points. The fighting is hands down the best I’ve seen in an MMO, but AN counters this plus by stapling skills to weapons.

I personally don’t see it as a huge problem, but a bit more flexibility would be nice. I find my self changing weapons all the time depending on the situation, which is what I think they intended for players to do by “stapling” skill sets to weapons; however, it would be nice to have a few more options for my favorite weapons too. Maybe add a second skill set to each weapon?

I think many players don’t see the need (and there really isnt one) to change weapons in combat. And of course forget it if you have your legendary. Unless you want to grind another.

0.o

Tiger.7506:

some people are deluded, every game has grind, up 1 to 80 is a big grind.
But i love Gw2 !
with or without grind!

Is posting this some sort of therapy for you? Saying it out loud makes it ok?

The problem here is that there is zero context for the grinds in this game and they are of monumental proportions. To top it off, they are relieved it you just spend some cash in the cash shop.

And that, my friend, is the problem.

Diva.4706:

So, my wife and I have played GW2 since beta, and we have had a lot of fun. But now we are starting to see the game for what it actually is : Pay-to-win. A friend of ours started to play and was level 80 in 5 days, because he used $ to buy trade-skill mats to level up. This really made our level 80s seem pretty pointless, because it was then obvious that you can basically “buy” a level 80.

Now there are legendary weapons showing up on the trading post. We are very unhappy with this development. It seems most modern MMOs are all pay to win these day, with their cash-shops and the ability to buy coin. We long for the good old days of an even play field, no matter your standing in real life. I am now starting to look elsewhere for another MMO, even sub-based, with NO real life influence on your character. I worry that those days are over, and my enjoyment of MMO gaming is coming to an end.

If you read my other posts, I am the last person to defend this game. But you don’t know what pay-to-win means.

Him having the same things as you is not pay-to-win. You just seem to be ticked that you put in effort that he didn’t have to. Well. He paid money that you didn’t have to.

Further, you’re right – level 80 IS pointless in this game. If you’re grouped WITH him, it’s an advantage in PvE because, well, he’s with you. If you’re fighting against him in PvP it doesn’t matter at all since everyone scales.

Again to be clear – you are not using “pay to win” correctly in any way.

Korrigan.4837:

And I’m not a WoW hater. I played the game for 7+years, with two accounts. It’s a great game. But it’s time for a change, and GW2 started that change.

Or do you REALLY want to play poor imitation of WoW number thousand in 2020? As much as I enjoyed WoW for all that time, with 2 subscriptions, I do NOT want that.

I am dying for an advancement of the genre… I’ve been here since the beginning too with UO and even M59. Played WoW since day 1, and still subscribe. So I agree it’s time for a change.

But…

Change for the sake of change isn’t necessarily good. And that’s what it seems ArenaNet has done… there were some bold ideas, but either the execution was poor or the systems flat-out don’t work together well to make a “whole” fun game.

So in this case, maybe GW2 is the “bridge game” that another future developer will come in and pick (and perfect) the features that make sense and work will and integrate them with other systems that work well for a cohesive experience.

It simply doesn’t come together for me in GW2.

Korrigan.4837:

@Rhysati: dynamic events are the CORE of GW2’s PVE gameplay. The hearts where only added late in beta to make people used to the “WOW clone” system feel more comfortable.

And your paragraph about roles shows that despite your little introduction, you are still so used to the WoW-like trinity that you can’t imagine something else working. You only play since 6 days… let the game take you in, instead of trying to compare it and make it match with past experiences. Forget those hearts, go explore. Find those events, those puzzles, dungeons, that are all over the place.

Another hint… if you’re doing the same dynamic events over and over again, you are doing something wrong, not the game. The problem with people used to the WoW model like you is that you are used to the game holding your hand all the time… GW2 doesn’t do that, the game expects that you are a human being, not a machine following a predefined path, it expects you to go out of the way and explore.

If you keep on playing GW2 like you played WoW and its clones before, then YOU are doing it wrong, and it won’t work. It’s not the game’s fault. It’s the fault of all those WoW clones we got served during 8 years who tried to tell people there’s only one way to play a MMORPG. All veterans who played games like UO or AC1 know that’s not true.

No, sorry. Actually, I’m not sorry.

The game’s design doesn’t flesh out the systems how you are “supposed” to play. And if it aint happening naturally, then guess what? It’s the game’s fault, not the player.

Any game designer worth their salt will back that up.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

I dont get this ROLES thing. I honestly dont. When people asked me what my role in the team is, i always told them “I am party member #3 and he is party member #2”. What’s the difference between party member #3 and party member #2? None, but both spots need to be filled to form a team.

The problem with that is that it’s mind-numblingly non-interesting.

If the only requirement is to “show up” that lacks the depth and the engagement that players like the author are looking for.

It’s missing large scale, organized, group PvE content. Which leads to zero guild progression and team play.

The whole game is “playing along side” others, not “with” them – there is no need whatsoever for a guild.

That’s just for starters.