The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Avellion]

Nah the big one was the sense that you just stopped growing stronger during the level 20's, and the Elite Skills themselves turned out to be just a huge letdown. At that point it just felt like a bore to continue when even your personal story quests needed a massive amounts of grinding in-between quests.

Ahh yeah, the elite skills.

I dont think they botched up any single aspect as much as the elite skill system. Instead of having an interesting build mechanic like it was in the original Guild Wars, they decided to give each elite skill an obnoxiously long cooldown so it barely had any effect on your playstyle. A completely forgettable mechanic.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Not to mention the skills themselves just plain sucked dick. I was so excited when I finally got Tome of Wrath, that maybe I'd get something nice now... And it was just shit shit shit whyamievenusingthisgarbage tier junk skill.

It didn't help that almost every other skill was complete wastespace as well, all skills just felt weak and pointless on their own and even when alpha striking with everything. Nothing felt like it actually mattered to time it or place it, all that mattered was just having a constant rotation of everything. In general a constant element in the game was that you just felt excessively WEAK all the time (and not just in comparison to something like Champions, where you are excessively powerful compared to usual MMOs).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

sometimes i have the thought "why don't i try gw2 again? perhaps i'll like it", then i come here and read about why i hate it so much.
i so miss the original guild wars, it did everything right. its only fault was ncsoft.

 

[Avellion]

Not to mention the skills themselves just plain sucked dick. I was so excited when I finally got Tome of Wrath, that maybe I'd get something nice now... And it was just shit shit shit whyamievenusingthisgarbage tier junk skill.

It didn't help that almost every other skill was complete wastespace as well, all skills just felt weak and pointless on their own and even when alpha striking with everything. Nothing felt like it actually mattered to time it or place it, all that mattered was just having a constant rotation of everything. In general a constant element in the game was that you just felt excessively WEAK all the time (and not just in comparison to something like Champions, where you are excessively powerful compared to usual MMOs).

Amen to the skills sucking, and fealing weak. Despite Guild Wars 2 being piss easy, I have never felt this weak in an mmo ever. The skills were really uncreative and banal too.

Skill 1: Do Damage
Skill 2: Do Damage
Skill 3: Do Damage Some minor extra effect, maybe AoE.
Skill 4: Do Damage
Skill 5: Big Damage, Big Cooldown
Skill 6: Heal yourself
Skill 7: Do something to help you do even more damage
Skill 8: Do something to help you do even more damage
Skill 9: Do something to help you do even more damage
Elite: Pretty powerful, but because of the overly long cooldown, and situational nature of it, it will rarely see any usage.

Because the entire combat involves around outdpsing your foe, and skill 1 (auto attack) usually happens to be the best at that, the game is basically an auto attack fest with the occational utility skill to increase your damage.

I was hopeful that the Mesmer was going to be different, but then this happened



And my hopes of the game having any good skill design died. When the most creative and fun class in the original had devolved into purple laz0rs, you know the skill design and combat had gotten really bland and uncreative.

The biggest problem causing the player to feel so weak was the lack of impact, both in well visualization and in battle effects, my 6 second long cooldown skill increases the damage you take by 1%, whoopdiefucking doo. Worse yet are the stuns, I use my stunning skill on you, and what do I get? Nothing! no stun at all because I must hit the enemy 5 times with crowd control before I can actually stun him, such brilliant design. Feedback through animations sucked too, when enemies got hit, they didnt even react, nor did they care.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Imagine how it felt going to that after mostly playing an MMO where you regularly punch mooks so hard they fly back over 100 feet (and generally die from the hit alone).

 

[Average Manatee]

Nah the big one was the sense that you just stopped growing stronger during the level 20's, and the Elite Skills themselves turned out to be just a huge letdown. At that point it just felt like a bore to continue when even your personal story quests needed a massive amounts of grinding in-between quests.

Ahh yeah, the elite skills.

I dont think they botched up any single aspect as much as the elite skill system. Instead of having an interesting build mechanic like it was in the original Guild Wars, they decided to give each elite skill an obnoxiously long cooldown so it barely had any effect on your playstyle. A completely forgettable mechanic.

I don't know about that. GW2 botched god damn everything up pretty badly.

 

[Norfleet]

You guys are all missing what's important: That WE REQUIRE MORE MINERALS so that we can CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS. And the reason YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS is, naturally, because WE REQUIRE MORE MINERALS.

 

[Avellion]

Nah the big one was the sense that you just stopped growing stronger during the level 20's, and the Elite Skills themselves turned out to be just a huge letdown. At that point it just felt like a bore to continue when even your personal story quests needed a massive amounts of grinding in-between quests.

Ahh yeah, the elite skills.

I dont think they botched up any single aspect as much as the elite skill system. Instead of having an interesting build mechanic like it was in the original Guild Wars, they decided to give each elite skill an obnoxiously long cooldown so it barely had any effect on your playstyle. A completely forgettable mechanic.

I don't know about that. GW2 botched god damn everything up pretty badly.

It did botch up everything pretty badly, because of the reason I stated above. But if I had to add the killing blow, it would have to be the skill design. Simply due to the fact that combat is what you will be doing 70% of the time, and skill design is what carries the combat in games like this. At least of their fuck ups at launch.

Nowadays though, what is easily, by far the biggest fuck up was their updating priorities. Game has been out for what? 2 years now, and what exactly do they have to show for it? EverQuest 2 had released 2 expansion packs (of which includes Kingdom of Sky), and World of Warcraft was getting ready for The Burning Crusade, after releasing several raids that provided far superior longetivity, challenge and fun than the entirety of GW2.

The original Guild Wars had at this point added 4 new classes, countless new skills, 2 new continents, multiple new game modes, including the best game mode in the entire series, GvG. Sure, the balance wasnt perfect, but at least there was a lot more to the gameplay than just a dps race.

 

[Stokowski]

Nowadays though, what is easily, by far the biggest fuck up was their updating priorities. Game has been out for what? 2 years now, and what exactly do they have to show for it? (etc)

Wasn't this kind of inevitable though? Didn't Anet dispose of their main creatives around launch time, leaving what was basically the maintenance crew to attempt to churn out shit like the 'Living World'?

 

[Zewp]

The problem is that they've got a rabid fanbase defending the lack of content being added to the game, saying that no other MMO gets things like the Living Story on such a regular basis. No shit, that might be because all other MMOs churn out expansions that can keep you busy for weeks, not tiny content updates that keep you busy for two hours before it's back to champion chains in Queensdale until the next one drops.

As long as these people continue defending the way ANet is creating content, the game won't see any new content.

 

[Avellion]

Wasn't this kind of inevitable though? Didn't Anet dispose of their main creatives around launch time, leaving what was basically the maintenance crew to attempt to churn out shit like the 'Living World'?

I expected it to be more retarded.

But not this retarded, this surpassed any levels of stupidity I previously ever had expected. I didnt know such levels of retardation were possible.

The problem is that they've got a rabid fanbase defending the lack of content being added to the game, saying that no other MMO gets things like the Living Story on such a regular basis. No shit, that might be because all other MMOs churn out expansions that can keep you busy for weeks, not tiny content updates that keep you busy for two hours before it's back to champion chains in Queensdale until the next one drops.

As long as these people continue defending the way ANet is creating content, the game won't see any new content.

Yes this is a huge problem. Before I joined RPGcodex, I was under continous ad hominem attacks and petty insults from Guild Wars 2 fanboys, who were upset because I accused Arena Net of their updating priorities. "Who cares if the content is temporary", "So what if Guild Wars 1 had an expansion which added Cantha, several PvP modes, new classes. Assassins were overpowered and PvP balance wasnt perfect, so the expansion sucked", and so many more retarded replies from the delusional fanboys that make up GW2. It is people like this who held GW2 back. But never underestimate the skill of Arenanet's spindoctors. They can make a bad situation (no updates for what?!? 3 months?), spin it into a positive thing and the suckers buy right into it. Despite all what they get is the same shit as before, albeit at lower intervals.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Assassins were overpowered

so these are the people playing gw2 huh

 

[Krraloth]

I re-installed GW2 2 days ago and rolled a new character, a Sylvari Ranger. I don't read patch notes cause I can't understand shit anyway so I just started questing.
The starter zone used to kick your ass if you bit more you could chew and you could roam around the map and gather materials, get swarmed, attack uniques that would eat you alive and so on and so forth.

Changes:
- Can't gather materials from the start
- Fewer enemies
- Handholding
- Weapon skills gated by level ups and not usage
- Content feels a lot easier
- I hate this game!!!

Result: Uninstalled and reinstalled GW1.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You know shit is fucked up when even Champions has had more content updates than GW2 in the same time period.


EDIT: My personal experience with rabid ANet fanboys is first and foremost with their extreme levels of self-delusion. Back when the game was just in "get hype" mode, they insisted that everything about it was new and awesome. I pointed out "you know, that 'dynamic quest' thing is really just an open quest with another name, they're just lying about it being innovative" "NO IT IS TOTALLY NEW AND ORIGINAL", "this Living World thing is just them saying they'll run events" "NO IT IS A REAL LIVING AND DEVELOPING WORLD", or "I dunno, the combat doesn't look any more mobile than, say, Champions Online, in fact it looks a LOT less mobile than Champions Online or DC Universe Online" "NO GW2 WILL BE THE FIRST MMO WITH REAL MOBILE COMBAT".

 

[Avellion]

Assassins were overpowered

so these are the people playing gw2 huh

Yup

Not really surprising though, Guild Wars 2 has a really low skill ceiling. All while managing to be really convoluted and hard to read at the same time (how the hell did Arenanet manage that?).

Did you see that Mist Tournament thing they advertised freakin' everywhere? That thing had a pathetic ammount of viewers, and the site died nearly instantly after the first season, despite clearly having planned for more seasons.

You know shit is fucked up when even Champions has had more content updates than GW2 in the same time period.


EDIT: My personal experience with rabid ANet fanboys is first and foremost with their extreme levels of self-delusion. Back when the game was just in "get hype" mode, they insisted that everything about it was new and awesome. I pointed out "you know, that 'dynamic quest' thing is really just an open quest with another name, they're just lying about it being innovative" "NO IT IS TOTALLY NEW AND ORIGINAL", "this Living World thing is just them saying they'll run events" "NO IT IS A REAL LIVING AND DEVELOPING WORLD", or "I dunno, the combat doesn't look any more mobile than, say, Champions Online, in fact it looks a LOT less mobile than Champions Online or DC Universe Online" "NO GW2 WILL BE THE FIRST MMO WITH REAL MOBILE COMBAT".

Champions is at least developed by someone who cares about their product. Arenanet dont care anymore, they fucked up the levelling bad (Krraloth only scratched the surface of the amount of dumbfuckery they did), so they could go, "Hey look we are still care about our game and threw you a bone" just so they could hide their own incompetence. Now because of this, you have dozens of useless levels where you gain absolutely nothing. Say what you will about not feeling progression. But how about levelling up in an RPG, where you gain absolutely nothing on level up.

Regarding your edit: I remember some time ago, about a year ago. I saw a group of AnalArenadrones make a circlejerking thread about how after the chinese release of Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2 would have more active players than WoW. Counting the total number of sales as the number of active players and stating that the number of sales would double after it got released in china. That is the deepest depths of Arenadrone delusion I have seen. Or maybe that one arenadrone who claimed that Guild Wars 2 was a sandbox mmorpg like EvE Online.

 

[ProphetSword]

The problem is that they've got a rabid fanbase defending the lack of content being added to the game, saying that no other MMO gets things like the Living Story on such a regular basis. No shit, that might be because all other MMOs churn out expansions that can keep you busy for weeks, not tiny content updates that keep you busy for two hours before it's back to champion chains in Queensdale until the next one drops.

What champion train in Queensdale? That shit is history. Anet destroyed it.

 

[Shannow]

Dunno guys.
I paid ~45€ for GW2. Played it for about 1 month. Was more or less entertained so the money wasn't completely wasted. Tried it again after a few months and quit after ~2h. I don't think I've ever even mentioned the game outside of the codex.
I paid ~150€ for GW1 all expansions together. Played on and off for >2 years. And overall I had lots of fun. I advertised it on the net and encouraged friends, whom I new to be interested in such games, to try it.

Sounds like Anet is doing everything right. For a company that doesn't like success and wants to fail

 

[Average Manatee]

Nowadays though, what is easily, by far the biggest fuck up was their updating priorities. Game has been out for what? 2 years now, and what exactly do they have to show for it? EverQuest 2 had released 2 expansion packs (of which includes Kingdom of Sky), and World of Warcraft was getting ready for The Burning Crusade, after releasing several raids that provided far superior longetivity, challenge and fun than the entirety of GW2.

The original Guild Wars had at this point added 4 new classes, countless new skills, 2 new continents, multiple new game modes, including the best game mode in the entire series, GvG. Sure, the balance wasnt perfect, but at least there was a lot more to the gameplay than just a dps race.

It's also worth noting that at this time in GW1's lifetime the devs were already working on GW2. After 2 years of GW1 support the devs dropped virtually everything they were doing (minus one small team to finish up EotN and a skeleton crew for small updates) and put GW2 on life support for *5* years. Such an act can only be the product of both great hubris and great success. Imagine if the Anet, right now, stated that they were working on GW3 for 2019 and GW2 was to get nothing more. Does anyone think that the sales of GW2 until then would hold them over, or that GW2 would still remain an interesting game for enough people to get them to buy GW3 in the same way that GW2 was sold to GW1 players? It's laughable. Only a complete idiot bets their whole franchise on turning their next game in the series into a "wow-killer", because we all know by now that that path is perilous. But Anet was so infatuated with themselves thanks to their original gold mine that they had no restraint pissing all over it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Only a complete idiot bets their whole franchise on turning their next game in the series into a"wow-killer", because we all know by now that that path is perilous.

Perilous is a severe understatement.

Suicide-by-jinx is a more accurate description.

 

[Avellion]

Only a complete idiot bets their whole franchise on turning their next game in the series into a"wow-killer", because we all know by now that that path is perilous.

Perilous is a severe understatement.

Suicide-by-jinx is a more accurate description.

Darwin Award worthy.

 

[Riel]

GW2 is still a decent game, it is not nearly as good as GW1 and to be honest it betrays its spirit, but is a good game to play for 100 hours or so.

 

[Avellion]

So after a while of no new content (even temporary), this pops up.

 

[Zewp]

It's a pity that it looks pretty interesting, but will no doubt be ruined by goofy character dialog and overall atmosphere.

Which is another thing I hated about the game. The first time I really enjoyed the game was when I turned down all sound and put on my own music. It just feels too much like I'm playing a Disney MMO otherwise.

 

[Kane]

 

[Avellion]

Replace that with Living Story/Temporary Content and you might be up to something.

Of course, to be fair, they did add a playback feature.