GW2 - My Concise Opinion

[Meledelion]

I stopped playing GW2, but I don't see it as negative as you do.

Five things that ruined it for me:

1. Empty world, the land mass is huge but their server capacity is low, so there were very few people across that huge land mass. I like my mmo social and crowded.

2. Loading between zones. The world should have been a single giant zone. Overflow server is not for me either.

3. Lack of immersion: Character and camera movement didn't feel as natural as wow. I got used to GW2 for a while, but still i would not achieve full immersion because of the artificial feel of the character and camera movement. Music was also subpar.

4. I like to play healers.

5. No raids. And they defended that adamantly, that was a big put-off. If they said they could do end game content in a year or so, I could have stuck with GW2. But they were very firm on no raids approach, which left me no hope and no choice.

1. Server capacity is pretty high during pre-release I remember doing shadow behemoth and having 100+ people slaying the giant thing. Sure 100 people isn't shit tons but it's more than WoW could handle properly in the pvp thing form wotlk before vault of thingy
(and this has been upped several times)

2. Do you change zones that often? What about OF isn't for you?

3. I have no camera issues (especially ever since the FOV changer went in beta (and now live) mode. Music is pretty awesome it's very uptempo with low beats, ofcourse this is a direct contrast to WoW which has lowtempo and high beats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tJ1X...1D0C494F0D4481 vs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtJcoZ9E9ZQ this comes down to preference though.
Both music "types" are there to set a certain tone, GW2 sets an idyllic "peaceful" adventurous tone while wow is more about battle and "grim" sounds.

4. You knew/should have known there issn't a trinity

5. Again you should have known this. You can't complain about a mechanic not being there that you like when this has been talked about for years. It's like saying yo guys why can't I use my hands in soccer like handball players do?

[Zeek Daniels]

While I don't fully agree with him, I think he does have a point: In Queensdale, Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields, and Harathi Hinterlands you keep fighting centaurs (and to a lesser degree bandits and pirates). Now, a consistent storyline (rather than a patchwork of unrelated zones) is not necessarily a bad thing, but the centaurs/bandits/pirates are awfully generic (i.e., boring) baddies. And if you follow the zones for the human storyline, you'll actually hit level 45 and will still be fighting centaurs, same as you did in your tutorial.

Luckily, there are plenty of other areas of the game that do not have this problem (for example, the Charr zones have a delightful amount of variety, despite a consistent look and feel), but these days I do frequently avoid the human/centaur areas for just this reason.

The Centaur/bandit theme of those zones has to do with the struggles of the last Human kingdom in this area. They arent worried about charr like the Ascalonians were because they are too far away. They arent worried about destroyers or agressive hylek tribes. They are worried about centaurs trying to take more territory from them and pesky things like bandits and organizations trying to overthrow the Queen. You may think its generic but it is what it is.

I stopped playing GW2, but I don't see it as negative as you do.

things that ruined it for me:

1. Empty world, the land mass is huge but their server capacity is low, so there were very few people across that huge land mass. I like my mmo social and crowded.

Their server capacity is high i dont know what your talking about. What you saw was just empty zones because ppl were in different areas. It has nothing to do with how many players a map can hold and everything to do with players doing different types of content once they reached max level.

[Deleted]

@Tea

When ever you have player vs player there is going to be imbalance. As for the game type making certian classes stronger and others weaker i completely disagree. It makes certain builds stronger and others weak not the classes themselves else everyone would roll just the strong classes. As long as there is a counter for everything you can do its balanced. When something becomes uncounterable then changes need to be made. And just because you dont have the counter to a certain build in your group doesnt mean the game is unbalanced it just means you need to think about what your going to face each match and how to deal with what you come across. Not We cant beat that team because they have so and so running overpowered build number 3 and reserve teammate number 6 is sick today so we dont have faceroll counter to overpowered build number 3.

I dont know, I just think that we would see more builds if there were more map options. But sure, different map options is probably not the most important things to focus on at this point, so many other obvious imbalances, and bugs still remaining, and slow work on updating them. The list of bugs for each profession are still way long and with a company allergic to put effort on fixing that and that even dont want to do hotfixes... it's a problem really

[RoninaThorstone]

thanks for your well done contribution. i wonder how many thought the gw2 fanboys were being paid to go around and troll wow forums oh wait

Gets trolled in wow forums, makes it his personal quest to destroy other games.

Interesting.

[Morgaith]

The game is great but lacks real PvE.

[RoninaThorstone]

The game is great but lacks real PvE.

As opposed to fake PvE?

What does that even mean?

[Eorayn]

Please, why post your thoughts when NO ONE f*cking cares? No one wants to read some random id*ot’s biased rant. And the worst mistake you made is that you take quality for granted, shiver at the thought of change, and especially, you immediately put out your own whiny opinion like it was the public opinion. Sorry to be so harsh, but please f*ck off. We don’t care about what you have to say when all you do is bash everything about the game without ground.

[-aiko-]

I wonder how many people actually read the post? Instead of dismissing it immediately and calling him out? There are some decent points if you can bother a read.

Dynamic Events: were supposed to shape the world around you, however, they dont. on repeat every few minutes removes immersion, it also begins to knaw at you and make you realise 'whats the point' in fighting off the centaurs only to have them back at it again in a few minutes.

I definitely felt this. I recall an article released by a GW2 dev that had something along the lines of "you feel like you want to save the village from the bandits". Well, I didn't, not when the bandits kept coming back every 20 minutes in the exact same fashion. A little randomness in DEs would have been nice.

sPVP: esport dreams went down the shitter when all their talk about balancing went out the window and you still have an unbalanced playing field with favourites being the pick of the day. .

I don't disagree that balancing is whack, but I don't think anyone should have gotten their hopes up about PvP being a hardcore, competitive scene. GW2 is just not about being hardcore. sPvP is just another activity to do.

wvwvw: banking on the DAOC crowd, they thought they could make a mode which would make you feel like you're truly fighting for your server. problem is, you need a four wheel drive to cover the vast and stupid distances the size of the maps have before you to even reach the battles. then its zerg zerg zerg.

I agree for the most part. The size of WvWvW is a huge issue, especially. And people can argue to death how WvWvW isn't a zerg but that's how most of the playerbase sees it in my experience. I used to be the person that would go defend a castle that didn't have many defenders but it was never a fruitful endeavor. I would just sit there forever because almost the entire enemy force was attacking something else. Something they'd eventually take, because of people like me that tried to play it as something other than a zerg and went off to defend something else. Maybe it has improved over time, but at the time I was playing that's basically how it played out.

classes: gw1 did the classes in gw2 far far better with obvious exception to the classes that werent available like the engineer etc. 8 completely customisable skill sets (wait, i hear you say OMG ITS FOR BALANCING PURPOSES) yes, and look back to what i said about spvp. its unbalanced, still is, so this issue of having only 5 to tinker with, 2 which are still locked to a specific role (healing and elite) leaving only 3 truly swappable skills is well, pathetic. using gw1 as the supreme example of how to do it right, what the fuck happened? oh i know, they went for the casualised market. (on a side note, its funny how people rag on WoW for being casual yet defend gw2?) hmmm

The classes were the high point of GW2 imo, although I agree the lack of customization was a bit of a letdown. But the feel of the classes was right, and I truly enjoyed my Thief.

crafting/trading post: um, yeh its shit. and lets be honest, the way its setup is just sad. every man and his dog throws their garbage onto there like its the universal rubbish dump. and because anet hold the strings on what things can and cannot cost, you find that that gem shop starts to twinkle even more for you to spend (yeh, anet need to make money, but they shouldnt have asked for a box price if they wanted to play 'nerf my own shit' with the playerbase.

I'm bitter about the Trading Post. Why re-invent something that doesn't need re-inventing? And does anyone remember how long it took to start working in the first place?

diminishing returns: in gw1 this existed but not to the nazi levels it is in gw2. and its funny, WHY didnt they have this in the betas? they wait 2 weeks after launch when a bulk of sales have come in to then hit folk with this nerf. what it does is essentially cut down anything that you're trying to farm after say 30 minutes to basically zilch. anet have this real big fear of farming yet they make a game where acquiring money and materials is a fucking chore. good job i say /s

I honestly have no idea about this, or that it even existed. So while I can't really offer an opinion, if it was so unnoticeable to me I don't see how it could be a glaring issue. Maybe I just didn't do enough at 80.

world: zones are pathetic. for a 2012 release they couldnt stream the entire world?

I don't like the loading screens between zones, but the zones themselves were gorgeous. I liked exploring and finding all the vistas. I don't think that exploration is enough of an activity to keep me playing, though.

My two cents.

[mafao]

Well, I agree that GW2 is far from perfect and it does have its share of problems. However, Retro, your post sounds like there is absolutely nothing positive about the game. It might have its issues, but it still does most of stuff far better than any other game out there. It is the most immersive MMO I ever played, the best combat system of any MMO I ever played, the best art of any MMO I ever played and it does exploration much better than any other MMO I know. Not to say that its also the most balanced MMO of any that I have ever played. Dynamic events do repeat and it does feels a bit weird, but they are still times and times more immersive than traditional questing. Similar goes for all your other points.

The thing is - GW2 is not a game for the traditional 'hardcore' MMO player - because it simply doesn't offer anything to hook up the 'dedicated' player. The competitive PvP was supposed be one such thing but they did botch it somehow. I hope future release will draw back the interest of the PvP players. However, the true strength of GW2 lies elsewhere - and its something that a 'dedicated' player just won't be able to see - its an ideal casual MMO. Its a game where you can run around and have fun without thinking to much about getting the best gear or items - while still having the opportunity to be challenged, without a substantial time investment. And their unique events each month is the icing on the cake - the player will always have a reason to log back in, just to look what new fun stuff they implemented this time.

All in all - they are doing fine. Its just the wrong type of game for you probably.

[Deleted]

I don't really care to answer Infinite, since he has been on gw2 forum since beta telling how he doesn't like the game and game x is better (that is over 6 moths...)

For new people possibly seeing this thread an wondering is GW2 really all that OP said, here are some videos.

Events may seem separated if you just hit things until they are dead and then run away, but there is story if you look at what NPCs are doing and follow the events.


PvP, combat and skill. Yes, we need PvP ranking boards and more rewards, both are under implementation according GW2 developers.

[Lane]

The Centaur/bandit theme of those zones has to do with the struggles of the last Human kingdom in this area. They arent worried about charr like the Ascalonians were because they are too far away. They arent worried about destroyers or agressive hylek tribes. They are worried about centaurs trying to take more territory from them and pesky things like bandits and organizations trying to overthrow the Queen. You may think its generic but it is what it is.

It doesn't helping coming off of WoW either. If you were human you deal with the Defias bandits from level 1-20 at minimum (who incidentally look a lot like the bandits in GW2), if you're an orc/troll you deal with Centaurs from level 5 until about level 40. Then you come to GW2 and it's more bandits, and more centaurs, both of which seem to go on indefinitely. It does get old after awhile. (Not to mention the whole dragon theme, but that's another topic.)

What's worse is it's near impossible not to get hit with DR because you are consistently fighting the same mob types.

[Deleted]

Oh look, another poster who can only see things in black and white and feels the need to tell the world how GW2 is the worst game ever because they didn't take the time to understand how the game actually works. For a "clear and concise" review this sure contains a lot of narrow minded "everything is crap" instead of looking at the pros and cons in an objective way. What is it exactly that you're trying to accomplish here? Trolling? Flamebait? Well done, I hope your parents are proud :P

[Zeek Daniels]

It doesn't helping coming off of WoW either. If you were human you deal with the Defias bandits from level 1-20 at minimum (who incidentally look a lot like the bandits in GW2), if you're an orc/troll you deal with Centaurs from level 5 until about level 40. Then you come to GW2 and it's more bandits, and more centaurs, both of which seem to go on indefinitely. It does get old after awhile. (Not to mention the whole dragon theme, but that's another topic.)

What's worse is it's near impossible not to get hit with DR because you are consistently fighting the same mob types.

Your playing in a classic fantasy universe. Thats like asking for elves to not be a race. Of course your going to get the same themes and races. And it makes sense to fight weaker monsters or races at the start of a game. Or would you rather fight Deathwing as soon as you step into goldshire. It makes perfect sense why these games are structured this way. You dont put the strongest monsters in your arsenal at the start of the game you put them at the end. You put cannon fodder at the start. If you think its getting old then stop playing classic fantasy RPG's.

[Deleted]

... Not to mention the whole dragon theme, but that's another topic...

Going totally off topic ^_^ According CE book, at the early phase of the game Anet was actually thinking about making demons the main villains. But then they went to dragons.

BEFORE THERE WERE DRAGONS
Dragons weren't always the mechanism for the grand struggle. Grubb shares some early considerations: "Demons were on the table. We had another pitch that involved angelic beings coming down to judge everything. These didn't fit. Dragons had good strong base. "

I assume those would have been mursaat: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mursaat
Art from GW1: Saul D'Alessio with a mursaat looming over him

Mursaat as seen on GW1:

[Lane]

Your playing in a classic fantasy universe. <snip> If you think its getting old then stop playing classic fantasy RPG's.

Just because it's "classic fantasy" doesn't mean it has to look like it's copied & pasted from one game to the next. What about Tera? Is it not considered "classic fantasy"? I don't recall any dragons, or centaurs, or even bandits per se. If they were there then obviously I wasn't beat upside the head with them or I'd remember. :P

According CE book, at the early phase of the game Anet was actually thinking about making demons the main villains. But then they went to dragons.

Ugh. I really wish they'd gone with demons. Between WoW and Rift I am so sick to death of dragons and now they're the main baddies in GW2 as well. It's especially bad when in so-called "classic fantasy" you have a choice and you still choose to do what everyone else is doing.

[Fencers]

OP is not concise at all. That's like the opposite of concise, to be honest. Slightly irksome use of the word.

Ack! My Oxford's!



Serious business time:

This forum is not a blog. We have many threads on the pros/cons of the game at length.

Thread closed.

-- Fencers