What you LIKE and DISLIKE about GW2

[Deleted]

What do you like in Guild Wars 2 and dislike?

LIKE -

x Map Design - I love the fact that they made the game look great visually and made it seem like it has a lot of character, each area looks different than the previous area.
x Dynamic Fighting - Dodging attacks instead of just staying in one spot pressing a few buttons is pretty refreshing and increases the skill cap.
x Community - Honestly, from the limited amount I have played the game so far, the community actually seems nice which is good to see because I've come from WoW which is filled with tools lol.
x PvP - WvW is pretty cool and different.
x Removing the 'holy trinity' - I remember having to wait SO long to find the right mix of healers and Tanks in WoW, at least this allows most players in though there are profession preferences from what I have read which ensures that the DEVS need to make sure your profession is balanced or in a good spot or another profession will be chosen. Rangers from what I have heard suck in terms of damage and there is no point in bringing them over a Warrior. In WoW, if your class had crap DPS you could sometimes to a spec which could be viable or go healer/tank with your class if you were a hybrid. In this it seems if your profession lacks damage, there is nothing you can do about it and you are forced to be mediocre even if you play your class flawlessly where you see a warrior who is average do better than you and offer more to the group.

DISLIKE -

x Lack of Raids - For me its partly what made WoW special, the raiding environment in a 10/25 man was pretty epic and downing those bosses in big raids was pretty epic.
x The movement - It's something WoW does pretty flawlessly IMO, the movement/animation in this game does not seem as good and sharp.
x The terrible introduction - It does not do a good job of introducing noobs to the game in terms of questing (where to quest) and basic things such as where to go for what, how to sell things etc etc.
x The Story - It seems ridiculously corny in many areas though I have only started the Human Story (level 28 atm). Though I do enjoy the cut scenes and how your decisions impact the story. Also I thought we would be able to see more of Ascalon City apart from the ruined walls. It plays such a big part in the lore so that would have been cool.

BARE in mind, I have just started the game so these views could change in the future.

[Buxton McGraff]

I liked pretty much everything other than: No mounts, weapons decide your abilities, you had every damaging ability you'd ever have by the time you were level 5, no raids, no holy trinity, no gear treadmill.

[Deleted]

It's not about likes or dislikes so much as "lost opportunities".

I like most parts of the game, I think some things could have been done better.

Highlights:
- Absence of Loot / Mob tagging.
- Scaling to your friends level when visiting lower zones (downleveling) while keeping rewards appropriate for both.
- Inventory management, resources straight to the bank, craft + bank integration that whole system is brilliant.
- Zones, exploration, puzzles.

Could be done better:
- Their replacement of holy trinity with combos + combo finishers.
It's obvious they were going for some sort of meaningful group synergy there, what with giving some professions a ton of finishers but very few fields and others a ton of fields but very few finishers and some in between.
Unfortunately the system is very underdeveloped and obscure, no one is forming groups based on combo-field coverage which makes the whole group synergy "flat" and zergy.
- Large scale group content.
Again the element of co-operation is lacking. It's like LFR, everyone is doing their own thing, in the end the boss dies.
For me raids = organized groups, strategy, assigning tasks etc, whether it's a dungeon crawler or open world makes no difference but those elements of organization need to be there to name something "raid" for me.
- Ability to set a bind point "home".
- UI customization.
At least let us remap main abilities after they are unlocked. Let us see "inactive" abilities and cooldowns too (the other weapon set) to facilitate swapping.

Needs scraping:
- Downed state.
I honestly would like to have a suggestion on how to fix it but everything I come up with I feel "why bother, it's just a bad feature".

Also a general comment, I've seen alot of posters complaining about the lack of mounts, I honestly haven't missed them.
After you visit the pvp area and get through the tutorial, you can port to Lion's Arch from anywhere in the world for free and from there gate to any of the other cities, bringing you extremely close to your destination.
This is available from the very low levels, where currency somewhat matters and you wouldn't want to be using the map waypoint system extensively.
From there you can use the waypoints if you want to instantly port but running is not so time consuming and cheaper.

[Fencers]

Likes:
- General world feel
- Dynamic events
- Normalized PVP
- Character creator
- Game wide auction house
- Collections tab
- Non linear zone progression
- Dye patches on gear
-Total leveling through crafting

Dislikes:
- Singular classes
- UI in general
- Cosmetic gear options are limited
- Slow running speed

Mehs:
- Dungeons
- Jumping Puzzles
- Combat in general
- Personal Story

[Karizee]

Likes:
• The artwork is a no brainer, it’s simply stunning.
• Buy to play model - I will never pay a sub fee again.
• The combat is genius, you can play on a superficial level or go deep into theorycrafting. Movement/casting in combat feels effortless, I can never play a turret casting shadowbolts again.
• The community is hands down the best bunch of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing with. It’s interesting how the game systems and mechanics are designed to support teamwork and a positive community – these folks really put some thought into this.
• They’ve done a great job with balancing no gear grind vs. endgame goals. I don’t feel like I have to work towards my endgame goals every session, yet there are lofty ambitions to satisfy.
• Sidekicking.
• A ridiculously high quality and quantity of animations.
• Upleveling in PvP as well as instant access to best in-slot gear.
• Legendary weapons will always be BIS. No replacing them next tier.
• Dynamic Events - old questing systems look so stale now.
• Jumping puzzles - some of the best fun I've had in the game.
• 400+ dyes for your gear. Gear customization.
• World wide auction house.
• WvWvW – this is the epic week long battle we’ve been yearning for
• Let’s me use in game gold for cash shop items
• No server downtime for maintenance - new builds download instantly and I'm back in the game.
• Overflow system means no queues to play
• Shared nodes
• Dungeons that are actually challenging
• Detailed/custom character creation
• Waypoint travel
• Flat leveling curve
• Player rezzing & downed state - it's a good feel thing in addition to being an interesting mechanic in dungeons.
• Transfer costs – 1 price for all toons (can use ingame gold for that too!)
• Legendary weapons - my gawd, what can you say when you see the Flameseeker Prophecies?
• Open world exploration - fun finding all the secret places and puzzles in the game, you never know what you will find behind a bush or waterfall.



Dislikes:
• Culling - where the game doesn't load all players in your view until you are practically on top of them. Good news is a fix is coming this month for WvW. Bad news is the fix won't be in for the rest of the world til later this year.
• Lack of Guild Tools - Guilds need some loving, show last online, better GMOTD, mass mail to members, guild calendar, etc.
• Limited mail box - Your box can only hold 10 personal mails. Need more room for mails I want to keep.
• Downscaling needs adjusting - low level mobs & world bosses are too easy to kill.

[BlairPhoenix]

LIKES:
* No Mob Tagging
* No node Stealing
* Downranking
* Buy to Play model
* Dye system

DISLIKE:
* Trait system
* Lack of Cosmetic Rewards
* The story
* The bare bones Home Instance
* Bugs

[Nurvus]

Like:
- Most things inherited from GW1 intact or with little modification, such as the concept of universal bonuses/penalties.
- Skills linked to Weapons
- Dodge Mechanic (even though there should be more stuff you can do with Endurance)
- Sylvari, a refreshing race concept in the MMO genre.
- World Design.
- Dyes
- Jumping Puzzles

Dislike:
- Gear Transmutation. WoW implemented it after GW2 announced it, and yet WoW did it better in every way.
- Most mechanics that replaced GW1 mechanics, often in a WoW'ish manner.
- Trash Items (called Trophies). At least in GW1, there were collectors.
- Insane focus on kiting.
- WoW-like gear progression.
- Downleveling. Why implement levels and then downleveling? They should never have implemented levels to begin with.
- Condition stacking mechanics. Penalizes teamwork.
- Skill system is a mere shadow of GW1, and I'm only counting the Prophecies Campaign.
- Traits are very poorly designed. There's an illusion of variety, but in the end there are a few combinations of synergic traits, and trying to deviate from it is foolish.
- Itemization is bland and boring.
- Holy Trinity isn't gone at all. It's simply disguised.
- The world isn't dynamic at all. It still "doesn't care that you're there".
- There are no "short" characters, there's just "tall" and "downsized tall". Tiny feet and hands, long limbs and huge necks.
---

All in all, ANet has shot themselves in the foot.
They added the Dodge mechanic, wich supposedly adds a higher skill cap to the game, but then they went and simplified so many things, and made the skill interactions so no-brainer, that the game doesn't require half as much skill as WoW.
I find it laughable that they want to be an e-sport. Just hilarious.

They make fun of all kinds of stuff found in WoW, and then they do the same thing, but disguised.
---

[Serj Tankian]

Likes:
- The world events are really nice and nice way to level instead of questing.
- Scaling down to lower level zones.
- Jumping puzzles.
- Dodge mechanic.
- Being able to dye your armour.

Dislikes:
Pretty much the rest of the game which I didn't mention in my Likes about it.

[Lazuli]

Like:
human females

Dislike:
everything else, from culling to combat to the massive grinds, pretty much everything.

My #1 dislike is how the game completely revolves around dailies.

[Deleted]

Likes:
- Dynamic events
- Character creator
- Collections tab
- Non linear zone progression
- Dye patches on gear
- Visuals


Dislikes:
- UI
- Cosmetic gear options are limited
- Slow running speed
- Lack of build diversity
- Linear classes
- Dungeons in general
- Emphasis on DPS
- Class Balance
- Classes in general, none of the classes interested me
- Fractals... shudders
- Majority of PVE content
- World bosses
- Casual ethos
- Personal story inconsistency ( as a charr it stopped me from doing the story after 30+ ).
- Lack of challenging content
- Lack of guild features

[Achaman]

dont like the being downleveled nor the events and the lack of heart quests just makes you do the same event over and over to get enough exp for the next area... id rather be able to do the boring quests




oh i like the dye system i just wish i didnt have to recollect them all again on every new character same with the world explore achie having to see and do everything again is just plain annoying

[Splatter]

Likes:
- Dynamic events
- Character creator / initial story lines
- Collections tab / massive shared bank
- Dyes for gear
- Ability change based on weapons
- Zones/scenery
- Crafting system discovery of new recipes/actually useful items

Dislikes:
- Crafting system grind and insane amount of mats etc needed (probably due to exp from crafting and a need to not make it too efficient)
- Combat system
- Dungeons in general
- Emphasis on DPS/ lack of trinity or well balanced non trinity system.
- Majority of PVE content / "questing" system
- Casual ethos
- PvE same boring grind regardless of what level you are. Atleast with other MMO's you hit max levels and the grind stops or changes direction.
- Nothing to break up the leveling process besides dynamic events / lacking in dungeons etc to help with the process.
- Down leveling
- Pretty much everything else. Personally I felt this game failed to even get close to its potential.

[Mavecryst]

Likes:

-Art and music are amazing.
-Combat animations are quite good (melee especially are done better than other western MMOs - not as good yet as eastern MMOs but still a nice step forward).
-Environments are capable of stopping me many times just to take a screenshot, only to find an even nicer place to look at later.
-Joy of exploration - coming across a veteran mob hiding a chest, or a jumping puzzle by chance, or dynamic event that helps you take down a champion mob.. I love exploring, and I love exploring in this game
-All classes are viable to play in the different roles and yet maintain their unique feel, I think this was done very well on Anet's part. Balance itself is another issue, but honestly those just sound like "first world problems" to me. Every class I've played thus far (thief, warrior, mesmer, ele) seem to do fairly well play support (boons/conditions) build, or glass cannon build, or survival builds, or hybrids (I like changing playstyle alot :P)

Dislikes
-Zergs at the more popular group events
-Personal story could've been done better for certain races. I like the Asura one but can't stand the Sylvari one..
-Respawn timers when you're soloing. I can't afford to die at all, because if I have to rezz it's going to require clearing the area again (if I'm just going for one target).. I really think the timers are unreasonable. Many times, I end up just running in the middle of a camp, hiding out behind some rock or tent or something and waiting for the majority to *hopefully* de-aggro and burn down the remainders. Not really fun.

[Deleted]

oh I like the dye system i just wish I didn't have to recollect them all again on every new character...

I agree with this! I love the GW2, all of it! But the dyes should be available in all chars after we use one!

[Fencers]

Originally the dye system was account wide. Anet changed character bound in order to extent the longevity of the game.

[Deleted]

Likes:
- Nice graphics
- Nice large world (cities are especially nice)
- No mounts
- combat system (very fluid, makes many MMOs seem very static, very slow paced)
- Some of aspects of UI (the whole depoisting resources, right click items into TP, speeded up crafting, etc), could do with a bit more leeway in customisation, but I guess as their original intent was e-sport that is the reason for this.
- No addons (fed up of games that take zero skill and where addons play the game for players)
- No macros. (see point above)
- Relatively grind free.
- Jumping puzzles.
- That the instantced PvP has normalized gear, somethign that evey good PvP game has (MOBAs, FPS, RTS, etc).

Dislike

- That their pre-sales promotion of the game was pretty much mis-selling in regards to certain aspects (no gear treadmill, sPvP as an e-sport was realeased in alpha state lacking many features, "play your way", etc)
- WvW turned out to pretty badly designed, with small maps, performance issues, lack of depth, very zergy, etc.
- The game was released way before it was ready, hundreds of class bugs, missing features in sPvP, hundreds of DE bugged, etc.
- They are very, very slow at fixing bugs, that there are still numerous class bugs 7 months on, is pretty pathetic.
- I do sometimes miss the total change of playstyle a healer (or certain support classes) gives
- Playerbase is not particualy impressive, PvE too many WoW kids, PvP too many LoL kids, neither is a good thing.

[dragnipur]

Likes:
-the engine and how the patches are applied
-the removal of need to have maintaince
-charactor creation
-The gem shop
-overflow
-up/down scaling
-guesting
-equal gear in sPvP
-cross server chat and instances
-jumping puzzles
Dislike:
-hot join
-loading screens,legendary grind
-the flying numbers and the active spell when doing dmg(they cover the whole mob and i can't see sometimes its animations which can kill me)

[Achaman]

Originally the dye system was account wide. Anet changed character bound in order to extent the longevity of the game.

"longevity" pfft yeah right..

[Deleted]

Like:
-Combat simplicity
-Dynamic events and subsequent change in game world
-Flexibility of dailies without you actually needing to do them
-Extent of character customisation
-Overflow map mechanics
-Guesting
-Lack of mounts

Decent but needs improving:
-Downscaling: Honestly, you still feel like death, destroyer of worlds when you're scaled down.
-Jumping Puzzles: Still some clunkiness in these, some balance problems that involve the engine e.g. one in Diessa where you could not actually jump a gap without swiftness because of constant (kill it and it instantly respawns) respawns.
-Elite Skills: Often, they don't feel elite at all. Many classes sometimes only have 1 decent elite skill and racial skills are pretty sucky, all things considered.
-Underwater combat: Some skills just counteract the way you have to fight underwater. For example, elementalist fire ability 1 is poor because the real damage is waiting for the magma glob to explode, which requires your enemy to stay still, which requires you to stay still, so you have to sit there taking hits in the face for your ability to be any good.

Dislike:
-WvW. Honestly, I just think it's a massive piece of crap. Maps are copy + paste, siege leaves a lot to be desired, it doesn't even feel like PvP because of the anonymity of who you're fighting, the upscaling is piss poor, there's no effective strategy unless you're in a premade guild group, map chat is often toxic and it's zerg central.
-Gated content. Fractals of the mists require you to do the previous levels before the higher levels. Means you have to find a group for level 1 if you're starting. This is not easy. Same with explorables, you have to find a group for the story modes first, which can literally take hours and your group might not even succeed. This, for me, is just irritating and time wasting.
-PvE imbalance. Not often something that comes up, but if you play many different professions, you'll realise quickly that some are just better at dealing with certain mobs. Unfortunately, some play styles are entirely based around dealing with a certain enemy type which you might not fight that much. If you're kiting and you're fighting undead, GG. Risen Thralls run far too quickly, hit far too hard and reduce healing. 'Meeeh you're bad.' doesn't come into it, they're just really irritating to deal with. I don't mind big attacks that kill you if you don't dodge. I DO mind enemies that you can't get away from that deal tonnes of unavoidable damage and reduce your healing.

[Karizee]

L
-Gated content. Fractals of the mists require you to do the previous levels before the higher levels. Means you have to find a group for level 1 if you're starting. This is not easy. Same with explorables, you have to find a group for the story modes first, which can literally take hours and your group might not even succeed. This, for me, is just irritating and time wasting.

Incorrect.

Players of any fractal level can group up together. When the dungeon is entered, players can choose any fractal level up to the highest fractal level in the party.

For explorable mode dungeons, only one person in the party needs to have completed story mode. That person starts the dungeon, picks explorable mode and everyone is in. Once inside the players choose which path they want to run.