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  1. #1

    My Problems with Guild Wars 2

    Spoilers inside.

    So first of all I've been very excited about this game since hearing about it. I quit World of Warcraft months before its release because I thought I would never consider playing it ever again. And yes, it is fun. Up to a point. I got to level 80 on the fourth day and was still having fun, since then I've been doing some explorable mode dungeons and World vs World. It is by no means a bad game and I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy it.

    I've had an undecided opinion on the personal story quest. I thought it was all a little cheesy, it was too easy in my opinion and the story made no sense half the time. And of course, Zhaitan, the main "boss" did a Deathwing all the way through the story. We saw him once. When we killed him. And it reminded me so much of Dragon Soul, right down to the fact that in the last dungeon, Arah, we jumped on gunships and did a couple of bosses before killing Zhaitan for good. This was a terrible instance, and I really expected ArenaNet to come up with something better. We had absolutely zero combat with Zhaitan, in fact, he gets shot by a laser cannon in a cutscene twice and then we finish him off while he's cowering like a little girl with cannons on a gunship. To say that it was a disappointment is an understatement.

    Secondly, every little feature that has been hyped up is hyped up way too much. "OH MY GOD UNDERWATER COMBAT" yes, it's stale and boring and it's the same old shit. "OH MY GOD SKILLS THAT CHANGE DEPENDING ON WHAT WEAPON YOU'RE USING?!?!?!" seriously, this one's bad. I have to choose what weapon to use based on what skills I want, and I can't mix and match. I have to put up with shit skills for other good skills because we can't change them. "OH MY GOD ALL CLASSES CAN HEAL" yeah. on a 20-40 second cooldown depending on what class you play and what healing ability you choose. "LEGENDARY WEAPONS!!!!!" they take more effort than WoW's legendaries, sure. But they're just cosmetic and well... some aren't even that great.

    My next problem is with the dungeons (explorable mode dungeons etc) let me guess, you're thinking "LOL he's gonna complain about how it's too hard." ah, wrong. It's all the same stuff. Every dungeon. And because of the fact that there's no holy trinity, it means all classes are meant to avoid damage. Which means 99% of the time in an explorable mode dungeon, mobs and bosses are running around like headless chickens because they don't know what to do, who to attack. The problem with this is that there's never tactics to take down a boss, and when there are tactics, the most it'll ever be is "dodge this" ... "dodge away from that dude" ... "oh that thing on the wall is breathing fire at you... better dodge away".

    Of course the dungeons are hard but they're hard for the wrong reasons. Sometimes you can't do anything but run away because non-avoidable damage is inevitable and your heal is still on cooldown for the next 15 seconds. When I first heard that all classes could heal I initially thought we'd have to find the right balance between healing and damage to max throughput etc and survivability. I never expected that we'd have to wait 30 seconds between our heals. The problem with this is that dungeons are designed so that your health effectively lasts 30-45 seconds and well that affects the difficulty in a negative way (in my opinion) it limits the difficulty of a dungeon, otherwise it would just be too hard (and of course even if it could be harder you'd just be dodging more stuff anyway)

    Well the combat is just the same as any other game in my opinion, but with the addition of a dodge move. This is NOTHING SPECIAL. All it is is an evade button that you can use twice and then wait for it to recharge. It just has a fancy animation, is all. This doesn't make the combat any more "action-ish" or however you want to put it. In fact, the combat is too slow, especially in PvP. Because of the 30 second heal thing that I've talked about already it's basically who can do the most damage first. There's a serious lack of control abilities for most classes.

    Oh, have I mentioned the downed state. I really feel like this doesn't have any place in PvP at all. I think it's one of the most stupid mechanics to ever be placed in a game ever. In a lot of cases, it's just delaying the inevitable. You can't effectively do anything while down except wait for someone to waltz over and heal you, or of course you can wait until you're dead (or if by some miracle you get out of combat heal yourself and get back up again) but sometimes I really hate it. Especially in World vs World where your whole team tries to "finish them" and of course get nuked the shit out of by AoEs while they're effectively useless because of course, we must finish someone off by stabbing a banner through their heart or kill their second health pool, it's kind of unfair that I've beaten them to within an inch of their life and they're still laughing at me and throwing rocks. It ruins any kind of 1 vs multiple PvP, because even if you've knocked one guy into the downed state fair and square when you're outnumbered, it's still an unfair fight even when you're obviously the better player since you haven't died yet. After that, you're done for. If you take the first guy out, guy 2 will kill you while you're performing your pointless takedown animation. Of course, instead you could whack the second guy and keep the first guy in combat so he can't heal but there's nothing you can do if guy 2 decides to start healing guy 1 because of course with a lack of control abilities it's almost inevitable that guy 1 will return with 50% health. Even if you withstand minutes of combat with 2 people and they both return several times if you even go down once you're fucking dead.
    It feels like I've been ranting about this for a while now and still haven't even outlined my entire problems with the downed state, so I'll stop now. I think it's cool in PvE but in PvP it can suck a dick.

    "There's no grinding in Guild Wars 2" Yeah, sure. The personal story feels like a grind to finish it, because there's a distinct lack of any sort of hard content and there's also a very real lack of a decent storyline. The heart quests are disguised grinds that you can't know exactly how much you need to do to finish it, and so are dynamic events. Escort events are all the same, often escorting a dolyak or equivalent down a path while you face several waves of centaurs or whatever (depending on what zone you're in) there's invasion events, where the enemies come to you instead of you finding them, while you have to deplete their morale. Let me find the grind in there. Each mob that dies reduces the enemy morale by 4%, so if you work out 100% / 4 and flip the text it's actually "kill 25 centaurs".

    I have no motivation to do any dungeons because all story modes suck balls as much as the personal story quests, and all of the explorable mode dungeons are the same stuff "kill this dodge this" - the only reasonable dungeon is Twilight Arbor which I've been farming recently for the Nightmare gear. It takes over 45 runs to get a full set of Nightmare gear, if that's not a grind I don't know what is. I don't even have any motivation to do sPVP, because the tournament rewards are fucking shit, and there's no sense of progression because there's literally no rewards. Oh, except maybe a Glory rank that is entirely useless. I can't even be bothered to do World vs World because it's just the same, and in fact the most action is at midnight when the server lineup changes and the zerg enters Eternal Battlegrounds. Of course, it's not much fun because it's just 100 people zerging their way through everything, at 1 fps on even a high end PC.

    When I first saw the Mists of Pandaria expansion, I thought, what a joke. There's no way I'm playing something that fucking pathetic, but here I am, and I'm buying MoP. What I thought was the salvation I was looking for when it came to MMORPGs, all it has done is driven me closer to something that I would have rather given up entirely.

  2. #2
    TL;DR Shit got boring

    Please post productively. Infracted. -Edge
    Last edited by Edge-; 2012-09-10 at 08:00 PM.

  3. #3
    Immortal SirRobin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Waltzinblack View Post
    My Problems with Guild Wars 2
    Mounts, I'm still not convinced that no mounts is a good thing. At least in WvW. Those zones are so big that it can take longer than I would like to get around. More gear variety at lower levels would be nice too. More money from WvW and some sort of auto-loot thing. If we are getting hammered my repair costs start adding up and I often don't notice those little bags appearing next to my feet. Other than that? I'm good.
    Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot.
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    And who had personally wet himself, at the Battle of Badon Hill.

  4. #4
    You do realize you have now classified most games as grinds, right?

    Once, there were things called "hunts". They made you kill 10 rats, so you could get better and kill 10 rabbits, to get better, to kill 10 boars, to kill 10 wolves, to kill, to kill, to kill, blablabla, to kill 1000 dragons down the road probably. There were very few quests. WoW was one of the first games (I think?) that made lots of hubs with quests everywhere, and it lead to quests being a evolution (not revolution mind you) to grinds. It wasn't that you didn't do the same thing, but it gave context and a sense of greater purpose, which is what I call "Presentation". Quests are an evolution in Presentation from the plain hunts. Dynamic Events is the next step in Presentation.

  5. #5
    Next time don't write off WoW so quickly like alot of people did. There's alot of good content and mechanics in that game.

  6. #6
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    In other words, your problem with GW2 is that you don't like most of their design choices. That's fine. You can't please everybody.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Arrowstorm View Post
    Dynamic Events is the next step in Presentation.
    They could be, but they aren't the way they are now. No story = bad. Most events are like "There's a guy coming along the street and a text pops up that tells me to escort him. Who is that guy? Why does he want to go there? What are his goods? Why should I help him?... It gives Xp! Count me in"

  8. #8
    Grind? In a video game? No! /gasp.
    "I just wanted them to hand us our award! But they were just talk!, talk!, talk!......" - Wrathion

  9. #9
    Still better than the WoW clone type questing. Run here, talk to dudeman, get quest, kill 10 rats/boars/bears/bandits etc. No story in that either. Granted, GW2 also has this, just presented in a better way. Just like WoW took previous MMOs, added a quest system for a change, and became the standard.

    I dont care that much for the DE's, until earlier today I came by a hilarious one. One NPC was yelling at me that he needed help with a drake, so I talked to him and followed him. Came to find out he was leading me to a bandit camp, and I was basically drake food. The NPC lured me there to be the new batting toy for the drake, before it ate me.

    Haha, I have to admit, thats a pretty genius quest idea. This spawned a champion drake, and luckily there were a few people also running around that area. I backed off a bit until everyone else noticed it, and then jumped in when a few people arrived.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Mounts, I'm still not convinced that no mounts is a good thing. At least in WvW. Those zones are so big that it can take longer than I would like to get around. More gear variety at lower levels would be nice too. More money from WvW and some sort of auto-loot thing. If we are getting hammered my repair costs start adding up and I often don't notice those little bags appearing next to my feet. Other than that? I'm good.
    I agree with that the WvW map is huge and it takes a long time to get to a battle if you just joined; but if you add mounts then the epicness of the terrain and the size just diminishes.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Katsuragisama View Post
    Still better than the WoW clone type questing. Run here, talk to dudeman, get quest, kill 10 rats/boars/bears/bandits etc. No story in that either. Granted, GW2 also has this, just presented in a better way. Just like WoW took previous MMOs, added a quest system for a change, and became the standard.
    Meh, I still think that the story in WoW is way better than the one in GW.

    Why did I have to erase graffiti in Beetletun again? How did that help the Seraphs fighting the Centaurs?.. oh well.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Ninaran View Post
    Meh, I still think that the story in WoW is way better than the one in GW.

    Why did I have to erase graffiti in Beetletun again? How did that help the Seraphs fighting the Centaurs?.. oh well.

    Morale, respect of desecration, moral Justice.

    I'm not sure about that quest, but in the one I did it explained it pretty well.

  13. #13
    Old God Shampro's Avatar
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    inb4 the guy gets flamed.

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    Last edited by Edge-; 2012-09-10 at 09:45 PM.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Hmm, I agree with pretty much everything you said. And that makes me a bit sad. My enjoyment of the game was diminishing a bit, but then I watched Angry Joe's GW2 review on YouTube and thought "FUCK YEAH GW2 is AWESOME". And then I logged in, and I was like "Aw man. It's nice and shiny, but it's missing something."

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Ninaran View Post
    They could be, but they aren't the way they are now. No story = bad. Most events are like "There's a guy coming along the street and a text pops up that tells me to escort him. Who is that guy? Why does he want to go there? What are his goods? Why should I help him?... It gives Xp! Count me in"
    This is incorrect. Just because you're ignorant of any backstory/story going on doesn't mean there isn't any. There is SO much story involved, and some of the events happen by just talking to NPCs (and no, I don't mean the ones with the Circle/Star over their head). Ever follow an NPC after an event? Or see where they come from sometimes? Or talk during, or to people around them? I've seen story. Of course some are going to be "Bandits are attacking, so save this", but there's a reason why they're attacking.

    @OP: Not for you, that's cool. Your opinions are pretty general and lacking in information, but that's okay. And your downed-state hate is so rage-filled its hilarious. I don't know if you realize you don't need to pounce on people to kill them, nor would anyone come in to heal/res someone when you're there because your damage output would easily overtake their healing power on the downed-state person. Ever see someone keep people in the downed state in sPvP? It's...ridiculous.

    Have fun in Pandaria, looks like it'll be cool imo. Might pick it up at some point.
    Last edited by WorldofWorkcraft; 2012-09-10 at 07:31 PM.

  16. #16
    I mean all of that opinion is fine, your choice of course. But I don't get what you said at the end. What does one game have to do with another? If you didn't want to play wow, what does your disappointment with GW2 have to do with your choice of playing WoW? Reminds me of heroine addicts.

  17. #17
    The Undying Cthulhu 2020's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Mounts, I'm still not convinced that no mounts is a good thing. At least in WvW. Those zones are so big that it can take longer than I would like to get around. More gear variety at lower levels would be nice too. More money from WvW and some sort of auto-loot thing. If we are getting hammered my repair costs start adding up and I often don't notice those little bags appearing next to my feet. Other than that? I'm good.
    I see the complaint a lot that in WvW there needs to be a faster travel system. That's the entire balancing point of WvW. If you could speed from one point to another, there wouldn't be a point to sneak attacks because you could be at any keep at all in a matter of seconds. Also, you're on the other side of the map, someone sneak attacks a keep, you're about 3 minutes from getting to that keep, whereas if you were on a mount you could make it in half that time. Also I see a lot of people complain that there needs to be more waypoint spawns for when they die, when that's another balancing point. Considering how hard it is to die already (unless you're completely alone and a giant force rolls over you) death has to mean something. There's no real point in killing anyone strategically if they can just res right where you killed them.

    It's actually better than it was in DAoC (a game that WvW is heavily based upon). If you died, you were teleported back to your homeland, and you had to buy a 1s necklace and stand on a pad, and every 15 minutes there would be a bunch of wizards that came down that teleported everyone on the pad to the keep/castle PvP zone who was wearing a necklace, so death was even closer to a real warzone in DAoC than it is in GW2.
    Last edited by Cthulhu 2020; 2012-09-10 at 07:34 PM.
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  18. #18
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ninaran View Post
    They could be, but they aren't the way they are now. No story = bad. Most events are like "There's a guy coming along the street and a text pops up that tells me to escort him. Who is that guy? Why does he want to go there? What are his goods? Why should I help him?... It gives Xp! Count me in"
    The story is there, actually, if you care to look. You may not know those details, but your character does. The game itself just skips over some steps, and makes them entirely optional. If you care to know the details as well, you only have to look.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-09-10 at 07:49 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  19. #19
    I like GW2 quite a bit. I'm only level 20 so far, but the gameplay in the early levels is quite amazing. The reason for that is that I can just start wandering, and I will find constant reward. I'll find random encounters and dynamic events. I'll see a herd of players going somewhere, and follow them. This usually leads to something fun. Everything is set up to encourage cooperation, where in WoW most of the time you see a player it is bad. They will steal your ore or steal your mobs, but in GW2 they can't. This has made me pay attention to the gameplay and story more, because I'm not worrying about if I went from A to B to C correctly or not.

    Things I would say GW2 doesn't do as good as WoW would be tactical raiding. I've gone on some pretty amazing and fun raids in WoW, which required a solid use of tactics to beat. As much as I LOVE the mayhem and struggle of dynamic events, hearing about chaotic raids just sounds less impressive. I guess I will need to try it for myself, but I did the fire elemental boss and that was a terrible experience. I prefer tactics on a big boss battle, over just throwing bodies at it until we win.

    All in all, I love both games but for some different reasons.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Mounts, I'm still not convinced that no mounts is a good thing. At least in WvW. Those zones are so big that it can take longer than I would like to get around. More gear variety at lower levels would be nice too. More money from WvW and some sort of auto-loot thing. If we are getting hammered my repair costs start adding up and I often don't notice those little bags appearing next to my feet. Other than that? I'm good.
    Mounts killed wow world pvp.
    If you get back to the battle 10 seconds after you died then whats the point of killing anyone?

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