My GW2 review (+ and -)

**Nephlim** · 2012-10-02, 04:04 AM

I have been playing GW2 almost 4 -5 hours a day since release and, although, I love the game i find that it lacks some pieces of an MMO, while it excels at other aspects. For quick reference on my MMO experience; SWG, WoW, Eve, EQ1&2, and DDO. These are one players opinion and everyone is welcome to their own lets not turn this into a game versus game thread.

GW2 Pros:

1. Art and game aesthetic in GW2 is probably the best in its genre, it is very consistent and fluid through the entire game. Zones are done with pain staking detail and there is very little "recycling" of textures. The art team at Anet gets a tip of the hat from me the game isn't bland like some other mmos on the market to day and it brings life to the game world.

2. Class diversity, in GW2 a Mesmer and a Necromancer are two largely different classes, even though they are both caster arch types they play extremely different. This is true of most classes in GW2 and is refreshing to see the developers have unique abilities based on class rather than cloned abilities with different animations.

3. Player driven entertainment. In most MMO's entertainment comes in whatever form the game present to you as "right." GW2 takes a different approach, it gives you all the options up front and says hey go pick what you want to do. Its the only MMO that I've played (with the exception of artisans in SWG pre NGE) that you could level to max without EVER actually killing anything. The only gripe I have on this is theres only a limited amount of Vistas and Poi's in the game, I wish you could review them (with an xp award) weekly or something to give players a reason to go there twice.

4. sPvP. Not FANTASTIC but its fun, if your tired of WvWvW give it a try. It gives you hope.

5. Content difficulty, while you will see this in my cons sections as well difficult content is productive for and required for any good MMO. Anet understands this and the scaling system is a great way to keep content relevant and your player base busy.

Cons:

1. Content difficulty, while it is good for keeping your players entertained there is a point to where the content isn't difficult for the right reasons. For example in AC there is an event (in option 1) where you have to kill 6 burrows as they spawn. I was soloing a burrow at the same speed as my 4 other teammates not because I'm better than them but because Anet has managed to make the WORST POSSIBLE hit-boxes in the universe. This kind of difficulty isn't fun for your players its frustrating. Also, I'm hoping scaling is still being tweaked because even scaled down in zones I (as a warrior) can 2-3 shot mobs where my necro friend hits like a wet noodle on the same mob.

2. There just plain isn't enough to do right now for hardcore players. I already have 100% map completion, my full Exotic set (in the style I like) and have completed every jumping puzzle in the game. I'm working on my legendary right now but the ONLY difficult part about that is raising the gold since you can essentially buy it if your rich enough. I log in and go run a farming circle around Orr and then log out, play 4 games of LoL (to pass the time it takes orchiarium to respawn) and re-do my farming route.

3. WvWvW. Its abysmal (in my opinion) it lacks the depth of GW1, all you really do is watch two huge clusters run into each other and see who has more AoE (or was smart enough to put down an arrow cart). Assaulting any structure is the same, kill the boiling tar pot, put down ram (oh no they have a catapult on other side, put down balista), if you don't have a cluster with more AoE hit you, you win. They need to add something more to WvWvW for it to be interesting. I mean heck even if they added enemy player clipping (where you could actively block people) it would have a billion times more strategy.

4. Glitches. I mean your last boss was glitched. People always bring up Deathwing from wow and say "if he was glitched" and people always counter with "Arah is not a raid." No, just no. I don't care if its Bowser from Mario 64, to Deathwing, to a Kryat Dragon in SWG. If its the highest level thing in the game MAKE SURE IT WORKS. And yes I know of the lvl 500 dark jedi in SWG but he's just an a-hole so I don't bring him up.

5. End game is "cosmetic", but there are a total of 54 different heavy chests pieces in the game from 1-80, and of those 54 they aren't even unique. For example "Duelist Patrol Breastplate" and "Tor's Chain Coat" are the EXACT same model. I'd love for someone to compile images of all the heavy armor available (as many are missing) so we can see exactly how many options we really have, I fear its far less than we expect.

6. Time investment reward. Some tasks (dungeons for example) have you sink 20-30 minutes into them an you get crap, I only run them when a guild needs help now because if I farm for 20-30 minutes I could make 1-3g and buy an item thats actually worth something. I'm not saying we need an exotic on every run, but would a rare every 3 or so be nice? You bet.

7. Dynamic events. There is nothing Dynamic about any of them they are literally ALL zerg objective, kill monster, profit. I'd love to see and event where 5 people have to stand in certain spots and make some careful jumps, or play a game of simon says, or whatever. Monster Zerg is just repetitive.

TD;LR
GW2 while a great game has many flaws, is it revolutionary? No.
Is it a good buy? I'd say so.
Will it replace your MMO craving? Unfortunately I don't see that happening in the long term.
That being said I'll log in tomorrow morning to do my Orr farming run...

**Meledelion** · 2012-10-02, 04:09 AM

Constructive post, ty for this. (i agree with you for 99%)

**theredviola** · 2012-10-02, 04:27 AM

I approve of your post good sir. I agree with all your points. It's far from a "perfect" game (because no game will be), but it is indeed worth $60. I'm certainly getting my money's worth out of it, and I'm glad that it seems you got yours too.

**Bodygrinder** · 2012-10-02, 05:20 AM

I agree with most of your post OP but I still have yet to understand why an MMO needs an endgame. Playing WoW for 6 years and multiple others also, I've loved that weight of endgame gear grinding off my shoulders, yet again this is a matter of opinion. I'm happily playing at 80 on my necro running dungeons with my brothers and friends getting the shards for the gear that I want rather than need. When I'm not running dungeons I usually hit up some exotic crafting and WvW, hell I go into sPvP when I feel like it and on top of that I have alts (I haven't even started a few races in their story) so I don't have any shortage of stuff to do in-game.

Now I get what you're saying, you want a MMO like WoW where you can be a hardcore dragonslayer, this is just not that kind of game sorry. This game really supports people wanting a casual yet deep MMO, not a monster sucking money and time from you (both I can not spare anymore.) This is still up for debate but I can honestly say in terms of leveling and world immersion this game has it down to a science (notice I agree with the mindless zerging being boring.) It's still very new to the scene and I hope for better dynamic events in the future.

No hard feelings but that's how I see it.

**kronpas** · 2012-10-02, 06:32 AM

It does not have an end game as WoW and its clone, but it doesnt have a rich sandbox experience of EVE online either. Thats the biggest issue of me with GW2. Basically, your choice is limited, and the only thing you can pursue is pvp (sPvP and WvW). Explorer mode is fun, but it can only do so much.

Deleted · 2012-10-02, 07:21 AM

I actually disagree with most of your points, both positive and negative.

On the positive side, I don't agree with point 2 for starters. I feel many classes play quite similar to each other, atleast as Melee in PvE. It all plays more or less the same, with a few quirks for each profession. Also point one... It's not ugly by any means, but atleast on my PC it's not a very good looking game either. Granted, I do have a lower end computer, running it on Medium, but there are many, many other games that look better. The artstyle is it's only saving grace.
Basicly, while it looks great on high end PC's, allot more could have been done on lower end PC's.

For your cons, I agree even less though.
Number 1 I would call bug on. I know the fight you are talking about there, and when there's a complete random chance that your attacks will hit or miss (when this otherwize is not the case), I'd say it's a bug. The Con when it comes to dungeons I would say mainly is the huge amounts of bugged encounters. I feel that these did not get anywhere near the amount of testing they needed before release.

2 and 3 I would personally go with "You are doing it wrong". When it comes to the amount of content (which I so far feel have been more then enough) the simple truth is that no dev can EVER develop content at the same pace as users can consume it. It's just not possible.
For WvWvW all I can say is that you probably play on the wrong server. In the games I play, there's lots of more tactics with upgraded keeps etc. Zerging will do very little against a good defense.
WvWvW comes with several other problems instead though, but i'll leave those out of this post, or people will consider me a whining sore loser.

4 & 5 agree 100%

6... This is completely a matter of taste, but personally I still have allot of FUN playing dungeons. I do agree that it's somewhat on the grindy side however. I can very much believe that you grow bored after a few runs, and you need ALLOT of runs for a full set. Still, personally I don't see the rewards as being such a problem, but I've always followed the idea that I don't do things I do not enjoy in games, no matter what rewards i'm given. What I would like to see is a few more rewards BEFORE i'm bored to death with the place.

Lastly, #7, which I believe is a design flaw in the game itself. The game is great fun when there is some 3-7ish players in the same area, but any more then that and it turns into a zerg fest. Group events and the big epic bosses not included ofcourse. Personally I generally stay away from overcrowded areas, but that also means that Orr is mostly off limits for me. Basicly, i'm sort of agreeing with you here, but I don't feel it's an issue with the events themselves - they are fun - but with event scaling, which only really work so far before it becomes a zerg fest.

**nocturnus** · 2012-10-02, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by Nephlim

6. Time investment reward. Some tasks (dungeons for example) have you sink 20-30 minutes into them an you get crap,

If you're doing dungeons for rewards you're playing the wrong game.

Originally Posted by Nephlim

7. Dynamic events. There is nothing Dynamic about any of them they are literally ALL zerg objective, kill monster, profit. I'd love to see and event where 5 people have to stand in certain spots and make some careful jumps, or play a game of simon says, or whatever. Monster Zerg is just repetitive.

Except, everything about them actually is dynamic. This was explained, in detail, in another thread. One of the first DEs in Asura territory requires you to play a game of golem-chess with another player (just one of the many, many examples). So "DEs are a monster zerg" is a pretty ignorant thing to say.

GW2 offers more than any other mmo's end-game counterpart. While other mmos offer 1 gated raid, with closed wings to impede 'hardcore' players from progressing too quickly, GW2 offers a butt-load of challenging and fun content from the get-go. I'll take that any day over repeating one raid for 6 months.

Also, I did all explorables with a group of friends. We've been having loads of fun and haven't noticed any 'bugs' whatsoever.

Anet doesn't force anyone to do anything in this game. This is what makes it the perfect mmo, to me.

**Karizee** · 2012-10-02, 09:56 AM

I agree with some of your points, the following is what I disagree with:

Limited amount of Vistas and POIs in the game.
With 266 Vistas and 717 POIs I would hardly call that limited. Also, you neglected to mention the 39 jump puzzles which in addition to being extremely fun also award chests and achievements and recurring achievement points. These sometimes have mini-bosses and some are even located in WvW with player driven traps against the other team, hellacious fun. You can earn chests everyday, plenty of replay value.

Content difficulty.
Difficulty is fine, the majority of challenges that people are facing is due to not understanding the mechanics or how aggro works, not understanding the need to play a more active/positional role and flat out learning the ins & outs of their professions and how to coordinate the cross-profession combos & finishers. But if you're looking for faceroll dungeons, I hear there are games that offer that kind of playstyle right now. In fact, all 8 of the dungeons another game launched were defeated immediately on launch day and I expect the raid that it is launching soon to have that one instance defeated the night it is released.

Not enough content for hardcore players.
It is a fresh MMO, launching with 25 dungeons is a damn fine start. In addition to the 26 fully replayable zones and 5 cities, there are over 200 achievements to earn, including daily and monthly cheeves. Open your achievement tab and check it out, I bet you find many areas you haven't even touched yet.

You can learn all 8 crafting disciplines on one toon, they each have hundreds of recipes: Armorsmith 900+, Artificer 600+, Cook 500+, Huntsman 1000+, Jeweler 400+, Leatherworker 800+, Tailor 800+ and Weaponsmith 1000+. Plenty to keep even the most hardcore of players busy for a long, long time and that's just crafting.

Then there is all the collecting you can do. Mini-pets (yes, pet battles are coming soon), around 400 dyes (which can be crafted with cooking), numerous novelty items (of which many can be used in WvW, dungeons, or jump puzzles btw - check it out), and mini-games like Keg Brawl.

The devs have made a commitment that they will have more free content than any subscription fee MMO, we will be getting our first ingame holiday event soon with The Mad King (halloween) and I fully expect to see another content patch with that. Does it have 8 years of content? Of course not, but as time goes on and they add patches, the brilliance of having content scaled to your level will become apparent. With other "progression" type MMOs that obsolete their content with every patch, you are left with one or two instances for months on end, GW2 will have the entirety of their game always relevent.

Really not sure what else you are looking for as far as having things to do at end game, you must be the hardest of hard core players to find yourself with nothing to do.

WvW lacking depth.
There are many competitive WvW guilds and alliances that would beg to differ with you on this. There are teams that are led by people with military backgrounds and use military strategies. Strong leadership and effective communication are key deciding factors in which servers are top on the leaderboards. With such varied terrain and so many choke point opportunities on the map, the zerg is easily countered with teamwork.

Glitches.
No game launches bug free and it was unfortunate that the code had a weakness in that certain players were maliciously bugging events. They launched a new patch tonight to address the majority of those events. Out of the 1500 events in the game, only a handful were being bugged and ANet is aggressively fixing these things.

Not enough cosmetic gear.
Google. That is all.

Time investment reward.
If you're not spam farming a dungeon and hitting Dimishing Returns, you get plenty of reward. You can increase your chances using Magic Find gear, runes, sigils, food, etc.

Dynamic events not dynamic.
I'm really wondering if you've played at this point? Have you done any of the events in the Asura areas? Or the Claw of Zormag in the Norn area? Have you passed by an area overrun with centaurs or krait understanding that happened because an event failed?

Orr farming.
With an entire relevant world why limit yourself to such a very small part of the game and approach it with such lackluster flair? That seems dreadfully boring and most unfun. I guess I could play another game, do nothing but fish alldayeveryday or farm bear butts and say there is nothing to do

**MrSerious** · 2012-10-02, 12:49 PM

interesting read but the one thing that stands out as perhaps inexperienced or unjustified is the WvW. Sure you could run with a bunch of random's zerging everywhere but WvW is actually a very complex battleground that requires well thought out tactics. You can use brute force, mass army (zerg), heavy siege, stealth, trickery to win. You can try and bleed them out of supplies and ambush routes into keeps.

I play with a small group and we are constantly taking out their supplies behind enemy lines to stop them upgrading keeps and castles.

I've seen diversions been used to pull defenders into one area of the map only to have the main force the other side.

I've seen enemies hidden within the walls to retake the keep after its been zerged.

I've seen huge numbers being pushed back by smaller forces with superior siege equipment

I've seen a smaller force trick the larger into charging only to be attacked from the rear and caught between two forces

I could go on, WvW is an interesting ever changing game. play it for a while and hopefully you'll see.

Deleted · 2012-10-02, 12:58 PM

I kinda agree, except for your opinion on WvWvW, I think it's amazing once you get some serious cooperation going on on your server, then it stops being "two zergs duking it out with aoe" and instead becomes "1 zerg chasing 5 smaller enemy groups, never catching one and losing everything in the process". I can agree that individual agency is not high enough, you feel like a cog in a large machinery, but that is also part of the beauty imo. I really enjoy WvWvW, though I need to find a new guild now that most of my friends have begun playing WoW again lol.

Deleted · 2012-10-02, 01:14 PM

I agree with most of your points but I want to quote this one.

Originally Posted by Nephlim

2. Class diversity, in GW2 a Mesmer and a Necromancer are two largely different classes, even though they are both caster arch types they play extremely different. This is true of most classes in GW2 and is refreshing to see the developers have unique abilities based on class rather than cloned abilities with different animations.

When some people says that without the trinity all classes plays the same and that there's no diversity, it's refreshing to see someone who sees the real deal.

Originally Posted by Nephlim

if I farm for 20-30 minutes I could make 1-3g and buy an item thats actually worth something.

Care to tell me your secret?

**rhinomatic** · 2012-10-02, 01:15 PM

WvW on an organized server is a blast. I play on Stormbluff Isle, and the past couple of weeks have been a hell of a lot of fun (if you ignore the 24-hour Denravi zerg nightcapping all of your bases). In fact, the only complaint I have about WvW is the little aside I mentioned there, where on a North American server it's the team with the most Europeans and Asians that ultimately wins.

Personally, I think the game is amazing. It's not perfect, it has a LOT of problems, but from what I can see, they're all problems that can (and will) be addressed, and aren't built into the game as a design philosophy. The bugs will get fixed, more content will be added, there will always be stuff to do.

**Nephlim** · 2012-10-02, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by nocturnus

Except, everything about them actually is dynamic. This was explained, in detail, in another thread. One of the first DEs in Asura territory requires you to play a game of golem-chess with another player (just one of the many, many examples). So "DEs are a monster zerg" is a pretty ignorant thing to say.

Thats a heart not a dynamic event.

**Abstieg** · 2012-10-02, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by rhinomatic

WvW on an organized server is a blast. I play on Stormbluff Isle, and the past couple of weeks have been a hell of a lot of fun (if you ignore the 24-hour Denravi zerg nightcapping all of your bases). In fact, the only complaint I have about WvW is the little aside I mentioned there, where on a North American server it's the team with the most Europeans and Asians that ultimately wins.

Personally, I think the game is amazing. It's not perfect, it has a LOT of problems, but from what I can see, they're all problems that can (and will) be addressed, and aren't built into the game as a design philosophy. The bugs will get fixed, more content will be added, there will always be stuff to do.

I wish you'd work with us (JQ) to wreck Denravi. They are evil.

**Nephlim** · 2012-10-02, 01:59 PM