Verdict on Guild Wars 2's innovations

[Deleted]

GW2 is a great game, I was pretty addicted to it until I went on holiday for 3 weeks - when I came back I just couldn't find a reason to play. 700 hours or so dropped in this game, 7 level 80s mostly exotic'ed, majority of dungeon paths complete, rank 25 in sPvP.

Now one thing I feel GW2 could have done a lot better is the heart questing system. It's supposed to be the next step up from traditional questing but I feel it was a step back.
It's boring and it does not make you feel involved with the lore/story of the world. Yes, you can say "the lore is all around you!" but other games manage to incorporate lore and stories without you having to take time out to find it. The heart quests just feel completely disconnected from this. Even worse, the heart questing system feels more "kill 10 boars", "collect 10 badges" or "shoot this cannon 10 times" than standard questing.

The lack of trinity + dodging can work quite well in PvE and make the combat feel very actiony - but at the same time it feels your character lacks a hard role that makes you feel special within your group or that you can't be replaced.

I think these are some of the criticisms that made friends lose interest in the game quite quickly.

I couldn't disagree more about the questing system, I find myself almost unable to play other games with the standard questlog style, it literally makes me angry when they just pile up in it, worst is when you think you're done and they give you another one usually in the same fucking spot you did your last one and it'll take you 45mins just to get there I should also say It's swtor I've been playing lately and it's probably the worst MMO ever at it so I'm probably being unfair to all other games in my current view.

[Meledelion]

That's the thing which put me off from WoW in the end. Raids aren't harder than dungeons per se, what is harder is finding the same % of good people.
If you have 3friends to do a dungeon with atleast 80% of the players in a dungeon are "good players", if you take those to a 10man raid atleast 40% of the players are good players and in 25man raids atleast 16% of the people are good players.

In GW2 I distinguish myself as "good" depending on how much I needed to heal. If I didn't need to heal at all I did well if I got downed I got sleepy and if I die it's time for a nap. Other things are stuff like "protecting" team mates or avoiding all the agony (fire shaman boss in fotm is a good way to check if people are good or not) and so on.

I also got a kick out of topping meters in WoW but sadly it also brought a bad side out of me. The "zomg lol you only did 5k dps" me and eventhough he still pops up it's a lot less frequent (unless it's clear I'm playing with toughness noobs, I go full out rage mode if I play with those people).

[Deleted]

My few cents:

Dynamic events are a success, but at the price of storyline. I'd love to see some conventional quests to give a deeper story to each zone's quest content. Tell the Zone's story, rather than just slapping in a ton of events!

Not having holy trinity has been a bit of a fail for me, I like the trinity. Dungeon difficulty powered by severe penalties for missing your dodges sucks, I'm not a fan of the twitch gameplay.

Skills defined by weapons made sense, but turned into a bit of a meh thing. It just lengthens your discovery curve, and doesn't seem to be fully exploited, as in equip a staff for great AoE and other modal things which they could have done. Its basically a powers selection mechanism sitting alongside making your other choices from the pool. I could see this being refined and re-used in other games though.

Downed state im not convinced. I think I prefer wow's approach of ghost runs as a clearer, more direct failure penalty and something that gives a little extra tension to the gameplay, as well as thinking time.

Cosmetic progression and the lack of an end-game, honestly I think they could have done better. Most mmo's do something as a time sink for the endgame, and I think there are better options, it feels a little cheap to just say its about gear l

[Lane]

That's the thing which put me off from WoW in the end. Raids aren't harder than dungeons per se, what is harder is finding the same % of good people.

This. It's a false sense of difficulty because often the encounters themselves weren't the challenge, it was having to micromanage so many other people.

[Drakhar]

-Dynamic Events
Much better than traditional questing. Still needs some pretty significant tuning but idea wise it's one of the biggest and best changes that GW2 made.

-No holy trinity
The holy trinity deserves a fiery death. GW2 combat is light years ahead of that antiquated bullshit, which needs to disappear from MMORPGs forever. Now, that is not to say that you shouldn't be able to build a tank/support/heal/etc focused character, which GW2 went a little overboard on limiting. But dedicated tanks and healers have gone the way of the dodo, and honestly fuck them. This is far and away the best thing about GW2. Bads will cry about how combat is too hectic/not enough control/whatever other bullshit excuse they have to justify their badness. It's more fun. ANet messed up a bit with many encounter designs and in a lot of dungeons in general, but this is a better way to play. It can only get better from here.

-Dodge system
I think it's a good addition. Adds a lot more skill to combat. What really highlights the dodge skill more than anything though... playing another MMO and feeling like something's missing when you can't dodge.

-Downleveling
Excellent feature, but not pioneered by GW2. GW2's system needs serious tuning still. In this type of MMO, there is really no way to justify removal of this feature. Meanwhile, a game like EQ would be awful with this feature (which is one of the only games that gives credence to the "I wanna go to a level 10 dungeon and roflstomp to feel imba" defense)

-Skills defined by Weapons
Was an interesting change. Not sure how well it was implemented. I appreciate the change from GW1 where it simplifies the skill choices. However, I also think my opinion on this varies from profession to profession (and weapon to weapon). Some are great, some are terrible. And professions like the elementalist feel the impact much more where they have 20 skills determined by a weapon which is just... awful.

-Combo Fields
Good in theory, not great in implementation. A few professions have skills that deliberately utilize these in a good way, but really it just ends up being a clusterfuck of random effects when a few people get in on an event/dungeon without any planned or coordinated efforts (which is what I think was the intent).

-Downed State (probably connected to "no holy trinity")
Pretty cool for PvE, depends in WvW, really terrible for sPvP.

-Multi-Guild system
Not a fan. Kinda kills the feeling of being in a guild at all. It might work for some, but I feel like it actually does more harm than good. Then again, guilds don't play a huge role in the game at this point... Which may have been their intent?

-GW2s take on RvR
As fun as WvW can be, it leaves a lot to be desired. The matchmaking isn't really like what we were initially told. It unfortunately hinges a lot on coverage more than anything (PvDoor). With improvments coming I actually still have high hopes for this aspect of the game. Really though, most fun part of the game when you get into it, despite all its shortcomings.

-Skill and Build system
Unlike many GW1 vets I think it's a huge improvement. You still have the build diversity (for half the professions anyway) but not to the same extreme as GW1. Yes, there are less crazy builds, but there are also fewer cookie cutters. I also think the second profession of GW1 needed to go, it was just a bit too much. That said, a great deal of skills and traits need improvment. The synergy between traits for some professions is just terrible, while for others its great.

-sPvP "Lobby"
No strong feelings. Meh, it's alright I guess.

-Cosmetic progression
Just like GW1, it shows you don't need stat progression. Then again, some idiot at ANet decided to add ascended gear, which really shat all over the idea of cosmetic-based progression... So funny verdict on this one: cosmetic progression is awesome. Too bad GW2 decided to NOT actually do that when they said they would!

---------- Post added 2013-02-19 at 10:51 AM ----------

I read someone saying the jumping controls are better then wow...but I have found, though I've tried, that I just can;t get it to have as smooth control as wow...and it's really, really been a sour point for me.

Then you know to take everything that person says with a giant grain of salt, because they're an ANet fanboy and/or your standard WoW hatemonger. Blizzard games have freakishly good/tight controls, the likes of which have been imitated by precisely zero other developers. IMO it's the reason why people will give you the "I don't know... I just like it better" response when it comes to Blizzard games. It's that little thing they can't put their finger on, but makes a world of difference. Seriously, it's ridiculous how good Blizzard is in this department. Hate on Diablo 3 all you want, but damn you gotta respect the control. GW2 does a pretty good job control-wise in comparison to other MMOs, (or compared to GW1, my god) but there is no way it's anywhere near as good as WoW's. The physics are pretty fucked in a number of places. My personal favorite is falling 2 feet into a body of water but having your momentum carry you down to the seabed 30 feet below. The level of incline and being able to climb it or not is a problem in a lot of MMOs, but GW2 is pretty awful here too (and let's not get started on dat falling damage...)

[nevermore]

-No holy trinity
The holy trinity deserves a fiery death. GW2 combat is light years ahead of that antiquated bullshit, which needs to disappear from MMORPGs forever. Now, that is not to say that you shouldn't be able to build a tank/support/heal/etc focused character, which GW2 went a little overboard on limiting. But dedicated tanks and healers have gone the way of the dodo, and honestly fuck them. This is far and away the best thing about GW2. Bads will cry about how combat is too hectic/not enough control/whatever other bullshit excuse they have to justify their badness. It's more fun. ANet messed up a bit with many encounter designs and in a lot of dungeons in general, but this is a better way to play. It can only get better from here.

I think it would be much better if GW2 allowed for more specialised roles. I do enjoy dungeons and fractals but it is too hectic, and the way combat is designed severely limits the options for an innovative and interesting boss fight.

Being able to cast beneficial spells directly on friendly players and being able to manage aggro a bit better would go a loooong way. I mean there must be an optimal solution halfway between GW2 and the traditional holy trinity?

Can't remember who said it on these forums, but group combat in GW2 does really feel like when your tank and healer die in WoW and the damage dealers try to stay alive and kill the boss.

PS: I don't think someone who enjoys a different approach to MMO roles instantly qualifies as "bad".

[rhandric]

Can't remember who said it on these forums, but group combat in GW2 does really feel like when your tank and healer die in WoW and the damage dealers try to stay alive and kill the boss.

Actually, ArenaNet said that themselves; combat in other games is always the most interesting when things go wrong; a tank goes down, the boss is running around wildly and the other players (dps, healers) are trying to finish the encounter or otherwise recover - that's when you tell the good players from the bad. It's that spot that ANet designed GW2 combat to fill. Obviously, not everyone will like it (though that might say more about the player than the design of combat), but it fits the design they were going for.

Being able to cast beneficial spells on players: while it might sound like a good idea, I can readily see how that would quickly degrade into people trying to force the [support, control, damage] soft-trinity into the [tank, heal, dps] Holy Trinity, or the heal provided by such heals would be negligible and a wasted spell.

[draykorinee]

Anyone who calls people bads purely because they find combat hectic deserves to have his whole post ignored a pointless asanine comment. Holy Trinity is here to stay it's just it needs to evolve a bit from 10 years ago. For me I choose a Tanky build but aggro is so random glass canon suddenly takes aggro and as a tank I can do nothing, little things like this bug me.

[Lane]

Actually, ArenaNet said that themselves; combat in other games is always the most interesting when things go wrong; a tank goes down, the boss is running around wildly and the other players (dps, healers) are trying to finish the encounter or otherwise recover - that's when you tell the good players from the bad. It's that spot that ANet designed GW2 combat to fill. Obviously, not everyone will like it (though that might say more about the player than the design of combat), but it fits the design they were going for.

Yeah, but there's a difference. I almost exclusively played hybrid classes in WoW and I loved it when things went wrong in a dungeon because it was one of the few occasions where I'd be able to fully utilize the abilities of my class. However, that meant effectively off-tanking and/or healing, which isn't really possible in GW2. There's no way to hold aggro and healing is weak. GW2 is mostly just chaos where I'd argue in a game like WoW it'd at least be controlled chaos.

I mean, I enjoy GW2 gameplay for what it is, but it's nothing like things going wrong in other games. There's not that exhilaration of shifting out of boomkin and main healing the rest of a fight, or switching to blood presence to assume tanking on a DK, or doing either one on your ret pally. :P It's just not the same. So, I have to agree with nevermore's statement that, "Being able to cast beneficial spells directly on friendly players and being able to manage aggro a bit better would go a loooong way."

[Valeron]

Then you know to take everything that person says with a giant grain of salt, because they're an ANet fanboy and/or your standard WoW hatemonger. Blizzard games have freakishly good/tight controls, the likes of which have been imitated by precisely zero other developers. IMO it's the reason why people will give you the "I don't know... I just like it better" response when it comes to Blizzard games. It's that little thing they can't put their finger on, but makes a world of difference. Seriously, it's ridiculous how good Blizzard is in this department. Hate on Diablo 3 all you want, but damn you gotta respect the control. GW2 does a pretty good job control-wise in comparison to other MMOs, (or compared to GW1, my god) but there is no way it's anywhere near as good as WoW's. The physics are pretty fucked in a number of places. My personal favorite is falling 2 feet into a body of water but having your momentum carry you down to the seabed 30 feet below. The level of incline and being able to climb it or not is a problem in a lot of MMOs, but GW2 is pretty awful here too (and let's not get started on dat falling damage...)

Hmpf, I find the controls pretty darn close to the level of wow myself. The biggest difference I find between the two is the camera, in GW2 it's more floaty. And game physics is a different argument, at least GW2 has some physics. Although I agree with you on some of the falling damage, sometimes I wonder how I got the damage that I did (usually when I'm traversing a slope or a rocky environment).

[Fencers]

Every class is a essentially a "DPS with options" in Guild Wars 2. To use MMO parlance.

This whole stuff about fights 'going wrong' is utter nonsense & stupidity w/r/t game design. GW2 is an action game.

Typically, holy trinity MMOs are not action games.

That's THE line in the sand when comparing Guild Wars 2 to other... erm, static MMO combat. The thrill of swinging a sword is a misplaced desire in games of the EQ style.

[Zilong]

Yeah, but there's a difference. I almost exclusively played hybrid classes in WoW and I loved it when things went wrong in a dungeon because it was one of the few occasions where I'd be able to fully utilize the abilities of my class. However, that meant effectively off-tanking and/or healing, which isn't really possible in GW2. There's no way to hold aggro and healing is weak. GW2 is mostly just chaos where I'd argue in a game like WoW it'd at least be controlled chaos.

I mean, I enjoy GW2 gameplay for what it is, but it's nothing like things going wrong in other games. There's not that exhilaration of shifting out of boomkin and main healing the rest of a fight, or switching to blood presence to assume tanking on a DK, or doing either one on your ret pally. :P It's just not the same. So, I have to agree with nevermore's statement that, "Being able to cast beneficial spells directly on friendly players and being able to manage aggro a bit better would go a loooong way."

Hmm, I find that the chaos only comes in zerg forms. I never got the chaos feeling too much in dungeons or anything. I do notice problems with encounters and such but they are in a case-to-case basis. Now chaotic comes in various degrees in peoples perceptions. I for one don't think that the management of aggro is a good choice, I think the game is good where it stands just needs a "re-balance" on it's form of difficulty. Less HP, 1K.Os and "let's break the boss in a bug" kinda of deals and more Grenth's boss event.

What I honestly believe is that. I think it should have the cast of beneficial spells on friendly players because but not at the cost of too much of the dps. I think it's great if someone wants to play support (I do with some of toons) but the game can't split one of it's most strengths (anyone can do type of deal). Give a few modifications, maybe even a better scenario for supportive builds in traits, but let them still do some okay damage. As for management of aggro, the only thing I could come up with that would be beneficial here is: Let the player be able to tell what is the boss "M.O." (by reading (how the skills works now "AoE" "Stun" "Chills"), analizing race, behaviour or whatever) , let us know that Anet has a real difference in aggro types. Doesnt matter if it's really by race or random by race. Hyleks usually go for caster firsts (getting whos farthest), other type of Hyleks like to go after the one that hits the most or whatever else. Right now it seems that most times aggro behaves in only one form.

[Lane]

I have no idea how "aggro" works in this game. There are times I'll come in during a champion event, fire off one ability (out of habit I quit attacking when a boss focuses on me), and that champion will be glued to me until I'm dead (even continuing to attack me in downed status while others wail away at it). This has happened on several occasions and it makes absolutely no sense to me. I know it's a game, but there's no logical reason for that (unlike heal aggro or focusing on whoever's doing the most DPS).

[Frozenbeef]

The only things i would personally take from the gw2 to make my perfect mmo are the dynamic events - except making them more dynamic not just quests without quest text and the character creation - it really is great and offers a lot of variety

[Kelimbror]

The only things i would personally take from the gw2 to make my perfect mmo are the dynamic events - except making them more dynamic not just quests without quest text and the character creation - it really is great and offers a lot of variety

The ability to gain experience from many different types of activities is probably a better innovation than what we see normally. Not too many games that you can level completely from crafting. I think some types of this play has been added to older games, like WoW, but it hasn't been as fully explored as it was in GW2. Wildstar looks like another game headed that way with their path system, but actually giving specific quests for exploration.

Jumping puzzles were done incredibly well, but Rift puzzles are also a good iteration of puzzles in MMOs. More alternate activities/minigames is always a great thing. Arguably GW2 doesn't have enough of them, which I've gone over at length before, but what they have done is amazing.

The aesthetic and optimization is probably the best thing they did compared to other games though.

[melodramocracy]

-Dynamic Events - These are good, but the drawback is how undo-able a lot of them were if you wound up in an area by yourself. A nice mix of these and solo questing is a must for the genre.

-No holy trinity - Surprisingly, I tended to dislike this, even though on paper I thought I'd love it. It wound up making my character lack identity in a fashion.

-Dodge system - rather well done, more mmo's need this.

-Downleveling - also very well done, though not taken far enough (ie, the better gear you'd acquire meant that you were still OP in lower zones). It does help keep content semi-relevant, and I hope to see more games do this.

-Skills defined by Weapons - This worked well for some classes (ranger) and not so well for others. Across the board, the skill system left me feeling like it wasn't quite where it needed to be.

-Combo Fields - great concept that should have had some more impactful results to make folks really think about how to use them.

-Downed State (probably connected to "no holy trinity") - I could take this or leave it. I think it brought an interesting twist to PvP frankly.

-Multi-Guild system - can't comment on this

-GW2s take on RvR - can't comment much on this, it seemed pretty well done.

-Skill and Build system - eh. I leveled a guardian to 80, and got one of everything else to at least 20, with the exception of engineer. Nearly every class had something about it that just felt a bit 'off', and I can't really explain why. Thief class probably felt like the most thought was put into it.
Getting all your primary attacks early made later levelling a bit less special... in most cases, you wouldn't drastically change your approach to a fight whether you were level 40 or 70.

-sPvP "Lobby"- I actually thought this, as with other elements of PvP was very well done, the game simply needed more maps, and maybe 1 or 2 more play styles. The way this game handles PvP is perhaps the best of any MMO on the market, but class imbalances, as always, were still an issue.

-Cosmetic progression - I'm not a player who cares for such things, so this wasn't a draw for me.

Overall, I don't know..... I certainly don't regret buying the game.. I invested a few hundred hours in it, had fun and got what I feel is my money's worth, but simply stopped playing around Halloween and haven't had an urge to reinstall yet.

[Rukh]

I have no idea how "aggro" works in this game. There are times I'll come in during a champion event, fire off one ability (out of habit I quit attacking when a boss focuses on me), and that champion will be glued to me until I'm dead (even continuing to attack me in downed status while others wail away at it). This has happened on several occasions and it makes absolutely no sense to me. I know it's a game, but there's no logical reason for that (unlike heal aggro or focusing on whoever's doing the most DPS).

I have found different mobs have different aggro tables. The risen abominations for instance do exactly what you say often. or did, I think they may actually change more now. I know they sure used to beeline after one character who would basically just kite them in a circle while everyone else finished it. It'd just never switch targets. Seems they do a lot more now.

[breadisfunny]

If there was one thing I'd want future MMOs to take from GW2, it would definitely be no mob tagging/node stealing.

agreed. its one of the reasons i won't go back to wow. im amazed that blizzard didnt take this concept from gw2. its disheartening to go back to wow and see basic quest gear cost 1-5k gold.

[Drakhar]

Anyone who calls people bads purely because they find combat hectic deserves to have his whole post ignored a pointless asanine comment. Holy Trinity is here to stay it's just it needs to evolve a bit from 10 years ago.

Sorry, but you're wrong. The trinity has long outlived its usefulness. It was once a necessity because the technology of the time wouldn't allow a more elegant solution, but now it's the appendix of MMORPGs. It serves no purpose other than being a relic of the past, but it continues to haunt us by dumbing down new games because people are afraid of change (or requiring some skill, apparently). The most ironic part is that the game that "pioneered" the trinity actually had a 4 sided trinity (quadinity?) and didn't employ it as strictly as its successors.

For clarity's sake, I think GW2 comes up short in giving the kind of options they should for build creation. You should be able to build a tankier character than it will allow right now, for example. I'm talking about using a hard trinity, which is the worst mistake that new MMOs can make.

Being able to cast beneficial spells directly on friendly players and being able to manage aggro a bit better would go a loooong way. I mean there must be an optimal solution halfway between GW2 and the traditional holy trinity?

Pretty much this, actually.

[draykorinee]

Sorry, but you're wrong. The trinity has long outlived its usefulness. It was once a necessity because the technology of the time wouldn't allow a more elegant solution, but now it's the appendix of MMORPGs. It serves no purpose other than being a relic of the past, but it continues to haunt us by dumbing down new games because people are afraid of change (or requiring some skill, apparently). The most ironic part is that the game that "pioneered" the trinity actually had a 4 sided trinity (quadinity?) and didn't employ it as strictly as its successors.

For clarity's sake, I think GW2 comes up short in giving the kind of options they should for build creation. You should be able to build a tankier character than it will allow right now, for example. I'm talking about using a hard trinity, which is the worst mistake that new MMOs can make.



Pretty much this, actually.

I wont presume to call you wrong based on your opinion im not that arrogant. But to claim trinity based games are dumbed down when compared to the almost simplistic and bland encounters produced using a non trinity based system like in gw2 is mind boggling. I actually enjoy both mechanics, both offer me different styles of gameplay, to start calling one or the other redundant and serving no purpose is just hatred of one style, it is not an unbiased view. Looking at it in an unbiased manner will tell you that each method offers benefits over the other and each have negatives but none are redundant.
And on another note, being told im wrong by saying holy trinity is here to stay when the 2 big games released this year are holy trinity based with signs of evolution is another clear indicator of your arrogance and bias jumping in the way of facts.