Support NeoGAF

[Cow Mengde]

Big time. But I have been through Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and SWTOR. I knew damn well GW2 wouldn't be anything special. Absolutely done with mmo's until (which may never happen) something truly different comes out.

I was one of the first people to be jaded about this game. Everything I read that sounds so amazing to others sounds more like a clusterfuck waiting to happen.

 

[Coxswain]

All of this is pretty typical MMO fare, and reinforces the lesson I've learned in my time with the game: GW2s basic design philosophy is really quite traditionally MMOesque, with a few of the rough edges smoothed out.

I think this is pretty much on point. The 'differences' between GW2 and a typical MMORPG were relatively slight to begin with, and they started eroding those differences even further, in a pretty major way, inside of the first 3-4 months. At this point I don't think that I could honestly say that Guild Wars 2 is less of a 'typical MMO' than stuff like Tera or The Secret World are. And in a lot of ways, that was their main selling point, so to lose that deals a pretty heavy blow to the game's appeal.

Which is not a huge problem in and of itself, of course, but the game was very heavily selling itself on being something very different, and based on the design philosophy of Guild Wars 1, you can't exactly call it naivete if people believed that it would be a significant departure.

At this point, I feel that they've sort of lost the ability to distinguish themselves as an alternative to the typical MMO formula, and have been forced to try to differentiate themselves and compete as a "typical MMO". I think that's where they've been running into some difficulties. Not only does it require a shift in design priorities away from the original vision of the game, but it seems as though ArenaNet is unaware or unwilling to look to other games in the genre for guidance on how they can avoid certain design pitfalls, or whether there's a problem with their game that's already been solved in a very complete way by other MMORPGs in the past. A lot of the time, I get the sense that they're sort of trying to reinvent the wheel with a given problem, and it leads to slow or incomplete solutions to problems that have essentially already been solved by other games (Easy example: The LFG tools available in the game.)

 

[Jest Chillin]

I think this is pretty much on point. The 'differences' between GW2 and a typical MMORPG were relatively slight to begin with, and they started eroding those differences even further, in a pretty major way, inside of the first 3-4 months. At this point I don't think that I could honestly say that Guild Wars 2 is less of a 'typical MMO' than stuff like Tera or The Secret World are. And in a lot of ways, that was their main selling point, so to lose that deals a pretty heavy blow to the game's appeal.

Which is not a huge problem in and of itself, of course, but the game was very heavily selling itself on being something very different, and based on the design philosophy of Guild Wars 1, you can't exactly call it naivete if people believed that it would be a significant departure.

At this point, I feel that they've sort of lost the ability to distinguish themselves as an alternative to the typical MMO formula, and have been forced to try to differentiate themselves and compete as a "typical MMO". I think that's where they've been running into some difficulties. Not only does it require a shift in design priorities away from the original vision of the game, but it seems as though ArenaNet is unaware or unwilling to look to other games in the genre for guidance on how they can avoid certain design pitfalls, or whether there's a problem with their game that's already been solved in a very complete way by other MMORPGs in the past. A lot of the time, I get the sense that they're sort of trying to reinvent the wheel with a given problem, and it leads to slow or incomplete solutions to problems that have essentially already been solved by other games (Easy example: The LFG tools available in the game.)

I'd agree that their desire to please the vocal complaints on the forums is leading to their design vision being clouded. It's a necessity however as a loud enough vocal minority ruins games. It certainly ruined the shit out of Warhammer.

 

[etiolate]

I feel that they have up until this point ignored most of the anti-Ascended gear community. Their only improvement was adding laurels to buy them with, but that as well has become increasingly time consuming or costly.

I am not one of the GW1 players that think that ANet sold out and that the sequel is a travesty or anything, but I can understand how the GW1 community feels ignored due to recent changes.

They have created these giant dump-all threads for people upset about Guild Missions and Ascended gear and then just sort of leave the threads to be ignored and burn out from hopeless apathy. I am not so sure they are listening as much as some may think. Their community forum is handled pretty awfully though so it may just be a symptom of that. It was better when they let other sites be the community forums.

 

[Arksy]

Guild Wars 2 isn't perfect but its new and ArenaNet are super fast with bringing entirely new systems to play into the game. I for example can't stand the fact that culling and the aoe target cap means that zerging is the only viable tactic in WvW and it has the worst instanced dungeons in an MMO because no holy trinity makes it a fucking mess where no one has any idea what to do.


Aside from that, on balance its probably the best MMO on the market right now and I have zero doubt that in 1-2 years its going to be something truly incredible. Its just not there yet.

 

[Trey]

Remember when this was hyped as the second coming of MMO games?

Still is.

 

[Cels]

Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different.

In my view, they've screwed up in a few ways:

• Gear treadmill: Added a new best level of gear about two months after release. At first it was three slots (out of a possible 13 armor slots) available in a dungeon, but it wasn't just another dungeon. The dungeon was gated not solely by skill like other dungeons, but by a stat not useful for anything but that dungeon (Agony Resistance). Remind you of World of Warcraft resistance fights?. The other new gear slots aren't so bad (uses a daily currency) but it's rather sad compared to the initial state of the game, where best-in-slot equipment was a lot easier to obtain. What was wrong with introducing the new dungeon
• sPvP: Mediocre at best. It's nice that you can make a character with all skills/equipment unlocked (an improvement over GW1!) and go PvP right away, but that's about the only improvement. No other aspect of sPvP is near GW1 levels of quality. Has taken an obvious backseat to PvE, even though Arenanet has expressed esport aspirations.
• "Play How You Want": Yes, to a certain extent, you can't play how you want and be as effective as everyone else in any game, but there is a huge disparity between damage over time vs direct damage specs. If two players in a party have the same condition (damage over time) spec then that party is a lot more gimped because of the way conditions of the same type are capped at 25. Two direct-damage players do not suffer in the same way. It's definitely a little better than the way everyone "Build Wars"ed PvE encounters in GW1.

The last two can be fixed. The first can't be since they've already committed to the gear treadmill.

 

[Jest Chillin]

Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different.

In my view, they've screwed up in a few ways:

• Gear treadmill: Added a new best level of gear about two months after release. At first it was three slots (out of a possible 13 armor slots) available in a dungeon, but it wasn't just another dungeon. The dungeon was gated not solely by skill like other dungeons, but by a stat not useful for anything but that dungeon (Agony Resistance). Remind you of World of Warcraft resistance fights?. The other new gear slots aren't so bad (uses a daily currency) but it's rather sad compared to the initial state of the game, where best-in-slot equipment was a lot easier to obtain. What was wrong with introducing the new dungeon
• sPvP: Mediocre at best. It's nice that you can make a character with all skills/equipment unlocked (an improvement over GW1!) and go PvP right away, but that's about the only improvement. No other aspect of sPvP is near GW1 levels of quality. Has taken an obvious backseat to PvE, even though Arenanet has expressed esport aspirations.
• "Play How You Want": Yes, to a certain extent, you can't play how you want and be as effective as everyone else in any game, but there is a huge disparity between damage over time vs direct damage specs. If two players in a party have the same condition (damage over time) spec then that party is a lot more gimped because of the way conditions of the same type are capped at 25. Two direct-damage players do not suffer in the same way. It's definitely a little better than the way everyone "Build Wars"ed PvE encounters in GW1.

The last two can be fixed. The first can't be since they've already committed to the gear treadmill.

It's not really a treadmill as it's already capped by Legendary weapons. Legendarys are so difficult and time consuming to get, to render them equal by continuing to add stat improvement gear would be such a massive slap in the face it's silly. Especially since there's already Unique weapons that have visuals and effects like Legendarys but to a lesser extent both in effects and in process to obtain them.

You also don't need Agony Resistance for the first 9 or 10 levels of Fractals so by the time you need it, you'll already have acquired the currency to get it. Even if you elected not to get it, Agony isn't persistent, it's attached to specific attacks so it can be avoided almost entirely if you're good enough.

 

[Izayoi]

I wish the dungeons were fun. I loved leveling a character to cap, but after that there's nothing there to keep you playing. The lack of a holy trinity completely fucks PvE encounters.

 

[Abandond]

The currencies are perfectly fine. I don't even know why they're referring to dungeon tokens as a currency, seems kind of odd.

You want a piece of gear from a specific dungeon in WoW, you run it and then hope it drops. You continuously run it until you get it.

In GW2, you want a piece of dungeon gear, you run the dungeon until you get enough tokens to get your piece.

I wish the dungeons were fun. I loved leveling a character to cap, but after that there's nothing there to keep you playing. The lack of a holy trinity completely fucks PvE encounters.

Good one.

Edit: Figured I'd add something meaningful here. While I haven't played since getting my legendary two months ago, GW2 has still had the most interactive boss fights I've seen, can you give an example of an MMO that does it better?

 

[BrettWeir]

ANet took way to much of a PvE approach, which caused me (and several friends) to quit playing in December. The game is Guild Wars, with very little emphasis on "Guild Wars". All they did for months was add more and more PvE content. Sure they had a little PvP content, but nothing compared to PvE.

I had full intentions of returning to the game in February, when the so called "WvW patch" was supposed to hit. Yeah, that didn't happen, but hey, they added more PvE content.

ANet has completely disregarded the PvP crowd, especially the WvW crowd, completely taking away what the game was actually supposed to be to many fans.

Now it's a convoluted mess.

 

[Izayoi]

Good one.

???

 

[Retro]

I had full intentions of returning to the game in February, when the so called "WvW patch" was supposed to hit. Yeah, that didn't happen, but hey, they added more PvE content.

WvW patch was pushed back, likely to coincide with the fix for culling (which was just discussed in a recent blog post and is now supposedly a non-issue). Lands March 26th.

 

[Izayoi]

Edit: Figured I'd add something meaningful here. While I haven't played since getting my legendary two months ago, GW2 has still had the most interactive boss fights I've seen, can you give an example of an MMO that does it better?

Define "interactive". Jumping out of circles, hoping the boss doesn't aggro you because there are no tanks, and then getting two shot because everyone's heal is on cool down? The instances are a fucking joke, the least fun I've ever had doing dungeons in an MMO before. The holy trinity exists for a reason.

 

[Psychoward]

ANet took way to much of a PvE approach, which caused me (and several friends) to quit playing in December. The game is Guild Wars, with very little emphasis on "Guild Wars". All they did for months was add more and more PvE content. Sure they had a little PvP content, but nothing compared to PvE.

I had full intentions of returning to the game in February, when the so called "WvW patch" was supposed to hit. Yeah, that didn't happen, but hey, they added more PvE content.

ANet has completely disregarded the PvP crowd, especially the WvW crowd, completely taking away what the game was actually supposed to be to many fans.

Now it's a convoluted mess.

WvW patch hits in a week or two.

 

[Abandond]

Define "interactive". Jumping out of circles, hoping the boss doesn't aggro you because there are no tanks, and then getting two shot because everyone's heal is on cool down? The instances are a fucking joke, the least fun I've ever had doing dungeons in an MMO before. The holy trinity exists for a reason.

Yes, actually having to move is something I don't ever have to do in 90% of WoW's dungeons.

Getting two shot? Are you going glass cannon in fights that don't allow that? Use some defensive secondaries.

Everyone's heal? Most professions don't even have heals for team mates.

 

[Jest Chillin]

Define "interactive". Jumping out of circles, hoping the boss doesn't aggro you because there are no tanks, and then getting two shot because everyone's heal is on cool down? The instances are a fucking joke, the least fun I've ever had doing dungeons in an MMO before. The holy trinity exists for a reason.

There are interrupt and avoidance skills available. There's also mechanics to drop aggro should you acquire it.

 

[BrettWeir]

WvW patch was pushed back, likely to coincide with the fix for culling (which was just discussed in a recent blog post and is now supposedly a non-issue). Lands March 26th.

Yeah, I read about that on FB. Hopefully it will actually be worthwhile, but I doubt it. WvW needed a HUGE overhaul (completely different lands....2 maps didn't cut it with the size they were, better reward system, a complete overhaul on the lame medal system such as a DAoC realm rank system, etc). WvW was stale as hell, had no good carrots, no variety, catered to zerg warfare, no objectives, etc.

Solving the culling issue is nice and won't bring people back, but that's not an upgrade...it's a bug fix.

 

[Retro]

Define "interactive". Jumping out of circles, hoping the boss doesn't aggro you because there are no tanks, and then getting two shot because everyone's heal is on cool down?

Having one person attack an impervious boss, causing him to regurgitate ghostly slimes. One person levitates a slime with a special environmental weapon, while the other players use a similar weapon to 'drag' the slime into one of three traps. The trap captures the slime, at which point everyone tries to lure the boss into the trap, which explodes and removes the boss' invulnerability for a moment at which point everyone pours on the damage.

First explorable dungeon, Ghost Eater path, level 35-40 content.

 

[Retro]

Edit: Shit, sorry for the double post.

Yeah, I read about that on FB. Hopefully it will actually be worthwhile, but I doubt it. WvW needed a HUGE overhaul (completely different lands....2 maps didn't cut it with the size they were, better reward system, a complete overhaul on the lame medal system such as a DAoC realm rank system, etc). WvW was stale as hell, had no good carrots, no variety, catered to zerg warfare, no objectives, etc.

Solving the culling issue is nice and won't bring people back, but that's not an upgrade...it's a bug fix.

New maps are supposedly coming, March patch introduces WvW progression and is implementing a ranking system.

I also can't help but wonder if your opinion of WvW was tainted by the fact that the GAF server was one of the top-tier servers for WvW. The competitiveness at that level is pretty bad, and is more about numbers and coverage rather than skill and tactics. Stormbluff Isle has dropped a few tiers and the WvW is much more balanced, less prone to shutouts and entertaining. There are still zergs, of course, but they're smaller and fewer than they were when we were constantly hitting our heads against Jade Quarry and Sea of Sorrows.

 

[Cels]

It's not really a treadmill as it's already capped by Legendary weapons. Legendarys are so difficult and time consuming to get, to render them equal by continuing to add stat improvement gear would be such a massive slap in the face it's silly. Especially since there's already Unique weapons that have visuals and effects like Legendarys but to a lesser extent both in effects and in process to obtain them.

Legendaries were in the game before Ascended gear, and were only as good as the best Exotics. No one complained that legendaries are a gear treadmill because they aren't. You didn't see 200-page long threads on the official forum complaining about how Legendaries were going to be replaced. You don't need them to be as powerful as anyone else, and there was never any belief that Legendaries would ever get replaced by more powerful gear. That Legendaries take long to make isn't a problem at all, because they don't offer more power, just aesthetics. The problem is that Ascended gear is more powerful, and new ascended gear is going to keep getting added to the game (6 slots available out of 13 now), so players must keep updating their gear.

Is there any PvE content that requires people to have best-in-slot armor? No, you can actually do all dungeons wearing all Rares (3rd-best quality) or even a mix of Rares and Greens (4th-best quality) but that isn't the point. Guild Wars 1 had zero armor grind. At level 20, you could craft the best armor in the game, and that armor would never be replaced by anything that came later. If you wanted the cool-looking rare 15k or FoW armor, that certainly took a long time to get, but after you got it you weren't more powerful than anyone else.

At some point, perhaps in the next 6 months, Arenanet will finish adding Ascended gear for every gear slot. Will that be the end of adding new tiers of items to the game? Hopefully. I want to see a shift toward providing more looks, different skins, that kind of thing, without better stats.

 

[Kai Dracon]

As I remarked elsewhere, I never played WoW long enough to become married to a single gameplay loop paradigm.

I've been fine with how GW2 plays, and have found in general terms I prefer it to the rote roles of the "holy trinity". The trinity concept has its own problems - though admittedly some of those concepts are social/cultural rather than mechanical. The trinity invites, for example, groups of people who can't play well constantly blaming one particular member of the trinity for "doing it wrong". When I was playing WoW, I watched with bemusement as people who were expert healers failed to carry a group full of players who didn't know what they were doing; that then turned around and blamed the healer (or tank).

I kind of like that GW2 basically tells people "be responsible for yourself for a change". I've honestly seen less fighting, griping, and drama in GW2 dungeon groups than in most similar games I've dipped my toe in.

 

[Coxswain]

Edit: Figured I'd add something meaningful here. While I haven't played since getting my legendary two months ago, GW2 has still had the most interactive boss fights I've seen, can you give an example of an MMO that does it better?

I actually really liked the GW2 dungeons, and they were basically the only part of the game that I really liked when I played, but off the top of my head, The Secret World has far, far better dungeons and boss fights.

(This is massively off-topic, but I quit Guild Wars 2 when Ascended equipment came out and ended up playing TSW shortly afterward. The game has its problems and doesn't have near the polish or production values of an ArenaNet game, but other than production values, the mechanics and general design of the game is actually very very close to what I would have considered an 'ideal' sequel to Guild Wars 1, at least on the PvE side - right down to having the same TCG-inspired freeform skillbar. The polish can be an issue, but I'd really recommend giving that game a shot if you're in the group who liked Guild Wars 1 but became really disillusioned with the direction they took with Guild Wars 2.)

 

[Izayoi]

Yes, actually having to move is something I don't ever have to do in 90% of WoW's dungeons.

Getting two shot? Are you going glass cannon in fights that don't allow that? Use some defensive secondaries.

Everyone's heal? Most professions don't even have heals for team mates.

I only did the lower level dungeons, so maybe endgame ones are exponentially better? Low level dungeons were a clusterfuck of aggro swapping and hoping somebody didn't blow their heal on something stupid. Completely turned me off from doing any serious PvE. The movement and roll don't really impress me at all, especially seeing as the game is auto-target. TERA's combat is so much better that they're not even remotely comparable. GW2 definitely seems like a game that is made for PvPers.

 

[K.Sabot]

The secondary systems have definitely become too complicated, it's too bad that all of those systems are attached to a combat system that I don't particularly find engaging.

 

[Psychoward]

As I remarked elsewhere, I never played WoW long enough to become married to a single gameplay loop paradigm.

I've been fine with how GW2 plays, and have found in general terms I prefer it to the rote roles of the "holy trinity". The trinity concept has its own problems - though admittedly some of those concepts are social/cultural rather than mechanical. The trinity invites, for example, groups of people who can't play well constantly blaming one particular member of the trinity for "doing it wrong". When I was playing WoW, I watched with bemusement as people who were expert healers failed to carry a group full of players who didn't know what they were doing; that then turned around and blamed the healer (or tank).

I kind of like that GW2 basically tells people "be responsible for yourself for a change". I've honestly seen less fighting, griping, and drama in GW2 dungeon groups than in most similar games I've dipped my toe in.

Yep, and with the last stand system, even a new player won't be yelled at too much because they can easily be revived if the team is competent enough to be able to spare a few seconds to revive them.

 

[Izayoi]

I actually really liked the GW2 dungeons, and they were basically the only part of the game that I really liked when I played, but off the top of my head, The Secret World has far, far better dungeons and boss fights.

(This is massively off-topic, but I quit Guild Wars 2 when Ascended equipment came out and ended up playing TSW shortly afterward. The game has its problems and doesn't have near the polish or production values of an ArenaNet game, but other than production values, the mechanics and general design of the game is actually very very close to what I would have considered an 'ideal' sequel to Guild Wars 1, at least on the PvE side - right down to having the same TCG-inspired freeform skillbar. The polish can be an issue, but I'd really recommend giving that game a shot if you're in the group who liked Guild Wars 1 but became really disillusioned with the direction they took with Guild Wars 2.)

TSW had dungeons like GW2 should have had. If they added a dedicated tank and healer to GW2 I think it'd be a lot better PvE-wise.

 

[BrettWeir]

Edit: Shit, sorry for the double post.



New maps are supposedly coming, March patch introduces WvW progression and is implementing a ranking system.

I also can't help but wonder if your opinion of WvW was tainted by the fact that the GAF server was one of the top-tier servers for WvW. The competitiveness at that level is pretty bad, and is more about numbers and coverage rather than skill and tactics. Stormbluff Isle has dropped a few tiers and the WvW is much more balanced, less prone to shutouts and entertaining. There are still zergs, of course, but they're smaller and fewer than they were when we were constantly hitting our heads against Jade Quarry and Sea of Sorrows.

I'm not sure. I only played during the daytime (EST), so mainly everything was being over-run by War Machine from our server and whoever the big guilds were on the other servers. There weren't many GAF'ers on during that time of day, especially ones that did WvW, so I mainly played solo out there...taking flags, defending them, killing dolyaks, etc.

What you're saying sounds interesting, and I really hope they did it right. Guess it doesn't hurt to log in on patch day and check it out.

 

[Divvy]

TSW had dungeons like GW2 should have had. If they added a dedicated tank and healer to GW2 I think it'd be a lot better PvE-wise.

God no. If people want trinity, they can play every single other mmo ever. I really like the fact that my characters are not relegated to one role or another. If you are going into a GW2 battle with the trinity mindset then yeah, you're going to get super wiped.

 

[Jest Chillin]

Legendaries were in the game before Ascended gear, and were only as good as the best Exotics. No one complained that legendaries are a gear treadmill because they aren't. You didn't see 200-page long threads on the official forum complaining about how Legendaries were going to be replaced. You don't need them to be as powerful as anyone else, and there was never any belief that Legendaries would ever get replaced by more powerful gear. That Legendaries take long to make isn't a problem at all, because they don't offer more power, just aesthetics. The problem is that Ascended gear is more powerful, and new ascended gear is going to keep getting added to the game (6 slots available out of 13 now), so players must keep updating their gear.

Is there any PvE content that requires people to have best-in-slot armor? No, you can actually do all dungeons wearing all Rares (3rd-best quality) or even a mix of Rares and Greens (4th-best quality) but that isn't the point. Guild Wars 1 had zero armor grind. At level 20, you could craft the best armor in the game, and that armor would never be replaced by anything that came later. If you wanted the cool-looking rare 15k or FoW armor, that certainly took a long time to get, but after you got it you weren't more powerful than anyone else.

At some point, perhaps in the next 6 months, Arenanet will finish adding Ascended gear for every gear slot. Will that be the end of adding new tiers of items to the game? Hopefully. I want to see a shift toward providing more looks, different skins, that kind of thing, without better stats.

Where are you getting the info that they're going to continue adding Ascended gear for all slots? I haven't heard or read anything about that.

 

[Retro]

I'm not sure. I only played during the daytime (EST), so mainly everything was being over-run by War Machine from our server and whoever the big guilds were on the other servers. There weren't many GAF'ers on during that time of day, especially ones that did WvW, so I mainly played solo out there...taking flags, defending them, killing dolyaks, etc.

What you're saying sounds interesting, and I really hope they did it right. Guess it doesn't hurt to log in on patch day and check it out.

A lot of people didn't play because the matchups were the same week after week, and the aforementioned coverage/numbers trumping skill/tactics. You can only fight the same crap for so long before you just stop, and the other servers just wanted it more.

The queues were also pretty long, and that deterred a lot of people from it.

I'd seriously suggest checking it out after the next update, or at least following the Community OT for news (which should be coming any day now). And it's not like you have to resubscribe.

 

[xeris]

TSW had dungeons like GW2 should have had. If they added a dedicated tank and healer to GW2 I think it'd be a lot better PvE-wise.

If they did that, that would be my last day on GW2. One of my favorite things about this game is you can get a good group together for pretty much anything you want to do without sitting around for an hour saying "Need Healer." That ranks right up there with "must have x gear or we don't want you in group" with things I hate in MMOs. So far GW2 hasn't fallen into either of those traps.

 

[Abandond]

I only did the lower level dungeons, so maybe endgame ones are exponentially better? Low level dungeons were a clusterfuck of aggro swapping and hoping somebody didn't blow their heal on something stupid. Completely turned me off from doing any serious PvE. The movement and roll don't really impress me at all, especially seeing as the game is auto-target. TERA's combat is so much better that they're not even remotely comparable. GW2 definitely seems like a game that is made for PvPers.

I'd agree on TERA but not being able to move while casting just makes the game feel a little weird. A hybrid between the two would be great IMO.

Low level dungeons with a group of people that have never done it can be frustrating, yes. It really didn't help that AC was probably one of the harder dungeons on release.

Although, my experience with TERA isn't that huge, hoping to start playing it again with some friends soon.

If they did that, that would be my last day on GW2. One of my favorite things about this game is you can get a good group together for pretty much anything you want to do without sitting around for an hour saying "Need Healer." That ranks right up there with "must have x gear or we don't want you in group" with things I hate in MMOs. So far GW2 hasn't fallen into either of those traps.

And this. It's the only reason me and my friends could do dungeons together. Whenever we reroll characters (on other mmos), we always have to consider who will tank and heal instead of picking what we want.

 

[Cels]

Where are you getting the info that they're going to continue adding Ascended gear for all slots? I haven't heard or read anything about that.

When Arenanet announced Ascended gear they said a full set of gear would be added. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

 

[Jest Chillin]

When Arenanet announced Ascended gear they said a full set of gear would be added. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Interesting. I must've glanced over that aspect when it was announced. Fair enough. So what's the issue once Ascended is complete?

 

[blackflag]

Game kept me interested enough to keep playing through most of the levels. I quit though. pvp/wvw is a freaking mess.

I've resigned myself to thinking I'll never get anything like DAOC ever again.

 

[Helmholtz]

GW2 is a weird game for me. Was one of my most hyped games before it came out, and it seemed to do everything right. I played it at launch and enjoyed most of what I played, but I kind of just lost interest and dropped it after a few weeks. I just never really feel like playing it like I did with GW1 or a game like Dota 2. I think the two things I disliked most about the game were the lack of variety in the quests and events (Press "E" on stuff, kill X amount of this until meter fills up), as well as the lack of variety in weapon spells (each weapon is limited to certain spells, which is a big departure from GW1's system). Those things weren't horrible, but I definitely didn't really care for them. But ya, game just failed to draw me in. I think the major issue was that it came out when school started again. Had it come out during the summer I probably would have spent more time with it. I think I'll probably come back to it in the future though.

 

[Trey]

GW1 did have grind for best in slot gear. It was easy to get "max armor" in GW1, but to have the absolute best statistical makeup possible did in fact require a grind.

Ascended gear is only necessary for high level fractals.

 

[Cels]

Interesting. I must've glanced over that aspect when it was announced. Fair enough. So what's the issue once Ascended is complete?

If they stop it's not a problem, if they keep adding stuff, like a new tier, then it is.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Define "interactive". Jumping out of circles, hoping the boss doesn't aggro you because there are no tanks, and then getting two shot because everyone's heal is on cool down? The instances are a fucking joke, the least fun I've ever had doing dungeons in an MMO before. The holy trinity exists for a reason.

Don't forget janky-ass boulder tossing spamming to keep a boss on the ground.

The network code and animation system just doesn't support what they wanted to do. I'm not even sure what they wanted to do would be any fun.

There's nothing wrong with having a role in a team.

God no. If people want trinity, they can play every single other mmo ever. I really like the fact that my characters are not relegated to one role or another. If you are going into a GW2 battle with the trinity mindset then yeah, you're going to get super wiped.

It's not an issue of certain classes getting relegated to specific roles in Guild Wars 2, it's that there are no roles.

 

[BrettWeir]

Game kept me interested enough to keep playing through most of the levels. I quit though. pvp/wvw is a freaking mess.

I've resigned myself to thinking I'll never get anything like DAOC ever again.

Sad but true. Hell, I would still be playing DAoC, if servers weren't ToA.

 

[blackflag]

Sad but true. Hell, I would still be playing DAoC, if servers weren't ToA.

Most definitely

 

[Coxswain]

TSW had dungeons like GW2 should have had. If they added a dedicated tank and healer to GW2 I think it'd be a lot better PvE-wise.

Healer yes, tank no, in my opinion.

I think ArenaNet was always slightly off the mark when it came to their stance on the 'trinity'. Being able to heal extremely effectively - and more importantly, to pro-actively protect effectively - has almost totally beneficial effects on the design of a game. It allows the designers much more freedom to give interesting, powerful abilities to the AI enemies, it provides an alternate path to being good and skilled at the game, and it provides an automatic (if limited) safeguard against class imbalance, by making sure that no matter how powerful a damage-dealing class is, there's going to be at least one person in the group who cannot be replaced that way.
The only downside to having effective, powerful healing in the game is that it then forces every group to have (depending on group size) at least one or two healers in the party.

Tanking, on the other hand, actively removes depth from the game. Tanking goes hand-in-hand with manipulable 'aggro' systems, and those are among the absolute worst, most shallow mechanics you can put into your game, by letting the players control their opponents as well as their own characters. It's like letting one person play both sides of the chess board - it's just not very interesting. Enemy AI needs to be free to attack the most opportune, vulnerable targets in the players' party - not forced to attack the least opportune target. And needless to say, it shares the downside of the healer, in that once you implement it, every group is forced to have one (and often, exactly one).


TSW minimizes how boring the trinity system gets because A) In group play,each dungeon is essentially a boss rush, and each boss has unique mechanics that help to mask some of the core flaws of the game, and B) In solo/duo play, the freeform, classless, levelless skill and equipment system means that the trinity is no longer in play at all.

In general, though, you want a system like Guild Wars 1, where you have powerful healing and protection, multifaceted classes that can handle a number of roles ranging from damage to control to ally support, and absolutely no formal aggro system - you can make one character into a super hard to kill juggernaut, but if you want the enemies to focus on that player, you have to actively make that player the most opportune target that the enemies have.

 

[Cipherr]

Game kept me interested enough to keep playing through most of the levels. I quit though. pvp/wvw is a freaking mess.

I've resigned myself to thinking I'll never get anything like DAOC ever again.

Our last hope is this supposed kickstarter Mark Jacobs from Mythic of old is doing called Camelot Unchained. I haven't heard anything about it since it was announced, but he did answer some of the questions we asked him in the comment section of the announcement; and he claims its going to be an RVR style old school MMO PvP focused smaller scaled game.

If that doesn't deliver, then yeah... The good ol' PvP focused well made MMO is probably dead as a doorknob. Still infuriates me that I let people convince me that GW2 was going to be the savior, then I ended up playing my character on his fucking back tossing pebbles at people while I 'recovered'.

FOH with that crap.

 

[Divvy]

Don't forget janky-ass boulder tossing spamming to keep a boss on the ground.

The network code and animation system just doesn't support what they wanted to do. I'm not even sure what they wanted to do would be any fun.

There's nothing wrong with having a role in a team.

You're doing it wrong. There's doors nearby for a reason.

That said, story mode for AC was terrible, especially for being a beginner dungeon. They did change it recently so maybe it's better now. The later dungeons are far better.

It's not an issue of certain classes getting relegated to specific roles in Guild Wars 2, it's that there are no roles.

But there are roles, they just evolve with the situation. Try playing a high level fractal and you can really see each class's strengths come to play.

 

[docbon]

Don't forget janky-ass boulder tossing spamming to keep a boss on the ground.

The network code and animation system just doesn't support what they wanted to do. I'm not even sure what they wanted to do would be any fun.

There's nothing wrong with having a role in a team.



It's not an issue of certain classes getting relegated to specific roles in Guild Wars 2, it's that there are no roles.

Fortunately you don't need to boulder spam anymore, since AC was rebalanced.

Spoiler

damn you lovers~

 

[staticneuron]

I didn't notice anything particularly complicated. So many currencies is not good, but I don't know if it really complicates play all that much.

But I have to admit, I can't really get into the game. I really want to but... The combat is just not for me I think. Someone told me I'm supposed to strafe. I don't want to strafe in my MMORPG.

I try again every couple weeks but I get frustrated after an hour or two and take another couple weeks off.

It makes me said because I think I like everything about the game except actually playing it.

Wow, I feel the same. The combat doesn't bore me it just seems like it is to much of a grind. My fault for trying to play so many different characters and classes at the same time but I feel if I didn't change it around every now and then I would dislike the game faster.

I prefer a job system because I would rather use one character to try many different play styles.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

You're doing it wrong. There's doors nearby for a reason.

That said, story mode for AC was terrible, especially for being a beginner dungeon. They did change it recently so maybe it's better now. The later dungeons are far better.



But there are roles, they just evolve with the situation. Try playing a high level fractal and you can really see each class's strengths come to play.

Doing it wrong? That seemed to be the common way to defeat that encounter when I was playing. It completely broke it, though, and made it stupidly easy.

I don't know what high level fractal is, but the fact that no class really seemed to be particularly better at any one thing than any other class led me to believe that there were no roles in the game. Nothing that any class excelled at more than any other.

Regardless of all that, though, something about the combat just felt off to me. Maybe it was the animations or sound effects of when blow connected? I don't know, but I just felt disconnected from every encounter.

 

[BrettWeir]

Our last hope is this supposed kickstarter Mark Jacobs from Mythic of old is doing called Camelot Unchained. I haven't heard anything about it since it was announced, but he did answer some of the questions we asked him in the comment section of the announcement; and he claims its going to be an RVR style old school MMO PvP focused smaller scaled game.

If that doesn't deliver, then yeah... The good ol' PvP focused well made MMO is probably dead as a doorknob. Still infuriates me that I let people convince me that GW2 was going to be the savior, then I ended up playing my character on his fucking back tossing pebbles at people while I 'recovered'.

FOH with that crap.

Holy crap!!!!!!!!!

 

[blackflag]

Our last hope is this supposed kickstarter Mark Jacobs from Mythic of old is doing called Camelot Unchained. I haven't heard anything about it since it was announced, but he did answer some of the questions we asked him in the comment section of the announcement; and he claims its going to be an RVR style old school MMO PvP focused smaller scaled game.

If that doesn't deliver, then yeah... The good ol' PvP focused well made MMO is probably dead as a doorknob. Still infuriates me that I let people convince me that GW2 was going to be the savior, then I ended up playing my character on his fucking back tossing pebbles at people while I 'recovered'.

FOH with that crap.

Oh lord, I hadn't heard of this. Guess I'll get my hopes up just to be crushed again. May be the first kickstarter I fund.