What is so special about Guild Wars 2?

[Memph]

Combat is different in GW2, you take a lot of damage if you don't move and dodge and thats one of the big differences.

I don't know if this is marketing spiel that stuck, but it is absolutely not true. Indeed, you can hit a button to dodge, but it's no different than pushing a button to walk backwards, to Blink, Disengage, Heroic Leap, or activate a damage/threat mitigation skill at the right time. It is nothing new.

You can 'faceroll' mobs in GW2 just as easily as you can in WoW, but in both games alike, if you pull multiples, elites/veterans or step into a dungeon to then stand still and press skill buttons, you will die. A lot. Yet people are speaking of GW2's combat as if kiting, backstabbing and mouse-turning never existed. I'd actually be inclined to argue that WoW's 'dungeon dancing' is leagues ahead with regard to demanding an awareness of your surroundings, positioning, your team's actions and generally having to move your arse quickly to somewhere else on-cue, whilst maintaining as optimal a damage/healing output or threat control as possible. Granted a well-geared, skilled tank can make the life of a DPSer considerably easier on various dungeon trash, but still, one needs more than luck and an aggro-magnet doing the likes of Bloodlord Mandokir without watching closely for tells and moving very quickly when necessary.

In contrast, I've had groups run every GW2 story-dungeon up to level 60 by pretty much holding down strafe and letting autoattack spam itself, dropping a dodge, or utility skill now and then to stay alive and this, to me at least, is why after 2 weeks of solid play to 75, I've sadly become instantly bored of the world, my character and the game in general. I'm glad they tried to remove the trinity system, but it feels hamfisted, because instead of skill-based mob control and group role mechanics, we're left with randomly meandering, uncontrollable mobs being blind/condition spammed to death as everyone runs in circles around the room trying not to get one-shotted. That and it seems there's literally nothing to do at 80 bar the impersonal 'follow the rabble' of WvWvW, or the completely detached PvP instances.

I really wanted to love it. And for a while I did, but in the blink of a eye of a dragon 'boss' that 2 people on mortars can take down by pressing one button for 20 minutes, the sheen wore right off.

[TotalKitty]

I don't know if this is marketing spiel that stuck, but it is absolutely not true. Indeed, you can hit a button to dodge, but it's no different than pushing a button to walk backwards, to Blink, Disengage, Heroic Leap, or activate a damage/threat mitigation skill at the right time. It is nothing new.

You can 'faceroll' mobs in GW2 just as easily as you can in WoW, but in both games alike, if you pull multiples, elites/veterans or step into a dungeon to then stand still and press skill buttons, you will die. A lot. Yet people are speaking of GW2's combat as if kiting, backstabbing and mouse-turning never existed. I'd actually be inclined to argue that WoW's 'dungeon dancing' is leagues ahead with regard to demanding an awareness of your surroundings, positioning, your team's actions and generally having to move your arse quickly to somewhere else on-cue, whilst maintaining as optimal a damage/healing output or threat control as possible. Granted a well-geared, skilled tank can make the life of a DPSer considerably easier on various dungeon trash, but still, one needs more than luck and an aggro-magnet doing the likes of Bloodlord Mandokir without watching closely for tells and moving very quickly when necessary.

In contrast, I've had groups run every GW2 story-dungeon up to level 60 by pretty much holding down strafe and letting autoattack spam itself, dropping a dodge, or utility skill now and then to stay alive and this, to me at least, is why after 2 weeks of solid play to 75, I've sadly become instantly bored of the world, my character and the game in general. I'm glad they tried to remove the trinity system, but it feels hamfisted, because instead of skill-based mob control and group role mechanics, we're left with randomly meandering, uncontrollable mobs being blind/condition spammed to death as everyone runs in circles around the room trying not to get one-shotted. That and it seems there's literally nothing to do at 80 bar the impersonal 'follow the rabble' of WvWvW, or the completely detached PvP instances.

I really wanted to love it. And for a while I did, but in the blink of a eye of a dragon 'boss' that 2 people on mortars can take down by pressing one button for 20 minutes, the sheen wore right off.

I agree with this.

Unlike Memph, I actually managed to get all the way to 80 as a Mesmer and gotten a few bought and crafted exotics.

However, the combat and gameplay really brings nothing new to the table. If anything, they have taken many of your average things and twisted them into something horrible.
I don't mind difficult dungeons - in fact, I embraced the idea with arms open, after being stuck in EZmode WoW for years and years. But when I say difficult, I don't like the idea of close to impossible. Memph and I did a dungeon the other night, we blitzed through it like it was a speed-date. The night after, we gathered a new team (this time full guild group) and we got slaughtered like pigs.
You can discuss whteher the team-setup was bad or the people we brought were simply just braindead. Now, if I remember correctly, one of the bigger changes was the loss of trinity and that every class could be paired up to do things like dungeons - NO! With our different setup from the night before, we proved that's a lie.

As Memph said, the combat system is nothing new. I'd gladly switch out dodge with mechanics to avoid damage or mitigation that actually works. Example from same dungeon. We faced a boss, that every 10-20 seconds did a firey attack that couldn't be dodged. Sure you could dodge the impact, but it would still burn you (adding 1-2 burn effects) that would kill you.
In dungeons, it all comes down to how fast my team notice I'm down and quick they can get me up. That's it.

The gameplay is nothing but a money-sink right now. Travelling makes you poor, and that's even after you have used exploits to get to LA for free. Then there's the repair bills (again a big issues in dungeons). It's almost like ANet wants you to be poor. Sure, it's easy to say that one should just go out and farm and sell your treasures on the trading post - WRONG! The 80 area is suicide to go to alone, if your sole reason is to farm. Sure, you might bump into people that are doing events, and you can follow them around a little while. But once you get detatched from said group again, you're on your own and left for dead.
More than once, I have come back with less money after I have sold my treasures, than I had to begin with. And may I add that the rewards from doing dungeons are horrible. 8 out 10 times you don't even get anything that fits your profession and there's not really any money or exp in it either, making dungeons pointless.

I liked the idea about a "free world". Hell yes, no more quests to go out and pick up 5 bear pelts and slay 8 Necromancers of the twilight or watever. But around 60 it hit me, that it was exactly what I was doing. The only change was, that now I had to fill up a little bar to get the "quest" done. Nothing new.

And what is the point in getting exotics anyway? Yes, dungeons on explore mode are hard, very hard (been there, done that) but besides that, your exotics seems more like something you use to show-off while standing in LA. It's close to being pointless.

With these horrible mechanics, the excuse that it's free to play is weak. Even if it is free to play, I would still like to have value for my money. Sure I might not pay a monthly fee, but does that mean that I have to put on my heavy grinding helmet? I think not.

I really loved Guild wars 2 for a while, but now I can't bare to log in and play, and that's after I have played all professions and races to about level 15-20. The thought of that there's barely anything by the end of the tunnel, other than grinding and grinding and doing the same bugged events over and over again in an area close to impossible to solo, is far from attractive.

Concerning sPvP and WvWvW - all I can say is "wtf?!". What kind of game gives you a heavy repairbill when you die? Ok that doesn't really count for sPvP, but don't worry, I get to that.
WvWvW can be fun, when you're facing equal servers and actually has a chance to capture holds and finish the tasks. But more than enough, our server has faced heavy populated servers, where we have gotten walked all over. In those situations, you end up leaving with a heavy repair bill (again a money-sink that shouldn't be there).
sPvP is the same objective over and over again just on different maps. Adding a map rotation doesn't make anything. It's the same objective on the maps over and over again, it's fun the first 2 maps then it just gets plain boring.

Give me steady mechanics, some sort of trinity a way to make decent money and I'll reconsider if I would want to put a blue stamp on this game. Until then, I can only take notice of how less and less I play this game.

[Brit89]

I haven't read the OP, nor this whole thread as this isn't the first thread of it's kind I've come across... but I thought I'd comment on here what I've been doing and why I enjoy this game.

Yesterday I finally hit level 80, in just under a month. I'm playing as a Sylvari Mesmer. What I did to get to level cap; story missions, 100%'ing each area I've been to - 90% world completion (including WvW), WvW occasionally, various dynamic events (not forced, only if I wanted to).

I haven't done a single Dungeon, haven't crafted much, hell the highest level is 13 as I haven't had any dire reason to craft... yet. Aside from one match of Keg Brawl, not a single match of PvP.

As for what I enjoy about the game? Its sense of freedom it gives me. Grinding is hidden well, then again I haven't forced myself to grind for a set amount of coins, karma or mats and I hit level cap so for now I still have a sense of freedom when playing. I seem to be doing fairly well in PvE as well as WvW with my Green/Blue/Yellow gear; get any drops with better stats? Transmute it or get 4 or the same colour and Forge them - still removing the need to grind for certain items/expendables. Though I can't see what the other person has gear wise, I'm am able to comfortably take on peeps 1v1 in WvW, some times 1v3 though that probably has to do with me being a Mesmer...... which is fucking awesome I might add. Some are saying we're OP, though I've heard most saying that for the Thief in PvP.

It's sense of freedom, exploring is what I enjoy about this game. This is simply such a fun game to play. I've had more fun within the first month of this game then I have in the 4 months I've been playing SWTOR prior to GW2's launch. There's a urge to do much more than go to an area, kill mobs, do missions, get rewards and go to the next one. Though me trying to attain 100% world completion might seem like a chore to you guys, it's all personal preference. It doesn't feel like a chore because I want to do it, not that I need to.

Platforming an area just to get a Vista, then you realise there's an entrance to a cave in the mountains. You go through it only to realise there's a labyrinth, a dark area where you need to jump from one platform to another to reach the end, go down a waterfall, more platforming... until you reach a chest. Some will know what I'm talking about particularly, but I found that purely by accident. And it was so fun going through that, especially when a bunch of players... not partied up, were following not far behind and you now have a formed group going through this jumping puzzle, helping each other until the end. I haven't done every jumping puzzle in every area I've 100%'d as I'm not checking off any tick boxes here. I just go around finding stuff to do, and then move on to another area or mission if I chose to and come back to explore more. You'd think every jumping puzzle would seem lame or repetitive at about level cap, but for myself I still enjoy them and have fun when there are others trying to get to the end as I am.

This game isn't anything different. It has multiple features from multiple games. But it does mix it up well in my honest opinion and I'm still having fun as hell with it. Even playing as an alt and going through the same quests and events, puzzles etc doesn't feel boring or tedious because of how fun it is to play and free this games makes you feel.

[Finicky]

AC is a poor first impression, as it's the most... dungeony of the dungeons, and is rather unforgiving considering it's players' first forays into all-elite mob zones.

I've done all the dungeons and my impressions are a lot more positive now that I've seen the gamut, rather than just AC. Interesting tidbits:

- Story Mode and Exploration Mode are two separate dungeons, and Exploration Mode can itself be split into several dungeons on its own, thanks to branching quests.
- A lot of the dungeons give unique encounters. For instance, the Twilight Arbor has a battle where you're transformed into little mewling kittens who get chased by large wolves. Arah has a flying-ship-to-dragon cannonade where some players man weapons and some clear the decks.
- Story Mode, played in order, presents a narrative arc pertaining to the five heroes that represent the playable races. Most comically, the story boils down to... how would I describe? How about: A WoW five-man wipes on the big boss. Everybody blames everybody else for the wipe. The Charr hates the human. The Asura hates the Norn. The Sylvari asks "why can't we all just get along?" Drama ensues.
- Exploration Mode is usually leveled for 5-10 levels above what the Story Mode is, but gives rewards based on the level of the player, so all players get loot commensurate to their level. Furthermore, the Exploration Modes give tokens which can be traded in for Exotic level-cap gear with unique looks. For instance, this is me wearing a Nightmare Court chestpiece.

All of this is true, and the game has lots of nice little additions and small changes to things like the bank screen and crafting screen being one window, story/explore mode, not having to level or gear for battlegrounds, teleport at will as any class at any time, the last stand downed mechanic that actually works in spvp etc.
But the gameplay itself is so uninvolving and bland ...it works okay in spvp with the abilities balanced and designed as they are , but is absolutely rubbish in pve.
All of the little good changes are pretty pointless (again why I said hopefully future mmos will copy some of the good convenience tweaks) if the game isn't enjoyable to play.

The single only highlight in the dungeons for me was the Arny style thumbs up in story mode of the fire dungeon (can't remember the name), but that little speck of light had nothing to do with gameplay.
The single only event highlight was the dragon in frostgorge crashing into the mountain... But the fight itself is still boring (kill mobs for 10 mins while the turret npcs and people with rockets kill the shield, then hit boss when it drops... and then destroy crystals for 10 mins while removing some debuffs off yourself and then hitting the bosses paw some more while he just sits there...
I was at the snow trolls farming for the exotic set for a few evenings and after a day or two none of the people there even bothered going to the event anymore... everyone just stayed at the trolls.
If grinding normal mobs, tedious ones to kill btw, is prefered over 2 hour cooldown big world events then you know they have to be really boring.

And again, as you also mentioned, the story is so frigging bad as is the dialog.
I like a nice story in an mmo (first 20 levels of AOC were great, other than that I can't think of any mmo with a nice story), but I'd rather have no story or text windows that are instantly skippable than having spoken dialog just for the sake of it and that needlessly takes 4-5 sec before you can click skip.
At least the generic bioware tripe in the old republic was still watchable, the dialog in gw2 is downright painful.

People also keep telling the op 'that's just what these wow like theme park mmos are like', but the group I play with are the biggest bunch of carrot chasing theme park loving suckers on the planet and they don't dig gw2 either.

edit: memph does a really good job of expressing pretty much my feelings on the combat.
And yeah the dodge is meaningless, it's just a few frames of invincibility and an animation, it's not even a real dodge.
If people are going to bring dodging in to it then I'd compare it to vindictus or tera instead of wow... and damn does the game compare even a whole lot less favorably than with the wow comparison!

[r3dknight]

Best Value MMO of the Year for me.
It's got a lot of polished features and the exploration is great - I can compare the hours I played with Skyrim and it still doesn't get stale yet.

And yes, the criticism on PVE combat being stale is absolutely true as well as story writing being mediocre. But that's not why I play Skyrim for.

[Nalano]

but the group I play with are the biggest bunch of carrot chasing theme park loving suckers on the planet

And you are clearly one of them.

Why are you ruining the game for yourself? Haven't you learned a single lesson from any of the MMOs you've played?

[r3dknight]

man loves carrot. perhaps he should try cucumbers sometime in the future.

[Neweht]

As someone who is almost solely playing structured pvp in guild wars 2 and who did similar in previous MMOs such as wow, I find this game's combat to be a big improvement. The dodge feature is adds a lot to the game as you have to recognize and avoid other classes' important abilities to a limited degree. It's a much better system then pillar humping

The removal of the holy trinity is a big deal too. There can still be extremely tanks characters but there can't be healers in any traditional sense. Everyone has to do some kind of damage and usually cc and interrupt. Everyone has to take care of keeping themselves alive. It's a much better way to play even if you like playing a support role as there are options for doing that in a more dynamic way.

The competitive mode of pvp in guild wars 2 is battleground based instead of just kill the enemy. This means that your team's strategy can be as important as it's fighting ability. Personally, your build often needs to take mobility into consideration almost as much as damage, survivability and control.

The combo field system is a complex beast which also adds to all of this. It makes team coordination more important and encourages you to make your team composition around it.

Overall gw2s combat system is a massive improvement when used in small-scale team-based pvp. I share the complaints of others about pve and WvW but I am loving the side of the game I'm playing. Unfortunately it seems to be the less-played side of the game and the one getting the least attention from arena net at the moment.

[Mohorovicic]

Guild Wars 2 is great because it features generic fantasy world, a selection of generic MMO races, the personal story which is worthless because of how badly written it is and because it's not personal if everyone else is doing it, idiotic casual mechanics like everyone-has-a-heal, groundbreakingly dynamic combat which has been in korean MMOs for the last five years, and most importantly that what goes against everything MMOs stand for - instances and level scaling.

[frightlever]

Guild Wars 2 is great because it features generic fantasy world, a selection of generic MMO races, the personal story which is worthless because of how badly written it is and because it's not personal if everyone else is doing it, idiotic casual mechanics like everyone-has-a-heal, groundbreakingly dynamic combat which has been in korean MMOs for the last five years, and most importantly that what goes against everything MMOs stand for - instances and level scaling.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/generic

I don't think that word means, what you think it means.

[r3dknight]

Dude, my character is called Lord Generic in Seafarer's Rest. You should see me sometime, wielding my generic powers of the Guardian. Calling my generic spirit weapons, and spamming generic spinning greatsword as he discovered his generic parents' death were tied to the generic conspiracy against the generic queen of the generic kingdom of generic humans.

Eventually he allied with the generic Vigil order due to their generic approach of handling things.

And that's the general story of my character.

[Nalano]

Dude, my character is called Lord Generic in Seafarer's Rest. You should see me sometime, wielding my generic powers of the Guardian. Calling my generic spirit weapons, and spamming generic spinning greatsword as he discovered his generic parents' death were tied to the generic conspiracy against the generic queen of the generic kingdom of generic humans.

Eventually he allied with the generic Vigil order due to their generic approach of handling things.

And that's the general story of my character.

To be fair, anybody who plays human in a fantasy game is looking to be Captain Generic of the green hills of Genericland.

[squirrelfanatic]

Not to derail this, but I find it interesting that the thread opener hasn't replied to any of the comments made so far. Was this supposed to be a discussion or just to vent the frustration with a certain game?

[Nalano]

Not to derail this, but I find it interesting that the thread opener hasn't replied to any of the comments made so far. Was this supposed to be a discussion or just to vent the frustration with a certain game?

The OP is TixyLixx. TixyLixx never stays in a thread for long.

[FriendlyFire]

I'm slightly amused that this thread is basically "Here be whines about Guild Wars 2". If you don't like it, don't play it. If you like it, go to the GW2 RPS forum and enjoy yourself with the other people who are enjoying themselves. There is no one game that makes everyone happy, that's just a fact of life.

What I don't like is people calling others stupid because they like a game. Are you jealous of others having fun with the game? Get over yourself, sheesh. You're free to dislike the game and even express why you dislike it, but stating opinions as fact and then shitting over people who disagree with you only makes you look like a fool.

At least I'm glad this thread is secluded away from the GW2 forum here. Stops the piss poor folks from raining on everyone's parade just for the hell of it.

[deano2099]

I'm slightly amused that this thread is basically "Here be whines about Guild Wars 2". If you don't like it, don't play it. If you like it, go to the GW2 RPS forum and enjoy yourself with the other people who are enjoying themselves. There is no one game that makes everyone happy, that's just a fact of life.

Yeah, god forbid we actually discuss a game on a game forum. I'm finding the thread interesting in a way that simple rants aren't because people can either pick apart the negative points or not, depending how valid they are. A thread full of just positive opinions would be dull.

[FriendlyFire]

I've no issue with people discussing the game, as I've said in the second part of my post you've not bothered with quoting. What I have an issue with is people saying things, considering them as facts, and being seemingly deaf to counterarguments.

I mean, it's obvious when someone comes in with a negative opinion of a game and isn't really looking for arguments as to why they should be trying it again as opposed to just ranting about it.

[jquinn914]

I gotta agree with the OP. I can see you really liking this game if you were a big WoW fan, or just had some minor gripes with certain aspects of WoW but it's along the same basic formula and if that doesn't do it for you this probably won't either. People really must have forgotten what MMO's were like before WoW if they argue that GW2 is nothing like WoW. MMO's nowadays are these really wide appeal games because MMO's take a ton of revenue to support their ongoing development and upkeep, back in the days of Shadowbane and the like, I actually had a genuine interest in the genre. Now I can care or less about the next 1000 MMO's that come out. On top of all this I have a strong bias nowadays against most ARPGs despite having sort of liked Gothic and really liked Gothic 2 and probably a few others that were technically ARPGs. I think it's that nowadays they use super-rudimentary RPG progression formulas, meaningless and static dialogue, and just slap the action on in place of round-based strategic combat.

[deano2099]

I mean, it's obvious when someone comes in with a negative opinion of a game and isn't really looking for arguments as to why they should be trying it again as opposed to just ranting about it.

But if that leads to an interesting discussion, then that's good isn't it? Ive always felt the best way to deal with trolls is to actually turn the rant into a topic for interesting discussion, rather than just slagging them off, which is what they often want in the first place.

[Nalano]

I gotta agree with the OP. I can see you really liking this game if you were a big WoW fan, or just had some minor gripes with certain aspects of WoW but it's along the same basic formula and if that doesn't do it for you this probably won't either. People really must have forgotten what MMO's were like before WoW if they argue that GW2 is nothing like WoW. MMO's nowadays are these really wide appeal games because MMO's take a ton of revenue to support their ongoing development and upkeep, back in the days of Shadowbane and the like, I actually had a genuine interest in the genre. Now I can care or less about the next 1000 MMO's that come out. On top of all this I have a strong bias nowadays against most ARPGs despite having sort of liked Gothic and really liked Gothic 2 and probably a few others that were technically ARPGs. I think it's that nowadays they use super-rudimentary RPG progression formulas, meaningless and static dialogue, and just slap the action on in place of round-based strategic combat.

I know you can't be talking about EQ or other grinds WoW basically cribbed and polished, so you must be talking about UO. UO was fine. UO ain't for everybody. EVE probably has the closest FFA PvP to UO, but EVE is a niche game even by WoW-pretender standards.

This post needs more TLAs.