586 replies to this topic

[Shroomhead Fred]

blindude, on 25 November 2012 - 11:24 PM, said:

when is that?

26th of Nov (12pm PST)

http://www.guildwars...-november-26th/

[DuskWolf]

@Wordsworth

I think the fans are worried about the lost income, as I explained before. When I like a game, and good will is extended to me, I'll spend money on it. I'll buy things from the cash shop and I'll be inclined to continue to do so. I'll also be inclined to buy expansions. Due to liking Mass Effect 3 and Champions Online, I've bought a lot of the content and cash shop things they've put out. But if I'm not playing Guild Wars 2, I have absolutely no reason to put money out on it. If a substantial amount of people start feeling that way, then their funds taper off.

So the fans are eager to try to convince people to not quit quite yet for that reason. But I refuse to put any money out on GW2. A game that taxes its players and puts them through excruciating grind? Well, that's WoW, innit? And I didn't buy this game to play WoW. I suspect more and more people are feeling the same way.

[Bryant Again]

I've been back to Dark Souls and Awesomenauts! The recent changes have been a bit of a bummer and I was busy during the whole event.

[gustavxiii]

i don't think anet knows the direction they want gw2 to go anymore.  the game they first promises breaks away from traditional mmo.  and that draws the gw fans and new players.  but the lack of gear grind (the game doesn't lack end game, it lacks a gear grind) is turning away some players.  so they throw in a gear grind with the lost shore.  and THAT turns away more players who don't want a gear grind.  instead of getting the best of both worlds, they are getting the worst of both worlds IMO.

the game still have a lot of players, but it's too big for its own good and too divided.  the world is HUGE!  even with a lot of people playing, the world still feel empty sometimes.  and everyone is divided.  i wanted to do story mode of a dungeon, another group wants to do explorable mode.  same dungeon.  can't play with them.  i see people looking for path 1 group while others look for path 2 group.  can't play together despite wanting to do the same dungeon.  fractuals, levelings are going up to 20s, or same dungeon is divided into 20+ parts.  the game is dividing up the players.

and it's so difficult to find party for things the general public aren't interested in.  i know i'm not the only person who wants to do CoF story mode in the game.  yet, i can't find anyone.  they might also be spamming lfg cof story in another server.  they might be doing it in another area.  and they might have just given up like me and go on doing other things.  there is just no way for me to reach them and vice versa.  and unlike gw1, there is no heroes and henchmen to bail us out of this situation.

[Millimidget]

Where have all the people gone? To other games. This one is surprisingly shallow, and its best repeatable content (WvW/PvP) has all kinds of problems.

cyclopsje, on 24 November 2012 - 08:39 PM, said:

Gear grind come on this is not even close to gear grind

It is now.

300 individual fractal clears, less ~3 fractals per fractal daily you complete, just to get one ascended piece; similar time investment if you want to craft it, but using the same mats you'll need for a legendary (with the obvious intent that you P2W).

If the chance to randomly receive a ascended piece from a fractal daily is as low as receiving a black lion key from a PvE daily, then yeah, it really is a gear grind, and that's just for one piece.

If they tried to release the whole set at once, the amount of grind needed to finish a set would be insane; so obviously insane that we'd be describing it as not just a gear grind, but as a Korean MMO grind.

gustavxiii, on 26 November 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

instead of getting the best of both worlds, they are getting the worst of both worlds IMO.

That's usually what happens when developers try to change their target audience shortly after release.

The whole thing is starting to stink like a moneygrab.

Larsen, on 25 November 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

I think this deserves more discussion than it has been getting. The absence of real tanks and healers hasn't broken the game completely, but I feel it has added absolutely nothing while taking away a lot of potential depth from what has turned out to be extremely bland and shallow PvE. I think the three roles simply belong in MMORPG combat and shouldn't be tampered too much with. If it isn't broken, don't try to fix it.

I'm coming to that conclusion myself; removing the trinity just leaves it a dodge-fest, with your highest DPS doing most of the kiting. While I've made the trinity work in some places, in others (ie most bosses) it's entirely unsuited. They definitely demonstrated that while the trinity isn't so holy, it does add a layer of depth that makes playing alts more interesting. At the same time, I'm glad they totally removed the dedicated healer role; I'd love to see a take on the trinity where tanks do most of their own sustain healing, while "healers" provide burst recovery.

Edited by Millimidget, 26 November 2012 - 12:50 AM.

[Lannister]

gustavxiii, on 26 November 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

i don't think anet knows the direction they want gw2 to go anymore.  the game they first promises breaks away from traditional mmo.  and that draws the gw fans and new players.  but the lack of gear grind (the game doesn't lack end game, it lacks a gear grind) is turning away some players.  so they throw in a gear grind with the lost shore.  and THAT turns away more players who don't want a gear grind.  instead of getting the best of both worlds, they are getting the worst of both worlds IMO.

the game still have a lot of players, but it's too big for its own good and too divided.  the world is HUGE!  even with a lot of people playing, the world still feel empty sometimes.  and everyone is divided.  i wanted to do story mode of a dungeon, another group wants to do explorable mode.  same dungeon.  can't play with them.  i see people looking for path 1 group while others look for path 2 group.  can't play together despite wanting to do the same dungeon.  fractuals, levelings are going up to 20s, or same dungeon is divided into 20+ parts.  the game is dividing up the players.

and it's so difficult to find party for things the general public aren't interested in.  i know i'm not the only person who wants to do CoF story mode in the game.  yet, i can't find anyone.  they might also be spamming lfg cof story in another server.  they might be doing it in another area.  and they might have just given up like me and go on doing other things.  there is just no way for me to reach them and vice versa.  and unlike gw1, there is no heroes and henchmen to bail us out of this situation.

I think this is largely true that trying to please everybody takes away some "soul" from this game. This is always the case for big hit games that stem from a succeful modest start (GW1) and tries to produce a lot of money...they have to please everyone and by doing so the games goes in many opposite directions...so everybody finds something in GW2 for a month or 2 (or more if highly addicted to MMO genre) but on the long run things are just dull and unsatisfying...

that is exactly what freaks me out when I read that From software want to made the follow up of darksouls more accessible for a larger audience...to me, this means "we decided to do a shitty game that everybody will buy and spit on a month after purchasing it but we'll be loaded by then so who cares"

[DuskWolf]

Sujoy, on 25 November 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

No, if the people that always whine and threaten to quit would just quit, we'd be much better off.

But then we wouldn't get the trainwreck!

See, for someone who's quit playing, this is amusing. There's just so much cognitive dissonance and people throwing away their self-respect and showing a total lack of shame. You know of 'talent' shows like X-Factor, yeah? Where people get up on the stage and wail, hoping that it'll win them some favour?

Well, fanboys are like that with ArenaNet. ArenaNet is their audience. Those who aren't fans are just sitting on the sidelines, watching with horror, unable to stop watching because of morbid curiosity.

"Did my efforts please you, ArenaNet?"

It's hard to stop watching. It's like a trainwreck. You kind of want to, but morbid curiosity keeps you around. It's almost like empathy, I guess. You're just hoping that the silly gooses will come to their senses and try to salvage whatever miniscule amounts of dignity they have left.

There are better games out there, and developers who'll treat you with the respect you deserve. Stop bending over for ArenaNet.

[MeltyLotus]

gustavxiii, on 26 November 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

i don't think anet knows the direction they want gw2 to go anymore.  the game they first promises breaks away from traditional mmo.  and that draws the gw fans and new players.  but the lack of gear grind (the game doesn't lack end game, it lacks a gear grind) is turning away some players.  so they throw in a gear grind with the lost shore.  and THAT turns away more players who don't want a gear grind.  instead of getting the best of both worlds, they are getting the worst of both worlds IMO.

the game still have a lot of players, but it's too big for its own good and too divided.  the world is HUGE!  even with a lot of people playing, the world still feel empty sometimes.  and everyone is divided.  i wanted to do story mode of a dungeon, another group wants to do explorable mode.  same dungeon.  can't play with them.  i see people looking for path 1 group while others look for path 2 group.  can't play together despite wanting to do the same dungeon.  fractuals, levelings are going up to 20s, or same dungeon is divided into 20+ parts.  the game is dividing up the players.

and it's so difficult to find party for things the general public aren't interested in.  i know i'm not the only person who wants to do CoF story mode in the game.  yet, i can't find anyone.  they might also be spamming lfg cof story in another server.  they might be doing it in another area.  and they might have just given up like me and go on doing other things.  there is just no way for me to reach them and vice versa.  and unlike gw1, there is no heroes and henchmen to bail us out of this situation.

Not that I don't agree with you about the game starting to become divided, but if you go to Lion's Arch the servers are mixed. At least when in a Overflow which is the best thing to come from FOTM. You'll have more luck finding dungeons parties across servers for story or exp while there then standing in the map shouting.

But then when a dungeon is contested on all servers it does hurt this.

[jubjub1277]

Just in general even though i had my own guild i joined several others just to see why they were like but they too were becoming dead. The game just doesn't feel fun anymore and the Risen in orr just make me mad. Most zones are empty now unless it has a dragon in it and they have yet to add a housing instance which would definitely interest a lot of people.

[Soul]

I just quit the game. Out of a guild of 90, I'm the only one who has been playing consistently for the past month. I stopped after the travelling and armor money sinks. I've done all the personal story quests except the last one when you're forced to group. The problem is that there's no one to group with, so I'm done.

What killed my guild was the lenient server transfers. We were one of the PvP forces on our server, the sheep of GW2 transferred to our server and all the original people from multiple guilds quit.

This game could have been great.

[LavaSquid]

fotm is addictive... <3 just saying.

Well, it might be because of black friday sales and most of us are trying other games

[gungfu]

Off topic, but me and my mates now play a drinking game where we read Duskwolf's post and have to drink everytime he uses "cognitive dissonance".  Doesn't take long before we are smashed.  

[karekiz]

jubjub1277, on 24 November 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

A couple weeks ago the game was still pretty active and my guilds ratio of members who were on everyday was high. Now there's only about 5 people who get on a day compared to 20 from before. What happened?

http://gw2lfg.com/lfgs

Lets see: Over 50 players AT this moment LFG for JUST fractals - Can YOU guess where they are?

[Naginto]

Shroomhead Fred, on 25 November 2012 - 10:16 PM, said:

I'm waiting to see what Anet say in the upcoming AMA on reddit.

The last patch felt more like a turd wrapped in gift wrap rather than some awesome free present.

The problem with the upcoming "AMA" is it isnt and AMA at all. They asked for questions and got a list. They will now cherry pick the ones they want to address. Its a bullshite marketing move, much like the misguided (and not supported) E-sport comment.

[Mad Fherrit]

gungfu, on 26 November 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

Off topic, but me and my mates now play a drinking game where we read Duskwolf's post and have to drink everytime he uses "cognitive dissonance".  Doesn't take long before we are smashed.  

I lol'd in RL

I agree there are a number of recurring bugs that I've seen that surprises me are still in place when they make such a big deal out of the FOTM event.  One would think that game stability is desired first, then events because its harder to do 'cool stuff' when your core code has issues.  The thing that I've noticed from reading this thread and this general theme on other sites is two recurring themes;

The first is noticeably lower populations and how that hurts world pve since its design is presuming that you'll be doing that content with several others all the time.  Though the idea of DEs is fantastic, unless you can funnel players into areas where they take place, requiring multiple participants is counter productive, it just makes you notice what you can't do, rather than what you can do.  Likewise related to this is that any time a producer introduces something that is indicative of a power creep through itemization, people will focus on that content, and everything else becomes obsolete.  Once more, you're funneling players away from things you designed to require several to complete.  Added to this a lack of tools for finding groups to do things, you're forced to sit in LA spamming chat and trying to be clever to elude the filter's limitations.  All of these things add up to congested intent meaning your players aren't doing the things you designed for them.  The so called 'overwhelming success' on Anet's Dev post makes me wonder if they've played their game lately.

The other thing I've noticed is how the item cash shop is factoring into all this.  I have no idea what their finances are, so I can't say if this is simple corporate greed or if its a survival tactic, but if their FOTM was to generate a surge of income, I think its actually backfired.  I understand businesses need to make a profit, and all businesses like to make a great profit, that's a given.  But it seems IMHO what GW2's end game has become is reasons for spending money on their item shop.  The event was buggered on so many levels that again, just IMHO, it seemed like the event was rushed live because it being an event as we understand the term was less important than the reason behind it, to get the item shop's hand in the funneled gameplay of FOTM.  Part of this is due to a article I read here

http://www.mmorpg.co...exon-Investment

But part of it is also a general sense I've gotten from reading various boards while bored at work.  I admit, some of that article is a bit...passionate...but as I've long believed, never underestimate the power of greed.

[Age]

Tumaras, on 24 November 2012 - 09:12 PM, said:

The folks that are blaming the low activity on the Thanksgiving holiday, semester timing, solar flares, Mayan calendar, etc. are grasping at straws and are probably going to be disappointed.  I wouldn't expect a huge return of people all of the sudden next week after the holiday (or ever ftm).

It wasn't like that in GW even when it was 4 to 5 years old.This game probably lacks the replayablity that GW did and the farming was better.It wasa live server instead of mutiple of servers which who now which friends are on what server.I has lot fo friend in GW which I can't find in this game.It just feels loney as even Devinty's Reach is no where as good as Lions Arch was.It is not a good social area.

[Nox_Aeterna]

Honestly i still play to be with my guild , i really like many players in it , despise what people think of 500 men size guilds , mine is a quite nice environment.

But that is it. That is all this game got atm to keep me playing.

Honestly i already decided to not give any money to Anet , if they cant make me see a reason till they apply exp packs or till my guild for some reason disband ... well that is it.

Edited by Nox_Aeterna, 26 November 2012 - 08:28 AM.

[Arquenya]

What this game could really use is alliances.

I have a few alts in small guilds. And I speak with people in those guilds that logon, see there's hardly anyone online to do dungeons with and decide to logoff again and play another game.

Alliances in GW2 was an excellent way to allow people to have their own unique snowflake mini-guild and still be part of a large community, be it with like minded people or because of a shared language (there's quite some dutch guilds for example). It's really too bad GW2 dfoesn't have it and ANet also never mentioned any intentions to implement it. Which is really, really too bad for a lot of players.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

Most people I know are getting less and less interested in the game for one simply reason: lack of guesting.  We come from a game which has allowed world-wide friends to play together.  And now we cannot do that anymore.  They managed to rip apart groups that have been playing together for 7 years, within 3 months.

[Perm Shadow Form]

Paying 60 for 2 month gameplay is decent, paying for MMO which lasts for 2 months is horrible.

Arena Net is no longer the company I used to love.

Edited by Perm Shadow Form, 26 November 2012 - 09:07 AM.

[Resolve]

Var, on 25 November 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

Its not... healthy right now. Aimbotting is pretty rampant, the other forms are less common though also (I'd imagine) harder to pull off. My server was talking about it during WvW reset on Friday/Saturday. Its not some god given miracle and it suffers from similar to worse issues as GW2's WvW.

Heck, people said the same thing about it as they did WvW: "I'll try it out when they fix it."

Hacking? Really? I haven't seen any rampant use of it on my server(AU) and can't see any complaining about it on the forum or in game. I've seen more hacking in GW2...

And it has far less culling than in GW2. It doesn't happen up close which makes it a lot better to deal with. It's not a god given miracle for sure but it's solid. We'll see though, good things can quickly turn for the worse as we've seen with Anet.

[Quivvie]

jubjub1277, on 24 November 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

A couple weeks ago the game was still pretty active and my guilds ratio of members who were on everyday was high. Now there's only about 5 people who get on a day compared to 20 from before. What happened?

My guild is actually growing and more and more people are playing at all times.  We currently have 50 to 80 people on during prime time and no lower than 10 on 24/7.  There is always someone to play with.  I guess not all servers suffer from population loss.

[Zero_Soulreaver]

I quit the game in October, it just isn't fun anymore. I believe the Halloween event was also icing on the cake for many people who were deciding if they wanted to leave or come back. It's funny how they added some sort of endgame content all after people have already left expecting them to come running back, well that didn't work.  I enjoyed the game in it's early life but it died out after a month of cracking the game open and discovering so much.  Anet never saw it coming and it blew their entire design theory of "come play when you want with no hassle"  well now many don't care to play.

Most people don't like waiting for the game to progress, the game should be waiting for the player to progress not the other way around.  Yea, you can say "the game is new so of course you have to wait" but the problem is we haven't seen much of a change from the start.  Always releasing content that lasts a few days and then game is boring again. Most MMO players don't like playing in spurts like that because it takes you out of the experience entirely.

[AarodCutshot]

Most of the servers are high or full 24/7 seven days a week and you ask where everyone has gone. lol I ask you this

[AarodCutshot]

Lady Rhonwyn, on 26 November 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

Most people I know are getting less and less interested in the game for one simply reason: lack of guesting.  We come from a game which has allowed world-wide friends to play together.  And now we cannot do that anymore.  They managed to rip apart groups that have been playing together for 7 years, within 3 months.

We come from a game which has allowed world-wide friends to play together. They managed to rip apart groups that have been playing together for 7 years, within 3 months.

I would ask if you really meant that. That would cause me to face palm probably your answer... You are saying that a game where you can walk outside and have tons of quests and what not and you can join in anytime is ripping you and your friends apart... Intresting...

[SlappedYak]

Daesu, on 25 November 2012 - 07:22 PM, said:

GW2 forces you to be social as you can't do the group events/dungeons without having a group with you and you can't deal enough damage against a champion on your own.  To make matters worse, you often can't find enough people to help you so you have to give up certain content and guilds are dying out on my server.

There is also no party tools which is one thing GW1 has over GW2 so you have to spam LFG messages in GW2.  The message spamming in GW2 is extremely strict so often I can't LFG after one or two messages.

At least in GW1, you can choose to take heroes or LFG for a party.  In GW2, you often do NOT have the choice to join or form a party even when you want to as there are often not enough players in your map who are interested in doing the same thing as you.  Furthermore, the expensive WP cost deter others from traveling to help you.  At level 80, I have to spend about 1s33c just to warp to a WP right next to me.

Yes, the champion thing is annoying and it does frustrate me too in lower/mid level maps because they are pretty empty (don't people make alts these days? jeez!) The waypoint price gives me so much rage xDD they NEED to tone it down for lvl 80s... 80 does not equal rich xD

BUT I have to say one thing about your comparrison to gw1 and gw2 - a) the champs that you can't solo in gw2 are NOT compulsory for map clearing so it's not going to inhibit your progress that much - unlike gw1 there were certain missions you just couldn't do with henchmen! gw1's lfg party find tool appeared REALLY late...like 5 years in late - anyone remember old LA chat spams??  or the trade channel fiasco (at least that's been solved with BLTP). Personally, people who complain a game is "dead" two months after release are obviously the kind of people who traded in their copy of skyrim once they completed the main missions.... there is NO way people have done everything the game has to offer yet!!

[Perm Shadow Form]

Home.

Exploring on Supposedly full North America server - no people anywhere on in LA.

[Leopardclaw]

Silvercat18, on 24 November 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

The people who are sticking with guildwars are those who knew what they wanted when they came.

I am a fan of WvW and i still have much fun when i do it.

....though i wish arenanet paid more attention to that fact and gave us proper rewards....

Deffinately. My friends and I watched GW2's developement for nearly 3 years, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were buying. I've never had so much fun in an MMO before, and I'm so glad I chose this over some of our other options. I made a several friends in the first few weeks of the game that did end up fading out though. Most that I could cotact said they were expecting to put more work into leveling and progression, and weren't really comfortable with the explore/roleplay-like gameplay. They felt that they were more hardcore in world PvE, but they didn't really care for dungeons or PvP of any kind. I suppose everyone has their own reasons.I personally can see myself playing for years to come, especially with the future expansions. I have plenty of alts to spend time in word PvE, dungeons, and I absolutely love WvWing with my guild when we have  good server matchup.

My only real issue with Anet is the delay on the guesting feature. I want to be able to hop into the RP server from time to time to chat while still being able to participate in my server's WvW. I can't really move my guild just because of it, so 'm just waiting. :/

[Daesu]

SlappedYak, on 26 November 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

Yes, the champion thing is annoying and it does frustrate me too in lower/mid level maps because they are pretty empty (don't people make alts these days? jeez!) The waypoint price gives me so much rage xDD they NEED to tone it down for lvl 80s... 80 does not equal rich xD

BUT I have to say one thing about your comparrison to gw1 and gw2 - a) the champs that you can't solo in gw2 are NOT compulsory for map clearing so it's not going to inhibit your progress that much - unlike gw1 there were certain missions you just couldn't do with henchmen! gw1's lfg party find tool appeared REALLY late...like 5 years in late - anyone remember old LA chat spams??  or the trade channel fiasco (at least that's been solved with BLTP). Personally, people who complain a game is "dead" two months after release are obviously the kind of people who traded in their copy of skyrim once they completed the main missions.... there is NO way people have done everything the game has to offer yet!!

Granted that GW1 did make mistakes when it was first released, who would expect otherwise from a new startup company?  But ArenaNet has learnt from them and added useful features like the LFG tool and heroes.  So why did they repeat the same mistakes for GW2?  Wasn't GW2 released after maintaining GW1 for 7 years and learning from these mistakes?  GW2 may only be released 3 months ago, but the knowledge and experience ArenaNet has gathered in GW1 + the additional resources they now have, makes this inexcusable.

Besides the champions and the group events, you also can't solo dungeons.  Are dungeons necessary?  Strictly speaking you don't have to do dungeons but you will be missing out a lot of things in the story and rewards if you don't do them.

The game maybe only 3 months old but they have been moving in a direction that annoys many of their customers recently and it seems to worsen as they move further and further away from their original promises.

Edited by Daesu, 26 November 2012 - 05:38 PM.

[Zhahz]

I've been dinking with SWTOR again since I never did empire content much but it's basically just reskinned republic content and empire classes mirror republic classes so there's nothing special about that either.  It's cool to do the whole overdone cutscene thing and cool to do instances with roles but sadly SWTOR never fully hit its potential and going from GW2 to SWTOR makes SWTOR feel like it's 10 years old (due to graphics, UIs/interfaces, and general clunkiness).  Plus once you've done the hybrid style slightly more active content of GW2 or worse, the really active styles of Tera and/or RaiderZ style games, the old school tab target and whack style of MMO combat feels completely barbaric.  I seriously need to get into Neverwinter beta (trinity style classes + action combat + hopefully without the mediocrity of tera content).

I convinced 10-15 people to play GW2 but most of them have lost interest and the ones who are still playing are generally bored even though so much of the game is so good.  We've been talking about it and haven't entirely figured out what the deal is since so much about GW2 is amazing.

We think a big part of it (for us) is lack of trinity and roles and grouping just feeling very lacking.  Most of us have been raiding for years and while I can do without it for now (since I was getting burnt on leading raids and guilds) a lot of my friends really miss structured raiding.  Outside of raiding we've always been heavily into grouping and the grouping in GW2 just doesn't feel as compelling.  It feels like 5 soloists sort of working together - which sounded really good but in reality just isn't as much fun (although I'm sure for people who prefer soloing to grouping in massively multiplayer games it ends up being just fine) for us since we're used to more role-oriented tactics.

The problem for us now is that it has taken ages to get enough of our group up to the point of doing a lot of grouping and now not enough people ever show up to DO that grouping.

I think part of it is how the build/weapon/skill system works.  It's different and sort of interesting but the builds don't feel as compelling and feel more restrictive and it's not like you can say, I want to be a two handed mace wielding warrior with X skills because you're limited in weapon choices if you want to use particular skills.  As with any MMORPG there's weapons/builds/talents/whatever that are consider the best or better so you end up with a whole lot of cookie cutting that's even more generic than ever due to weapon skill ties.

I think part of it F2P, which I'm growing really sick of in general.  I hope it's a trend that goes away.  Whenever the answer to a question in the game is "you get it thru gem store or gems" people always groan.  When you pay a sub, you don't ever think about or ever have to think about these things, you just play.  When money comes up regularly during gameplay, it gets to be annoying.  When every holiday event involves heavy does of cash shop, it's annoying.  I don't care how many people play MMORPGs and "free" usually means lower quality players who care less and behave worse since they have on investment.

For me personally - I was excited about the philosophical changes, attitude, and direction Anet TALKED about during development, beta, and before release.  They have shifted directions on numerous elements that to me were core to their design and I find that irritating.

Millimidget, on 26 November 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

The whole thing is starting to stink like a moneygrab.

Hard for it not to when the way they make their money is by steering people to the cash shop.  This is why I'm already getting sick of F2P models.  I would rather just pay a flat fee for a worthy game and have everything available rather than watch developers try to incorporate the cash shop into every element of development and design.

F2P models have come a long ways but I still always feel restricted, limited, or that nagging for cash feeling.  The 15/mo sub model doesn't always feel worth it but IMO I'd rather see devs try to make it worth it (or *gasp* charge less per month) vs feeling nickel and dimed and I really don't care how many players a game has - I don't want to play games with people who think the world owes them free entertainment (to me most people who want games to be free are the same people who think pirating games or stealing music/videos off the internet are a god given right too).

Millimidget, on 26 November 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

I'm coming to that conclusion myself; removing the trinity just leaves it a dodge-fest, with your highest DPS doing most of the kiting. While I've made the trinity work in some places, in others (ie most bosses) it's entirely unsuited. They definitely demonstrated that while the trinity isn't so holy, it does add a layer of depth that makes playing alts more interesting. At the same time, I'm glad they totally removed the dedicated healer role; I'd love to see a take on the trinity where tanks do most of their own sustain healing, while "healers" provide burst recovery.

I don't see how you could have the tank part of trilogy without healers.  Self healing tanks would be even more OP than classes who lean this way how.  Some people enjoy the healing role too (generally moreso than people enjoy the tanking role).  Trinity works because of clearly defined and executed roles.

In trinity systems you can be that amazing tank or amazing healer (or even an amazing and intelligent dps that doesn't need healed incessantly) but there isn't much to distinguish you in GW2.  Oh boy, you know how to dodge - grats - that's impressive.  There was never any lack of react or die instantly mechanics in trinity content so dodge really isn't all that remarkable.

You have to say, what's worse?  Having dedicated healers able to heal thru stupid and keep groups alive, or having downed state and the ability to run back to fights from the nearest WP to wear bossses down via attrition.  IMO, having healers and no ability to win via attrition leads to way more heroic opportunities and moments vs the pretty much meh style in GW2.

Removing the trinity really hasn't added or helped much, IMO.  You still see endless LFG spam.  Guilds still group together.  Friends still group together.  Certain classes are still more/less desired.  With gear tiers getting added gear will be a factor affecting grouping.

IMO group content is nothing special.  There's some potential for synergies and working together but it's a lot more blurred and less intricate than trinity and clear roles.  It feels like 5 soloists working together instead of a group working together.

Lack of trinity also kills any chance of structured group content beyond 5-man (which is already not very structured).  Like real raids.  Rift showed that you could have lots of variety here - open public pseudo-raids where role doesn't matter much, casual light raid content where gear doesn't matter much (like daily raids), serious grouping and raids, etc - lotsa variety in content with trinity and without trinity restrictions.  It's somewhat sad that GW2 isn't setup similarly since it has SO much sexy content and sexiness in general.