lmaonade

I'm one of the people still enjoying the game, but I am disappointed with the end product. I think Anets biggest issue is they wanted a wider audience so they made the game with the intention of even the most brain dead being able to play and "be good" at the game. the thing is, the games with a long life are generally the "easy to learn hard to master" but there's really nothing to learn or master here. even if they balance out the combat system it wont make a difference. they removed all the control we had in GW1 over the flow of combat. I have a friend who loves the mesmer class, and stacked nothing but interrupts on his skill bar. and would sit there and troll the hell out of any one who played against him
"oh all most got that 3 second heal cast off... and denied..."
I cringe because he would do it to me a lot, but It's what made GW great, High risk skills with reward. you can control combat by buffing/healing your team, you can debuff, remove buffs hurt and shut down your targets and you HAD to do it systematically. Monks and Mesmers were high priority targets for a reason.

honestly I think the BIGGEST mistake they made with their combat system was removing cast times, and interrupts. sure we have some fears knock downs ect. but it's something most people just do with their skill rotation. I understand the idea of having only a few skills, there was a LOT of trash in gw1, a lot of it (in spite of how many people claim to "love to make builds") was based on the meta builds in the gwpvx. but even with the fewer skills there's a lot of trash in gw2. now with the removal of depth to the combat system it's do damage or GTFO. I think the game would have been great with the same amount of skills gw2 has but the depth of combat gw1 has. being able to interrupt, and slow casting times or slow down physical moves would have added a lot to this game pvp and pve. I think anet missed the point and thought "constantly pressing buttons = entertaining" but the core of gw1 and their fan (old) fan base wasn't just pushing the button. it was knowing the when and the why. and if they want to make this an E-sport, they need to make the combat system more interesting and skill based. not some knee jerk skill rotation. it's good to have simple systems. but in high level play you need to be able to control every aspect of those systems and I think most importantly there NEEDS to be a high Knowledge/skill gap so you know your getting better. There's a reason League of Legends Made it as a E-sport, is because on the surface it's easy to follow the action, but there's a lot of depth to the combat, and some very big skill land marks that make playing as interesting as watching.

what I was expecting when they were advertising the combat system was a sort of martial arts movie where the combat flowed quickly but with elegance and grace, what I ended up getting was the equivalent of 2 ratty kids who don't know how to fight, tumbling and flailing on the ground. we'll see where they go from here though.

Dailies give laurels which can be spent on ascended gear amongst other things. Ascended is the new exotics at ten times the cost for a small boost.

They're rebalancing classes and focusing more on balance for a bit. They're even working on fixing the AI to make pets and minions viable.

You weren't here last week? You missed an exclusive chance at many mini pets only in the gem store! Don't worry! This week you have ANOTHER exclusive chance at ANOTHER mini! DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE! GIVE US MONEY!

New weapons have indeed popped up! Gem store! 1 in 8000 chance from our lotto-boxes!

Over-all, it's the same game they're trying to polish with a heavy focus on their gem store.

Thread necromancy is go.

I remember when guardian DPS was just super broken at launch due to having Symbol of Wrath on a 10-second cooldown.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I am beating a dead horse, but considering how Colin Johanson so full-bodied announced the last few horribly shallow content updates an "expansion worth of content" I'd be very reluctant to even buy an expansion at the end of the year despite enjoying the game still, more or less.

If I want half a book prologue's worth of content and some questionable "Epic Adventures" wrapped up in tons of PR, I might as well hold my breath for a new Twilight movie and move on to greener pastures when it comes to games.

A 1st year birthday present that isn't linked to the gem store.

Honestly? I think they need to be bigger than the current game. Bigger on the scale of size, consequences, everything. When they talked about GW2 initially with Orr and Zhaitan they made it seem like Orr was one big dynamic zone (much like WvW) that needed to be protected at all costs. We got a little bit of that in the story but the sad reality of it is everyone's running through Orr like nobody's business. If you never went to Orr you'd barely have any idea of what was actually going on. If people mass ignored Orr, Zhaitan's minions should be knocking on your doorstep.

In fact, the whole expansion just needs to be much more difficult than this. Remove the farming limitations and make skill the deciding factor in obtaining rare items and skins. Restructure the cash shop to fit this.

Give us a new hub in the expansion. One that is constantly under threat. New zones that arent even available unless you move the battlefront beyond points of interest. The expansion needs to be big enough for it to matter. Big because that's how the original game should've been structured. A collective war effort.

Guild are sadly overlooked in this game. I am neither a fan of the ability to be in more than one guild at once, but I am pretty appalled at the lack of guild halls and guild mechanics in this game. I feel that there is much less a sense of community in this game than there was in GW1. Even in guilds that I was in during GW1, I still felt that TS was quiet and people were doing their own thing.

Guild halls, even though they didn't seem like much, were a very big part of my day to day enjoyment of GW1. For some reason, just having that private space for your guild was important. Not to mention the ability to do fun scrimmage stuff and duels.

Of course, I loved GvG, but I would even settle for something WvW and Guild related in GW2. The sky is the limit; ANet just needs to start capitalizing on it.

People tend to think that mesmer only works if they are Exotics?

I wear greens because its my playstyle, and have seen no evidence as to why exotics are better.  I give my party lots of boons and support, using a staff  build, and it's really fun.  I hate this exotic gear meta

Elysen, on 05 May 2013 - 11:33 PM, said:

I believe he was being sarcastic

Gerroh, on 04 May 2013 - 07:48 PM, said:

"How do I font I don't know oh god what's going on aaaah"

I would say it's a horrible idea, from the way they've done it so far.

It should have just been ONE HUGE patch giving us the entire questline + dungeon + weapon sets. Honestly we've been getting like one event every month. And the finale(I think?) is one dungeon that lasts half an hour.

War in Kryta in GW1 was awesome, because we were introduced new characters, a TON of new dialogue, a ton of weapon sets, the story was a complete mystery. It also affected the main storyline in a way with Gwen and Thackeray getting married. You could SEE the devastation happening in the land. The missions and zones had ARMIES of white mantle swarming the areas, swarming the villagers and towns, etc.

This flame and frost thing is.. not exactly interesting. I mean 90% of the players don't even know what's going on, we're just looking for the reward and doing the events.

Alright so... refugees..? I don't exactly.. SEE the danger here.
Dredge and flame legion.. why are they working together? I still don't get it.
A really badass dungeon.. It's cool, but I don't understand what's going on.
What are these sonic machines shooting at me? Why do they need to spy on ME?
Okay.. so we have... dredge and flame legion coming out of portals together and standing there, doing what exactly? Is that how they scout?

It really doesn't make sense.  

It really should have just been released as one big flame and frost patch or developed much better with visible devastation in the lands, much more dialogue and characters, a LOT more personal storyline missions, in the way War in Kryta was.

Well that's my take on it. horrible idea, horrible development. Arenanet really needs to see why GW1 was considered one of the most brilliantly unique MMO's of the past.

EDIT:
Winds of Change was awesome as well, although it was... extremely difficult later on. But, extremely difficult is what GW2 needs right now.

lmaonade, on 28 April 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

With respect to "when", banners were buffed in the recent march 26th patch, more info in the thread:
http://www.guildwars...arrior-changes/

Did you play WiK/WoC? ANet built npcs to counter meta directly and was an amazing improvement in pve. They finally starting getting the idea, before abandoning the game completely. I think if GW1 got continued content this would be the way they set out. Pve never got dull for me, sometimes I'd use a gimmick meta sometimes not. I still enjoy that pve more than I do in GW2.. I am just bored of the same stuff I've been playing for 7 years.

Condition damage is largely worthless in both games when it comes to pve. ANet could have done a much better job and use pips of degen like in GW1. Not only would this have removed the bandwidth problem, but would be a much more interesting mechanic imo. Shorter condition times with bursts of health degen sounds good to me. Thief deadly arts tree is a pathetic sorry excuse for deadly arts that we saw in GW1. Where are my signets that give me burst damage for having a condition(s) on my target? I have to stack 25 bleeds, hope they don't get removed, sit there and autoattack. Veeerry interesting... nawt.

I think conditions were just done horribly horribly wrong in this game, I don't disagree with anything you said this is just my 2cents on it.

They need to create something like Factions but with even more dynamic play in that if one group controlled a town,city or outpost the other players couldn't enter it without permission. This would give waaaaay more to fight for in the PVE game than just kill woody woodpecker over n over. I always did like Fort Aspenwood battles and moving the line in Factions back n forth but in GW1 they just wouldn't let you buy/sell in the cities, outposts and town. I want a little more than that in that you can't even go in them until you drive the enemy out.

two maces, on 22 April 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

I'm not so sure. Yes, I think my attention span, in terms of one gaming session, is down. But, overall, I don't change games a lot. I like to stick to something for a while. Granted it was 8 years ago, but GW1 held my attention for a very very long time. In fact, longer than any game ever, unless you count the entire Madden series which I've been playing since 1994.

I think there is an overall shift in all entertainment. I would call it "The Avatar" effect. We are spending all this time on making things shiny and pretty, but the underlying things that have previously made entertainment fun, such as strategy and story, seem to be lacking more and more.

I remember a time when I barely beat any game I played because it required so much time and effort and skill. It seems that every year games get a little easier, a little less interesting, poorer plot lines. Not every game, but the majority of games.

It's like as a society we have become infatuated with the shiny sparkly stuff and forget about the fun stuff. I know people are going to say "you don't speak for me" and I hope those people are right. I hope I don't even speak for myself - but I think, as it relates to the entertainment we mass consume - I can speak for a large majority of consumers.

So, while games like GW2 do have fun things in them, there are also these things that almost need to be added to account for that majority. I mean, how fun is it "working" to get achievements and titles and shiny new weapons? I think those things, while probably necessary to an extent, are become more and more the norm and not the exception in entertainment.

I believe, as it relates to the OP, ANet really does care about making a game fun and not just adding the shiny stuff... But something happened. Something happened along the way where they just went after the shiny stuff, which is why many feel, myself included, that they only care about making a buck. Because, that really is what all that shiny stuff is about - not about making a "fun game" in regards to what has historically made games fun: strategy, cooperation, story, etc.

Maybe I'm just bitter, but it really does feel like a completely different philosophy governing everything in this game recently as opposed to the ANet that made GW1 and even the ANet that developed GW2 pre-release.

Something happened...