Review

delete5230

A very fast background. I played GuildWars 2 on release and leveled a Necromancer to around 56. I rarely use the word boring when I refer to a game I don't really like.  But that's what happened around 30 to 45 days into it.  I actually felt guilty since the game was still very popular, but that's what happened to me.  Since then I've been back for two more chances, leveling two other classes to around level 25.  Still the same out come, boring ( I hate this word boring for some reason, it makes me feel like I'm depressed or something, and I'm not ).

Since then, both I and several friends were having a lot of fun on a Vanilla World of Warcraft server, but something happened causing us and many others to flee.  Now, some of my friends don't have much money, so I suggested GuildWars 2 since its free and were a bunch of refugees.

So we've been playing GW2 very casual for two weeks now.

This is where the review starts :

I created a Human Thief.  I logged in and got this overwhelming feeling.  I don't feel like doing this again.  As much as I loved playing with my friends, it was hard but I overcame and played to level 19.  With all my friends we had very few chances to play together, none of us were very entertained because were not really having fun as a group.  It's just so so easy, very child like easy.  Monsters are dead before any second player can get a shot in !.......Seems, that were drifting apart and everyone is playing on their own.  Were not even bringing up the topic at work.  It's such a solo game.

As far as combat - Being a Thief, I have several abilities, Double strike, heart seeker, death blossom, dancing, cloak and dagger, and the ability to swap to other weapons.  I also have class abilities such as Spider Venom and Caltrops.  For each ability, I was excited to get.  But playing for a few days I realized, Nothing matters !.....Just press all five buttons.  Even three or four monsters level higher, the difference being, I may have to press each button twice.  Is this for real ?

Liner game play - Open world my butt.

- Asura, move across the screen one level at a time from bottom to top.

- Humans, move across the screen one level at a time from top to bottom.

- Norn, left to right.

- Sylvari, bottom to top.

With extremely beautiful graphics for each race, nothing really changes with the exception of a nice swamp now and then, but its still the same old as level 1.  You seem to level to the same beat from 1 to 80, in fact easer at higher because you now cause explosions with you five ability rotation  

Gear and weapons - It doesn't matter, just do a few personal story quest and you have what you need.  Use your Karma money after a quest and buy the latest and greatest.  Auction prices are so low, just pick up anything any peace of gear that's one level behind for almost nothing.  Better yet, don't even worry about it, just press your five buttons and the dam thing is dead

What's with the daily log in gifts ?.....I feel like a unique and special person with the log in gifts.  If I forget to log in for two days, I'm loaded !

I get the feeling of not being part of anything, same with my friends were not part of anything......This game is made for five year olds.

filmoret

Well move to an area that is actually the level of your character after initial starting zone and you will be singing a different tune.  I had to dance all over the place to keep from dying once I reached about lvl 25 because the area's were too difficult.  Next time look at the zone you are in and the level you actually are because being lvl 25 in the starter zone is going to be easy.  Being lvl 25 in the lvl 25-30 zone and you will get your butt handed to you quite a few times.  Each race in GW2 has a different story and they can separate into 3 different stories for each race as well.  So if you want to play with your friends with a brand new character for f2p you have to use the same race or learn how to travel via the portals but I don't think f2p can use the portals until lvl 20.

Loke666

Tha game wasn't made for 5 years old, it was nerfed for that. In the first beta weekend they had a perfect difficulty but people whined and had since so it got nerfed several times. Now nothing in the basic games open world is challenging besides a few large bosses.

HoT is actually hard and group focused but guess what? People are complaining and it wouldn't surprise me if they nerf it soon as well.

Whiners have made my game far less fun.... Again.

But honestly, you played Wow before and the same thing happened there as well. It have happened in almost all MMOs.

Oh, and once you actually reach a hard area or do a fractal your thief will die if you continue to rotate skills, you need to time those and keep a track on your initiative while you dodge and position yourself. But you can easily go to 80 with just autoattack by now. It wont get you anywhere in HoT though.

Really, start by doing a few dungeons with your friends, Ascalon catacombs are the first one. Some of the paths there arew still acceptable. But I fear the real group content doesn't start until lvl 80.

filmoret

I recently leveled another character to lvl 60 and I was doing f2p because I have the max number on my paid account.  I did notice it is very easy to find yourself in an underleveled area making all the content very easy.  I would be lvl 40 in a lvl 30 zone and things are easy.  However when I was lvl 40 in the lvl 45 zone it wasn't easy at all.  This game it makes it very easy to forget you must be in the level of your character to see difficult encounters.  You have the choice in this game to make it easy or difficult by doing the content at or above your level.  For some reason they went with the thaco system which I hated from the mud days when a higher level monster would be very hard to hit and damage.  It helps because it prevents a lvl 45 from doing all the lvl 55 stuff because they simply can't handle it.  It hurts because players usually find themselves in an area way under their level making it too easy.

Siug

Honestly, it was my worst MMO experience (I don't play Asian garbage) and there was no RPG in it for me. Only time I was excited was when I entered Orr for the first time but it took 2 or 3 circles to understand that that zone was basically same as others.

Kajidourden

I just couldn't get over the combat.  You get 5 skills for the entire game (I stopped before HoT) and you have them all by level..25ish? (made it to level 30) The utility/healing skills are kind of a joke as they are situational at best and therefore I almost never used them and didn't need to really either.
I thought the dungeons were kinda cool with the multiple paths, but everyone just picks the easy path and goes, so meh. 
Then again it's B2P, so I feel like it's hard to complain.

filmoret

Siug said:

Honestly, it was my worst MMO experience (I don't play Asian garbage) and there was no RPG in it for me. Only time I was excited was when I entered Orr for the first time but it took 2 or 3 circles to understand that that zone was basically same as others.

GW2 isnt Asian,  That comment looks more and more racist every time I read it.

Xiaoki

Recently leveled a few new characters and it is not hard at all, even in an even level zone it is not hard.

On my Necromancer the one and only time I had any difficulty is when I was fighting a group of level 80 enemies at level 72.

Once ArenaNet removed the artificial difficulty of enemies doing a lot of damage it revealed just how easy the game really is.

Even the HoT zones are not hard. The enemies can be annoying with constant knock downs but they aren't hard. And people complain about the HoT zones because they are tuned for large groups and you can't get a large group together most of the time for HoT zones.

You'll have maybe 10 people in Verdant Brink for the zone meta but 40 in Silverwastes.

delete5230

I found another Vanilla WoW this afternoon ( its packed ), I'll gather up my refugee friends and bring them back to Vanilla WoW so we can be a community again.

Dakeru

I really wish you would stop posting like you said you would instead of trashing any game you come by to hype Pantheon and in this case vanilla WoW instead.

Wizardry

Kajidourden said:

I just couldn't get over the combat.  You get 5 skills for the entire game (I stopped before HoT) and you have them all by level..25ish? (made it to level 30) The utility/healing skills are kind of a joke as they are situational at best and therefore I almost never used them and didn't need to really either.
I thought the dungeons were kinda cool with the multiple paths, but everyone just picks the easy path and goes, so meh. 
Then again it's B2P, so I feel like it's hard to complain.

You know i am often guilty of just blaming the developer but as you pointed out ,players can ruin these games just as much,picking the  "Easy path" or in many cases ignore content altogether.
Personally i really don't like dungeon type content at all,the alternative to picking the easy path is developers tend to clutter the small hallways with so many mobs,your fighting every single mob in the dungeon.
I also do not like having to "pick your options" that is such an unrealistic idea,which EQN was suppose to use as well.
If my Mage learns 20 spells,i want to use any of those 20 at any time.



I have gamed with well over 200 developers maybe 500+,so i really notice when one is trying to pull a fast or pull the wool over my eyes.
As to the b2p .I agree it "seems" like it's hard to complain,but remember Anet did a LOT of bragging prelaunch about how they were doing gaming better and not charging a sub fee doing it.I also remember them bragging about content updates every two weeks.Thing about early release updates is how do we know that wasn't a RUSHED game and you were just releasing content you did not finish in time to rush the game out?Right we don't but when that trend falls off a couple months later,it is pretty obvious that was exactly what they were doing but as typical of Anet spinning words to hype up their product.
Geesh i even remember Anet defending GW1 taking flak for such an instance game,they vowed GW2 would not be that instanced game,,ummmm ok yeah ..instances anyone?

Basically if you are going to do a lot of bragging you had better back it up and Anet has not done that and it makes them look bad.

Gaia_Hunter

I have nothing against people that think Gw2 is not their cup of tea.
It is reasonable. There are a ton of games people rave about that have no interest for my tastes.

But there clearly is a rather large number of players that enjoy the type of play GW2 offers.
I also don't see many games that offer Open World Events that require as much coordination as stuff like Triple trouble, Silver Wastes or Tangled Depths as GW2 do.

90+ ppl in a open world map required to beat something, split in 3 or 4 subgroups that need to coordinate to kill in a couple of minutes windows?






I also like "oh leveling zones are so easy". Because there is this long list of games where leveling mobs require 5 minute fights and all your wits.

I also notice that there is no Charr, maybe because their zones are a bit non linear. Ah, the Norn going for starter area to level 75-80 area is also very linear.

There is also the complete give away of "I use all the skills". No, no, no. Auto-attacking, buffing and pressing whatever is the burst damage skill of the weapon is how you get damaging rotations.

filmoret

Xiaoki said:

Recently leveled a few new characters and it is not hard at all, even in an even level zone it is not hard.

On my Necromancer the one and only time I had any difficulty is when I was fighting a group of level 80 enemies at level 72.

Once ArenaNet removed the artificial difficulty of enemies doing a lot of damage it revealed just how easy the game really is.

Even the HoT zones are not hard. The enemies can be annoying with constant knock downs but they aren't hard. And people complain about the HoT zones because they are tuned for large groups and you can't get a large group together most of the time for HoT zones.

You'll have maybe 10 people in Verdant Brink for the zone meta but 40 in Silverwastes.

Necromancer is probably the strongest pve class in the game.  Next time try thief, warrior, guardian, elemental, or Mesmer then start saying how easy it is.

Wizardry

""But there clearly is a rather large number of players that enjoy the type of play GW2 offers.
I also don't see many games that offer Open World Events that require as much coordination as stuff like Triple trouble, Silver Wastes or Tangled Depths as GW2 do.""


I realize you are not saying it does not exist but FFXI has been doing Beseiged for 10 + years now.In it's heyday you would get well over 100 likely 200 maybe even 300 players taking part.

It was also a whole race of mobs maybe 30/50+ entering the city and NPC's defending as well as all the players defending as well.You could buff or heal the npc's and  they could be captured as well meaning you lose a few of the npc options until they are returned or rescued.
So yeah this is nothing new,matter of fact i find the GW2 version of a world event to be somewhat lack luster at times,nothing more than 1 giant mob that everyone spams attacks at and the Boss doesn't even move much.

When a certain race invades the city, the leader Medussa can actually charm players "several" so there is that added effect,Square Enix until recently was always the leader in creating content ideas.

The difference with Arena.Net is they always try to spin same old same old as THEIR NEW innovative ideas
and then attaching fancy titles like "Living Story" or "World Events" "Dynamic content".Yes we get it Arena.net i have been seeing ALL of these ideas for years now,your slow to the party but good job on the marketing spins.

GeezerGamer

I've re installed the game. I don't have HoT. I want to level something new again and take a look at the overall state of the game and make the call on HoT at that point. But for now.........What to level?

filmoret

Wizardry said:

""But there clearly is a rather large number of players that enjoy the type of play GW2 offers.
I also don't see many games that offer Open World Events that require as much coordination as stuff like Triple trouble, Silver Wastes or Tangled Depths as GW2 do.""


I realize you are not saying it does not exist but FFXI has been doing Beseiged for 10 + years now.In it's heyday you would get well over 100 likely 200 maybe even 300 players taking part.

It was also a whole race of mobs maybe 30/50+ entering the city and NPC's defending as well as all the players defending as well.You could buff or heal the npc's and  they could be captured as well meaning you lose a few of the npc options until they are returned or rescued.
So yeah this is nothing new,matter of fact i find the GW2 version of a world event to be somewhat lack luster at times,nothing more than 1 giant mob that everyone spams attacks at and the Boss doesn't even move much.

When a certain race invades the city, the leader Medussa can actually charm players "several" so there is that added effect,Square Enix until recently was always the leader in creating content ideas.

The difference with Arena.Net is they always try to spin same old same old as THEIR NEW innovative ideas
and then attaching fancy titles like "Living Story" or "World Events" "Dynamic content".Yes we get it Arena.net i have been seeing ALL of these ideas for years now,your slow to the party but good job on the marketing spins.

You mentioned 1 game that did this before.  Just 1....  Anyhow those bosses you experienced don't just spawn.  It takes several groups of players doing different tasks to get those bosses to spawn.  And I will say once again that if you are lvl 80 in the starting zone trying to get a challenging boss then you are silly.  Maybe i'm different because I'm not constantly upgrading my gear.  I use the same gear unless I loot something better and I don't get any new gear until I need it.  *meaning*  I do not buy new gear unless I find myself dying a lot.  You used ff11 as an example and I'm like who the heck plays that game anymore.  I tried but couldn't get past the authentication of my false email just like blizzard did.

YashaX

Gaia_Hunter said:

I have nothing against people that think Gw2 is not their cup of tea.
It is reasonable. There are a ton of games people rave about that have no interest for my tastes.

But there clearly is a rather large number of players that enjoy the type of play GW2 offers.
I also don't see many games that offer Open World Events that require as much coordination as stuff like Triple trouble, Silver Wastes or Tangled Depths as GW2 do.

90+ ppl in a open world map required to beat something, split in 3 or 4 subgroups that need to coordinate to kill in a couple of minutes windows?






I also like "oh leveling zones are so easy". Because there is this long list of games where leveling mobs require 5 minute fights and all your wits.

I also notice that there is no Charr, maybe because their zones are a bit non linear. Ah, the Norn going for starter area to level 75-80 area is also very linear.

There is also the complete give away of "I use all the skills". No, no, no. Auto-attacking, buffing and pressing whatever is the burst damage skill of the weapon is how you get damaging rotations.

I wouldn't take the OP seriously, obviously just a troll thread. Your screen shots are great though, and I never knew end game pve was so awesome (I basically only play pvp in GW2).

Gaia_Hunter

GeezerGamer said:

I've re installed the game. I don't have HoT. I want to level something new again and take a look at the overall state of the game and make the call on HoT at that point. But for now.........What to level?

What have you leveled before and what weapons did you use?
Sometimes liking or disliking a profession is as simple question of switching a weapon or a trait.

My favourites are Necromancer and Engineer.
Ranger, Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist and Revenant are all classes I enjoy playing.
My least favourite are Thief and Mesmer.

Necro and Engineer can be quite tanky, deal a ton of AoE damage and have some tricks and bar switches.
Thief and Mesmer are full of these little nuances that can add to be quite impressive but I think they are probably more interesting confusing real players in PvP.