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Really wanted to like this game...
Prereality
Member Posts: 6
Hi All,
Just my 2 cents for anyone looking to buy GW2.
The Good:
Lovely gfx engine and game world - GW2 looks great and scales well on most systems. The animations in combat are fluid and the character and world models throughout the game are well done.
Decent "Questing system" - The events system (its not dynamic) is a new and fun way to get you questing without you feeling like you are questing. As a long time MMO player I found it a refreshing change even if it's still the same "kill x, collect w, revive y" quests they are presented in such a way that you are taking up in the illusion you are helping. The other great thing about the questing system is it gets everyone working together. I would like to say this is down to everyone wanting to helping each other but in reality its purely due to the fact that helping other helps you. There is no "my mob" tagging or exclusive kill credits in this game, it employs a "what you touch you may share in" system. On paper this sounds great but in reality it just turns every event into one giant AoE cluster of chaos.
Crafting - I'm not much of a crafter in MMOs and choose to do so more because it helps my character rather than because I enjoyed it. This is not the case in GW2. I found the crafting system both fun and useful with a good level of reward for doing so. There are I am sure millions of post detailing the crafting system so I am not going to delve into its inner workings but I had a lot of fun with it.
Lots to see and do - There are a huge amount of things to see and do and the environment is really enriched with ambience. This is in part due to the aforementioned events system but also thanks to a decent arts and creative team.
Down leveling - Down leveling is something that I was in two minds about when I was reading about it. However after having played the game I have to say it's a real positive aspect of the game for me. It means exploring "newbie" zones is no longer a snooze fest and that you can go back and do other races starting zones and still have fun and be rewarded for doing so. It also helps greatly with the whole paring up with a lvl 50+ friend or guildy with no life and 600 hours play time (some exageration there but you get the idea) and not having it be a total face roll.
The community - It's been very refreshing for me to such a good crowd of people striving to help each other in chat channels. People were quick to offer help and advice when "less researched" members of the community were struggling or had issues. People were also helping out in the field too, ressing people and reviving where possible. I know there are XP rewards for ressing and reviving people gives you another body to throw at the boss but whether it was due to people helping others to help themselves or people just being selfless it felt good and worked well.
Looting and Gathering - Every mmo needs to follow GW2 on this imo. You don't have to worry about some douche coming to steal your wood/ore/plant while you finish off a mob guarding it as all the nodes and loot are instanced meaning you never have to fight anyone for the same node. This again through good game design creates a better community where by instead of someone coming in to ninja your node while you kill the mob, they will most likely help you kill the mob as they may get some loot and then harvest the same node you were after without taking it from you. This leads to a better experience for everyone.
The Bad:
The Professions -: I know I am going to take a lot of flak here for this one but here goes. While I have few issues with the classes (let's call them what they are) the lack of ability to fill a role I found deeply annoying. I am fine with there not being a set tank class, healer class but at least allow (either with a certain skill set or weapon combo) a class to be able to fill in a certain role. The problem I am describing is not really exposed in the normal mobs or regular events system due to those being unskilled button mashing AoE light shows. Where this is a lot more evident is in instances and event boss fights. The only way I can describe it is chaos, sometimes organised but chaos none the less. With no set roles for any of the classes it really seems that it's just a question of throwing bodies at a problem and trying to do as much damage while reviving downed foes. There is no resource management, it's just a question of how quickly can I rotate through my CDs on one weapons set before moving to the other in pve. This brings me on to the skills which in general are incredibly dull and generic, you almost feel forced to use them in PVE just because they are off CD rather that to react or respond to an issue. The skills system seems purely designed to maintain control over PVP balance rather than create fun PVE play. This was the real deal breaker for me in the game, flame me, call me a traditionalist but the lack of defined roles meant everyone was trying to do a bit of everything and it just doesn't work for me in PVE. If this isn't an issue for you and you are here mainly for PVP then I am sure you will have a great time in this game. I am a big fan of PVE and classes just feels unstructured and empty to me in PVE, I love PVP too, but I have many other games that fill that void.
The lighting and skill effects - Partly related to what I've said above but the fancy flashing lights and spell effects get old really fast. When you are trying to avoid being one shotted (despite being in full vit/toughness gear) by avoiding a faint red cricle and 3 eles come and shove their lovely coloured circles of fire etc under the boss while 2 others bubble up the area to set off more coloured lights it really just becomes a screen full of meaningless effects and lights leaving you wondering why you are now dead on the floor despite only being blinded by all the effects for a few second.
Grouping up: Whilst the downscaling system should make for a great grouping experience the painfully bad design of the overflow system and the bugs with the "join X in zone" on the party frame, along with map and party frame update issues make what should be a quick easy bit of fun turn into a painful 20 min long set of "Are you in the overflow? Why can't I see you? Where are you on the map?". This I could forgive early on if it happened once or twice but it happened so many times to the point where guildies and friends couldn't be bothered to group up if they were just on for a quick 30 mins. This imo is criminal. How when an mmo is all about playing with others did such a useless system get through to launch despite it being reported to death in beta? Yes they have acknowledged the issue and I'm sure over time it will get fixed but it's not really forgivable to have issues with grouping up with people when that's a good part of what an MMO is about.
The Ugly:
Trading post - MMOs are lots of different things to different people, if you are one of those mmo players who loves to play the economy and build up a personal empire steer clear of this game for a while. The trading post is constantly screwed with access limited to 20% of the population while they continue to test it out. Although this is a bit of a gripe for me I know how complex mmos are to develop and there are bound to be some teething issues but to have your whole trading system down for launch is not great, to have it still down a week+ after launch is pretty unforgivable.
Conclusion: I really tried hard to like this game as it has a lot going for it but in the end the lack of class roles and grouping issues left me wanting a refund. I will drop into the game every now and then to see if anything changes but I feel disappointed. My main reason for writing this is in the hope it saves a few people some money buying a game that isn't for them. I know however there are a lot of people having fun playing this game and I hope they continue to do so as it is a great game for certain mindsets just not for me.
- Pre
Comments
Not to knock ur post or anything..
But I'm getting a serious case of Deja Vu right now..
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
Yeah not everyone is going to like GW2's profession an combat design. The combat is fairly twitchy, and the group dynamic is radically different from what most folks are used to.
I'm not surprised by this though, I've heard a lot of folks say that they don't like twitchy combat, and some even complained that WoW was too twitchy. The group dynamic is also "harder" than trinity games because you no longer rely on one strategy to defeat everything, so this will turn some folks off as well...I still see a lot of people say "I'm a warrior I can tank AC" in chat...and I cringe lol.
That said I think GW2 will appeal to a lot of people that WoW and other games didn't appeal to. So in the end, it's a win, win I think
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Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Thats the thing there is so much to like about the game but the class system for me is just so bland and stateless. Its not about thinking out side the box its about having no focus. The classes all do the same thing heal a bit, dps a bit and buff a bit just with different skins and animations. While im sure in PVP this is a while other story in PVE it gets old really really fast. The trading post isnt really an issue for me as I stated i was mentioning it more for the MMO traders. The grouping system is an issue for me though.
Hello, I guess the lack of holy trinity is mainly what's driving you away from the game. Nothing we can do about that, but I just want to comment on those to points you gave.
Most of the problems with the broken in-game features including partying, overflow, and trading post are due to the load the server is trying to manage. ANet has done internal tests, beta tests, and stress tests, but unless they hired at least as many people who are currently playing right now (peak figure was 400K) they really don't have any chance to discover these issues. You have to understand that and maybe then you'll realize that it is forgiveable to have grouping issues at launch, especially with something as complicated as having to an overflow server that prioritizes a group. Your group is just one of the thousands of concurrent groups that the server is trying to sort out. Give them time to fine tune things. Also I think the trading post is up for everyone now? This is the first time I've had access ever since it was taken down at launch.
I share your frustration with grouping. These past 3 days me and my friends gave up grouping for a while and decided to do things on our own until this is fixed.
Yeah I agree, I think its nice something has come along and tried to do something different and I hope it appeals to enough people to hold a strong community as you can see a lot of love has gone into the game its just not for me.
Have to agree with you on the overflow .. it's a good idea that isn't quite working right atm .. When it is it will be good but atm it can be more of a chore than a boon depending on how lucky you are .
As for the rest .. got to respect your views .. not every game will be liked by everyone
As a disclaimer, I havent' gotten to the level to do dungeon content yet (why aren't there more lower-level dungeons btw? Seems like a bewildering choice to have them only just start in the mid-30s): My image of them in my head having now played a few classes and see the way DE's work...remember how WoW WotLK was essentially an AOE zergfest and every class had its own AOE and all you had to do was spam it to zerg to the end of the 5-man...I foresee GW2's dungeon system in a similar light. Am I wrong?
I'm enjoying the DE zergfests...but in the same way I sometimes enjoy playing mindless hack-and-slash games.
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Life sucks, buy a helmet.
The overflow stuff...I really haven't had any major issues with. If someone in my group is in the overflow, I can just leave the zone and come back and then I'm in the same server. Has anyone had worse issues with this?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I agree with pretty much all of your points OP. The main problem I have with the game is the lack of defined roles as well. I love playing both healers and tanks in other games and I honestly find their absense in this game to be very disappointing. Still, I am finding myself enjoying the game regardless. It may not be everything I'm looking for in an MMORPG, but it is fun for the time being. It definitely has a lot of things I enjoy regardless of the negatives.
They are the ones that have chosen to use an overflow system which is poor design in the first place and the bugs with partying and the overflow existed in beta if you read my post long before it was flooded . They have thousands of tools to stress test software and databases. They dont need to "hire" people to play, you can simulate connections players etc. Sure you may get a unexpected peak at launch but those are issues for log in servers (which did crash but were resolved with in a day) and latency issues not in game bugs.Partying is fundimental aspect of any mmo not a minor feature.
I had worse but it was only for like.....a day and a half then it seemed to have been magically fixed.
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Any other reason you didn't like this game?
Like did you instantly run back to another game after? Seems like you went out with a new girl then kept thinking of your ex even the new girl was pretty nice.
The only "real" negative was class design. In PVP there are roles which is I guess why I like it.
LOL sadly no, I am mmoless at the moment. I wish this new girl was what I wanted she looked stunning had some great features but ended up having no character. We had a good time for a few weeks till i realised she could do a little bit of everything in the bedroom but didnt excel at anything either. She also had no class ;-P.
The class design is what makes an mmo game though wouldnt you say? You can have all the frills in the world but if you dont like how it actually plays whats the point?
Honestly, the lack of the trinity, and real class definition, and roles, is to me what makes the WvW really just a dps fest. I can t stand it for that.
I had no issues with your OP and wish you the best in wherever your gaming interests take you...
BUT...
This response I have issues with. First off calling the overflow a "poor design in the first place" - well yes you are entitled to your opinion but I and I'm pretty sure hundreds of thousands of others would rather be playing the game in the overflow zones than waiting in multi-hour queues (see the complaint posts from people trying to get into WvW for examples).
Second, it is actually incredibly hard even with automated load-testing tools to simulate a true live environment. I've been there. I've used them. I've seen the tools fall short of expectations.
Finally assuming that unexpected peak activity only impacts login servers tells me you know very very little about modern distributed computing software design. Once again I have no issue with you being unhappy about how grouping is currently working with the overflow servers but to assume that "it's a simple problem" is just flat out wrong.
Also many have ignored Creslin's post but how many people struggling with grouping were all trying to join the Party Lead/Member in the Main Server rather than joining the person in the Overflow Server?
OP made really nice comments. Some still got onto him a little saying that his positives out-weighed his negatives (which is true) but, it seems he was just being very nice and trying to do a logical, heart-felt impression.
His positives being more than his negatives was not the point. The point seemed to be that he REALLY wanted to like it and had many things he liked but, the one (or few negatives) were the crux. He was not happy with the state of the classes... so much so that he will not play regularly anymore. Yes, he will check back in but we all know that it isn't going to change.
Nice honest impressions and he didn't belittle anybody BRAVO!
I am SO emotionally attached to this game and I haven't even played it
SZ
I agree about the AOE spam when fighting bosses. I always hope those players will be smart enough to switch to single target weapons/skills, but many players ONLY use AOE skills.
WIth a complete wipe it is always the same. It is because of fhe AOE spam that causes ppl not to see the big attacks coming. And the loads of trash mobs that get aggroed because of it.
There are two reasons imo that prevent players from actually pay attention with zerg events. The fact that your participation is mainly measured with dps just asks for AOE in events with many trash mobs. Then there is the ridicilous idea that you can get gold participation with a FAILED event lol.
There are several events where you have to protect some structure against bombs. The stupid AOE spamming ppl always target the large groups of mobs while the bomber simply walks through and blows the structure up. And then get rewarded for the failed event, so ridiculous.
Yes
I play with the Girlfriend and overflow seems very hit and miss. One day you will instantly join up but the other day it took close to an hour of relogging / map changing / kicking the cat to get into the same overflow .. For some reason the join up button wasn't working for us .
But once together then we had no problems .. My main gripe though is how you are not kept on the main server once you are moved to it .. We had a few times where we were on the main server > map changed > I went overflow / she stayed on the main .
She isn't the most patient person
and was ready to dump the game but I found the work around of us just staying on the overflow and ignoring the invites .. Atleast now when we do get together we stay together .
Like I say .. I think it's a good idea but atm whether due to the large player base it just isn't working right .. for us at least
and can only be jealous of those it does work 100% right for
Sir, You could have easily broken this down into the following. With the exception of three an four you knew the others going in. Four will be worked out at some point and three may take some getting used to or with feedback they may change it. Take that will all the thing you like about the game and "not liking it" just doesn't make sense from what your own experience of the game says. I think you are leaving something out.
1. No Trinity
2. Spell effects to much
3. Either no understanding of the party system/frame or how to use the map
4. Trading post broken since launch
I can agree with this if you mean that in large groups of people the action and mobs tend to get lost in all the sparkle and flash of spell effects. I actually made a suggestion on GW2's reddit page that maybe adding some kind of effects filter like show- MineOnly/GroupOnly/All would be helpful/
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