A Critical Look At The Features Of Guild Wars 2

Written by: Richie Procopio (@richieprocopio) | October 23, 2012 10:48 am

63 Comments

For the past year and a half, I’ve been producing content related to Guild Wars 2. I’ve created dozens of videos, written many articles, performed hours of livestreaming, and been part of a weekly internet show dedicated to this fantastic MMO. Despite being an avid (read rabid) fan of the franchise, I feel like I’ve been impartial when giving my opinions of the game on GuildCast, my articles, and my videos. My feedback, however, has been mostly positive because I happen to really enjoy many aspects of the game. I find my adventures in Tyria to be a refreshing change from the MMO formula I’ve grown accustomed to for the past decade. But the game isn’t perfect and I find myself thinking about ways to tackle its flaws. Join me on a journey of constructive criticism as we examine the areas of Guild Wars 2 that leave me vexed.

Camera Concerns

Let’s start with my biggest complaint: the camera. Anyone who has been to the official forums or the Guild Wars 2 subreddit has seen the swarms of threads relating to various camera issues. The first time I played the Guild Wars 2 beta, I was assigned the task of gathering footage of beautiful landscapes for use in a montage video. I remember being blown away the first time I climbed up Shaemoor Garrison and gazed towards Divinity’s Reach. I also recall spending close to 20 minutes fruitlessly searching the various menus for an option to allow my camera to zoom into first-person perspective. It feels very strange to resort to a /sleep emote to get an unobstructed view of the scenery.

Lead Content Designer, Colin Johanson, has spoken about why they don’t allow first-person perspective stating, “…we want you to be able to see your character. We think that part of having this personal story and having a strong attachment to your characters, is being able to see your characters and feel a bond with them, having an attachment to them.” While I respect ArenaNet’s stance on this, I don’t believe I have any more character investment due to the lack of a first-person camera mode. It’s roughly two months after launch and I still can’t get used to this.

I want to see the stunning landscapes they’ve packed into this game and take screenshots without having to use workarounds. I would also like to be able to see the gear of my friends’ characters without my big-ass norn’s fat head in the way. One of my buddies is an asura and I don’t think I could pick out his character in a lineup. Jumping puzzles are another area where the camera issues crop up. My norn’s head would often clip through the ceiling during the Malchor’s Leap jumping puzzle making me completely blind to where I was or what I was doing. A true first-person camera zoom would help these situations immensely.

Sadly, this isn’t my only complaint in regards to the camera. I also believe they need to introduce an option to increase the maximum camera distance. As a norn with a penchant for hacking enemies in twain with a greatsword, I spend a lot of time in melee range. My combat experience fluctuates between not being able to see my enemy at all —if they’re small like skritt—to only being able to see their feet—if they’re gigantic like the Shatterer.

In addition, many players have been petitioning for the addition of a field-of-view slider to broaden what they can see and reduce the nausea that some players are experiencing. At first, ArenaNet seemed reticent to alter the FOV, but Colin Johanson has recently given us hope on the official forums stating, “We’re in the middle of working on additional fixes for the FOV, we’ll have an update on this very shortly. We’ve been doing some very promising tests internally, will roll out more info soon once we’re sure everything is working!” This is great news because the community has been arguing that higher FOV is already possible using multiple monitors and not offering an option to increase it gives an unfair advantage to players who can afford more elaborate hardware setups. I’m more affected by the restricted zoom distance, but I support adding more camera functionality because frankly, it needs work.

Waypoint Woes

I love the waypoint system in Guild Wars 2. It replaces the need to have mounts and travel paths in one fell swoop. Waypoints allow friends to meet up instantly and remove travel times that do nothing but delay your fun. I don’t even have issues with the cost of using the waypoints. I think gold sinks are healthy for MMO economies and I think it’s reasonable to have to pay for convenient and instantaneous travel. I do, however, take issue with the fact that you can travel to Lion’s Arch (and the other capital cities by extension) for free by teleporting to the Mists from the PvP menu. This creates a situation where the most cost effective travel routes involve more time and extra loading screens. This works against both the economic benefits of the gold sink and the idea that players should be able to get right into the fun.

I see three potential solutions to this problem:

1. Remove the ability to travel to Lion’s Arch from the Mists.
2. Add a cost to travelling to Lion’s Arch from the Mists.
3. Make travelling to any capital city free.

Each solution has its own advantages and disadvantages, but I believe that disincentivising this longer (but cheaper) travel pattern will produce a more elegant gameplay experience.

ZERG!!!!

One of my concerns pre-launch was whether or not the world bosses and meta-events would require significant strategy, communication, and coordination to overcome. A few months ago, I mentioned on GuildCast that I’d like to see some events and world bosses that required a coordinated group on voice chat to overcome. This would help emphasize the importance of being in a guild for more than PvP and socializing. During these more complex encounters, other players on the server would be free to join in, contribute, and get rewarded for their participation, but the content would be designed with guilds in mind. Sadly, I have yet to experience content in Guild Wars 2 that scratches this itch.

World bosses like the Shatterer, Tequatl the Sunless, and the Claw of Jormag are visually stunning and make for epic encounters the first few times you encounter them. They quickly grow stale, however, when you realize that as long as there are enough players in the area, there is almost no chance of wiping and many of the encounter’s mechanics can be ignored. With a large enough zerg, players often don’t even bother to avoid the large red circles on the ground, instead relying on someone in the crowd to revive them after the threat is gone.

The most fun I’ve had during the Shatterer event was fighting him early one morning when there were only a few players around. Suddenly, mechanics like getting the healing crystals down and dealing with the branded devourers became much more urgent. Every player was fighting for their life and knew that victory wasn’t a sure thing. We all had to switch to the adds to keep them under control. We all had to dodge the crystal missiles and the patches of flame on the ground. The battle took close to 20 minutes to overcome and when it was over there was a great sense of accomplishment. We congratulated each other on a job well done as we opened up the chest to view our treasures.

So how can ArenaNet capture some of the magic that my undermanned dragon-slaying mission produced? It’s easier said than done, but these encounters must have a real and tangible chance of failure. If the MMO player feels like they might miss out on their reward, they perk right up and start paying attention. The 10-minute time limit on events like the Risen Priest of Balthazar is one way to accomplish this, but there are more organic options as well. As an example, imagine an encounter where you’re trying to stop a giant from delivering a powerful artifact into the hands of the Sons of Svanir. In addition to avoiding the giant’s attacks, the players would have to use their cripple and crowd control abilities to slow his progress. As the giant’s destination grew closer the urgency would get more intense. Having sufficient players shouldn’t be the goal, success or failure needs be determined by how well the players perform.

The danger with this approach is increased frustration. If the players don’t understand why they failed, they get angry. There are many creatures in Guild Wars 2 that can one shot a player without giving players a chance to avoid it. While some creatures, like giants, have obvious animations preceding their devastating attacks, the telegraphing of many others could use improvement. Increasing the complexity of encounters while simultaneously giving players more visual cues to avoid danger is an arduous challenge. Hopefully, we’ll see more content that puts our skills to the test and leaves the zerging behind.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Guild Wars 2 is a fantastic game despite its flaws and I’m eager to watch the game evolve. MMOs are exciting because their longevity grants the developer the opportunity to cull community feedback and adjust the features of their game. ArenaNet knows this and has said many times that launching Guild Wars 2 is not the end of their five year development journey: it’s only the beginning. The future of Tyria looks bright and I’m glad to be a part of it.

A Critical Look At The Features Of Guild Wars 2

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Revanhavoc

Richie…Man, you are helping to re-kindle my hope for impartial journalism.

And of course, I bow to the Gannonator and his vision for Gamebreaker to be a respected news/opinion site, presenting positives and negatives to the viewers for their own interpretation.

Here’s to Gamebreaker TV becoming Gamebreaker Network someday through responsible articles and videos as presented above.
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  Thanks for the kind words and feedback!
matraque

wow…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz

Eh, I just want them to actually add quests for those of us that want to feel more involved in the world. Currently, you just walk into an area and do hearts without actually feeling involved with the game or knowing why something is happening. Considering that GW1 would force feed you its story, I’m a bit surprised that in GW2 I have to go out of my way to even get a clue as to what’s going on. Just my personal take. At least add some more depth for those of us that enjoy it while leaving the current systems for those individuals that aren’t interested. A quest per zone (which is every few levels) doesn’t really help. I feel so detached from my own story due to the fact that it’s so spread out and none of it actually makes me feel like I’m a real part of the world. It just feels so random.
- St_Draco
  
  Do you talk to the Scouts? they tell you what is going on in an area in addition to telling you where the hearts are.
donaldmratomic

My mesmer drops targets in the middle of a fight and randomly targets other mobs, often bringing in unwanted enemies in a tense fight. Also, my clones and phantasms often detonate as soon as they are summoned resulting in an annoyed mob charging my squishiness and me running until the cooldowns expire.
- St_Draco
  
  Sticky targeting or improved sticky targeting would be nice. I find it most difficult to keep a target when mouse turning or casting AoE fields.
http://profile.yahoo.com/ADEN6X6TYCORSSGEHKWMBIHDHY Eclipse

What about post lvl 80 progression paths and content?
http://twitter.com/Zedris Zedris

i would think the biggest issue is the camera and the issue with PvP because lets face its a PvP game with no ranking system a WvW system that is completely broken with people jumping servers and is also a zerg fest
MysticLlamaMan

One of the most disappointing aspects of the game for me, so far, has been how much of a zerg it can feel like. Most of the big bad events at the end of zones feel like nothing more than a bunch of people standing around hitting their 1 key and occasionally taking two steps to the left to get out of a circle.

Even the story missions could stand to be more difficult or at least more interesting. When you retake Claw Island, for instance, the fight against that dragon should have felt epic, instead I was nearly bored to tears just auto attacking him, I never even had to move. I shouldn’t have to be required to pull 5, 10, 15 or even more mobs at once just to feel challenged.
http://twitter.com/Zedris Zedris

and what about the issue of nothing to do at 80? besides map completion(boring after 2 alts) and PvP fest all day?
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  I feel like that topic has been beaten to death. The endgame in Guild Wars 2 is working as intended and is not designed to be like other games. Check out my “Bored at 80″ article from last week for more thoughts on it.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
    
    There are lots of things “working as intended” but that does not make them a good thing – the meta-events are a perfect example. While constructive criticism is a good thing, and what you included here are some minor examples of issues, there should be more discussions on things like Zedris mentioned and the night capping issues and whether things that Anet changed are actually good and needed changes in the genre or just “change for the sake of change” which may not necessarily be a good thing (i.e. Windows 8).
http://profile.yahoo.com/HREHIUNQCE643NYVPKOJTDBEBE Hart

1. Mr. Procopio, thanks for continuing to expect excellence and keeping a critical eye on GW2. you’re a high profile voice, a perfect example, proving that fan’s who offer insight and constructive criticism are FAR more valuable to a game’s community than sycophants (aka fan-sheeple – thats my cool new name for fanboys that cry “troll” at the first sight of criticism). criticism considered with prudence and acted upon with caution DRIVES GAME IMPROVEMENT.

2. there is no content that bonds PVE Guilds. nothing to work towards. and i strongly agree with you about World Bosses… they are anticlimactic and boring and easy and basically a free loot pinata. i disagree with Mr. Gannon that world bosses “are meant to be rolled up on by random pugged groups”.. while that might be true, that does NOT mean they have to be faceroll, standstill, “spam-one button-while-i-watch-Bogotter-channel-on-youtube” easy (see what i did there?). obviously random pug groups can already EASILY complete the HARDEST content (Exp mode Dungeons) as evidenced by the fact that Exp Mode dungeons were on speed farm in the first week after release.

**seriously, im no pro gamer – im 51 yrs old with the reflexes of an ant trapped in january molasses. and every night i complete 2-3 exp mode dungeons with complete strangers who dont say a single word of communication to each other.. no strategy, no attempt at teamwork, no voice chat. just “hi” –> loot –> “ty for group”. i die once or twice a dungeon but i rarely get “defeated”. cmon even i am bored with this.
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  You have earned the quote of the day award! ”I’m 51 yrs old with the reflexes of an ant traaped in january molasses.” LOL! Thanks for your kind words and I agree with all of the points you make.
- Bestow
  
  “hi” –> loot –> “ty for group”.The new “wham bam thank you ma’am” but in MMO terms
St_Draco

Good article Richie, I agree with you on the camera and that the Meta events and larger DEs don’t feel as epic as they look. I don’t agree with waypoint issue.

I don’t see the using the Mists as low cost way to get to the major cities as a problem. What you save in gold and silver, you loose in time spent. As it is waypoints have a zero time cost factor and only cost in-game currency. What do you want to spend gold or time? Now, would it be nice if ANet set up something like a “hearth stone” or a rez anchor point for major cities? sure, but it really isn’t a major issue and is really a minor quality of life thing that has little impact. Removing travel to Lion’s Arch from the Mists or making it cost money to travel is unfair to those players who primarily sPvP. It would actually demotivate them from participating in any PvE content.

Regarding the larger DEs and Meta events, it feels like ANet changed their approach to these things after beta. They took out many of the “failure” events and made them less attractive so people wouldn’t be intentionally trying to make an event fail just to see what happens and they also made it harder to fail an event so that players couldn’t grief other players by intentionally trying to make an event fail. This is a bad idea to me and takes away some of that epic feel. They should go back to their original approach, particularly regarding the Meta events.

To me the scaling for these events are off. They don’t scale up enough with the number of people who are participating. This is why zerging the events is working. It’s the Zapp Brannagin Maneuver, throw wave after wave of men at it until you succeed. If the events scaled properly for all the people, then the mechanics would become relevant and that would force team work. It would extend out the actual time needed to down the boss and make the event feel as epic as it looks.

To get PvE guilds involved re-spawn timers on these sorts of events need to be removed. They can’t be predictable in that way. The guild effort needs to be in coordinating the prerequisite events to trigger the larger meta event.

Something thing I would like to see adjusted besides the camera and meta zerg is loot RNG is too high and too varied.

I would like to see more consistent rewards for certain content. Many of the rewards we get do not match the experience we have in game. Yes, the experiences are fun and often their own reward, but those accomplishments actually feel diminished when all you get for loot is a blue or white. You do the event, it feels epic and was a struggle and you are feeling great about completing it and then you gleefully go to get the loot and… its vendor trash and nothing remarkable. That loot sucks the fun out of what you just did. Make running a story mode dungeon for the first time give you something iconic from the dungeon, not just a generic looking rare quality hat. Give the bosses in dungeons an actual loot table instead of just the generic “champion” table that they seem to have. Have the Meta Events spawn karma vendors with cool and unique loot. Just make the rewards match the uniqueness of the encounter so that they don’t suck the fun away from them.
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  Thanks for taking the time to type all of that out. I agree with you on many of your observations. The DEs need to scale in more ways than just increasing health and number of enemies. Tactics need to get tougher, new abilities need to be added as it scales, etc.
  
  On the topic of loot, this latest patch increases the rewards for jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons, which I think will help things along. Hopefully, they continue to do this going forward, but I love the idea of meta-events having karma vendors with unique items available after completing them.
  
  In regards to the waypoints/Lion’s Arch/Mist thing. I see your counter-points there and they make sense. There’s something off though. There’s incentive for players worried about their wallets to spend extra time going through the mists and avoiding the way point tolls. This goes against both their mantra of getting players right into the action and the tolls they can collect to combat inflation. I’m not 100% sold on a solution, yet and you’re right….in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t a major issue. But I was thinking about it quite a bit and felt moved to write about it.
  
  Thanks again!
  - St_Draco
    
    Thanks for replying to my comment =)
    
    The waypoint/LA/Mists thing: I don’t think it goes against the mantra of getting players right into the action. You still have an option to use the waypoint to get directly to where you are going. One could argue that having the option to run from zone to zone and not having waypoints in places that you haven’t explored yet goes against that same mantra. As far as combating inflation, getting to LA without cost is not a big deal. You still have to spend the coin to get back to where you were and to fast travel to any other part of the world.
    
    That said, it does feel odd and a bit off that using the Mists to move around is a valid option. It reminds me of how in CoH you would use Pocket D (the in-game dance club) to quickly move around the map, especially while doing Task Force Missions (large, long, group missions that often spanned multiple zones).
    
    I think the easiest answer would be to make going to LA free once you have discovered it, but increase the cost of all waypoints in zones 30+. Not by some great amount, just a little bit. Call it the “Free LA” tax initiative.
Shagral

Great read as always Richie! I feel like the zerg problem is the hardest one, maybe GW2 will be the first MMO to crack it, who knows. It feels like even tho there’s a lot of people around in DEs, everyone acts on their own. Only exception would be helping downed players.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=747725054 Carlos Navarretti

That third point I feel is pretty gamebreaking to me, indeed. And the more I think about it the less I think of a solution to that since due to the fact that it’s open world the events have to scale up with the number of people around the area. How are they going to measure up the skill of those people? They can’t, it has to be open, so if you design an encounter to be hard, and some low -skill player joins in, it just scales up to be harder by 1 “hard player” and essentially that low skill player becomes dead weight and might make the encounter impossible to complete. And on the other end, the event might just be too easy if they don’t scale up by that much. I really like GW2 but yeah, imo they need some level of instanced raids.
http://profile.yahoo.com/OHWQGNJD7ATU5YSO3C4BKOJQTI Learning-to-Fly

the lack of challenge really is a GAMEBREAKING aspect of this game. sorry Gary, but the biggest fallacy about GW2 is that you need “voice chat and coordination with players”. in PVP – yes, definitely. PVE? no way. i really bought into the GW2 hype that the game was focused around skill.. i figured that alone would be fun endgame for my guildmates and friends. but no, in GW2 you have an atrocious amount of hand-holding; all the target’s special attacks are listed for you, red-circles are… well, theyre big red circles, and you can rez zerg ANY boss.

want to know why there is so much “WTF One shotting”? they had to add that to counterbalance all the easymode handholding, to make you feel like this is a hardcore “skill based” game. meh
- St_Draco
  
  I would say that Explorable Mode dungeons and the Meta DEs are not challenging enough. That said, the reason you give is not the reason they aren’t challenging. Every MMO in the last 5 years gives you the targets special abilities and gives you in game tells. Heroic Mode Raids in WoW tell you all the same stuff and more than than what you get in GW2 and no one would call those encounters easy, well at least no until you get fully geared from running them.
  The issue with these events are a they are tuned too heavily on gear stats and less on mechanic complexity. The bosses abilities can be spelled out, that is fine, but figuring out how to over come them needs to be the challenge. Even then, knowing what to do and coordinating them need to be different things.
  
  I will say that it feels like ANet stepped off the gas come launch. They backed off on their philosophy of making things difficult because of a quick power plateau.
- Tenthletter1979
  
  You’re trolling right? You think the game is too easy because bosses can be res-zerged? Try beating the bosses without res-zerging before you comment on difficulty.
  
  I’ve done all of them (all paths in all dungeons complete) and no PUG without voice chat is beating the 5 torch event in CoF Rhiannon, and that’s only one path of one dungeon. In fact, I’d be surprised if a PUG could stay together long enough to do the barrels in CM Seraph, and that one isn’t even hard.
  - MMO_NewSkool
    
    dunno what special olympics server you play on… but pug groups are speed farming every Exp Dungeon and every path, 24/7. i do it every night as does my father who still finds Wii games challenging. im sure you like the to protect the idea of GW2 being really hard and challenging and that somehow your communication and teamwork is winning the day! but sorry to break it to ya but these dungeons are cake. and ya everyone ResZergs certain bosses. I think thats what that poster was saying… ResZerg is lame but it seems like Anet designed certain fights for that.
    
    needing voice chat? lol you so silly
    - Tenthletter1979
      
      No encounter is ever designed to be res zerged. I’m sorry that you’re so bad at this game that you think otherwise.
      
      No, you don’t speed clear every explorable in PUGs, you speed clear 2 or 3 at the most. Let me guess, the easy paths in AC, CoF, and maybe CM or TA. All the instances with close waypoints.
      
      I bet you also zerg the protect Magg event in CoF and either skip Kholer, or let the troll kill him in AC.
      
      When you can clear an instance without wiping come talk to me about difficulty. Better yet, do it without dying, or is that too much for you to handle in full Zerker CoF gear?
      - MMO_NewSkool
        
        seriously keep your head in the sand.. because thats where it belongs. im sure you also think Santa gives you presents because you been a good boy too huh. deep down inside you need to perpetuate the myth that somehow because there is no “gear advantage” that skill must be the reason for your success… not because these dungeons seriously dont require any real planning or teamwork.
        
        every path of every Exp Mode is easily done with a Pug, without “teamwork”, without “voice chat”, etc… everyone in my guild does their daily round of Path farming with pug groups. i never said i relied on Rez Zerging… just that its possible to rez zerg any boss… CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ACHIEVEMENT FOR NEVER REZ ZERGING A BOSS TENTHLETTER!!! btw youre full of shit. and yes, ive cleared many a Exp mode without “being defeated” and around once a night ill get a run off without going to down state… not bragging, because its nothing to brag about. everyone does it.
        
        damn youre dull
http://www.facebook.com/mjtlsnelling Matthew Snelling

Instead of guild halls, I want guild airships. I want them so badly. Like a mobile guild hall that can move relatively slowly and would allow you to see the world from the air. Who is with me?
paul_gillespie1

Thank you for this.
I was surprised the video was so short .
Would it be possible to cast your experienced eye over a few other points ,if not good job on the 3 you raised.

1) Pve event chains stuck a day or so after a weekly reset and stay stuck until next reset ,rinse repeat .especially frustrating at lvl 80 .

2) In Orr you cannot move without aggroing multiple mobs .thus just farming or trying to get any were is highly annoying.

3) Highly restrictive systems to earning in game currency ,Mobs stop dropping materials ,the valuable level 80 wood and ore placed on 24 hr timer .dynamic events loot is all vendor trash and even that dries up .

4) crafting has been made totally useless at 80 ,so it’s a money sink to level and non profit at 80.

5) Dungeons like the last one at 80 broken and unplayable for extended periods of time .

6) Zero two way customer service support .Basically if you have an issue ,well ,you have an issue .
eg,
I filed an e-mail ticket stating that after a short time playing a loud buzzing started in my earphones and I had to use task manager to close the program ,the answer came a few days later that it was a know issue ,end of…

7) Given the above profit making restrictions players are now realising with the new patch that the halloween event is strongly tied to cash shop gems ,the tired phrase that you can purchase anything with gold is all but extinct .

8) Thus players spending large sums of real cash for large amounts of in game keys and recieving nothing halloween related .

9) Closing and removing entire threads on the forum ,it seems that negative is unconstructive I assume
It has got to be the most restrictive forum I have ever used .

10) forums monitored very closely but with minimal constructive feedback , yet zero interaction in game ,zero help in game ,basically the sole function of the employees in customer interaction boils down to closing or completely removing comments / threads in the forum.

11) WvWvW ,a massive world with massive groups of highly organised groups right ?
Not exactly since you cannot enter as an organised group !
No in game voice comms to facilitate the organisation of this massive event. .
The only organisational tool boils down to 0ne hundred gold purchase of a blue icon that shows up on the map visible to all your allies . Zero qualifications to aquire and no functionality whatsoever .
No-one is in any way given an incentive to play the commanders way and no one can do anything about it .
It’s therefore concievable that a few highly skilled guildies are working with half their team farming materials and doing skill challenges and collecting points of interest for achievements

WvWvW boils down to a massive pug of randoms following a blue icon so as not to get killed by the other two zerg of randoms .

I could go on but will see if you chose to cover any of these points ,since Arenanet would close this post and therefore get no benefit from it .

I did the ,aion,age of conan ,Swtor ,Tsw and now it is looking like GW2 ,experiences looking for a world to get immersed in but for different reasons they fell short I stuck around the forums until it became evident none of the vocal community trying to give feed back made any difference and left the forum to .

So much valuable community feedback is ignored that it is criminal that any of these games failed .
We have solutions ,but none will admit there is a problem which is highly frustrating .
- St_Draco
  
  You mad bro?
  
  1) Bug are bugs, they get fixed. ANet fixes bugs all the time. Fixing a bug isn’t as easy as finding a bug.
  
  2) Orr is hard to do without a group… working as intended.
  
  3)Loot consistency is a valid issue. Here is a cookie.
  
  4)Crafting is not totally useless. Some crafting skins are unique to crafting, top tier crafting sets have stat combinations not available from dungeon token sets, food buffs and potions are very useful, crafting sources of gear through the leveling experience, and Legendaries.
  
  5)See 1
  
  6)A known issue is a known issue, if they had a solution they would give it to you or would have fixed it in a patch. Again see 1. As to the delay in CS response well yeah I can see that as an issue.
  
  7)First, not everything in the Halloween event is bought with gems, they give you quite a bit of stuff or you can earn it. Second, Gems can be bought with gold…
  
  8)They said “chance” if you think chance means guaranteed then you have a reading comprehension problem. If you don’t get the Halloween stuff from the Black Lion chests you still get the regular stuff from the chests, which is what you would have gotten had you bought the keys if there wasn’t an event. Halloween stuff is bonus. They aren’t stealing from you.
  
  9)Wait, moderating forums is a bad thing?
  
  10)lol, I don’t even know where to go with this. 81+ pages in the Dev Tracker says they are in constant contact with the community and the numerous bug fixes and timely updates says they respond to in-game concerns and issues. I guess you just want a pet GM…
  
  11)What? This is just nonsense. Your just making crap up now. Yep, you can’t queue for WvW as a large group… because WvW is not an instanced battle ground. It is an open world zone with a population cap. VOIP built into games suck, everyone knows it. You can’t force people to listen too or follow someones directions, get over it. Sounds like you are on non-WvW focused server, change servers maybe.
  
  Funny you mention offering solutions… you didn’t offer a single one in your long rant. I would close this post too if it was in the Suggestions Sub Forum… you don’t make a single suggestion or discuss a single option. It would be off topic.
  - paul_gillespie1
    
    1) The bugs I refer to are only reset with a server maintenance Balthazar any-one ? so this is one example .
    
    2) I have not noticed any groups leaving dynamic events much since they all scatter once an event finishes ,and there is no reason to form a group ?
    
    3)How about no meaningful loot what so ever ?
    
    4)All crafted items are not needed by anyone to do anything ,why do you need food buffs ?,what can you not do without them ?
    
    5) players have had the time to lvl 4 lvl 80 characters and the final dungeon is still broken ,how long is reasonable to expect release content to stay broken ?
    
    6) So a step in your story stopping you progressing in game ,you feel that filing an e-mail and recieving a response up to 7 days later with such a short response and no offer to move you past the issue so as not to interrupt your enjoyment is acceptable ?
    
    7)Any way to efficiently farm for gold has been eliminated with very quick patches (so they can fix stuff if they want to ) .Chance lol players are spending like the girl on gamebreaker spending $70.00 and get zero event related items ,what amount of currency would be acceptable to expect to stand a reasonable chance at one item ?
    Deception ?
    
    8) So a chance of 1.8% as a community site has posted is reasonable after over 2000 open chests in a short halloween focused event ? $2,000 dollars for a 1.8% chance at a vanity item seriously ,you think that is a reasonable chance ?
    
    9) No ,I have seen well moderated forums .
    
    10) A fair percentage of the dev tracker if you care to read is the devs response to threads they close ,I do not think I can recall any actual help being given ,most include thanks for your feedback and the thread is locked or deleted ,care to prove me wrong ?
    Sorry I recall some dev posts explaining why they did the emergency patch to eliminate speed running COF ,but again this wasn’t a help post .Tou are blocked from replying to these posts so how is that interacting ?
    Hell there is no phone number for arena net at all lol.
    
    11) WVW is in its own instance accessable through a portal .
    Voice communication is easily implemented ask PS2 .
    How do you do any organising when you have no clue who or when anyone you know will get into your wvwvw ?
    What qualification to own or ability to organise or control does a commander get apart from the blue Icon ?
    
    12 You along with the mentioned developers have not got any problems ?
    As mentions above you do not need solutions ?
    Just continue blindly following the example of previous struggling to survive games who have perfectly empty games inside 6 months ?
    
    This requires the 12 step program offered by professionals ,seriously .
    - St_Draco
      
      lol, you still failed to offer any actual solutions or to be constructive…
      
      1) See original reply… bugs are bugs, just because you know they exist doesn’t mean you know what causes them and how to fix it.
      
      2) What? You were talking about Orr, now you are talking about people not grouping up. Orr is a reason to group up.
      
      3) I’m taking your cookie back, you complained your way out of it.
      
      4) Umm… none of the loot in GW2 is “needed”. Just because you don’t need something doesn’t mean it is totally useless. You don’t need a computer or a car or a phone or the majority of the stuff you have in your life. Are all those things useless? Do they have no use? If they are useless, you should probably get rid of all of them.
      
      5 )See 1 and original post.
      
      6) Again, I said that CS time is an issue, but bugs and known issues are just that. Again see 1.
      
      7&8) Um… First, not all the Halloween items cost gems. Second, ANet put in a fix to get Halloween items with the items you get from normal BL chests. Third, you are still getting the items you would normally get from BL chests if this wasn’t a holiday. Fourth, 1.8% is not a reasonable chance and looks like ANet put the decimal in the wrong place (18%), but the exact nature of what was going on was not known when you first posted.
      
      9&10) 4Chan and Reddit are not well moderated. The first page of the Dev Tracker is full of devs helping people resolve technical issues, account issues, and answer questions about the game. I’m guessing you didn’t actually look at it. Oh and its up to 84+ pages now… 3 pages of Dev comments in a matter of a 2 days. Yep, they don’t talk to the community at all…
      
      11) WvW is designed to be unstructured. Calling it an instance is the same as calling any other zone in GW2 an instance.
      
      I said built-in Voice Communication sucks, never talked about how hard it was to put in. WoW has it, DDO has it, EQ has it, and yes PS2 has it. Lots of games have it… and in those games the vast majority of people don’t use it. They use Mumble, Team Speak, Ventrillo, C3, or some other program that is dedicated to that task and works infinitely better than what is built into the game. ANet talked about why they didn’t put in Voice Chat, to do so would take resources away from the other portions of the game that they feel are more important and with the number of voice chat options available right now it isn’t a major concern.
      
      How do I get organized in WvW? By talking to people… If I have friends and guildies trying to get in to WvW and they are stuck in the queue then I organize based on who is there and then adjust when more get in. WvW is not a BG or simple war game where you have 30min to cap the flag or get 500 resources or kill a single boss or else you loose.
      
      What qualification is given to the guy in a WoW BG who has the leader tag? What powers does a raid leader have other than being able to see and communicate with a larger number of people? You are putting to much emphasis on the commander’s roll in WvW.
      
      12) What are going on about? Problems exist, as discussed both here and on the forums. ANet acknowledges that things are not perfect and are clearly making efforts to resolve those issues, both through discourse and action.
      
      It sounds like you’re the one who needs a 12 step program. You don’t listen, you can’t acknowledge when you are wrong even when the facts are right in front of you, you seem angry and easily irritated, you can’t seem to hold a focused line of thought, and you are expressing an unhealthy and unrealistic relationship with ANet and GW2.
- Tomasz Guzik
  
  Dunno what WvW you have been to, but a normal “shmuck” won’t spend 100g on a commander tag to badly lead a zerg into imminent death and if he does, the serwer will remember and will never follow that guy again. The “tiny icon” does make a huge difference, especially at this stage when you have ppl who have been commanders for quite a while and ppl know them by name and start gathering around them and actually following what they are told to do (more or less).
  If you wan’t organised WvW join a WvW focused guild, you’d be amazed with some of the stuff they pull off by just being on Teamspeak.
  - paul_gillespie1
    
    I see that commanders on the server teamspeak get respected ,but not for organisational skills ,it seems to be more for there ability to herd the flock of sheep that tend to get hypnotised by the blue icon on the map which is the only identifying factor on the map of were anyone or more like the flock are likely to be .
- http://twitter.com/inkthedink INKS
  
  you forgot to mention wow in your list of games above…..
http://twitter.com/TheFeyLife Fey

That’s it? All the issues within the game and these are the ones you pick? …What?
Tenthletter1979

@paul_gillespie1 (site wouldn’t let me reply for some reason)

His article is about changes to the way the “working as intended” game runs, not bugfixes.

1) bugfix

2)Mob density does appear to be too high here. I’d assume ANet thought 80s would be all over Orr so the zones needed more mobs to compensate. Since people basically just cluster in a handful of areas, the mob density should be toned down, I agree.

3)Are you using salvage kits, magic find gear and the trading post? I have max level on three professions across two characters and materials have never been an issue.

4)Look into the Mystic Forge and EVERY item your profession can craft. Professions are definitely profitable, but it takes more work than other games.

5)bugfix

6)This was a well documented bug. A quick search on the forums (official or even gw2guru) would have told you that.

7)Again, just because you are having a hard time making gold doesn’t mean it can’t be made. The Gem shop is there as a quicker alternative, but you never have to buy gems at all if you don’t want to.

8)same issue as 7

9)Can’t speak on this, without seeing what you posted. I find it hard to believe that they’d delete a thread that was well thought out and didn’t break the forum TOS. I see threads on the official forums criticizing the game all the time.

10)same as 9

11)I’ll agree that you should be able to queue for WvW as a group, and for sPVP as a group on the same team (I get put on Red against people in my group on Blue all the time). As far as no organization or voice chat goes, that’s your server’s fault. Your WvW guilds need to organize better to compete. There are plenty of servers with a dedicated WvW Mumble or Vent server for you to join and coordinate with everyone else. Our server has one, and we’re only ranked middle of the road, so I’m sure all the highly ranked servers have them too.

I will say this though, the numer of bugs, and well documented bugs, that are still in game two months later is unacceptable, even with no sub fee. It’s almost like they only beta tested the first 30 levels of content…

owait
http://www.facebook.com/KyleDAJuza Kyle Juza

great article and I agree to the points you made out. I know a lot of GW2 players wouldn’t like this but what you were describing with a limited amount of players and a big tough boss…well, you just described RAIDING! I think that if GW2 put in a raid big thing would happen, we would lose the free-flowing nature and exploration because people would start to expect a grind for gear.

Personally, I could go either way. I’ve tried to do the WoW gear-grind and found it too hardcore. but the GW2 Exploration doesn’t seem to have enough drive. maybe that’s because I’m a new 80 and have yet to do Orr. So I guess take this with a grain of salt.
Jonny K

Why GW2 don’t have world PvP, not WvsWvsW , just world PvP in capital city and other location. Why they going this way. Its awesome game, not all part. As my mind it have a lot of problem, some big problem, but it still awesome. But one thing, that I never understand. Why in PvP oriented game players don’t have world pvp.
Yea, mb game not about this. But so many amazing location…after 1-2 visits just become unnecessary. So many resources just wasted. And WvWvW never be same. In WWW I feel myself like running around in circles starcraft zergling
Angel Rivera

was hoping richie would mention how they deliver skill change updates w/o proper testing and to quick but I see it will be a hush hush.
Spammerbam

“3. Make travelling to any capital city free.”

This.
http://profile.yahoo.com/4YBYWIUDXK57EOHUAAMRY2CJUU bbtongue

I have found when doing the task in Mount Maelstrom. Where you help the Order of Whispers by becoming a disguised Risen. That you can pull your camera quite a ways back. It surprised me, and I thought that perhaps ANet had patched the viewing distance, but sadly not.
http://twitter.com/j0nnara Jonnara

you guys forgot to says bots and teleporting hacks in the video.
Avaloner31

Are you going to do an article on how the game has had a significant population drop since launch and how its yet another MMO with lots of interest at the start followed by a steady decline? It is not the next big game as many thought, its not even two months old and theyre has been a significant drop in people playing. This site hyped it to the heavens it would just be interesting to see more articles like this telling us how it really is.
- Jay
  
  Would that make you feel better about yourself?
- http://twitter.com/QSatu QSatu
  
  And yet almost all servers are High or Full.. yup totally empty game.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Lol, saying all the servers are High or Full doesn’t mean anything. Because GW2 doesn’t have a monthly sub, the only “real” way you can judge the health of the game is to announce the number of concurrent players.
    
    I suspect the holiday event has really boost the concurrent numbers and may lead to many players spending gems at the cash shot. Which would be great for the health of the game.
- Senatic
  
  It’s just the idiots leaving who thought GW2 was gonna be something it wasn’t based on their own expectations. And good riddance to them, we don’t want them.
  
  All servers are on high/full, and that is after ArenaNet increased all servers max capacity several times. That being said, the only one who can say if there has been any significant decline in players is ArenaNet themselves, we don’t really have the data to speculate on that. In either case, Guild Wars 2 is exactly what I thought it would be and there isn’t any other MMO on the market that offers what this game does. Does the game have problems? Yea, for sure. Many problems, doesn’t mean the entire game is broken or a fiasco. The game is 2 months old, there is obviously room for improvement in many areas. But what is in the game NOW is in my oppinion just better then most other MMO’s. If you disagree, that’s fine. I don’t expect everyone to have the same taste in games.
  - Nick Cattane
    
    This is exactly how I feel – I’m still very much enjoying GW2 and this recent content patch.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    You guys are kind of funny. This article is about problems all MMOs run through and you are still personally attacking posters.
    
    The server labels really don’t mean anything and do you really think Arenanet would report their concurrent users if they went down.
    
    It’s possible Arenanet might say something about the paid PvP tourneys, that has the potential of a real money maker for Arenanet.
    
    But, players can tell. I’m logging in this week to look at the holiday events and should get a feel for the population of the game.
    - saxophone15
      
      It’s extremely hard to tell how many players are playing the game just by logging in. At launch a lot of people were probably playing every single day but now most people are probably playing every other day, or even every few days. Some people might even be waiting for the next campaign. I think as long as the next campaign sells a lot then the game is probably doing fine.
- http://twitter.com/inkthedink INKS
  
  I believe this is true. but once again I am lucky enough to not have felt it. I am sure there are less people playing but all games even WOW goes through this. Wait until TESO comes out, all MMOs will take a hit reguardless of what that even turns out to be.
http://twitter.com/Tatlreach Michael Salata

I can sympathize with how large event difficultly scales but, the points before it seemed kind of shallow. PvP I can go on about for days.
pandora005

What is REALLY annoying me is those personal quests where I do part a) at the appropriate level and this then leads to an “urgent” part b) a hundred meters away but three levels higher, so I cant / shouldnt do it yet, since I am just high enough for part a) … This happens A LOT during the whole questline and totally breaks the mood.

The whole idea to have every player be “the great hero” right from the start is also pretty stupid and I wish there was an alternative questline where you dont get such dumb quests but rather have to work for the respect of the mighty.

I also dont really care about “Destiny’s Edge” since the whole group seems rather like an artificial construct with one of each race. Its excess baggage from Guild Wars IMO and especially those Sylvari firstborns are annoying, because they are a missed chance, since they act and talk just like any other wise guy / high level adventurer instead of having the childlike sense of wonder at this world which any Sylvari should have. Sure you can “magically explain it”, but that doesnt make it less stupid.
http://twitter.com/TheOpapanax Most Morbid One

Camera issues is one of my gripes with Guild Wars 2. It’s not gamebreaking at all because I don’t get the motion sickness.

The responsivness of the camera affected how PvP would go on occassions. Just seemed like the camera couldn’t really keep up with my movements. The camera sway effect they have made this more apparent or was very well the cause.
http://twitter.com/inkthedink INKS

And yet for every one of these types of posts there are 15 saying that some content is too hard. Challenging content is in the eye of the beholder so to speak. Different for everyone. It’s not that I dont fully agree with you about zerg rushing bosses etc, but everyone has a different level of difficulty.
http://twitter.com/inkthedink INKS

You seem rather angry about nothing. Try not rez zerging at all if you are looking for more of a challenge. While I am sure there are tons of bosses that you dont do it on, there is probably at least one where it’s done.
http://twitter.com/inkthedink INKS

I’ve read through a number on comments now, resonded to some.
I am a little surprised that so many people are surprised by Zerg. Not only does this happen in most open worldish pvp games but it was happening in beta, and there was never any sign on the fourms that it was going to change.
Rich E.

Unfortunately I tend to agree that GW2 just doesnt have the “skill and challenge” that ArenaNet advertised. Im not hardcore or a “proGamer” and each week I clear pretty much every path in PUG groups without much trouble at all. I might hit down-state once or twice but PUG groups can pretty easily fly though these dungeons. once and a while you get a first timer and you might have to give him a hint or two but basically these are too easy.

I enjoy GW2 but i definitely dont play it for the “sense of achievement or skill”. more of a fluff game obviously.

The sPVP is a different matter of course.
Rich E.

i really think if they added a lockout to fights if you are “defeated” that would add alot more fun and tension to the game. even if it doesnt happen that often, the worry of dying once per fight would really force players to care about strategy more. not looking for a EQ1 penalty for dying but something in the middle. more like DCUO where once you go down youre either Rallied or youre done, and have to wait for the rest of the group to either win or wipe. might sound odd to some but i really think this game needs MORE Wiping. would add some excitement and tension.
Vikram Gupta

Boy I disagree with this article so much

* If you need harder challenges then go do Explo dunegons , try CoE or TA then report back.
* If you find traveling to LA thru PvP lobby an inconvenience, then just don’t do that. Do ask Anet to add a fee to travel to LA thru PvP lobby.
DoctorOverlord

Good criticism in the article Richie.    Unlike much of the whining out there, you offer reasonable solutions too. (Note I said reasonable, there are plenty of suggestions out there which are completely unrealistic. It’s good to see ones that actually could be successfully implemented.)

We need first-person zoom!     I agree 100%.   If anything, not being able to occasionally see things from my character’s point of view actually makes me feel less connected to their story.   And I don’t imagine this request is going to ever fade away either.

It is very nice to see that ArenaNet has implemented a new wider FoV that is much, much better.   Let’s hope they change their stance on the first person perspective.

TBH – I always forget about the Mists/LA workaround for the waypoint fees.   Still the solutions you present make sense.

Harder open-world dynamic events perhaps may come in later content. It is good you point about the problem with player frustration. ArenaNet has shown they can make straightforward open-world bosses and we know they can make more complex instanced content. Perhaps they didn’t want anything overly frustrating in the open world until players became more settled and experienced with the game? Which is an odd thought, perhaps ArenaNet is monitoring the dungeons to see when the player population starts to develop the skill level to deal with harder open world bosses.
http://twitter.com/AisarGaming Aisar

I understand the points mentioned but some of them don’t seem to be reasonable to me. Camera, sure. Of course that needs to be fixed. What I don’t understand is why someone would complain about having the option to travel for free in exchange for more load screens. What about the people who either can’t afford the costs or simply don’t want to pay them? When you complain about having more freedom and options..that just rubs me the wrong way.

Also, the game is free to play. Just how good do you expect the raids and PvE content to be? You paid a one time fee of 59.99 (I assume that is the box price) and that’s it! How much content do you expect for that price? Just how much do you expect them to do? There are very good reasons why I don’t play F2P MMOs and only play sub based.

A Critical Look At The Features Of Guild Wars 2

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Guild Wars 2 Microtransactions: Still Consistent and Strong

Guild Wars 2 Expansion In The Works

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