I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 for quite a while now. It’s been almost 2 months since the game has been released, and there are tons of level 80s (maximum level) running around. However, due to my unfortunate workload, I’ve not been able to play much. I’m only level 44, and that’s really slow, considering that this is Guild Wars that we’re talking about. The Guild Wars franchise has always prided itself on being a “grindless” game, where you are able to get into action immediately from day 1.
Anyway, I’m not here to talk about how I’m leveling really slowly. As with most games I write about, I’m here to talk about how I feel about the game.
I told someone that Guild Wars 2 is not unlike Diablo 3. They’re both undoubtedly good games, but I feel that they’re somewhat of a disappointment. Now if you’ve not been following the reasons as to why Diablo 3 is seen as a disappointment, there are three main reasons:
- Auction House (Just the presence of it, I’m not even talking about real money being used)
- Online requirements for single player
- Lost the feel of Diablo 2.
Now, I’d like to use point 3 to explain my feelings about Guild Wars 2. In my opinion, Guild Wars 2 lost the essence of what Guild Wars 1 was about.
Henchmen
In Guild Wars 1, there were AI controlled henchmen that you could add to your party to play with you. These henchmen had the same classes and skills as normal players, meaning that you could choose the henchmen to your own preference. You could choose a ranger over an elementalist, or a warrior over a brawler, and in later expansions, you could even choose the exact skills that your henchman has.
Now I really liked this feature in Guild Wars 1. I miss being able to quest in a group all the time, travel together, and work together all the time for every single activity. Sure, in Guild Wars 2, we all love seeing other human-controlled players since there is no such thing as kill-stealing or sharing of experience, but most of the time, I’m travelling and questing all by myself. And the game isn’t even that old yet. The population is bound to drop further, and there will be less people questing as more people complete the game or reach level 80.
There are some quests and dynamic events that require a group of players to complete it due to its difficulty. How will these work out? Already I see dynamic events lying around uncompleted or being failed consistently because there aren’t enough people to complete it. In Guild Wars 1, this was never a problem. If there was a group of mobs too difficult in Guild Wars 1, you could overcome it with some strategic planning with your henchmen. I don’t deny that there are some quests there are rather difficult to complete with henchmen in Guild Wars 1, but these situtations are few and far between.
Main Story Quests
I really enjoyed the main story quests in Guild Wars 1. It was very rare to see an MMORPG that delivered its story in the way that Guild Wars 1 did. I have not played Star Wars: The Old Republic yet, but I will be playing it once it goes free to play.
The story so far in Guild Wars 2 is not bad, it is not too hard to follow, and it’s good enough for me to bother to find out what’s going to happen next. However, I do not really like the way the story is presented. The cutscenes from Guild Wars 1 do not exist in Guild Wars 2, and “cutscenes” in Guild Wars 2 consist of the character models of the two characters in conversation, standing in front of a generic backdrop, passing sentences back and forth.
I am also going to say something possibly stupid here. The lack of linearity of the game is rather annoying for the story. In Guild Wars 1, you had to follow a particular route to get to the next story, and along the route, you’ll find many side quests where you earn new skills, items, and experience. The story quests never had a recommended level, and it’s really difficult to be underleveled if you’ve been questing along your prescribed route. In Guild Wars 2, you are able to go from one quest to the next without meeting much of a barrier, in the travelling sense. This, along with the fact that the story quests are horribly spaced out to one every 3-5 levels, made me really annoyed that I have to stop my story and go someplace else to quest. This could be easily fixed by reducing the level gap between quests. 5 whole levels before you are able to do your next story quest is just absurd.
While Guild Wars 2 has very good social cohesion for PvE (more about this later on), I have also tweeted about one area where I would never ever want another player to be with me - main story quests. When a main story quest is done in a group, all forms of interaction, be it conversation with an NPC, or some sort of triggered action, will advance the story. Now this isn’t exactly a bad thing, but only the person who did the interaction will be able to read what the NPC said. Also, only the party leader is able to control whether the cutscene is skipped or not. Very badly done, in my opinion. What happened to the Guild Wars 1 style of skipping cutscenes (everyone has to want to skip before the scene is actually skipped).
Skills/Dual Professions
The skill selection in Guild Wars 2 sucks. In Guild Wars 1, you started off with a small set of skills, and you unlocked more skills to use as you do your side quests. This is similar to most MMORPGs. I like this due to the simple fact that I have a larger variety of skills to choose from, and although I do not use 80% of the skills most of the time, it’s always nice to know that you have several other skills to play around with once you’re bored.
In Guild Wars 2, the skills you have are limited by the weapon that you choose to use. Each one-handed weapon gives you 3 skills, each offhand gives 2 skills, and two-handed weapons give 5 skills. This sounds good too, since there seems to be a rather wide variety of skills as well. However, most of the weapon skills are so bad that there is absolutely no point using the other “weaker” weapons. This is unlike Guild Wars 1, where other skills actually had a use for them. In Guild Wars 2, there is really only about 10 skills or so that are worthy of use.
I also miss having 2 professions at the same time. Having 2 professions really spiced things up, allowing you to create intesting class combos. For example, playing an elementalist/monk allows the player to capitalize on the elementalist’s large energy pool to play as a monk more effectively. Very few games allow such cross-profession skill usage, and it’s rather depressing that Guild Wars 2 did not continue having this system.
Separate PvE and PvP skills
Certain skills in Guild Wars 1 worked differently when you are in PvP and PvE. I believe that this is the main reason why Guild Wars 1 is known to be one of the best, if not, the best PvP MMORPGs out there. ArenaNet’s designers did not have to attempt to balance their skills evenly in both PvE and PvP; they could keep things separate and wonderfully balanced.
This is a great route to walk on, and I absolutely do not understand why Guild Wars 2 ditched this idea. Already, players on the forums are complaining that their professions are getting nerfed in PvE because of PvP, or vice versa. Just this week, the guardian, the profession that I am playing, received a nerf to their greatsword abilities. I went to read the forums, and lo and behold, people speculated that it was done to balance PvP.
PvE Combat
PvE combat in Guild Wars 2 is an absolute zerg fest. Everybody just rushes in, use all their skills, and whacks the shit out of the enemy. Some even say that this is the case for PvP combat.
In Guild Wars 1, battles were fought slowly, and you took care to not overextend yourself. You planned which mobs you wanted to pull, and which you wanted to leave alone. I clearly remembering myself watching the movement patterns of the enemy, so as to not fight in the path of their patrols.
In Guild Wars 2, all I do is charge into battle. You will hardly ever need to look out for mobs around you, and there’s not much worry that you’ll pull anything other than what you’ve attacked. The element of strategy is gone. This is probably due to the lack of henchmen, as well as the fact that combat in Guild Wars 2 is more action-oriented, which I am not against.
However, Guild Wars 2′s implementation of the action-oriented combat falls short of many other action-MMOs out there today, such as Tera, Skyforge, or Neverwinter. While these three mentioned games have reticle targeting, Guild Wars 2 hides its action-oriented combat behind a tab-targeting system. This is especially obvious if you are a ranged class. No real aiming is needed, as the target is usually locked. Also, the combat feels uninspired and sloppy. The action feels like an old generic MMO that still utilizes the tab-targeting system. The hits have little impact, and little oomph.
Music
Why is the music recycled from Guild Wars 1? It’s good music, but still.
Customisable UI
Where did it go? It was around in Guild Wars 1.
So what Do I Like?
Social Interaction
Well, I enjoy the fact that players are finally people that we want to see. In other MMOs, seeing another playing was often a bad thing, since we would have to fight for kills, resource nodes, and if the game had open PvP, you might be in for a corpse run.
I like the fact that all players get full experience for attacking a mob, and it’s not shared. In short, I like the way Guild Wars 2 promotes social gameplay. Seeing a player is a good thing. However, as I mentioned in a previous paragraph, when the server population drops, what will happen to group dynamic events?
Auction House
The auction house in Guild Wars 2 is awesome. It’s not really much of an “auction” anymore, but it’s some sort of market where you’re able to post your orders, and post your sales. It’s quite similar to and better than the Grand Exchange in Runescape, and I honestly prefer this sort of auction house compared to the ones we usually see in MMORPGs.
Resource Gathering
Man, resource gathering is such a breeze here. Actually, not the act of gathering resources itself, but the fact that you can keep on gathering resources without worrying that you’ll run out of bag space. It’s awesome, just two clicks and you send all sorts of raw materials right into your bank.
Everything Gives Experience
Killing mobs and doing quests, that’s your usual source of experience. But in Guild Wars 2, reviving dead players and NPCs give experience. Gathering resources give experience. Exploring new areas of the map gives experience. Completing achievements give experience (daily achievements give good experience too). Crafting gives experience. Completing skill points, vistas, and waypoints give experience. It’s awesome, really.
Your Mileage May Vary.
If I have to be honest, Guild Wars 2 isn’t a sequel for Guild Wars 1. It’s an entirely different game. If you’re considering getting Guild Wars 2 because you loved Guild Wars 1, there’s no guarantee that you will enjoy Guild Wars 2. Why? Because the only things that have remained the same is the lore. You can see familiar races, places, and names, but nothing else will be familiar.
For me, there are far better action-MMOs out there to play. While these other MMOs might not have the same polish that Guild Wars 2 has, these other MMOs are much more fun. Guild Wars 2 is a disappointment as a whole, and is likely to remain one of the biggest disappointments for me so far.
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