People who decided to hate a game in a holy crusade on forums use several cliche words to support their "arguments"... "shallow" is just one of those. Anything they don't like is "shallow" - it makes them feel better about their own decisions, and makes them able to belittle and insult the players of those games indirectly without getting moderator attention. Those guys jump from game to game doing the same on each forum, instead of behaving like normal people would to concerning what is just a video game, and let it go to play those they enjoys instead.
Nothing new under the sun, always happened. Specially on the Internet, where there are little direct consequences, some people do things "just because they can", specially when it includes annoying other Internet citizens.
Pretty much this. From my understanding the sandbox crowd wants a real breeding world where they can immerse themselves and basically play something like a second life If it is just a game, then it is already too shallow for them.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
The same developers that brought us guild wars and guild wars 2 were the same developers that brought us vanilla WoW. It is no suprise that Guild Wars 2 is a great game.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Originally posted by enntense See if this sounds familiar. You face the big bad boss mob. You run in , hit your max damage abilties, dodge a little bit and then suddently get hit for 80% of your health. You use your big self heal. That heals you to about 60%. You run away from the mob and run around out of attack range healing up. When you are topped off and your big heal is up you run back in and do it again....I've just described every single melee boss combat for the GW2 game.
You forgot that the mob is at 100% health again.
Well apparently this guy never got very far Doesn't sound familiar at all to me, can use cc skills and what does Boss mob even mean? Does it stand for a champion, something in a dungeon, or Group Event (legendary) boss out on a map?
I never heard anyone call it shallow, but if I had to guess, from my short experience with it. The game doesn't seem to elaborate enough on it's storyline. It's not like WoW where you are in a story. I've played maybe 20-30 hours at a friends, and all I get from it is killing things. i don't get a sense that there's a reason to kill things, other than I'm a Char and I like it hehe.
Originally posted by nastyjman Note: Please no flaming on those who give their opinion on why it's shallow. Every flame post kills a baby quaggan.
LOL Well... That didn't last very long
For me, GW2 is shallow because all it has to offer is combat. Now, if a player eats, breathes, and bleeds combat, they are in hog heaven. If a player enjoys number crunching, there is a lot for them in GW2 combat mechanics. If a player looks for other activities in their games, it is very shallow.
There has been some discussion on skills. Generally speaking (yes, elementalists get 4 schools of magic they can swap between), while in combat, a player has 15 skills to choose from, 5 weapon skills (swappable for 5 others), 1 healing skill, 3 utility skills, and 1 elite skills. Yes, a player may have some "F-key" skills to add a couple of other skills. Many skills are situational and you cannot swap them while in combat. Other games may have more skill bars, but in combat you are not as restricted as in GW2.
WvWvW, PvP, Dynamic Events, Gear Grinding, and most Heart Quests are combat oriented.
Crafting is shallow. No discovery exists when the game tells you what component goes with what. Click on a component and the components you can use with it are selectable, while the ones NOT usable with it are not selectable. It is just a matter of combining 2-4 per-determined components. Where's my fishing pole? I know, many players would say, "Grab a real fishing pole if you want to go fishing."
Exploration is shallow. No explorer ever had little "find me" markers on their maps. They didn't even have maps, for that matter. Why does "this cave" have a marker and "that cave" does not warrant one? The occasional invisible wall between zones sucks.
Character Creation is shallow. I never really felt any connection to my characters. I had no vested interest in any of them. Their background was predetermined with no room for personal creativity.
There really is not much more to GW2. It was fun while it lasted. For some, that fun lasts longer than others.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Exploration is shallow. No explorer ever had little "find me" markers on their maps. They didn't even have maps, for that matter. Why does "this cave" have a marker and "that cave" does not warrant one? The occasional invisible wall between zones sucks.
This is a very good point. If everything was not pre-listed on your map and you had to actually stumble across the vistas and POIs to unlock them on your map, then exploration would have been far better. The way it is now, when exploring, you can just run around with M open and ignore most of your surroundings and the world.
Like cliff diving into a big ocean of water, then hitting your head on the bottom.
I'm not diving right?
Now that is funny.
For me, the game felt like it was combat, combat combat. But even the combat felt shallow in PVE because the lack of usable skills as compared to most other MMOs.
Yea except in GW2 Im not on a constant skill rotation. Every battle I fight, I use skills due to their use and need and typically this results in every battle being a little different. I don't use skill 1,2,3,4,5,6 in that order...every...single...fight.
So you might call it shallow, but in the mmo's you might claim has "deep" combat all you are doing is cycling skills. You have a whole bottom portion of the screen filled with tons of skills, half of which you rarely if ever use, while the other skills you do use, you use in a consistant and constant rotation while typically standing in one spot.
I don't fight that way in GW2 although might some. So all you have in GW2 is the removal of dozens of skills you usually wouldn't use anyways, eliminating the clutter, and on top of which, there's no need to cycle skills constantly. I might start a fight with skill 2 or I might start it with skill 5. Depending on how many mobs Im fighting I might throw skill 3 in there, then 2, then occasionally 4. Its never the same for me. Combine that with dodge mechanics? Also the use of combo fields and finishers? Yea that's a lot deeper than most mmorpgs.
All you have in most other typical mmos is a cockpit full of switches and buttons, while GW2 is a streamlined cockpit with even more functionality that has all but ten of those useless switches and buttons removed. And because of that people like yourself call the combat more shallow.
So please do go play one of the mmo's that has a quarter of your screen covered in near useless skills, and enjoy standing in one place cycling the same skills in the exact same order over and over again. I'll play GW2 instead.
Exploration is shallow. No explorer ever had little "find me" markers on their maps. They didn't even have maps, for that matter. Why does "this cave" have a marker and "that cave" does not warrant one? The occasional invisible wall between zones sucks.
This is a very good point. If everything was not pre-listed on your map and you had to actually stumble across the vistas and POIs to unlock them on your map, then exploration would have been far better. The way it is now, when exploring, you can just run around with M open and ignore most of your surroundings and the world.
Agreed. I like to explore in this game, however it is hard to in between all the vistas, hearts, and skill points. I just hate the hearts and vistas especially, because they make me feel as if someone has been there before me. I mean, someone in rl obviously has, but those make it feel like "oh you know that pretty place you think you found? Well, we all know about it already becuase of this vista here. So, yeah..."
Exploration is shallow. No explorer ever had little "find me" markers on their maps. They didn't even have maps, for that matter. Why does "this cave" have a marker and "that cave" does not warrant one? The occasional invisible wall between zones sucks.
This is a very good point. If everything was not pre-listed on your map and you had to actually stumble across the vistas and POIs to unlock them on your map, then exploration would have been far better. The way it is now, when exploring, you can just run around with M open and ignore most of your surroundings and the world.
Agreed. I like to explore in this game, however it is hard to in between all the vistas, hearts, and skill points. I just hate the hearts and vistas especially, because they make me feel as if someone has been there before me. I mean, someone in rl obviously has, but those make it feel like "oh you know that pretty place you think you found? Well, we all know about it already becuase of this vista here. So, yeah..."
In my opinion it's fine, because we all know there's lots of hidden areas in the game. There are 3 in Lion's Arch, for example. I actually find exploration in the game very encouraging. It does the right amount of assistance to the players, by giving POIs.
I feel that GW2 is shallow because for me it lacks purpose.
The game is fun, and beautiful, but the appeal only lasts so long.
I like chasing the carrot. I like knowing that my character is never really done, that there is always an improvement to be made.
I like being able to play on my own terms at my own schedule. For that reason, I'm a big fan of LFG tools.
I like variety in content - I like being able to choose between lots of different activities, some solo and some requiring groups, and as mentioned before when I choose to do group activities I like being able to find a group easily without having to spend a ton of time searching.
I like playing a role, as it allows me to really min/max and push myself and my character to their limit. I'm the kind of player that gives 100% attention and effort on every single dungeon run I do. If I'm healing, no one is dying or I'm a failure. If I'm tanking, no mob is allowed to break loose and take out my healer or DPS. If I'm doing DPS, I have to be #1.
And this isn't just on raid night or when I've had my coffee - it's every.single.run I do I push myself to perfection.
I like breaking up my activities and doing different things. I like being able to putz around and just do some fishing and cooking, spend some time mining or doing archaeology. Sometimes I like questing and doing dailies. Sometimes I like doing dungeons and instanced PvP or I'll flag myself and go looking for open world fights.
I gave GW2 a very good shot - played a lot in beta and religiously at release. The game was a lot of fun for a time.
But now, when I log in I look at my map and think about stuff I want to do... and after a couple of minutes log off because I don't really see the purpose of doing any of it.
I burned myself out on the "fun" of GW2, and found that after the fun was gone there wasn't really anything in the game that I really connected with - nothing to push me to log in and play.
So to me, GW2 feels shallow in the sense that it is just kind of empty.
Agreed. I'll add for myself a few issues that make it a "shallow" game.
By level 30 I have seen all the skills and have bought all I'll need for my character, so there goes a portion of my character progression.
By level 50 or earlier my personal story isn't personal anymore and becomes a sideshow to some other character's personal story. Another portion of character progression gone.
Endgame Longevity. Doesn't exist. I was able to hit 80 in a month, complete the world map(which was the ONLY aspect of the game I really enjoyed), maxed out a crafting profession and was dressing full exotics. I now have nothing to play for. NO progression whatsoever of any worth because dungeons are a nightmare to play, IMO due to the lack of trinity and annoying waiting on cooldown combat. I now have nothing to look forward to. Even playing alts isn't very fun because I've seen all the game has to offer and there is no true reward or addictive collectable game or addictive unlocking game to persue anymore.
And before anyone says go back to WoW or something stupid, when I am looking for depth I'm looking for something similar to what FFXI offers in terms of content available and progression systems. Now THAT was/is a deep themepark.
I liked the WvW. As far as shallowness goes, I thought the DE's were way too repetitive. Even WoW knows every once to switch up the kill and gather x amount quest. My toon is human, so maybe the experience would be different with another race, but it felt like I spent the first 40 levels killing nothing but centuars and bandits. Also, compared to some of the other mmo's out (WoW, WAR, SWTOR, Rift) GW2 spvp design felt flat to me. All in all GW2 was an ok game but there is at least 4 mmo's I enjoy more so I don't really play it. However, I do think the core of the game is strong enough for the developers to have a really great game on their hands in future expansions.
Everything about the game just felt shallow to me. Combat got boring fast and progression also got boring fast because afther about level 10 each level afther that feels exactly the same. You just dont get the sense that you are getting stronger and more powerful. Also the world just felt like zones or maps with the whole 100% completion thing and going around trying to get to the dot on the map while uncovering the fog of war just made it worse. No soical aspect at all really kills it because thats what mmos are all about.
This game tried to be World Of Warcraft 2012 and failed hard at it. Sure it did not follow the exact same formala but it tried to make a simple easy mmo that anybody could pick up and play and thats just not going to work anymore. Its a double edged sword when it comes to mmos. It will be fun at first and everybody will be talking about it but afther couple months when you have seen everything people will leave and be ready for whats next. MMOs have to built for long term gameplay or they just wont work. We need real worlds where the people are the content because thats what real mmos are.
You just described every recent MMO that's been released. What are you expecting from this genre?
What I find strange is his favorite thing in the world is FFXIV Reborn - a game that essentially looked to WoW for almost all of it's game systems designs.
ArcheAGe is the #1 game I am waiting on because its the only mmo comming that looks like a real mmo. Final Fantasy XIV is just 1 of the many games that I am following and hoping it turns out to be something but I must say even in Alpha it looks 100 times better then Guild Wars 2 ever did. Other games that I am following are Neverwinter, Blade and Soul, Elder Scrolls Online, Lineage Eternal and Wild Star. Thx for telling me what my favorite thing in the world is.
Exploration is shallow. No explorer ever had little "find me" markers on their maps. They didn't even have maps, for that matter. Why does "this cave" have a marker and "that cave" does not warrant one? The occasional invisible wall between zones sucks.
This is a very good point. If everything was not pre-listed on your map and you had to actually stumble across the vistas and POIs to unlock them on your map, then exploration would have been far better. The way it is now, when exploring, you can just run around with M open and ignore most of your surroundings and the world.
That's not entirely accurate. Yes, there are vistas and points of interest meant to get you out and about and off a beaten path. The real exploration though is finding those things that aren't marked. Jumping puzzes on every map, hidden caves, including those you can fall into and start an event chain, chests to be discovered and looted, mini-boss mobs in out of the way places...
If you're relying on the map to show you all that's out there then you're flat out doing it wrong and will probably think the exploration is shallow. If you actually explore, however, there's a lot to find and see.
There are tons of things to discover which aren't marked on the map at all.
Also, some things marked on the map aren't that obvious to get to either. Often, you will have e.g. a vista marked, but how to get to that vista is a totally different story.
People who say exploration is shallow in GW2 have obviously played it like modern WoW clones, and only followed the map. Of course, those people missed a lot, and their opinion about exploration being shallow is approximatively worth as much as someone saying a movie sucks when they only saw the trailer.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Everything about the game just felt shallow to me. Combat got boring fast and progression also got boring fast because afther about level 10 each level afther that feels exactly the same. You just dont get the sense that you are getting stronger and more powerful. Also the world just felt like zones or maps with the whole 100% completion thing and going around trying to get to the dot on the map while uncovering the fog of war just made it worse. No soical aspect at all really kills it because thats what mmos are all about.
This game tried to be World Of Warcraft 2012 and failed hard at it. Sure it did not follow the exact same formala but it tried to make a simple easy mmo that anybody could pick up and play and thats just not going to work anymore. Its a double edged sword when it comes to mmos. It will be fun at first and everybody will be talking about it but afther couple months when you have seen everything people will leave and be ready for whats next. MMOs have to built for long term gameplay or they just wont work. We need real worlds where the people are the content because thats what real mmos are.
You just described every recent MMO that's been released. What are you expecting from this genre?
What I find strange is his favorite thing in the world is FFXIV Reborn - a game that essentially looked to WoW for almost all of it's game systems designs.
ArcheAGe is the #1 game I am waiting on because its the only mmo comming that looks like a real mmo. Final Fantasy XIV is just 1 of the many games that I am following and hoping it turns out to be something but I must say even in Alpha it looks 100 times better then Guild Wars 2 ever did. Other games that I am following are Neverwinter, Blade and Soul, Elder Scrolls Online, Lineage Eternal and Wild Star. Thx for telling me what my favorite thing in the world is.
Ermm you obviously haven't done any research on Age Of Wushu. The good thing is the western CBT2 starts today and you can play 10 hours and 60 mins a day their after.
It has many things that ArcheAge has but also something that ArcheAge hasn't got but the same is in reverse.
Everything about the game just felt shallow to me. Combat got boring fast and progression also got boring fast because afther about level 10 each level afther that feels exactly the same. You just dont get the sense that you are getting stronger and more powerful. Also the world just felt like zones or maps with the whole 100% completion thing and going around trying to get to the dot on the map while uncovering the fog of war just made it worse. No soical aspect at all really kills it because thats what mmos are all about.
This game tried to be World Of Warcraft 2012 and failed hard at it. Sure it did not follow the exact same formala but it tried to make a simple easy mmo that anybody could pick up and play and thats just not going to work anymore. Its a double edged sword when it comes to mmos. It will be fun at first and everybody will be talking about it but afther couple months when you have seen everything people will leave and be ready for whats next. MMOs have to built for long term gameplay or they just wont work. We need real worlds where the people are the content because thats what real mmos are.
You just described every recent MMO that's been released. What are you expecting from this genre?
What I find strange is his favorite thing in the world is FFXIV Reborn - a game that essentially looked to WoW for almost all of it's game systems designs.
ArcheAGe is the #1 game I am waiting on because its the only mmo comming that looks like a real mmo. Final Fantasy XIV is just 1 of the many games that I am following and hoping it turns out to be something but I must say even in Alpha it looks 100 times better then Guild Wars 2 ever did. Other games that I am following are Neverwinter, Blade and Soul, Elder Scrolls Online, Lineage Eternal and Wild Star. Thx for telling me what my favorite thing in the world is.
Ermm you obviously haven't done any research on Age Of Wushu. The good thing is the western CBT2 starts today and you can play 10 hours and 60 mins a day their after.
It has many things that ArcheAge has but also something that ArcheAge hasn't got but the same is in reverse.
Ermm you obviously haven't done any research on Age Of Wushu. The good thing is the western CBT2 starts today and you can play 10 hours and 60 mins a day their after.
It has many things that ArcheAge has but also something that ArcheAge hasn't got but the same is in reverse.
We got few skills where each one is extremely usefull and sometimes 2 for 1 while other games give you a crap ton of skills BUT you only end up using 10 or so.
In the end its that they suck, yes suck, at the tactical use of skills GW2 needs and say its shallow to approve of their decision of not playing anymore.
I think it's shallow for me beacuse all you really do is fight... the times you do get to step away from that, like crafting, are just not satisfying (to me).
It could also be called shallow because the PvE side cold be considered really lonely out in the open world and the group PvE stuff seems... lacking.
So, to me, it is a great single player RPG, but a shallow 1 dimensional MMORPG and really not worth my ongoing attention. I will look back in 6 months or so though... might get another few weeks out of it then.
All mmos are like this btw...u might want to play the games on your phone if u dont want to fight all the time :P..like that game where u raise dragons or fish...theres absolutely no fighting there :P
Because there's no risk vs reward, or mechanical complexity? So much of the game scales its nearly impossible to fail, and when you do nothing happens.
I don't think that being "shallow" is a problem Guild Wars 2 has more than any modern MMO.
If we can be honest with ourselves for a little while, the MMORPG genre has really stagnated. Most new MMO's "borrow" heavily from WoW, if not becoming outright clones, and that includes Guild Wars 2. That's not to say that developers don't innovate, or come up with something new every once in a while. But while they may change one portion of the game, the rest remains unchanged or "too" familiar.
Let's take Guild Wars 2 for example. While the combat system is improved, and the skill system has it's own style, being based on weapons, the effects of the skills have been rehashed hundreds of times. And no matter how you look at traits, they're fundamentally the same as a majority of post-WoW MMO's--minute stat changes that only make a difference when taken to the extremes.
As for everything but combat? The crafting system made no attempt at innovation, and gathering has been largely ignored. Exploration with a pre-stocked map is merely grinding via walking. Platforming (jump puzzles) has absolutely no place in a game without an engine designed for it. While map quests have been conglomerated into "Tasks" they still consist of killing monsters or pressing the 'F' button near an object, the difference being you get to choose which one you want to do 30 times to fill up the bar. Story quests follow the same generic WoW mould, essentially map quests with talking in between. The story itself is nothing special, the "World against the Big Evil Thing(s)" cliche. While definitely an improvement on Rift's dynamic events with a much larger variety (Honestly, every event was ANOTHER damn rift opening), it suffers from the other major pitfall--the events are far too common to make them seem special. When I've killed the Fire Elemental 3 times in one day with the only mechanic for it coming back being a timer (yes there is an event sequence but the starting event is on a timer), it ceases to be a fun distraction and becomes another part of the grind.
That said? I liked Guild Wars 2, I liked it a lot. I haven't even gotten to the part I liked best, which happens to be World vs. World. Real siege warfare? Storming castles, breaking down walls with battering rams and catapults, capturing villages and choke points? Real strategy? Trebuchet placement, attrition, strategic retreat even? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, count me in!
So in response to the original post, "deep" and "shallow" have just become part of the MMO rhetoric, which means they're subjective terms that can pack a lot of meaning, or be, well, shallow. For me, I find World vs. World to be deep gameplay. There is no set way to play, and winning or losing can be attributed just as much to real strategy as simply overwhelming numbers. I'd consider the events deep because they actually change based on the outcome, but they happen far too often. The crafting system, the storyline, and the rest of the elements of the game that form the grind (tasks, map completion, boss farming) are blatantly shallow. There is nothing more to them than can be seen at first glance, no matter how you go about them, once you reach your ultimate goal in each respect, maxing out the profession, reaching level 80, getting your legendary weapon, how you did them makes little difference.
It seems to me that MMOs have lost the level of mystery that it takes to keep people interested for hundreds or thousands of hours. Items have stat lists and can be objectively compared to each other, skills list all their effects and relative damage, special events and dungeons are all broadcasted loudly, and what hidden easter eggs there are, are so few and so static that everyone knows their full details days later. Character and monster levels are neon signs, and whether it's "Veteran and Champion" or "Elite" or "Quest Boss" it's obvious those monsters will need (read: system-forced) a large group to kill. I can't even say that puzzles are too static because the only two MMO's I've seen with REAL (ie: not simple pull-levers-in-this-order) puzzles were Runescape (Yeah, that's right, those were REAL quests) and D&D Online.
Where's the MMO where you have to try an item to figure out what it does? Where skills can be used in ways developers didn't plan for? Where you had to search, really search for a dungeon or a monster that really attempts to elude you? Where getting ambushed by monsters on a road doesn't guarantee it will happen to everyone, or that it won't happen if you avoid that road? Where riddles and puzzles are just as much of an obstacle as a centaur blockade? Where names and levels aren't broadcasted, player skill isn't stuck in the backseat, and legends about the strongest pass via word of mouth?
It would be insanely difficult to pull off, and require a massive amount of resources to develop and maintain, but... I'd pay upwards of $50 a month to play that kind of game done right. And I'd bet quite a lot that millions of others would as well.
Comments
Pretty much this. From my understanding the sandbox crowd wants a real breeding world where they can immerse themselves and basically play something like a second life
If it is just a game, then it is already too shallow for them.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
The same developers that brought us guild wars and guild wars 2 were the same developers that brought us vanilla WoW. It is no suprise that Guild Wars 2 is a great game.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Well apparently this guy never got very far
Doesn't sound familiar at all to me, can use cc skills and what does Boss mob even mean? Does it stand for a champion, something in a dungeon, or Group Event (legendary) boss out on a map?
For me, GW2 is shallow because all it has to offer is combat. Now, if a player eats, breathes, and bleeds combat, they are in hog heaven. If a player enjoys number crunching, there is a lot for them in GW2 combat mechanics. If a player looks for other activities in their games, it is very shallow.
There has been some discussion on skills. Generally speaking (yes, elementalists get 4 schools of magic they can swap between), while in combat, a player has 15 skills to choose from, 5 weapon skills (swappable for 5 others), 1 healing skill, 3 utility skills, and 1 elite skills. Yes, a player may have some "F-key" skills to add a couple of other skills. Many skills are situational and you cannot swap them while in combat. Other games may have more skill bars, but in combat you are not as restricted as in GW2.
WvWvW, PvP, Dynamic Events, Gear Grinding, and most Heart Quests are combat oriented.
Crafting is shallow. No discovery exists when the game tells you what component goes with what. Click on a component and the components you can use with it are selectable, while the ones NOT usable with it are not selectable. It is just a matter of combining 2-4 per-determined components. Where's my fishing pole? I know, many players would say, "Grab a real fishing pole if you want to go fishing."
Exploration is shallow. No explorer ever had little "find me" markers on their maps. They didn't even have maps, for that matter. Why does "this cave" have a marker and "that cave" does not warrant one? The occasional invisible wall between zones sucks.
Character Creation is shallow. I never really felt any connection to my characters. I had no vested interest in any of them. Their background was predetermined with no room for personal creativity.
There really is not much more to GW2. It was fun while it lasted. For some, that fun lasts longer than others.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
This is a very good point. If everything was not pre-listed on your map and you had to actually stumble across the vistas and POIs to unlock them on your map, then exploration would have been far better. The way it is now, when exploring, you can just run around with M open and ignore most of your surroundings and the world.
Yea except in GW2 Im not on a constant skill rotation. Every battle I fight, I use skills due to their use and need and typically this results in every battle being a little different. I don't use skill 1,2,3,4,5,6 in that order...every...single...fight.
So you might call it shallow, but in the mmo's you might claim has "deep" combat all you are doing is cycling skills. You have a whole bottom portion of the screen filled with tons of skills, half of which you rarely if ever use, while the other skills you do use, you use in a consistant and constant rotation while typically standing in one spot.
I don't fight that way in GW2 although might some. So all you have in GW2 is the removal of dozens of skills you usually wouldn't use anyways, eliminating the clutter, and on top of which, there's no need to cycle skills constantly. I might start a fight with skill 2 or I might start it with skill 5. Depending on how many mobs Im fighting I might throw skill 3 in there, then 2, then occasionally 4. Its never the same for me. Combine that with dodge mechanics? Also the use of combo fields and finishers? Yea that's a lot deeper than most mmorpgs.
All you have in most other typical mmos is a cockpit full of switches and buttons, while GW2 is a streamlined cockpit with even more functionality that has all but ten of those useless switches and buttons removed. And because of that people like yourself call the combat more shallow.
So please do go play one of the mmo's that has a quarter of your screen covered in near useless skills, and enjoy standing in one place cycling the same skills in the exact same order over and over again. I'll play GW2 instead.
Agreed. I like to explore in this game, however it is hard to in between all the vistas, hearts, and skill points. I just hate the hearts and vistas especially, because they make me feel as if someone has been there before me. I mean, someone in rl obviously has, but those make it feel like "oh you know that pretty place you think you found? Well, we all know about it already becuase of this vista here. So, yeah..."
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
In my opinion it's fine, because we all know there's lots of hidden areas in the game. There are 3 in Lion's Arch, for example. I actually find exploration in the game very encouraging. It does the right amount of assistance to the players, by giving POIs.
Agreed. I'll add for myself a few issues that make it a "shallow" game.
By level 30 I have seen all the skills and have bought all I'll need for my character, so there goes a portion of my character progression.
By level 50 or earlier my personal story isn't personal anymore and becomes a sideshow to some other character's personal story. Another portion of character progression gone.
Endgame Longevity. Doesn't exist. I was able to hit 80 in a month, complete the world map(which was the ONLY aspect of the game I really enjoyed), maxed out a crafting profession and was dressing full exotics. I now have nothing to play for. NO progression whatsoever of any worth because dungeons are a nightmare to play, IMO due to the lack of trinity and annoying waiting on cooldown combat. I now have nothing to look forward to. Even playing alts isn't very fun because I've seen all the game has to offer and there is no true reward or addictive collectable game or addictive unlocking game to persue anymore.
And before anyone says go back to WoW or something stupid, when I am looking for depth I'm looking for something similar to what FFXI offers in terms of content available and progression systems. Now THAT was/is a deep themepark.
ArcheAGe is the #1 game I am waiting on because its the only mmo comming that looks like a real mmo. Final Fantasy XIV is just 1 of the many games that I am following and hoping it turns out to be something but I must say even in Alpha it looks 100 times better then Guild Wars 2 ever did. Other games that I am following are Neverwinter, Blade and Soul, Elder Scrolls Online, Lineage Eternal and Wild Star. Thx for telling me what my favorite thing in the world is.
That's not entirely accurate. Yes, there are vistas and points of interest meant to get you out and about and off a beaten path. The real exploration though is finding those things that aren't marked. Jumping puzzes on every map, hidden caves, including those you can fall into and start an event chain, chests to be discovered and looted, mini-boss mobs in out of the way places...
If you're relying on the map to show you all that's out there then you're flat out doing it wrong and will probably think the exploration is shallow. If you actually explore, however, there's a lot to find and see.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Underwater caves too, Volkon.
There are tons of things to discover which aren't marked on the map at all.
Also, some things marked on the map aren't that obvious to get to either. Often, you will have e.g. a vista marked, but how to get to that vista is a totally different story.
People who say exploration is shallow in GW2 have obviously played it like modern WoW clones, and only followed the map. Of course, those people missed a lot, and their opinion about exploration being shallow is approximatively worth as much as someone saying a movie sucks when they only saw the trailer.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Ermm you obviously haven't done any research on Age Of Wushu. The good thing is the western CBT2 starts today and you can play 10 hours and 60 mins a day their after.
It has many things that ArcheAge has but also something that ArcheAge hasn't got but the same is in reverse.
I would say it's more sandbox that ArcheAge.
Go here http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/forum/1250
Have it downloaded, installed and made my character this morning. I will be playing when I get home from work. Looks intresting for a FTP.
I'm hung up on the name. Wushu. Woooo shoooo. Sounds like it belongs on a take out menu.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Concerning the skills issue.
Quality = Guild Wars 2
over
Quantity = Warcraft, Guild Wars 1, Rift, etc
We got few skills where each one is extremely usefull and sometimes 2 for 1 while other games give you a crap ton of skills BUT you only end up using 10 or so.
In the end its that they suck, yes suck, at the tactical use of skills GW2 needs and say its shallow to approve of their decision of not playing anymore.
All mmos are like this btw...u might want to play the games on your phone if u dont want to fight all the time :P..like that game where u raise dragons or fish...theres absolutely no fighting there :P
I don't think that being "shallow" is a problem Guild Wars 2 has more than any modern MMO.
If we can be honest with ourselves for a little while, the MMORPG genre has really stagnated. Most new MMO's "borrow" heavily from WoW, if not becoming outright clones, and that includes Guild Wars 2. That's not to say that developers don't innovate, or come up with something new every once in a while. But while they may change one portion of the game, the rest remains unchanged or "too" familiar.
Let's take Guild Wars 2 for example. While the combat system is improved, and the skill system has it's own style, being based on weapons, the effects of the skills have been rehashed hundreds of times. And no matter how you look at traits, they're fundamentally the same as a majority of post-WoW MMO's--minute stat changes that only make a difference when taken to the extremes.
As for everything but combat? The crafting system made no attempt at innovation, and gathering has been largely ignored. Exploration with a pre-stocked map is merely grinding via walking. Platforming (jump puzzles) has absolutely no place in a game without an engine designed for it. While map quests have been conglomerated into "Tasks" they still consist of killing monsters or pressing the 'F' button near an object, the difference being you get to choose which one you want to do 30 times to fill up the bar. Story quests follow the same generic WoW mould, essentially map quests with talking in between. The story itself is nothing special, the "World against the Big Evil Thing(s)" cliche. While definitely an improvement on Rift's dynamic events with a much larger variety (Honestly, every event was ANOTHER damn rift opening), it suffers from the other major pitfall--the events are far too common to make them seem special. When I've killed the Fire Elemental 3 times in one day with the only mechanic for it coming back being a timer (yes there is an event sequence but the starting event is on a timer), it ceases to be a fun distraction and becomes another part of the grind.
That said? I liked Guild Wars 2, I liked it a lot. I haven't even gotten to the part I liked best, which happens to be World vs. World. Real siege warfare? Storming castles, breaking down walls with battering rams and catapults, capturing villages and choke points? Real strategy? Trebuchet placement, attrition, strategic retreat even? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, count me in!
So in response to the original post, "deep" and "shallow" have just become part of the MMO rhetoric, which means they're subjective terms that can pack a lot of meaning, or be, well, shallow. For me, I find World vs. World to be deep gameplay. There is no set way to play, and winning or losing can be attributed just as much to real strategy as simply overwhelming numbers. I'd consider the events deep because they actually change based on the outcome, but they happen far too often. The crafting system, the storyline, and the rest of the elements of the game that form the grind (tasks, map completion, boss farming) are blatantly shallow. There is nothing more to them than can be seen at first glance, no matter how you go about them, once you reach your ultimate goal in each respect, maxing out the profession, reaching level 80, getting your legendary weapon, how you did them makes little difference.
It seems to me that MMOs have lost the level of mystery that it takes to keep people interested for hundreds or thousands of hours. Items have stat lists and can be objectively compared to each other, skills list all their effects and relative damage, special events and dungeons are all broadcasted loudly, and what hidden easter eggs there are, are so few and so static that everyone knows their full details days later. Character and monster levels are neon signs, and whether it's "Veteran and Champion" or "Elite" or "Quest Boss" it's obvious those monsters will need (read: system-forced) a large group to kill. I can't even say that puzzles are too static because the only two MMO's I've seen with REAL (ie: not simple pull-levers-in-this-order) puzzles were Runescape (Yeah, that's right, those were REAL quests) and D&D Online.
Where's the MMO where you have to try an item to figure out what it does? Where skills can be used in ways developers didn't plan for? Where you had to search, really search for a dungeon or a monster that really attempts to elude you? Where getting ambushed by monsters on a road doesn't guarantee it will happen to everyone, or that it won't happen if you avoid that road? Where riddles and puzzles are just as much of an obstacle as a centaur blockade? Where names and levels aren't broadcasted, player skill isn't stuck in the backseat, and legends about the strongest pass via word of mouth?
It would be insanely difficult to pull off, and require a massive amount of resources to develop and maintain, but... I'd pay upwards of $50 a month to play that kind of game done right. And I'd bet quite a lot that millions of others would as well.