Its a hard question, how to improve on what is already an amazingly good mmo. Personally I would like to have seen a larger variety of "battlegrounds" introduced, but I am unsure if that would make the game "better", because it would also bring balance and other issues.
Also, the game has evolved quite a bit since launch, and many of the features I thought would have been good at launch have actually been added, or are in the process of being adding. Maybe having more skills to collect to expand on progression in a horizontal fashion? It has a lot of options, skills, and flexibility compared to other mmos though so not sure if that would have been needed at launch.
Maybe a better question is what directions could GW2 take next? It has so much in it already that works really well, I wonder how they can build on that going forward.
Way back when this game came out.. I was one of the most vocal talking about the design decisions... and now the game has literally devolved into boss timers.. farming .. and zerg groups in WvW. Its become so trivialized... that nothing of their original design decisions really hold true. Theres really just no incentive to play.
Name one game with factional PvP that doesn't revolve around zerging <o> Also, please describe a MMO which endgame doesn't rely on some soft of "farming". The idea of MMOs is to give you something to strive for. In the past it was getting to max level, now you can maxout in hours, what do you do then?
The classes are pretty good.. but they aren't really diverse enough.. they cut the skills down so much, that its pretty common to find people that are exact copies of your character. Apart from ascended gear... which doesn't even look that great and is a major timesink to achieve... the rest is all kind of pointless to try to earn.
There are no 2 identical skills, none. Not even the traits. And yes if you play the meta builds, obviously you'll find build copies but so what? In Gw2 your skill with the class matters when 2 identical builds clash. Also ascended gear is made within a week. Max 2 weeks. Oh my god such a timesink <o>
The "dynamic events" aren't as dynamic as they planned I guess... nobody cares that these events change the world... because they just change back in an hour or so. All that matters is getting the chests from the zone bosses.
Hey, don't let me stop you guy on the internet, go ahead and design better dynamic events, while keeping in mind that every single person that pulled the trigger on that 60$ purchase should experience the same content like you. Yeah, if you are not down with that, go play single player RPGs. There are plenty well made ones. On top of my brain i have dragon age inquisition and skyrim.
If it were me... I'd seriously start randomizing some content. Flat out randomization... like back in the CoX days with their world events. Throw world bosses out there when people don't expect them, where people don't expect them. I mean.. level scaling pretty much takes care of the issue with difficulty well enough that you can spawn anything.. pretty much anywhere... and everyone can participate in fighting it.
To what purpose? Beside knowing the average gamer, I'm sure that if group A kills the boss before group B gets there, you are in for a shitstorm of profanity in map chat.
Give the classes more abilities per weapon.. or just more weapons in general. Some classes like the engineer and elementalist get a lot of options.. but even those get tiring after a while when everyone else pretty much uses all of the same things.
Same as the point above. You are only looking at the meta builds. I'm fairly certain its hard to find 2 look-alike engineers.
At this point you really can't incentivize too many different ways.... but if I had a choice... I'd incentivize more skills... even just make the same skills available with different animations to further customize your character. Changing colors of abilities, ways you cast your powers.. make it a little flashier... and earn them through.. oh I don't know.. skill trainers or random events. Just spice up some of that monotony that made me log out so many months ago.
You mention this for the third time so I'll drop my thoughts here. Guild Wars 1 had thousands of abilities. Only a handful of them were used. Balancing the game was worse than the 9th circle of hell. The devs decided not to go this route again, and as someone who played Gw1 and struggled with too much choice, I thankfully agree that skill picking is simplified and all that matters your personal skill.
Thats how I see it anyways. Just make me want to work for something.. if its going to be cosmetic.. make it really define my character.
Ascended for starters .... but yeah its too much of a time sink for you wut ? You kind of contradict yourself
Maybe wrap your head around what you actually want from the game, and then post about it
Trinity - GW2 made me realize how much i liked and missed class roles.
Expansions - I really didn't care for the personal story and would have much rather had new classes and lands to explore.
These would have made the game better for me.
Um...newsflash. The expansion, if its going to happen, *WILL* bring new personal storyline, just like previous Gw1 expansions.
What do you guys expect from an expansions lol ... Jesus walking on water, while you fly around high fiving him? You people are insane when it comes to expectations lol.
How do you manage to buy even a basic bread? It must be such a shitty choice, having to eat the same bread as everybody else. Cruel, cruel life.
Um...newsflash. The expansion, if its going to happen, *WILL* bring new personal storyline, just like previous Gw1 expansions.
What do you guys expect from an expansions lol ... Jesus walking on water, while you fly around high fiving him? You people are insane when it comes to expectations lol.
How do you manage to buy even a basic bread? It must be such a shitty choice, having to eat the same bread as everybody else. Cruel, cruel life.
I've always wondered why GW2 fanbois are so angry. On topic: meaningful roles for classes and story line written by grown ups are the 2 things that come to my mind. Then again I just don't play games dislike so I don't have any problems with GW2.
Um...newsflash. The expansion, if its going to happen, *WILL* bring new personal storyline, just like previous Gw1 expansions.
What do you guys expect from an expansions lol ... Jesus walking on water, while you fly around high fiving him? You people are insane when it comes to expectations lol.
How do you manage to buy even a basic bread? It must be such a shitty choice, having to eat the same bread as everybody else. Cruel, cruel life.
I've always wondered why GW2 fanbois are so angry. On topic: meaningful roles for classes and story line written by grown ups are the 2 things that come to my mind. Then again I just don't play games dislike so I don't have any problems with GW2.
Angry? No ... But ridiculing your fantasies which you guys call expectations? Definitely!
No wonder the genre is becoming what it is. The devs are trying to please all of you special snowflakes but you are never happy.
For instance, ANet has never, ever and will never post/say anything about trinity because the game was designed from the ground-up without trinity. You can't bitch about roles. You know that since day 0. You could've missed the purchase instead of bitching about roles now. We, who actually play this game and take it for what it is, love it for the fact that it has no trinity.
You have your WoW and its plethora of copies. Be part of that community instead.
P.S: To clarify - when I mention roles I mean the classic ones, dps/tank/healer. Gw2 *does* have roles, but its not the ones you would expect. Claiming otherwise makes a bold statement that you don't know what Gw2 is about at all.
I'm actually happy with ANet's design choices for the most part. Obviously there are ones I disagree with but it doesn't mean it takes away from the game for me. And seeing a game like Gw2 that changed the rules beat SWTOR, a well respected trinity based game, with decent story, on the MMO votes in this very website, full of Gw2 haters, makes my day xD Maybe you should respect other people's opinion before stating your own no? Clearly there are a lot of people happy with the current state of affairs in Gw2...
What I am saying is that ... you should take Gw2 for what it is. It won't change and it is not dead like many would have you believe. All it takes is a login.
Also I see that people want permanent content compared to temporary. The whole point of Living World Season 2 is to make permanent content so...
No, but seriously...bitching about roles in Gw2 is like going into an Eve Online forum and demand CCP to remove PvP completely. That's how much sense this one makes.
Nope, I don't like the trinity system and I know there are a lot of people who also agree. I don’t like to wait in the LFG que looking for a specific role all day, and I don’t wanna enter a pvp match and have to deal with the opposing team having too many healers. There needs to be more CC, buffs, debuffs, and support. Non trinity combat is more exciting and entertaining, especially if its skill based. Its part of the reason why I’ve been playing a lot more MMO shooters lately because besides Gw2 almost all of these mmos have the boring trinity system.
Way back when this game came out.. I was one of the most vocal talking about the design decisions... and now the game has literally devolved into boss timers.. farming .. and zerg groups in WvW. Its become so trivialized... that nothing of their original design decisions really hold true. Theres really just no incentive to play.
Name one game with factional PvP that doesn't revolve around zerging Also, please describe a MMO which endgame doesn't rely on some soft of "farming". The idea of MMOs is to give you something to strive for. In the past it was getting to max level, now you can maxout in hours, what do you do then?
How about Fallen Earth for starters. Warhammer actually did much better at small ranking PvP. DC Universe Online excels at PvP with their structured, timed events. Does 3 count or do you want more?
The classes are pretty good.. but they aren't really diverse enough.. they cut the skills down so much, that its pretty common to find people that are exact copies of your character. Apart from ascended gear... which doesn't even look that great and is a major timesink to achieve... the rest is all kind of pointless to try to earn.
There are no 2 identical skills, none. Not even the traits. And yes if you play the meta builds, obviously you'll find build copies but so what? In Gw2 your skill with the class matters when 2 identical builds clash. Also ascended gear is made within a week. Max 2 weeks. Oh my god such a timesink
It is a time sink because you're running the same boring missions over and over.. the materials you need randomly drop in fractals.. and the fractals are boring after the 5th time you've seen them. Oh but you still have to keep running them. Plus yeah.. you can't say "Oh there are no 2 identical skills and traits" because there are so few viable skills and traits that you'll only see maybe 3 total different builds in any kind of structured PvP or PvE setting per class. In GW1 you had many more.
The "dynamic events" aren't as dynamic as they planned I guess... nobody cares that these events change the world... because they just change back in an hour or so. All that matters is getting the chests from the zone bosses.
Hey, don't let me stop you guy on the internet, go ahead and design better dynamic events, while keeping in mind that every single person that pulled the trigger on that 60$ purchase should experience the same content like you. Yeah, if you are not down with that, go play single player RPGs. There are plenty well made ones. On top of my brain i have dragon age inquisition and skyrim.
I don't have to design better dynamic events.. they were already designed 10 years ago. This living story crap that they tout is so special was done over a decade ago by City of Heroes, and they actually had dynamic events with random content. Plus MMOs specifically are terrible at allowing users to experience the SAME content over a large span of time than any OTHER game. Already I've experienced content in GW2 that others won't get to experience... but the core gameplay that is just rehashed and boring is the exact reason why so many players don't continue to play. They would get more play out of diversifying classes than trying to come up with content that they're just going to "remove" (or rehash.. ) later.
If it were me... I'd seriously start randomizing some content. Flat out randomization... like back in the CoX days with their world events. Throw world bosses out there when people don't expect them, where people don't expect them. I mean.. level scaling pretty much takes care of the issue with difficulty well enough that you can spawn anything.. pretty much anywhere... and everyone can participate in fighting it.
To what purpose? Beside knowing the average gamer, I'm sure that if group A kills the boss before group B gets there, you are in for a shitstorm of profanity in map chat.
No you aren't.. just because one boss was killed doesn't mean it won't spawn somewhere else.. and stay on the map until it has been defeated. Like I said in CoX.. they used to have random events happen. I remember one event where we'd get high level mobs in low level zones... higher levels would come in to kill it.. and they would stay until they were all defeated. It was new.. and exciting.. and fun.
Give the classes more abilities per weapon.. or just more weapons in general. Some classes like the engineer and elementalist get a lot of options.. but even those get tiring after a while when everyone else pretty much uses all of the same things.
Same as the point above. You are only looking at the meta builds. I'm fairly certain its hard to find 2 look-alike engineers.
Its really not... most of the time everyone goes with whatever set is easiest to run dungeons for. The flame set was quite popular for all classes not too long ago
At this point you really can't incentivize too many different ways.... but if I had a choice... I'd incentivize more skills... even just make the same skills available with different animations to further customize your character. Changing colors of abilities, ways you cast your powers.. make it a little flashier... and earn them through.. oh I don't know.. skill trainers or random events. Just spice up some of that monotony that made me log out so many months ago.
You mention this for the third time so I'll drop my thoughts here. Guild Wars 1 had thousands of abilities. Only a handful of them were used. Balancing the game was worse than the 9th circle of hell. The devs decided not to go this route again, and as someone who played Gw1 and struggled with too much choice, I thankfully agree that skill picking is simplified and all that matters your personal skill.
Some people might like limited skills... if you want better replayability, add more skills and builds and classes. Thats how you do it. Just because you think its fine doesn't mean everyone has to agree. I've played games with far less skills that were still much more fun to play as well. The combat in GW2 is only fun for as long as the combat gets boring.. and it gets boring fast. I have all characters at 80.. I had to keep hopping around just to keep myself entertained.. That barely lasted a month.
Thats how I see it anyways. Just make me want to work for something.. if its going to be cosmetic.. make it really define my character.
Ascended for starters .... but yeah its too much of a time sink for you wut ? You kind of contradict yourself
Ascended gear is pointless. And I have ascended gear on a few of my characters. Thats how I know its not worth the time playing to get it. Its truly useless, and even more useless for those that don't care about fractals.. which.. the only reason TO care about them is to get ascended gear.
Maybe wrap your head around what you actually want from the game, and then post about it
I know what I want... and I posted it.. you just didn't agree with it.
I want to say the lack of trinity roles is what drove a lot of players away, but that itsn't entirely true. It was the terrible A.I. system they developed, which had a negative effect on the non-trinity gameplay.
If the A.I. reacted more intelligently to mitigation, damage, and heals, it would've been so much better. That didn't happen though, and it left a big mess during encounters.
This was probably the major reason why people didn't stick around with GW2. All the pve players left when they realized that the dungeon encounters were relegated to one role, which was the DPS Berserker role. Ironically, you have less roles than a trinity MMO now.
Living story was the nail in the coffin though, for many players. It just wastes development time, when other features and content could've been implemented instead, such as expansion-type content. They should have scrapped the living story in the first 8 months, or at least phased it out of importance, but they insisted that their pet project continue.
Those are the 2 reasons why i left, and i'm sure most people would agree that's why they left too.
I want to say the lack of trinity roles is what drove a lot of players away, but that itsn't entirely true. It was the terrible A.I. system they developed, which had a negative effect on the non-trinity gameplay.
If the A.I. reacted more intelligently to mitigation, damage, and heals, it would've been so much better. That didn't happen though, and it left a big mess during encounters.
This was probably the major reason why people didn't stick around with GW2. All the pve players left when they realized that the dungeon encounters were relegated to one role, which was the DPS Berserker role. Ironically, you have less roles than a trinity MMO now.
Living story was the nail in the coffin though, for many players. It just wastes development time, when other features and content could've been implemented instead, such as expansion-type content. They should have scrapped the living story in the first 8 months, or at least phased it out of importance, but they insisted that their pet project continue.
Those are the 2 reasons why i left, and i'm sure most people would agree that's why they left too.
I would disagree that the lack of Trinity drove players away. I think the concept is solid. Anet fell apart with their implementation of the non-trinity. For DPS players, the non-trinity is a trade-off. It's fine, it does what it's supposed to but it's not really better. But for those who play support classes, tanks and healers, they were left with a sub-par alternative.
In a system where 100% Berzerker stats rule, anything that wasn't straight up Bust DPS was not needed. Even a support build alternative that was buildable in GW2 was useless compared to Zerk.
I have seen some VERY interesting Guardian Support builds that, on paper, looked fun as hell to try in a group setting. Try it in game? Nope, not necessary.
While there are a number of things I am not fond of in GW2, I don't think a good starting point for making the game "better" would be:
- Make your game like every other game already out there.
You are right but the 2 top reasons I have seen why people left GW2 was the class system and living story. I think the devs may want to start looking into that but it is their game and can do what they want with it =-)
I liked GW2 but the reason I left is that 2 years later theres still no new classes, no new trades, no new professions, no expansion...
Give us something new something to get excited over instead of a jumping puzzle and fluff in the cash shop.
Comments
Its a hard question, how to improve on what is already an amazingly good mmo. Personally I would like to have seen a larger variety of "battlegrounds" introduced, but I am unsure if that would make the game "better", because it would also bring balance and other issues.
Also, the game has evolved quite a bit since launch, and many of the features I thought would have been good at launch have actually been added, or are in the process of being adding. Maybe having more skills to collect to expand on progression in a horizontal fashion? It has a lot of options, skills, and flexibility compared to other mmos though so not sure if that would have been needed at launch.
Maybe a better question is what directions could GW2 take next? It has so much in it already that works really well, I wonder how they can build on that going forward.
Half of the answers of this thread are about making GW2 even more of a WoW clone than it is already (trinity, gear progression, ...).
Then I bet the people posting these answers would complain about having "Yet another WoW clone!".
Well, I'm glad they did what they wanted to do and not what repressed WoW players wanted for the game.
Maybe wrap your head around what you actually want from the game, and then post about it
Um...newsflash. The expansion, if its going to happen, *WILL* bring new personal storyline, just like previous Gw1 expansions.
What do you guys expect from an expansions lol ... Jesus walking on water, while you fly around high fiving him? You people are insane when it comes to expectations lol.
How do you manage to buy even a basic bread? It must be such a shitty choice, having to eat the same bread as everybody else. Cruel, cruel life.
I've always wondered why GW2 fanbois are so angry. On topic: meaningful roles for classes and story line written by grown ups are the 2 things that come to my mind. Then again I just don't play games dislike so I don't have any problems with GW2.
Angry? No ... But ridiculing your fantasies which you guys call expectations? Definitely!
No wonder the genre is becoming what it is. The devs are trying to please all of you special snowflakes but you are never happy.
For instance, ANet has never, ever and will never post/say anything about trinity because the game was designed from the ground-up without trinity. You can't bitch about roles. You know that since day 0. You could've missed the purchase instead of bitching about roles now. We, who actually play this game and take it for what it is, love it for the fact that it has no trinity.
You have your WoW and its plethora of copies. Be part of that community instead.
P.S: To clarify - when I mention roles I mean the classic ones, dps/tank/healer. Gw2 *does* have roles, but its not the ones you would expect. Claiming otherwise makes a bold statement that you don't know what Gw2 is about at all.
I'm actually happy with ANet's design choices for the most part. Obviously there are ones I disagree with but it doesn't mean it takes away from the game for me. And seeing a game like Gw2 that changed the rules beat SWTOR, a well respected trinity based game, with decent story, on the MMO votes in this very website, full of Gw2 haters, makes my day xD Maybe you should respect other people's opinion before stating your own no? Clearly there are a lot of people happy with the current state of affairs in Gw2...
What I am saying is that ... you should take Gw2 for what it is. It won't change and it is not dead like many would have you believe. All it takes is a login.
Also I see that people want permanent content compared to temporary. The whole point of Living World Season 2 is to make permanent content so...
No, but seriously...bitching about roles in Gw2 is like going into an Eve Online forum and demand CCP to remove PvP completely. That's how much sense this one makes.
Nope, I don't like the trinity system and I know there are a lot of people who also agree. I don’t like to wait in the LFG que looking for a specific role all day, and I don’t wanna enter a pvp match and have to deal with the opposing team having too many healers. There needs to be more CC, buffs, debuffs, and support. Non trinity combat is more exciting and entertaining, especially if its skill based. Its part of the reason why I’ve been playing a lot more MMO shooters lately because besides Gw2 almost all of these mmos have the boring trinity system.
I know what I want... and I posted it.. you just didn't agree with it.
I want to say the lack of trinity roles is what drove a lot of players away, but that itsn't entirely true. It was the terrible A.I. system they developed, which had a negative effect on the non-trinity gameplay.
If the A.I. reacted more intelligently to mitigation, damage, and heals, it would've been so much better. That didn't happen though, and it left a big mess during encounters.
This was probably the major reason why people didn't stick around with GW2. All the pve players left when they realized that the dungeon encounters were relegated to one role, which was the DPS Berserker role. Ironically, you have less roles than a trinity MMO now.
Living story was the nail in the coffin though, for many players. It just wastes development time, when other features and content could've been implemented instead, such as expansion-type content. They should have scrapped the living story in the first 8 months, or at least phased it out of importance, but they insisted that their pet project continue.
Those are the 2 reasons why i left, and i'm sure most people would agree that's why they left too.
I would disagree that the lack of Trinity drove players away. I think the concept is solid. Anet fell apart with their implementation of the non-trinity. For DPS players, the non-trinity is a trade-off. It's fine, it does what it's supposed to but it's not really better. But for those who play support classes, tanks and healers, they were left with a sub-par alternative.
In a system where 100% Berzerker stats rule, anything that wasn't straight up Bust DPS was not needed. Even a support build alternative that was buildable in GW2 was useless compared to Zerk.
I have seen some VERY interesting Guardian Support builds that, on paper, looked fun as hell to try in a group setting. Try it in game? Nope, not necessary.
I liked GW2 but the reason I left is that 2 years later theres still no new classes, no new trades, no new professions, no expansion...
Give us something new something to get excited over instead of a jumping puzzle and fluff in the cash shop.