GW2: Random Complaint Thread: Complaining about Complaints since day 1

[Arelian]

Other games at least tend to develop skills or give new ones altogether. It only takes a short time to unlock each weapon. Once that's done, there's really nothing to look forward to. If I knew I could get some variant of Hundred Blades that shoots air slices in a short conal arc in front of me, you bet I'd probably be doing whatever to learn that and then some for all the weapons. Literally make it require shit from different zones and people will have to "explore" too. It'd also go a long way in encouraging different play styles and getting people to look into different equipment choices. Yeah, cookie cutter shit will happen, but I'd also say it's happening now.

More varied loot pools wouldn't hurt, either. Like, you can't craft or find normal drops of certain stat combos. Why not? And while sigils add a slight layer of customization, why not other little perks like improving specific skills, reducing (specific) element damage, and so on without needing full sigil sets. Yeah, the general mechanics of Kill X, Fetch Y, Go To Z, and Defend Q haven't changed in MMOs over time, but they're also not going to as long as we're stuck with the keyboard/mouse/controller interface. These all do eventually become monotonous, but dangling carrots does help extend their lifespans. The trick is to just not be too obscene with it... like the legendaries. Then most people just won't bother.

Bolded part in particular is simple to answer. It's almost impossible to actually balance and makes the game overly complicated. Yes, that kind of loot is more fun, but it doesn't mesh well with MMO mindsets.

[arus2001]

They should've just left it at level 20 cap like GW2 so people really got the idea of what this game is about (levels are near meaningless). Or hell, go old school and take levels out completely. Getting skill points entirely from map completion would have been a better way to go imo.

Still doesn't quite solve the problem of what to do once you finish exploring.

[Ohemgee]

Buy pets !

[Prothescar]

PvP. It's Guild Wars, PvP is a major part of it, especially since we don't have elite zones/dungeons (yet) for the PvE mountaintop challenge.

[arus2001]

But pets !

If only I were so easily sold~

Why is having 5 skills but having them ALL be useful at all times a bad thing? The variation comes from different utility skills and trait setups. It is a perfect balance between the two alternatives and one that they can forever add on to without outdating previous skills as they see fit.

I'd be more about utility skills is their timers weren't so prohibitive. Just like when setting traits, I can easily look to some and be like, "Yeah, useless to me..." and so on down the line. There might be an interesting one here and there, but then you see something like 3 minute recast for 20-30s effect. Yawn. With the game seemingly being more about faster pacing, stuff like that just strikes me as weird. Plus I'd hardly call every skill on a given weapon useful.

PvP. It's Guild Wars, PvP is a major part of it, especially since we don't have elite zones/dungeons (yet) for the PvE mountaintop challenge.

And what if your server is consistently raildroaded, or at the very least, cheesed nightly by off-hours crews while everyone else is sleeping? Yeah, I've grumbled about map completion requirements involving WvW, and still think it's dumb, but such introduces a futility to it all where individual effort, or even a small group of individuals, is rendered meaningless for no fault of your own. Meanwhile, sPvP and the like has no real benefit other than bragging rights if that's your thing. Perhaps part of the problem right now is that "endgame" seems lopsided toward PvP, but if it's not your cup of tea, you're SOL for now.

/pvecarebearrepresenting

[Rhyis.]

With weapon swaps it's technically 15 total skills at any given time. Which is more then enough skills imo. WoWs 100 different skill thing drove me nuts. You'd have so many skills that overlapped, becoming completely obsolete at max level anyway. Realistically, once you took items out of the equation you never used more then 15 skills at max level in WoW too. And you pretty much mashed them with your face until something died.

Still doesn't quite solve the problem of what to do once you finish exploring.

Kill people.

[Ohemgee]

With weapon swaps it's technically 15 total skills at any given time. Which is more then enough skills imo. WoWs 100 different skill thing drove me nuts. You'd have so many skills that overlapped, becoming completely obsolete at max level anyway. Realistically, once you took items out of the equation you never used more then 15 skills at max level in WoW too.

Try playing elementalist. You're limited to your weapon + your skills + your skillz. Shit gets real (boring). But fuck it I liked to shoot lightning out of my hands and my head when I glitch

[Arelian]

Still doesn't quite solve the problem of what to do once you finish exploring.

You stop playing the game until they add something else you want to do?

I don't understand the mindset of thinking that a game NEEDS to take up a shitload of your time. Most of us don't have a metric fuckton of free time anymore, so why do you want a game that could theoretically stop you from experiencing all it has to offer for quite some time? I'm quite happy with the fact that I played GW2 for 70 hours, got a character to 80, and felt like I accomplished all I really wanted to. 70 hours is a -long- time for a video game, especially when I felt like I was constantly doing something that I enjoyed.

[Rhyis.]

Try playing elementalist. You're limited to your weapon + your skills + your skillz. Shit gets real (boring). But fuck it I liked to shoot lightning out of my hands and my head when I glitch

Elementalist has more skills available to them than every other class in the game. 25 skills available at all times `~'. 21 I guess if you take out auto attacks.

[Ohemgee]

Yeah you do get to swap between variations of attacks. But there are times where I wish I could use x set up vs y situation.

[Rhyis.]

Why wouldn't you? They all do different shit.

Post was ninja edited so this post now makes no sense. Read in confusion motherfuckers!

[Arelian]

C'mon now, swapping attunements can completely change the tools you have to respond to a situation. The skills are pretty different in most cases.

[Ohemgee]

I edited it! Too late to be thinking and using Siri to type this out for me

[Rhyis.]

Anyway, I got a real fucking complaint. No base stat increases condition damage and conditions cannot crit. Making it so condition builds, which every single necro build is, are not gaining the same amount of stat fusion as every other non-condition build has. So yeah, fuck you all. Power and precision are doing exactly nothing for me.

[arus2001]

You stop playing the game until they add something else you want to do?

I don't understand the mindset of thinking that a game NEEDS to take up a shitload of your time. Most of us don't have a metric fuckton of free time anymore, so why do you want a game that could theoretically stop you from experiencing all it has to offer for quite some time? I'm quite happy with the fact that I played GW2 for 70 hours, got a character to 80, and felt like I accomplished all I really wanted to. 70 hours is a -long- time for a video game, especially when I felt like I was constantly doing something that I enjoyed.

This is actually a slippery slope. On one end, if a game is good enough, sure you wouldn't want it to end. If the experience was blah or just so-so, then finally hitting the climax might almost seem like a relief. If you're more toward the former, hitting that wall does suck. I'm hardly an elitist hardcore grind thumper that demands only the 1% see and do this and that, but I'm also not so super casual where 80 hours of gameplay would be spread over RL months. I figure I got my money's worth, but right now, all I'd have to do is level an alt and eventually hit the same walls with them. It's the issue I had in early Rift and kinda rexperienced playing it again since I wasn't a raider and no interest stepping into that minefield. Unsurprisingly, dungeon running here doesn't appeal to me at all, nor does the hyper-organized requirement of successful PvP. I could do events until the cows come home, sure, but that also requires them being consistently available and easily acceessed. Anet isn't quite there yet between bugs and, well, I guess triggering requirements. I guess it wouldn't be much of a shock to know I hated things like Kings or scheduled Dynamis in FFXI, but played the shit out of Campaign.

That said, I don't mind taking a break, and even am. 1.05 for D3 looks to be pointing that game in a right direction, it just needs to come out so I can enjoy. I had another friend offer to get me Dark Souls if I played with him, but suggested he hold off just in case D3 does suck me in for a bit. And Rift has its expansion coming in November, much as I'd rather avoid jumping into the P2P sphere again. At the very least, they'd be adding new shit for me to do that's not locked behind a dungeon or raid. None of this means I don't want to see GW2 improve, though. Maybe bitching about the problems here won't change anything, but apparently doing it at their OF isn't doing much good, either. Maybe my dev apathy thanks to SE is just running a bit high, though. At the very least, I'll strongly support the "Fix your shit!" mantra some have been chanting here. Niceties can follow.

[Rhyis.]

It's the issue I had in early Rift and kinda rexperienced playing it again since I wasn't a raider and no interest stepping into that minefield. Unsurprisingly, dungeon running here doesn't appeal to me at all, nor does the hyper-organized requirement of successful PvP.

So, you're angry there isn't enough end game content but you also don't want to participate in any end game content that's out there.

I hope you're aware how retarded that sounds.

[arus2001]

If you wanna blanketly cherry pick without knowing why (or likely caring), then sure.

[Rhyis.]

Was what I said incorrect? Are you intentionally not doing the end game content in multiple games and than complaining there is no content for you to enjoy at end game? Your complaint is entirely your own doing.

In this game specifically, it's not like there are time constraints like dynamis or something that you need to adhere to. You simply log in, walk into spvp/wvw/dungeons and kill shit. And then you log out when you no longer have the time to kill shit. What's the issue?

I mean, I've spent 250 hours on a single character in this game and I still haven't done most of the dungeons, haven't finished my crafts, haven't finished my story missions, still wearing crappy green gear. The content is there. You just need to be willing to do it, even though most of it has no carrot for you to follow.

[arus2001]

The ultimate factor involves the ability to do whatever when I'm able. Queues for WvW or waiting around shouting for people to do dungeons don't help that. I pointed out I'd do events all the time if they were actually going on all the time and could be reached quickly. Simply sitting down and saying, "I'm going to play 4 hours today, let's rock!" just doesn't happen for me without interruptions, which in the past has led to me having to bail on group activities or outright missing out on shit that never helps guild standings in games were such is "expected" (And also why I'm a strong advocate of reasonable in-game point systems instead of pure RNG). I otherwise spoke on a fault of WvW earlier, and I know I'm not the only one who hates that it happens or could be stuck on an utterly demoralized server. Great, maybe I do get past the queue, do a channel query asking where shit's going down, but there's no guarantee it'll be productive. Time wasted, sure. Fun had? Hard to say.

Basically, I don't mind helping people. I dislike being bound to them and everything a unique individual brings to the equation. Be there at 8? Yeah, there's always that guy who shows up at 8:20. Not part of the guild's in clique? Good luck getting help. I called that shit a minefield for a reason. Simply wanting something to do isn't at all me saying everyone else can't do what they like to. Some do have the time. Some do have the charisma. Some are just happy being uppity yes-men. Good for them. Wanting rewarding open world content isn't an unreasonable request, but fuck if raiders and PvPers aren't always quick to pipe up that they deserve the better end of the deal.

[solracht]

I'm surprised at how lacking the open world experience is once you're 80. You'd think with downscaling and dynamic events, your options would be limitless.

Even with downscaling, mobs die in 2 skills in pretty much all of the lower levels areas (so doing stuff in them is just boring) and most of the items I can obtain in them are useless. It's faster / more profitable to stay in Orr for exotics/exp/karma/mats/etc. and then just buy the lower level stuff I need (if any). Playing Orr Wars was fun for the first 2 days, now not so much.

Also there isn't really a good way to find / keep track of dynamic events. Once I'm done with the hearts, it's hard to keep myself motivated to simply blindly chase events (especially when coupled with what I said above). Maybe allowing you to redo hearts monthly could fix this? Or maybe just adding a better way to see where events are happening would suffice.

These two things make it very hard to just "have fun" in random areas once you're 80 imo - at least that's been the case for me. There's a world that's right for you no matter what level you are, but there aren't many reasons to go out and use it after the first time you experience it. It just feels like wasted potential. I guess I just feel so tied to Orr and to a smaller degree, to Frostgorge Sound, and it sucks thinking about what it could be instead.


Anyway, PVE-wise it seems like all there is to do is Orr and dungeons, so I imagine this is why so many people aren't really enjoying the PVE endgame.

Not gonna bother bitching about dungeons in this post, but I think those need a lot of work to be fun in the long-term, especially while so many paths are glitchy or easily chesee'd.