Disclaimer: This post is gonna sound negative, and for that I apologize. Guild Wars 2 is a good MMO and one of the most feature rich MMOs I have ever seen at launch. Events are a nice touch, and the world feels more alive than any other MMO I’ve seen.
I’ve been staring at this reply window for some time now, trying to figure out exactly why I’m not really enjoying GW2 anymore and figuring out what exactly to write… It’s not easy for me to accept that this is not the sequel I was hoping for.
Why did I play GW1 for 1500+ hours? Because I liked the gameplay! I didn’t play it for the promise of better looking armor. I played it because of the challenge. If I wanted to complete the Nightfall campaign 2 people and a hench, I could, and we did. Was it easy? Nope, but it was fun because of the challenge. No other game could deliver that!
Initially I was very excited when I heard about the combat system in GW2. “A combat system based around dodging and timing your attacks? Count me in!”. In reality it’s not what I hoped for. It sounds good on paper, and heck it was fun enough for a while, but it lacks depth. I feel pigeonholed into the same role over and over. My thief was pretty much designed for direct damage, bleeding and blinding, and thats pretty much it. I can’t escape that constraint.
In GW1 the player gets to be creative. In GW2 the class designer gets to be creative.
“But in GW1 everyone used the same ‘flavor of the month’ anyway”. Yeah but isn’t that happening here? Aren’t people using the same small collection of builds anyway (and it’s physically impossible for many unique builds to exist in GW2).
I haven’t been to Orr yet, and at this point I’m starting to doubt it will ever happen, because I’m simply bored with the combat system. I think the amount of zerging in the game is a symptom of a combat system that just isn’t very well designed.
I’ll end my rambling whining post with 2 quotes:
Colin Johanson: “I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.”
To me, GW2 is pretty much also played this way, you just add “and then I dodged!” to the end of the quote.
Mike O’Brien: “Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 …”
… except a deep combat system, that gave endless replayability and flexibility to last for years, which was the one thing I truly loved about GW1.
Forgive me readers… I know that was a negative read, but I felt I needed to say it.
TLDR; Combat system lacks depth to keep me entertained anymore. Game doesn’t feel like a true sequel to GW1; it feels more like another MMO with Guild Wars lore.
