Just feedback from new player, and why this game never becomes AAA mmo.

[Noise.1824]

Played this game for 3 months and was surprised about amount of obvious problems was not addressed yet in 5 years old game.This game have awesome variability of content, seems it covers a lot of different player’s needs.Exploring this huge map and dynamic events most awesome thing here for me.But game have so many "little wrong things in it", first you think "nah its ok you can live with it", then you find another flaw in design and another.In my opinion all problems in game because developers don’t like their game and don’t play it actually, for them its just another coding job.Or may be game have wrong people in testing department.

List of issues i found and can remember currently, list a bit chaotic and also sorry for my english:

. Lack of information about items, events, quests, ar just about game itself, if i need to minimize game and go to 3rd party website to get info what this item needed for at all?it screams game have huge problems in user interface.. anvil - dialog box? why it's there, just repair me on use.

. exclusive sell tab, to sell thing i need to switch to "special sell tab" this is really awful design.

. move items in bank only by drag and drop them? really?

. option to move target health bar/my health bar. Currently it close too much of vital screen area, sometimes i don’t see where i place my aoes.

• move fractal window why it fixed to center?

. do something with "red zones" where i can be killed, they are too flat and a lot of times they same color as terrain under them(for example make them also a bit vertical, add height), also would be awesome if we got separate colors for zones where i can be killed instantly, where i be knocked off, or where i just get some damage.

• about red zones, combat mechanics all about red zones looks weird and boring, there also many situations you overdo this thing and it become japan "bullet hell" game, not fun at all for non hardcore players.

. Story missions are bad balanced, i faceroll with one class and die on every pack with another.yes I am noob and maybe just bad, i found popular pve build for class with proper gear, found rotation videos and overall guide to class. it helped a bit, but i still die almost on every pack in ls3, so i think this wasn't really tested with all classes and how it feels with class without defense.

. in tooltip - amount of this material in bank \ source? tier? , checkbox to auto move materials in mat. bank?, button deposit materials not in context menu but like real button near "sprocket" menu button.

. track of objectives are awful - why i need to know completion percent’s? just put there usefulinformation like 1 of 4 plants gathered, or 6 of 12 components of collection done and list of undone objectives.

. slives - double click to upgrade to higher tier? how many clicks you need to convert 1 stack of sliver to lodestone?

. more than 1 mark on map, building route paths with checkpoints?

. why we see skills we get in timed events only after we start it? Let's take a look at very bad designed event like "beetle feast" you only see skills you can use after you pick up mushrooms, then you need to stop, hover mouse over it and read what they really do? Suggestion? place all skills with description on screen where you start it.

. combat log more info(mark incoming/outgoing with completely different colors) and filters to show only incoming or outgoing damage? so many times i die and i don't even know how it happened.

. game balance in crafting. There is no way to get cloth material(light armor craft) as simple as iron(heavy armor craft), and craft some cloth armor is much more difficult than heavy armor, if you lack of some materials for heavy armor craft, you just go on some map mine iron nodes. But you can't get guaranteed drop of cloth scraps somewhere. seems unfair?

. better lfg system? with auto join to dungeon/fractal group you marked with checkboxes, along with current system. there situation where old system is good, like going to fractal for some special achievement, but in other situations, hang in lfg to check are there any group formed i can join every 5 minutes is a huge annoyance.+Let lfg have separate hotkey button, without other useless social tabs, or at least place it 1st, before friends tab, also save expanded state of it, or at least save position that was last opened.

. id say its low priority for me, but would be awesome if we got some sort of wardrobe, where we can save build + gear for it. another way just save multiple builds somewhere inside "H" menu.

. ingame tracker for events (for example i selected some of them and when it start game alerts me in some way)

. repeatable hearts and hero points ( can we get good icons where i can clearly see if i done it once already or not).

. buffs / debuffs, most of them exist in short term during battle plus they move around and mix with others buffs debuffs, and because of that they are hardly readable.

• achievements placement on buff bar only when combat starts, i need to stop in the middle of the battle and read what they are? (they should be on the bottom of story mission tracking window)

. removing all party chat messages when you leave party chat, why?

. popups with ok button, its really annoying when you need to press it, and for it you need to use mouse, for some reason you cant press ok with keyboard, also there no any good reason to have this window usually instead of it just make, some color notification in chat.

. a lot of over tuned monsters especially in HoT expansion, monsters just have insane amount of crowd control, i die sometimes from full hp in chain control. There seems no any diminishing return for it, also it don’t break from amount of damage i receive.

• all damage from monsters should be converted from flat numbers to % of target hp, it would be more fair i think.
  • big red zones the ones you cant escape when you don’t have dodge charge, don’t see any hardcore elements or fun here. Someone from designers just hates players.

. to delete some items i need to type their name in special box, and items actually not usable at all, they got into collection and i really don’t need them. and from other side many valuable things i can easily delete or salvage without confirmation, like ascended gear. (make collection items sellable)

. sometimes i play from slow pc with low settings, and game drastically drops brightness and contrast on low settings, there almost nothing is visible on low settings in dark rooms, yes there is gamma slide bar but it ruins all colors.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

I was going to say something snarky, but you have a lot of good points there. Many of these things have been brought up repeatedly over the years with no response or change. /shrug. Maybe they’ll read this time and reconsider some design decisions.

[Ashen.2907]

I disagree with significant portions of what you have to say there, but a lot of it is on point.

[Cyndercat.7615]

I agree that alot of things you posted are a problem and should have been fixed long ago. I dont think they are stopping gw2 from being a AAA mmo though, the reason it struggles with that is

• too much experimentation when the game launched led to some really bad decisions massively slowing down content release
• PVP in an abysmal state
• balance patches FAR to rare and too small
• struggle to release good repeatable content after disbanding most of the dungeon teams

[STIHL.2489]

While you make some valid points, pretty much every MMO I have played has some kind of problem, or issue. Truth is, GW2 is an AAA MMO, but in all fairness, if you can name an MMO that does not have a single one of those problems, I'll be glad to give a try and see where you are coming from.

[OriOri.8724]

I think a lot of your complaints are baseless honestly, but you do have some good ones.

• The exclusive sell tab. Its useful for removing clutter. And it helps prevent people from accidentally selling something when they are in the buy tab. Its a fairly common feature in every game I've played honestly, the buy and sell tabs are different tabs, for good reason
• Moving items in the bank only via drag and drop. How else do you propose moving the items around in bank tabs? Really? What other solution is easier to move them around. And if you mean move between your inventory and the bank, a double click works for that so now I'm confused as to the actual complaint.
• I assume these "red zones" are the attack indicators that enemies have. Overall I agree that they can be improved in PoF, but in HoT (have you played that expansion yet?) they are quite well done in my opinion. PoF their use is more sporadic, and not as skillfully implemented in my opinion. But this is by no means a game wide problem
• Story mission balance is a hot issue. Fact is though that people play at all skill levels, and there are tons of people that not only don't have trouble with the story instances, but also want them to be harder. No matter what ANet does, someone will not be happy with this balance. Overall I think they strike a good balance with it honestly, but there are a few encounters in LWS3 where I agree that they went a bit overboard on the mechanics/AoEs in the fights.
• Objectives tracking. This one is subjective. I happen to like % more, other people, like you, happen to like fractions more. Could Anet add an option? Yes. Will it bring anything of worth to the game? I doubt it
• The event tracker goes against the "explore the living world" philosophy that Anet likes. That said, for some events that are "rare", Anet has introduced items you can gather to be notified when the event has started (notably the ley line anomaly event)
• %hp attacks from monsters is shit design. It completely nullifies higher health pools and heavier armor. Having flat damage is part of what makes mobs balanced.

[Mewcifer.5198]

I'm going to try and address a few things. I won't address everything.

". Lack of information about items, events, quests, ar just about game itself, if i need to minimize game and go to 3rd party website to get info what this item needed for at all?it screams game have huge problems in user interface."Most items have flavour text, most events tell you what is happening on the side or are meant to be more intuitive and you are supposed to listen to npcs and watch for things. Although I will agree there is a small issue with the game not explaining things like CC.

". exclusive sell tab, to sell thing i need to switch to "special sell tab" this is really awful design."Every single mmo and game I ever played had this.

". move items in bank only by drag and drop them? really?"You can double-click them to move them over too.....

". option to move target health bar/my health bar. Currently it close too much of vital screen area, sometimes i don’t see where i place my aoes."I do think it would be helpful to at least adjust the size. On smaller resolutions it can interfere with placing AOEs.

". do something with "red zones" where i can be killed, they are too flat and a lot of times they same color as terrain under them(for example make them also a bit vertical, add height), also would be awesome if we got separate colors for zones where i can be killed instantly, where i be knocked off, or where i just get some damage.about red zones, combat mechanics all about red zones looks weird and boring, there also many situations you overdo this thing and it become japan "bullet hell" game, not fun at all for non hardcore players."I am not a hardcore player and I have never felt this way. You can't speak for all non hardcore players. I have never had an issue seeing the AOEs. However, Anet really needs to add a colourblind setting for them.

". Story missions are bad balanced, i faceroll with one class and die on every pack with another.yes I am noob and maybe just bad, i found popular pve build for class with proper gear, found rotation videos and overall guide to class. it helped a bit, but i still die almost on every pack in ls3, so i think this wasn't really tested with all classes and how it feels with class without defense."There indeed some story bosses that were obviously not balanced across all classes. But usually they get balanced shortly after the episode is released because people complain.

". track of objectives are awful - why i need to know completion percent’s? just put there usefulinformation like 1 of 4 plants gathered, or 6 of 12 components of collection done and list of undone objectives."I am not sure what you are saying here.

". slives - double click to upgrade to higher tier? how many clicks you need to convert 1 stack of sliver to lodestone?"Yeah.... they really need to add a right-click way to do all in a stack at a time like with the snowflakes.

". more than 1 mark on map, building route paths with checkpoints?"Again, not sure what you are saying.

". why we see skills we get in timed events only after we start it? Let's take a look at very bad designed event like "beetle feast" you only see skills you can use after you pick up mushrooms, then you need to stop, hover mouse over it and read what they really do? Suggestion? place all skills with description on screen where you start it."Sounds like way too much unnecessary screen clutter.

". game balance in crafting. There is no way to get cloth material(light armor craft) as simple as iron(heavy armor craft), and craft some cloth armor is much more difficult than heavy armor, if you lack of some materials for heavy armor craft, you just go on some map mine iron nodes. But you can't get guaranteed drop of cloth scraps somewhere. seems unfair?"Boi, do I have something to tell you about leather.....

". better lfg system? with auto join to dungeon/fractal group you marked with checkboxes, along with current system. there situation where old system is good, like going to fractal for some special achievement, but in other situations, hang in lfg to check are there any group formed i can join every 5 minutes is a huge annoyance.Let lfg have separate hotkey button, without other useless social tabs, or at least place it 1st, before friends tab, also save expanded state of it, or at least save position that was last opened."The other social tabs are not useless, I use them a lot. Also, auto joining dungeons and fractals does not sound like a good idea.

". ingame tracker for events (for example i selected some of them and when it start game alerts me in some way)"Seems really unnecessary.

". repeatable hearts and hero points ( can we get good icons where i can clearly see if i done it once already or not)."Yeah, they really do need some way of telling me which one's I have already done for map completion. And some way to let me know what HPs I have already repeated that day.

". buffs / debuffs, most of them exist in short term during battle plus they move around and mix with others buffs debuffs, and because of that they are hardly readable.achievements placement on buff bar only when combat starts, i need to stop in the middle of the battle and read what they are? (they should be on the bottom of story mission tracking window)"Can sorta understand the first one but ehhhh. the second one, yeah, a little more warning on achievements would be nice without having to open up the achievement panel and look.

". removing all party chat messages when you leave party chat, why?"UGH I know right! I don't get this either. If someone is abusive and then they kick me from the squad or party then I can't report them. It's stupid.

". popups with ok button, its really annoying when you need to press it, and for it you need to use mouse, for some reason you cant press ok with keyboard, also there no any good reason to have this window usually instead of it just make, some color notification in chat."Not sure which popups you are referring to here. Some you can just hit enter, other's you can't.

". a lot of over tuned monsters especially in HoT expansion, monsters just have insane amount of crowd control, i die sometimes from full hp in chain control. There seems no any diminishing return for it, also it don’t break from amount of damage i receive.all damage from monsters should be converted from flat numbers to % of target hp, it would be more fair i think.big red zones the ones you cant escape when you don’t have dodge charge, don’t see any hardcore elements or fun here. Someone from designers just hates players."I don't want to sound elitist but... this is a get good situation. This is end game content, but it's not hardcore content. Don't waste dodges when you don't need them. Make sure you are using the right gear for your class. It's not that hard. And by the time you are doing end-game content you should at least have some grasp of this.

". to delete some items i need to type their name in special box, and items actually not usable at all, they got into collection and i really don’t need them. and from other side many valuable things i can easily delete or salvage without confirmation, like ascended gear. (make collection items sellable)"Yeah this has been a bit of an issue, but I would rather it stop me sometimes when I know what I am doing than never have it stop me when I accidentally misclick.

". sometimes i play from slow pc with low settings, and game drastically drops brightness and contrast on low settings, there almost nothing is visible on low settings in dark rooms, yes there is gamma slide bar but it ruins all colors."Yeah, sometimes there are areas so dark I literally can't see anything. But it is only like one or two locations in the ENTIRE game. And I play on the lowest of low settings since I am on a less-than-new-laptop.

[Zaltys.7649]

@Noise.1824 said:

• about red zones, combat mechanics all about red zones looks weird and boring, there also many situations you overdo this thing and it become japan "bullet hell" game, not fun at all for non hardcore players.I concur. The recent bosses have felt like something straight out of "bullet hell" games, and the fact that the flashy combat effects often hide the indicators from view certainly doesn't help.

(Neither does my red/green color blindness. HoT was pretty much impossible for me, PoF is fortunately not as green... for the most part.)

[Donari.5237]

@Mewcifer.5198 said:". removing all party chat messages when you leave party chat, why?"UGH I know right! I don't get this either. If someone is abusive and then they kick me from the squad or party then I can't report them. It's stupid.

On this point I'll note that I think this is a bug. It didn't use to happen, then it happened for a while and people noted it was a Bad Thing, and they fixed it. Then in some patch or other the loss of party chat on exit returned. I vaguely feel this has happened more than once. So there's something happening in the code that keeps reverting it to the current annoying version. It's happening in squad chat too right now.

[Menadena.7482]

There is a "special sell tab" now? I just rt click on something and select to sell it, is there some super-sekrit way I do not know about?

Sorry, tl;dr, and it is late. I saw more things before this but they fell out of storage when I saw that phrase. It looks like you want to redesign the UI? You may have had better luck with this thread if you broke up things a bit.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

There are some 3rd party apps (overlays) that might help you with some of your concerns. With some of the other things, you may just have not discovered that the features you desire are already in-game.

As much as you don't care for resources outside the game, the Wiki is full of valuable information (and is accessible from inside the game).

Good luck.

[Healix.5819]

@Menadena.7482 said:There is a "special sell tab" now? I just rt click on something and select to sell it, is there some super-sekrit way I do not know about?

In order to sell items to a merchant, you have to have their sell tab selected. You can then sell items from the tab or by right clicking an item in your inventory to open a menu and selecting to sell it. For comparison, in other games they usually override that right click menu to simply sell the item while the merchant is open.

[Cuddy.6247]

Some of these problems are from changes made throughout the history of the game. Such as dialogue boxes on repair anvils. They were originally made to spend money on to repair armour. So obviously they put a dialogue check in place. I imagine it was easier to just remove the fee and change dialogue than it was to try and repurpose anvils entirely. Some of the other complaints like build templates have been a frequent request for literally five years, why they don't just add them is beyond me. And lastly HoT enemies are supposed to be tougher. Ask around in the game, it's a MMO after all, I'm sure someone would be willing to help you complete your objective.

[Drew.1865]

I want to read it but it needs to be cleaned up and organized so it’s not a wall of text. I probably agree with you on many things though.

[Zenith.7301]

I just want the damn option to sort my fucking bank.

[Shirlias.8104]

At First i was :open_mouth:

Just feedback from new player, and why this game never becomes AAA mmo

But Then

@Noise.1824 said:. anvil - dialog box? why it's there, just repair me on use.. repeatable hearts and hero points ( can we get good icons where i can clearly see if i done it once already or not).. popups with ok button, its really annoying when you need to press it, and for it you need to use mouse, for some reason you cant press ok with keyboard, also there no any good reason to have this window usually instead of it just make, some color notification in chat.

And I just quoted the 3 i liked more to make it short

TS, you yourself said that you played the game only for a few months.I guess you simply need to learn how to masterate different classes ( i play a zerk thief 11k health and i never had any problems during story since 4+years ).And also, learn about the world itself, which includes:

• Mobs Attack Pattern
• Items
• Tricks and game mechanics

Few of the parts you mentioned are flaws that could be healed ( like the messages after you leave a party ), but most of em are, no offense, mere complains.

[Nilson.9865]

Why do some people see problems while some other enojoy playing game? Sky hight expectations, ladies and gentlemen. They are spoil everything.

[Laken.4056]

You played for 3 months and think that you have an informed opinion on the games design?

[Yargesh.4965]

First it is already a AAA MMORPG, not the biggest but in the top 10. One of the few that have come out since the start of GW2 that turns a profit, which is a rare thing.Second, organize your thoughts.Third, things on your list have been suggested, as stated above multiple times. If they where "easy" they would be in game. Things take priority, some things are well planned out some are kneejerk reactions, some are "was a good idea at the time". Such is life.Lastly if you can show the forums a game that checks all of the boxes you have in your "needs to be done now or everyone will leave" boxes we would be very interested.

[zealex.9410]

Not an mmo but hey if ME:Andromeda can be considered a AAA game i dont see why Gw2 cant.

[Sifu.9745]

That's why this game is free to play, you don't need to pay monthly: that means not enough money for developers = no work :) In World of Warcraft there is a monthly fee, the game is more casual friendly = way more players, more money = more developers, better results, faster bug fixes.GW 2 is very casual unfriendly game, so i guess people give up quickly if they can't play on more relaxing way. You come from job, you are tired you wanna do some pve or PvP to relax a bit, you don't want to be max focused 24/7. But then you don't doge ONCE and you are in downed state lol, or in PvP you wanna play some "casual" unranked arena. No way, you don't dodge or you don't use one of your defensive ability at the right time and 17k health is gone in 2 seconds.Casual players represent majority in almost every mmo, but GW2 just doesn't support that kind of playstyle. Obviously they only do care about very skilled elitists.

[Ayakaru.6583]

I completely agree that story is too easy. In facerolling through Orr, HoT ans PoF, we desperately need some difficulty, i cannot take the elder dragons seriously as is.As for the bank and sell tab, i disagree. You can double click items to instantly to your bank.And shops have a separate tab for selling because most people have huge inventories. In WoW and Diablo a double inventory works because their inventories are a 5th of gw2 inventory size

[Spurnshadow.3678]

@STIHL.2489 said:While you make some valid points, pretty much every MMO I have played has some kind of problem, or issue. Truth is, GW2 is an AAA MMO, but in all fairness, if you can name an MMO that does not have a single one of those problems, I'll be glad to give a try and see where you are coming from.

Nah. I'm not a huge gamer, but just about every MMO has better UI control than GW2 which is non-existent. This is so important for PvP/WvW where knowing your buffs/debuffs and enemy buff/debuffs are crucial. GW2 has teeny, tiny, little icons on polar opposite sides of the screen (top for enemy, bottom for you). Makes fighting very difficult. Being able to independently change size/positioning on screen or over the enemy is crucial. They've never done this. An "AAA" (if there even is such a thing) MMO would have a fully customizable UI. Not just which corner your mini map goes in.

Also, I just can't believe they haven't updated the LFG at some point after raids. Raids will typically have slots for different roles. This game is a little different, but you should be able to slot class/roll and have it filled and checked off. Again, something most other MMOs with serious raiding have, which GW2 has been trying to do.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Sifu.9745 said:That's why this game is free to play, you don't need to pay monthly: that means not enough money for developers = no work :) In World of Warcraft there is a monthly fee, the game is more casual friendly = way more players, more money = more developers, better results, faster bug fixes.GW 2 is very casual unfriendly game, so i guess people give up quickly if they can't play on more relaxing way. You come from job, you are tired you wanna do some pve or PvP to relax a bit, you don't want to be max focused 24/7. But then you don't doge ONCE and you are in downed state lol, or in PvP you wanna play some "casual" unranked arena. No way, you don't dodge or you don't use one of your defensive ability at the right time and 17k health is gone in 2 seconds.Casual players represent majority in almost every mmo, but GW2 just doesn't support that kind of playstyle. Obviously they only do care about very skilled elitists.

lol what? GW2 is the most casual friendly AAA mnmorpg out and the majority of players in GW2 are in fact casual - if the word 'casual' was still a thing in 2017. The average GW2 player is around about 30 and that was a few years ago. Players didnt live in a vacuum before GW2 hence they know how to play games. If you have a doubt go join PVP in WOW or ESO without top gear and see exactly how a casual unfriendly game works.

[pah.4931]

Just a couple comments (couldn't finish the list, full transparency).

GW2 is AAA. It had tons of money behind it and still does pretty well...

Having to go to a 3rd party website. You really don't HAVE to. You jsut want information quick because you've been conditioned by other games that hol dyour hand through everything. If you played EQ or early WoW, you would know all about 3rd party websites ;)