User talk:Mooseyfate/Critique

Short responses / clarifications

Usefulness of crafted items

Probably the most useful things you can craft are bags. While bags do drop as loot, I think they're limited to 6 or 8 slots, so the only way to really expand your inventory space is through crafting.

Crated weapons/armor have the max strength/defense and mods for their required level and rarity. The advantage of looted items or karma items is the variety of skins and a wider variety of mods and combinations of mods. The advantage of crafting is that you can craft exactly what you need/want from the safety of a city.

I don't know much about the Jeweler's crafted accessories, but they're probably comparable in the same way.

Chef is a complete oddball - all it can craft are consumables that give you minor buffs for a short time. Unless you can cook some sort of ultra-buffing delicacies at higher levels, that one's probably gonna be purely for the fun factor.

Racial skills

...are completely disabled in PvP. They don't even show up on the Slot Skills panel (in BWE1 they were shown, but you couldn't slot them). They are deliberately underpowered (or at least non-overpowered) in PvE so that no one feels forced into playing a certain race in order to access the "god skills."

Have people seriously argued that these are a replacement for secondary professions? I've not heard that one yet, but you're right, it's complete bull.

Lack of skill customization

I completely disagree with you here (but that's okay, because these are opinions). Unlike you, I am not an experimenter. In GW1 I was constantly lost when it came to putting a build together from scratch, and yes, I relied on PvXWiki. I didn't simply take the builds at face value, however: I would read the talk pages to see how the build was developed, then I would tinker with it a bit to see if I could improve it any or make it fit my play style a bit better.

With GW2, I am more than happy to have half my skill bar set by my choice of weapons. All I need to do is pick the weapons that best match my play style and I'm nearly ready to go. A lot less time wasted testing how well skill A synergizes with skill B and crap like that.

Guild influence

If a guild kicked me for not representing them and earning influence for them every day, then that's not the kind of guild I'd want to be a member of or the kind of people I'd want to be friends with. The one thing I don't like about the guild upgrades is how you can spend extra influence to reduce the build time. That feature is what's going to drive the guild mindset of "MUST HAVE 500 PEOPLE CONSTANTLY EARNING INFLUENCE! WE KICK YOU IF YOU DON'T PRODUCE!" in order to pump out the WvW buffs and PvE banners as quickly as possible. Hopefully the people who don't want to be a part of guilds like that will be able to find each other and form their own non-power-gaming guilds.

Anyway, that's all I've got to say. —Dr Ishmael 16:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

"A synergizes with skill B and crap" —Dr ishmael

It sounds like you do agree with me regarding the fact that there is a great decrease in skill customization, but that you disagree with me about this being important for your own personal enjoyment. That's fair enough. I won't try to convince you to like it. Love it or hate it, it was undeniably GIANT part of GW1. For people who love creating and executing those synergies, it's a loss. The thrill induced to people who do like it though, feels hugely stripped away from my personal experience with tinkering. What it feels like to me is that ANet put together weapon bars as wiki bars. It feels like I'm using a build put together by someone else. Which I won't say I never did in GW1, but I was gravitating towards the creative ones, and doing just as much of my own stuff. My ideas allow for a way for you to still use those pre-made default weapon skills, but the flexibility to change them if that's what you personally want out of the game. It's something I miss a lot. But the game as a while is still great if I don't think of it as a sequel. You have some good points on Guild influence I hadn't thought of. Thanks for your reply. --Mooseyfate 00:40, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that's just different goals and play styles - you find buildcrafting fun and enjoyable in itself, while I find it tedious and a barrier to enjoying the rest of the game.

Mesmers and chaos

It's really only the staff skills that are chaotic - and Magic Bullet and Siren's Call to a lesser degree. I guess you could call the Confusion condition chaotic since it only triggers if the target uses any skills. But sword and greatsword don't seem chaotic at all.

Gummy berry juice

You win the '80s nostalgia award. /golfclap

—Dr Ishmael 15:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Your probably right about the mesmer. There are fun things about it, but I am enjoying the other classes more. I'll likely re-explore them once I need more variety beyond my initial 5 classes. They do have some pretty survivable tricks in PvP. --Mooseyfate 20:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Special events

Yep, they'll continue in GW2, Halloween and Wintersday mentioned specifically. I don't remember where I read it now, but they've already recorded lines for Mad King Thorn. —Dr Ishmael 03:05, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Updated to reflect this, thanks. --Mooseyfate 15:10, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Builds

GW2 is much less about how you build your character and more about how you actually play your character. Deal with it. :P Mediggo 15:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

You know, I've left plenty of preface information to show that these are simply my views, my preferences, my perspective. See comments by Dr. ishmael (above). That guy gets how to differ in opinions but realize at the end of the day, that's all any of this is. There's absolutely no reason you can't have both build and execution. GW1 was high in both. GW2 is lower in character build, a higher in execution and positioning. Make no mistake though, positioning and execution were hugely important in GW1. I'm just giving GW2 the credit where credit is due. Comment like: "it's more about how you play your character", where how you play has nothing to do with the additional ability of how you build; and "deal with it"; just seem like you read that part of the critique and nothing else. Particularly when I'm clear several times over how much I do like the game despite the critiques, thereby I am dealing with it. They just don't seem very productive to a conversation. It'd be like me ragging on crafting because I don't want to craft. It doesn't hurt me it being in the game, and I may even find I like it. I will try it. Builds could be that same way. I'll give you this much... it is a long critique, and I don't expect people to read all of it. But maybe a bit more if you're going to comment. --Mooseyfate 20:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)