MMOs Level Up? GW2 Part 2

It’s good to see GW2 is selling well. Innovation often takes second place to iteration in AAA development. GW2 has finally broken through that barrier which has been a problem for many MMOs that have struggled to take off.

So what’s different with GW2? Well there’s a series of changes too what was the ‘standard formula’. Let’s start with the classes. Usually you pick your class, get abilities as you level up and equip a weapon, which doubles as your stats stick to beat your opponent over the head with.

GW2 changes where you acquire skills. No longer do you have find and pay a training guru to learn wax on, wax off. Instead your first five skills are determined by you weapon choice. Picking up a hefty greatsword on a Warrior grants a series of deadly AoE slicing skills. But swap to a gun and now you have a set of skills to cripple your opponent’s defences and finish them with deadly volleys. Also the same weapons are used differently by each class, which adds great flavour to the game. A Memser using a greatsword gains a series of spectacular ranged attacks. Blasting opponents with bright purple laser beams and driving spikes of energy through the ground.

To round off your action bar, you have a choice of slot skills. You start with a basic healing skill and unlock further slots on your way to level thirty. You earn skill points from levelling and events in the world. This allows you to spend them in your character sheet to gain new abilities unique to your class.

And on top of that customisation sits the traits system. This functions in a similar way to traditional talent trees. You put points in to unlock bonus passive skills and stats. Combining these three mechanics together allows for some great character customisation. Because of the variety of choice for each class, you can build any profession to fill any role. From a tough spell caster to a support based heavy armour weary.

There’s plenty of choice in how you want to enjoy the levelling experience. Previous MMOs have had a very set path. Player’s rarely had any choice in where to go or what to do. Having more than one zone to explore has often been a luxury, but not anymore. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by just how little of the world I’ve seen. Having hit max level on my fist character, the stats tell me I’ve only seen a little over forty per cent. That’s astonishing. There are still whole areas untouched and the main story line to complete.

And there was always World vs World or structured PvP just a button press away if I felt like it. In fact if balanced PvP is your thing, you don’t even have to level. You can just jump in at max level with good gear and have a real skill based fight.

The combat gameplay is also a step up. Certain skills can be used simultaneously, or have their effects combined to create powerful combos. This allows players to create great synergies between the different professions. Most skills have a reasonable recharge time, which moves away from the usual play of spamming the best ability, limited only by a particular resource.  Now you no longer feel penalised for using utility skills. Instead they become part of your standard play as you can only benefit from using them.

Also, the combat is a lot more manoeuvrable as most skills can be used on the move. It does require some trial and error to work it out though as it’s not clear which can or can’t. You also have the ability to dodge. Above your health pool is a recharging energy bar. When full you can dodge twice to avoid all incoming damage. In the early levels you often forget you have it, but bump into an elite enemy and you’ll need it! These can hit players with nasty attacks which are best avoided if you want to live more than a few seconds.

However if the worst happens, you’re not out of the fight yet. Instead of dying, you get an opportunity to rally. You’re reduced to four abilities based on your profession. If you manage to kill any enemy you rally; wounded but able to carry on. Allies can also help get you back on your feet, and you can rally by healing yourself if enemies leave you alone.

It’s not all positive changes though, some ideas don’t quite work. Crafting is one example. You can pick two different crafting skills and you can gather all crafting materials. You can swap crafting skills without losing all your hard earned progress. But you’ll find it almost impossible to level one of them all the way without some farming, or spending money on the trading network. This is a bit of a shame since ArenaNet have done such a good job of removing the grind from other areas. I’m not saying it should become easy. But until you work out the mechanics, it can be frustrating; constantly running out of materials for little progress. 

That being said, a lot of convenience has been added by allowing you to access your bank and a crafting materials bank, directly from any crafting station. You can also send crafting materials directly from you inventory to the bank with two clicks. This saves a lot of pointless running around.

If GW2 is lacking anything, it would be raiding and more objectives for structured PvP. Currently the PvP maps are all based around holding control points. There really needs to be more variety in game modes to improve replay-ability. Raiding is more of an odd omission. Technically there is lots of large group PvE content that occurs through the games Dynamic Events. But these tend to be single boss fights and not too challenging if plenty of players are around. They do scale, but they are slightly simplistic in design so you can work out tactics without reading a guide. Large scale organised PvE like raiding is fun because of the high skill challenge it can provide for a group of players. All things considered, GW2 has moved the genre forwards and it’s well worth the price. Hopefully ArenaNet will continue this high level of quality in future expansions.