Fair points.
But in all honesty the current forum comments relating to maps and balance are (generally) from hardcore gamers who have invested a lot of time and effort into GW1 and perhaps understand what made the original game so good in the first place, so it's fair to say that any negativity made by these members regarding obvious issues are often quite justifiable.
On the subject of maps and balancing I invite you to think about Call of Duty for a moment and ask yourself why a game with probably the most hopelessly unbalanced set of characters imaginable can generate exceptional gamers - even with such a diversity of weapons and loadouts available to choose from. If there was such a permutation then why was it not possible for a gamer to pick the most powerful weapon / loadout setup available, enter a lobby and dominate the game? Why are some gamers outstanding with seemingly uninspiring setups? Why are there no rubbish gamers that do well? When you think about it then it's quite simple - the game itself has acted as the balance by putting everyone on an equal plain, with the only potential advantage being how you develop your skills within the game. The more you play, the better you get - you can't just get a big gun and be good at the game.
In a lot of respects GW1 perfectly emulated the COD scenario because as a fellow member quite correctly pointed out, even though they were never 100% balanced the nature of the game ensured that no single character could dominate in such a way that in order to do well you had no choice but to adopt a specific role in the game. Which is quite important in the general concept of the game because it emulates the COD mentality be giving a gamer the opportunity to choose a character they feel comfortable with and become incredibly skilful at their designated role within the game. It also created a scenario whereby good garden warfarers could potentially top the leaderboards with any single one of the characters available on the basis of their own abilities - and not because they had the biggest guns.
On the other hand GW2 seems to have gone in a completely different direction by offering characters that, due to their absurd power, asks for very limited skills in return for a higher reward. All of a sudden it seems to be cool to present a gamer with a character, plonk him on a map and give him the ability to wander around in a gung-ho fashion in order to rack up a 50 kills / 50 deaths ratio. I can understand that GW2 is designed for all ages and because of which not everyone actually wants to be presented with a game that involves huge amounts of skill and tactical thinking. I can also understand that some people get a great deal of pleasure out of simply wandering around like a mercenary doing all this special ability stuff with these characters but you know, to the purist it kind of detracts from why we all purchased and played GW2 in the first place.
More importantly what PopCap seem to have forgotten is that even though GW1 was a huge strategy / teamwork driven game, gamers of all ages still loved it for what it was and because of which, was there really a need to still make such a radical change in the core gameplay for GW2? Sure, kids probably couldn't achieve 30 kills with their beloved character but that just didn't seem to matter - so long as they could do what they wanted to do within the game. My grandson used to love playing GW1 with the sunflower and you definitely knew when he was in a lobby because the garden perimeter was always a mass of star sprinkling daisies and he just used to wander round with that strangely effeminate sunflower healing people. He probably only ever killed one person in his life but he didn't care because that was his thing and he was happy to be able to do it. I dare say there were (and still are) many, many gamers out there who adopted the game for equally as bizarre reasons. If my grandson is anything to go by then I can only assume that a lot of the original GW1 players are been put in a position that, due to the frantic nature of GW2, they can no longer do their particular thing and as a result simply find no interest in the game. Effectively alienating old players from the new clutch of gamers because their ideals just don't fit into the new scenario. That really is the severity of change that PopCap have implemented.
Because of which, my honest my feeling is that GW2 isn't actually a sequel - it's a brand new game designed for gamers with a completely different mindset. A bit of a shame because I personally was anticipating something more like GW1.5 but hey, that's the way it goes I guess. The only positive I can draw from my experience is that if I do feel inclined to want to wander round a garden with a peashooter then I can still do so- albeit within the reasonably serene confines of the first gardens PopCap presented us with. So (for the time being) hurrah for that.........
Fair points you make as well.
I've never played CoD beyond the original game so can't objectively comment on the game. I have played a couple hundred hours of TF2, GW1, GW2, and BF:1942 back in the day. I've also played many hours of Battleborn and Overwatch. I've been a shooter lover since the original Wolfenstein 3D and of course Doom up to today's versions of those classics.
I do want the classes to be balanced and for people like your grandson to just play as they like as well. A tall order to be sure and I believe the Backyard Battleground is one piece of that puzzle that allows us to just explore and enjoy the world Popcap made for us as well as giving us some crazy battles with multiple bosses and smaller AI as well as friends that visit.
The more diverse the classes are and the more asymmetrical you make your factions, the harder it is to balance so GW1 had these issues as well just not as much as GW2 since the game adds not only 6 more base classes but more variants as well. Is the balance perfect? Not at all. However it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad as some here seem to say. Work needs to be done for sure but I've won and lost as both sides in all maps and modes. We're in more of a fine-tune stage than a massive overhaul stage. I think the cactus nerf was unnecessary and the battery in the last stage of Zombopolis was overbuffed but things are getting better.
I enjoy this game more than Overwatch, a dangerous admission in some circles to be sure but I didn't touch Overwatch at all during my week off just now and I played a lot of GW2 and a chunk of GW1. I want it to work for hardcore gamers, kids, casuals, and etc. but that is very difficult to do. The fact that the game is this good and I can easily get my friends to play it speaks volumes.
I do miss the old maps and gestures a lot though. The new maps are gorgeous and I enjoy them all but the old ones have both those attributes as well as the nostalgia factor. Thanks for your reply.
Yep GW2 is literally almost a completely different game for different mindset compare to GW1. one character can do the jobs of almost any character's actual role. why bother to change when one character is so effective in almost any situation. It kinda starts getting boring from then on. been playing less and less lately cause of it.
I have to agree that for looks and diversity the maps are actually very, very well presented but due to their size the vast majority seem kind of wasted in their application. Seeds of time for example. It's a huge beautiful map but because the action areas are generally located within very small pockets of each particular zone the remaining unused areas simply act to prolong your journey back to the action. I have to admit that, much as l like seeds of time, the vast majority of my game time seems to be walking through beautifully drawn scenarios doing absolutely nothing at all. Arriving at a garden also presents a choice. Do I want to play the game as it should be played, knowing full well that if I so much as breathe on that garden i'm going to be instantly killed by something unseen (or a couple of mad swirly super hero killing machines) and have to suffer the eternal walk back again - or do I stay away and just hope for the best.. Multiply that by every single available map and all of a sudden you're getting either a very pointless or potentially tedious game. So, pretty as the maps are, they just don't help themselves with their size.
GW1 worked because the maps were considerably smaller (in some instances a foot soldier could rocket attack a garden within a few seconds of leaving the previous garden) and no matter where you were within the play area something could be going on around you. Everything around you was accessible. Campers and snipers could easily be taken out. Little things like that which made gameplay flow continuously and made it the game it was (and still is). GW2 is fast approaching 6 months old now, has had 2 half price sales on XBL marketplace and despite all it's bells and whistles GW1 still refuses to go away. Kind of tells a story, doesn't it?
You know a funny thing happened the other day. I accidentally selected the wrong game mode whilst playing GW1 multiplayer and ended up in a different game mode (obviously) on a map that in almost 2 years of owning and playing the game had never ever seen before. "Woah, there's actually more of this game?" .. So now I have a brand new GW1 to explore..
As for the old maps, well you really shouldn't be missing them because every one of them are available to play - elsewhere.....
Overwatch is a pretty decent game which (in my opinion) offers the same frenetic gameplay of GW2 but in a more controlled manner. What I particularly like about it - and this is again going back to the COD thing - is that it allows you to pick a character that on paper doesn't look particularly fantastic but allows you to play in a way that suits your gameplay style and develop your skills accordingly. The result is that it creates a feeling that you're playing exactly as you want to and still have the opportunity to be equally as good as the next person. When you consider that the sole purpose of buying a game like Overwatch is purely for the long haul element then yeah, what it has set out to do is pretty promising. I hope it does well.
It's not a bad thing to prefer GW2 because as you pointed out there's certainly enough initial content to get your teeth into and that in itself will offer a considerable amount of game time. But as time marches on and things get done (several times over) it will lose it's edge - particularly because the multiplayer aspects of the game don't seem to gel enough to warrant any long term appeal - and you may find yourself struggling to justify playing it. Overwatch is initially insanely difficult (some people are already waaay too good at this game) and demands time and effort to persevere whereas GW2 (offline) allows you to take things a little easier so it is kind of understandable that people develop a preference.
And finally the one thing I would particularly like to see within GW2 is an expansion on the good old 'free for all'. Split down the maps into more manageable sections, create a single leaderboard and just let everyone go hammer and tong with any old character on that particular map. It completely removes team domination, character domination and may just make for an interesting alternative to what is currently available in multiplayer. It won't work on some maps but Zombopolis is most definitely made for a mode like this.... Haha, another idea that won't happen 🙂
As I said I intentionally went back and played GW1 again over the weekend. Got some Taco bandits in (I so miss that mode), some Gardens and Graveyards, and the other modes that have made the migration to GW2. Despite GW2’s foibles I found I missed certain aspects of GW2 although I love those old maps. Taco Bandits on Jewel Junction, Vanquish Confirmed on Suburban Flats, etc. were all great moments I recently had. Bringing the old maps to the new game with more class balances would help the old hands of the original game while still supporting the new game. I 100% agree that the old game has some advantage over the new one but the new one has so many other things I consider amazing; the Backyard Battleground, some of the new customizations (although I miss some of the old ones as well), the new classes (balance issues notwithstanding), and the ability to play with bots when you want to just go nuts.
Overwatch is very good. I’m level 57 in the game, focusing mostly on Symmetra, Mercy, and Pharah. One thing I found annoying in that game though is unless my teleporter is up as Symmetra, the walk back to the action is worse than the large maps in GW2. I believe this is largely intentional but nothing is more frustrating than not being able to defend objective A because I’m still running back from spawn. The biggest issue I’ve had in Overwatch isn’t the great players you indicate, although they clearly exist, is such broken teams as 5 Torbjorn’s and a Mercy defending Volskaya’s Point B. That was rage inducing to be sure.
One issue with the GW2 Turf Takeover maps is that the teleporters’ placement in regards to your spawn area and the destination/entry points of the teleporters make me scratch my head. On the 3rd Moonbase Z point I’ve spawned where the walk to either the teleporter destination or the entry point was pretty much the same distance. That reduces the value of such utilities significantly. Also I’ve spawned and had no idea where the entry point for a teleporter is until I acclimated myself with the maps and this too reduces the value of the teleporters.
I like your idea of a free for all. The game has a decent amount of game modes now, even with the glaring omission of Taco bandits but more is always welcome. I know most people play Turf Takeover but mixing it up is a good thing as well. Perhaps we could have an open world Backyard Battleground or a selection of them where anyone can go instead of a private one just to mix it up with the community for fun. My friends and I have had some good times in our own backyards; getting multiple bosses while several AI characters get in the fight while we do as well is great fun so I can get behind your idea 100%!
That gnome portal in the Town Hall promises something for the future of the game. I still hold out for the old maps to be migrated forward, but adding your idea as well would be great fun.
