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.
