10 Ways ArenaNet Can Improve Guild Wars 2

Updated:

22 Aug 2024

The top 10 ways ArenaNet can improve Guild Wars 2

With some hard, and not so hard work, and a few sleepless nights for the development team at ArenaNet, we would love them so much more. Here are the top 10 ways ArenaNet (ANet) can revamp this game to make it epic.

10. User Interface (UI) Should be More Customizable.

This is the UI and this is how it is (with very little variation from player to player).

The Problem: Users can really only customize 2 things about the UI. They can swap the Chat and Party windows, and they can swap the Map and Events window.

The Solution: Allow players to adjust the UI to how they want it. Back in the original Guild Wars, we were allowed to change everything. Where and if certain things would be viewed, how big they appeared on the screen. There were very little limitations to what you could do as far as UI went. I think it would be great if I could move where they show items picked up, especially during Heart of Thorns (HoT) content, as sometimes I can only se 1 or 2 of the drops at a time.

Check out this video of some of the weird areas you can glitch yourself to in the game.

9. Animation and Graphical Bugs Need to be Fixed.

Just one of the weird graphical bugs, usually these get fixed, but sometimes they’re just a part of the game.

The Problem: There are a few different bugs with character animations. One more recent issue among PvPers is how players sometimes slide away from where they “down.” Guild Wars 2 has a feature where when a player’s health hits 0, they fall to the ground and enter a “downed” state with different skills, limited movement, and a gradually decreasing health bar. When another player attempts to attack or “stomp” that player, their actual location is still at the initial downed location, not where they appear to be. This causes the attacker to waste time performing the specialized stomp animation while the downed player can easily use their healing skill to revive themselves and rejoin the fight.

Another graphical bug that has been in the game for a few years now, it seems, is that sometimes when a player is revived, their upper body is locked with the downed-state animation, breaking immersion.

The Solution: Allocate more time and resources to finding and fixing bugs. Even if the bug is found by players who report it, it shouldn’t be overlooked. Although these issues can range from funny and harmless to annoying and game-breaking, they all should be addressed. Guild Wars 2 is known for being a graphically beautiful game, allowing visual bugs to persist is something the community can’t ignore.

Here’s a video of a lot of the weird graphical glitches found throughout the game, funny, but can be pretty distracting.

8. The Many Different Armor Types Need to Have a More Diverse Look.

Some of these really look like the same armors, granted you can dye them. Diverse options please.

The Problem: Guild Wars 2 has been accused of being called “Fashion Wars” because of how many different armor types there are and the ability to reskin and dye all armors. Not to mention the different outfits. Unfortunately, too many of these outfits are very similar. For example, looking at Human and Norn light armor for females, almost all of the skirts are High-Low skits (shorter in the front than the back). Out of about 57 armor types, there are only about 4 with skirts that are not the high-low style, and only about 2 pairs of pants.

The Solution: I understand that all light armor is cloth, all medium armor is leather and all heavy armor is metal, but that doesn’t mean the styles can’t be vastly different. There are so many of us who would love a shoe skin that was just a simple pair of pumps. Just because I’m a medium armor class doesn’t mean I want most of my options to be trench coats. A little more variety to the armor would go a long way in making players feel like they can really customize their armor.

I feel the Charr and Asurans have it the worst, as I have heard countless complaints about how the NPC armor for Asurans are cuter than armor the players have access to. Similarly, how the Charr armor isn’t as epic looking as their race deserves. Adding variation to the available styles, because they are plentiful, would be a refreshing change. How can ArenaNet implement new armor styles? Create an armor stylist to upgrade in guild halls and release new skins that guilds need to work towards unlocking. Releasing skins here along with new skins in the gem store will give players an active way to seek out new armor styles rather than only relying on gems to update their look.

This guy went and created a Guild Wars 2 Fashion Competition.

7. Add Official Alliances so Smaller Guilds Can Enjoy Guild Missions.

Proxemics Lab Guild Puzzle one of 5 styles of PvE Guild Missions.

The Problem: Bless their souls for trying, but it is still incredibly difficult for smaller guilds to get enough people together to complete more challenging guild missions. Some of us actually enjoy playing in smaller guilds because they have more of a “family” feel, rather than just being a face in a crowd. They greatly improved the experience of being in multiple guilds by allowing guild chat even when not representing, but this still forces players to join larger guilds if they want to participate in every type of guild mission.

The Solution: Allow for Guild Alliances. These official alliances will still be individual guilds, but they would be able to visit each other’s guild halls when players represent a guild in the alliance, as well as allow for a way to do guild missions together without having to be in a guild specifically for the missions. How this would work would be that each guild participating would get less of a reward for completing the mission than if one guild were to have done it, but each player would get the same reward as they would if completing it with one guild. This would allow multiple smaller guilds to form alliances without breaking their small family-type feel, and even benefit larger guilds who often World verses World together, or are simply too big to have all of their members in one guild.

Even in the Official Trailer it appears Guild Missions require larger guild to be completed.

6. Guild Wars 2 Needs More PvP Maps

Even their concept art is beautiful. The loading screen for Skyhammer, oh the stories you create.

The Problem: There are 8 structured player verses player (SPvP) maps, only 5 of which are available for ranked matches. The primary problem with PvP, however, is the lack of maps per game-type in SPvP. Although there are 3 game types Conquest (6 maps), Team Deathmatch (1 map), and Stronghold (1 map), each game type can get repetitive with so few maps. What’s worse is that if players want to enter a ranked Team Deathmatch, they can’t. Where Conquest and Stronghold both have their own check-mark boxes so players can elect to play them, Team Deathmatch is lumped into “conquest” and was made unavailable in ranked matches.

The Solution: This is really a two-part solution. Part 1 would be to add Team Deathmatches to the electable SPvP game styles (as Stronghold was when it was added to the game). Part 2 would be to add more maps to each game style, including an underwater map, if underwater combat is ever fixed and balanced. Although I and many others can understand why some maps are seen as inappropriate and unbalanced for ranked matchs (such as Skyhammer and the cheap fun of throwing people off the floating platform to their long drop and sudden stop deaths). With SPvP Season 2 in the works, it really isn’t worth it to play unranked matches, so this limitation (and inevitable grind to Diamond - Rank V).

Check out this SPvP Match at the start of Season 2.

5. Underwater Needs to Get the TLC it Deserved.

Underwater combat needs just a bit, or a lot, more polishing.

The Problem: Nobody wants to play underwater combat, even though it was something that was highly anticipated for the launch of Guild Wars 2. Players hated it so much, in fact, that it was removed from WvW and SPvP.

The Solution: Balance it. Rather than just claiming that it’s a dead part of the game and solving the problem by removing it altogether, especially from PvP, work on balancing it and fixing it up so it’s a fun experience. One of the best ways to make characters work underwater would be to allow players to have a completely different trait-set underwater. We’re already allowed our different weapons and utility skills (a lot of which are unusable for many classes underwater – I’ll get to this too), why should we be forced to have the same traits underwater as we do above water? Since underwater combat is so scarce throughout the game, players cannot be expected to run a less optimized build in order to not suck underwater, when they can just avoid it altogether. As for the skills, why not adjust them for underwater combat rather than just saying. “Whelp, that doesn’t work underwater, deal.” It may be a decent amount of work, but overall it would give players more to do and work for, increasing the overall game experience.

Watch these guys beat the underwater jellyfish fractal boss. So much potential.

4. Living Story Updates are Need a More Consistent Release Schedule.

Scarlet’s marionette, may you rest in pieces.

The Problem: First you were doing some weekly updates to living story, and understandably got burnt out. Then you were doing monthly updates, which worked for us still, but then they all stopped. Overall these updates have been pretty inconsistently released and it’s hard to know when, or if, we will actually be getting this fun story content with its amazing world events back.

The Solution: Create a timeline you developers can stick to. If you need to make it like a TV series where you have a few months off in the summer to ‘create a new season’ make it more obvious to the players, but when the next season starts, stick to the same release timeline as before. My suggestion would be 1-2 “episodes” each month, depending on what is more reasonable for the team, taking time off from October to January as we already have the Mad King event in October and the Wintersday Festival in December/January. Since that content is basically the same each year, these 3 months can be used to brainstorm and create more ideas? Need more time? Then push the season premier date until after the Lunar New Year (Canthan New Year?) event. Consistency is key.

SPOILER ALERT.... Watch this player go through Guild Wars 2’s Living World Season 1 Finale.

3. The Core Game Needs its Missions Back and More Endgame Content.

The Aetherblade Path really got our hopes up for more end game content… back in 2013

The Problem: So many people quit playing the game once they get their Legendary Weapon because “there’s nothing else to do.” Why farm if there’s nothing to farm for?

The Solution: Bring back living world in a consistent and comprehensible schedule. It’s a fun and interesting place for players to show off their hard-earned legendary weapons.

Rather than taking away end-game content, such as dungeon exploration paths that were nerfed so many times many players who learned to speed run them no longer even care to do them, add more level 80 only dungeon paths. The Aetherblade path of Twilight Arbor was a great example of, at the time, new end-game content. Granted they did try with Fractals, but even those were nerfed, and once they got the ones that players liked they never expanded it to give them the chance to master new ones.

I do have to applaud their attempt to enhance the PvP experience recently with the introduction of PvP League Seasons 1 and 2. You’re going in the right direction ANet.

Check out this video for some ideas of what to do in GW2 endgame.

2. Heart of Thorns (HoT) Needs to Have More Content to be an Expansion.

The disappointment is real… but, so is supporting what you love.

The Problem: Honestly, what was this ANet? You give us 1 new class, a new trait line and call it “Specializations” 4 maps and a story shorter than most of your Living World content? We love you, so we bought it to support you, but you’re breaking our hearts.

The Solution: You gave us events and some new end-game content to master (raids.), but no dungeon stories? It may be a little late, but releasing more maps to explore, a new map completion achievement, more hearts, new rewards for new map completion. Make the expansion really feel like a game expansion. Like I said, we love you and appreciate all the content you give us for free, so you have a bit of a pass here, but for the next expansion, can we get Elona? I mean, it’s really just the area south of Crystal Desert. We killed Shatterer, but what else lays beyond the branded?

In itself, HoT wasn’t a bad play. It really was a lot of fun, check out this video of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

1. ArenaNet Needs to Add Difficulty Settings to Keep the Game from Being too Easy.

Not hating on casuals, but please throw your other fans a bone, please.

The Problem: The game is too easy. Easy is boring. I know that players complain that “things are too hard” and you don’t want to alienate this fan-base, but please, don’t make me have to play another MMO just to get the challenging mechanics I need.

The Solution: Create a Hard Mode. Guild Wars had a hard mode. Not only does this add end-game content, but it lets players who enjoy an easy relaxing game after work, keep playing casually. Meanwhile, everyone begging for more mechanics and more difficult areas and worlds can get just that. Granted Hear of Thorns is pleasantly more challenging than the rest of the game, but I have a very sad feeling it will slowly get easier (either from play or from being nerfed cause complainers cry loud). Implementing a Hard Mode would make everyone happy (until we find the next thing to whine about).

Watch this guy play Guild Wars 2 in VR. His reaction is amazing.