Many players eagerly walked into Guild Wars 2′s first beta weekend unsure of what to expect. Some of these players found themselves surprised at the game’s difficulty level. For some, this surprise quickly turned into appreciation. Others were disappointed and frustrated. Opinions are always going to be widespread and varying in a beta event for a game of GW2′s size, but with the case of the game’s difficulty, some interesting opinions, critiques, and reviews surfaced. Which held water? I’ll let you be the real judge, but for now, let’s take a look at some of the beef regarding GW’s difficulty.
Source Article: http://www.guildwars2junkies.com/2012/05/11/the-great-difficulty-debate/
I definitely agree with the article regarding keybinding. And I did end up using my rifle a LOT, just to avoid bosses in large events flattening me. Which does beg the point - why play melee? If I am going to be at range 90% of the time I might as well role a character that is going to excel at that. I also can commiserate about the stupid effects going off all over mobs - it makes it very tough to know when to dodge.
Personally I had a lot of fun with the Warrior class, but there is some work to be done on the game in general to help melee out.
The great melee vs ranged debate is still ongoing, and that article does a good job of explaining a bit about it, and how it seems off that melee professions seem to be forced to use ranged weapons against certain foes, for fear of being one-shotted.
This situation, however, applies to PvE only. In PvP, melee seems very powerful. There are several videos floating about of thieves and warriors doing over 10k damage in a single strike, which can insta-kill some other professions (such as eles). There's a video of a thief doing 23k crit damage in a single hit, which will pretty much kill anyone in PvP.
Do Anet tone down the boss damage in PvE? Up the melee damage in PvE? Split skills for PvE and PvP (like they did for GW1)? It's a tough balancing act, but I'm pretty confident Anet will succeed at it.
I think some people really dug into their trait systems for this - I never one-shotted anyone with my warrior...Guess I have some work to do.
Edit: I know they haven't ruled out splitting the skills between PvE and PvP, but so far A-Net have said that they don't see a need for it.
Yeah, traits played a large role in being able to one-shot people in PvP. However, by stacking heavily into +crit% (precision is it?) and increased damage, you forego survivability, resulting in a glass cannon. I'm a big fan of the trait system in GW2, as it allows this great flexibility in creating a unique character. Do you go for full on damage (glass cannon), high suvivability (tanky), or more of a balanced role.
Back on topic. I liked the difficulty curve. It's not bang-your-head-against-a-wall tough, but it's not super easy either. I never found it too hard myself. Challenging in places, but definitely fun.
This system may have more of a curve than your typical, "spam 1-6", but that is what makes it interesting and gives the player more flexibility in how they want to play, and/or adjust their play. My warrior was pretty "stock", I didn't trick out for a lot of damage - I went for more control. I was definitely able to survive quite a bit, and by choosing situations and targets carefully I was able to get a good kill/death ratio racked up.
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