Every time I hear people complain the game is shallow or mindless, all I see is someone who has no idea how to play the game.
I try to ignore such comments, since it reminds me of people who call any fighting game they don't know 'a mindless button-masher'. People often mistake personal preference for 'good design' and things that aren't appealing to them personally as 'bad design'. You can't really explain this to people either, since then you're a 'defense force'. You can lead a horse to water, and all that jazz.
I wouldn't call it shallow or mindless. But I couldn't figure out the appeal for group play. I tried a lot with the GAF clan, but it never felt like teamwork was useful or even really much of an option. Without roles to play in a group every encounter just becomes attack nonstop and dodge the one hit kills. There's no reason to spec anything but DPS.
The roles are fluid. A well-oiled team that covers each other's backs and uses combo fields intelligently, can wreck encounters in ways people just zerging and mashing 1 can't even begin to dream about. Yes, the game has a greater focus on DPS, since everyone is a DPS class by default - but just because people don't use teamwork doesn't mean there isn't a need for it, or a use for it.
Granted, this is very situational - in a fight with 200 people all running around, it's hard to have any strategy. Even if there were dedicated roles, things would boil down to healers on the outside keeping bars up, and everyone else screaming at the healers 'why you no keep me alive'. I'm reminded of FATE encounters in FFXIV. Trinity roles don't really make those any better, I've found. However, in GW2, a lone player can literally mean the difference between 100 people being dead, or them being alive. More than once, I've Rocket Boot in to a zerg that just got one-shot by a boss, dropped Elixir R, and then used EG to get myself out of there before I took aggro. Woosh, suddenly the DPS returns, and I didn't even have to spec for it, and I can resume throwing grenades from a safe distance.
Inside dungeons, teamwork, group play, skill synergies, are *amazing*. But only if you, y'know. Bother. There is a game to play in GW2, a well-designed game with great encounter design and really challenging content that requires players to have skill, and be able to organize group efforts. Or, you could mash 1, and then scream to be resurrected when you die. It's up to the player. The rewards are better if you actually play though.
Most MMOs are about assigning clinically defined roles so that 'everyone knows their place' and encounters become a 'follow the instructions' kind of deal. Deadly Boss Mods uber alles, and all that. But in GW2, everyone is equally good at each of the three roles - Damage, Support, Control, and you can be one of those three roles at any time, swapping between them dynamically as the need arises. It does fundamentally change how the game plays compared to a traditional tank - deeps - healz setup, and if people like the Trinity that's fine: but there are already many games that use that model, we don't need more.
