Yeah, it's kind of tough. The combat is novel, and I think it can be pretty cool, but that's only in the context of an MMORPG. Outside of the context of the MMORPG genre, I don't think anyone would praise the combat, because it's really not all that great. It took standard MMO combat, greatly increased the tempo, and required players to constantly be circle strafing, dodging, and cycling through weapons or attunements. It then got rid of aggro mechanics as well as any reliable way to tank or heal, making the end result rather chaotic in PvE.
I guess my problem is that the game presents itself as a fairly standard MMORPG, but it doesn't have the progression aspects that make MMORPGs so satisfying. Obviously this is just my opinion, but loot progression, ability progression, encounter progression (being able to defeat more and more difficult enemies) are a big part of what makes the gameplay of MMORPGs fun to me. That stuff really just doesn't exist in Guild Wars 2 despite the fact that, on the surface, it looks like a pretty standard MMORPG (levels, hotkey abilities, stats, loot with varying rarities and attributes, dungeons and bosses, etc.).
To me, it feels like the teams working on the gameplay and the teams working on the world and PvE content didn't speak to each other. They obviously spent the majority of their resources making PvE content and building the world, but it's quite obvious at the same time that PvE is not the focus of the gameplay. It's really strange in my opinion.
I mostly agree. My biggest gripe with the game is "balancing", or a lack thereof, in general.
With regard to PVE in general:
During soloing one quickly learns that one shouldn't tackle more than 1-3 normal monsters or 1 veteran at once. Obviously this depends on gear level, skill, the type of monster etc., but generally this holds somewhat true. Now, in the story missions, where the player is supposedly the hero, one gets constantly bombarded by spawns of 5-8-more enemies and, if one is lucky, one's only assistance are truly incompetent and weak NPCs who get cut down like butter that is sliced with a flaming hot chainsaw.
Shouldn't that be the other way around? In normal PVE one can expect other players to be around, and thus these players can cooperate to take on more difficult encounters. However, in the PERSONAL stories one gets swamped by monsters.
Possible solution: Look at some of the quests in WoW where NPCs radiate an aura that greatly increases the HP, HP regen etc. of nearby player characters. This would greatly increase player survivability and would therefore allow the developers to throw massive amounts of monsters at the player to make for epic encounters.
With regard to Hearts and the scaling of dynamic events
All hearts and dynamic events give the same xp/karma/etc. at the same level, but some are obviously way more work than others. Some just include pressing F on some items for a minute or two, without any enemies around, while other include 10 minute long escorts. Shouldn't there be a divergence with regard to reward? Of course one can argue that there is additional loot and kill XP for the longer, and more dangerous, dynamic events, bu this brings me to the next balance issue.
Some events do not scale well when there are many players. They simply become way too easy. In fact they become so easy that mobs die directly after spawning and it becomes very hard to consistently even tag them (to get credit/loot etc.). This should definitely be looked at, in my opinion.
With regard to dungeons
We already had several posts on this, so i'll keep this short. There is absolutely nothing wrong with (very) hard dungeons. But please balance them for a consistent difficulty curve. Going from frustrating to falling asleep to frustrating again, from one trash to boss to trash fight is not very appealing. In fact, in my personal experience most encounters I have played so far have been either too easy or too hard.
With regard to classes
Classes don't seem very well balanced. In other games there seems to be the expectation that less survivability (due to being a caster etc.) leads to a greater damage potential or other benefits. However, here, after maxing a warrior and now playing a guardian, it seems that there are classes who can do top tier damage while also having top tier survivability. This doesn't seem very balanced.
Oh, and in around 10 years of MMOs I don't think I have had the misfortune to encounter so many bugs (unfinishable dungeons, dungeons I can't even enter etc.) in all the other games put together.
I really like the rest of the game, the wvwvw, the OST, the exploring, the jump puzzles...
