Guild Wars 2

A lot has been made of the Guild Wars 2 end game (or lack of it). I’m inclined to believe that the standard end game concept is craved by some people and disliked but a group as large or larger. Frankly, if there were no end game, I couldn’t be happier.

So the question is, how important is end game to you on a scale of 1-10.

For me, I’d put it at about a 4. All I really want is stuff to do. It doesn’t have to be challenging (though I don’t mind some challenge…I just want it at on my schedule, not someone else’s).

I don’t care about ultra hard dungeons, and I don’t really want to grind for better weapons. I just want to enjoy the world Anet created for me. I want to spend time in Tyria. I don’t want to “play a game”.

Edit: Can a mod change the typo in the title to Importance?…thanks

For me it’s 2 or less. Assuming 0 means nothing and 10 means everything.
As you said, as long as there’s something fun and possibly even rewarding to do, I’ll do that.
Back in subscription MMO’s, raiding felt more like a job that you paid to do rather than a fun break.

Edit: That being said, I love a good challenge but it doesn’t have to be endgame to be challenging.

End game is such a broad descriptive that has a different definition for each and every player. In GW2 WvW is my end game, on a scale of 1-10 I would rate it as the most important thing in the game for me at 10. However I am only giving an example within the confines of what the game has offered to me that I find appealing or not. That’s not to say I don’t like PvE Raiding or other forms of end game, but I honestly don’t think it would appeal to me like WvW or RvR does any more. I totally despise vertical gear progression such as World of Warcraft or Rift.

In all honesty, I don’t dislike PvE dungeons, raids, or anything else they have to offer, but I look at levels 1-70 as forgotten content after my first character reaches level cap. I would really love to see (and in hindsight would have loved to have seen in this game) level cap at level 20 or 30 and every single map thereafter being of equal level, but of varied challenge. I really dislike how modern MMO’s are trivialising massive persistent game worlds by focusing content into a handful of end zones.

What I would find appealing in a PvE game, would be for it to have a fast level cap (20 or 30), but a massive world past that point, filled with a huge variety of mini-dungeons, group content, raid content and open world events with persistent changes (I really dislike Living world’s fire and forget content). I’d even buy into a game that had no levels at all, where every player had a standard base of attributes, with a horizontal progression system extending from that.

I find that most modern MMO’s have just turned into Lobby games of late. Where players stand around a trading post selling their loot and waiting for dungeon/fotm groups to pop. The large worlds are teeming with dust and tumble-weeds. They don’t feel like Massive Multiplayer Online games any more, but more like an old game of Diablo.

MMO’s should be about a virtual world in which every time you log on, you take part in and improve that world as your character or one of your alternate characters. It is this kind of feature that players are labelling as “Sandbox”, yet it should not be labelled as sandbox, it should just be MMO. Star Wars Galaxies was like this once upon a time, it truly should have been used as an example of an interactive gaming world. Yet here we are in the eve of 2013, over ten years have passed and we are still being fed the junkfood of MMOs (Standing in a city hub, getting a group and doing instanced content).

End game should not exist in MMO’s, that word belongs in Single Player/Multiplayer games where a game is destined to have an ending.

Vayne, you can change the title by pressing ‘edit title’ right under it.

On topic:
If by “endgame” you mean dungeons and raids then I have no interest in it. If I wanted that I’d play WoW.

My kind of “endgame” is mostly PvP. I just want new maps with new modes, new skins, new titles and fluff items like finishers and endless tonics.

So I guess “endgame” in the sence of locking content away until you reach max level is a 1 to me.

I love how everything in GWII is relevant content due to the scaling of pretty much everything.

0/10
I couldn’t care less about endgame as understood in most MMO’s
Usually that is when I get bored.
In GW2 I have found my almost perfect endgame- where the whole game is endgame.
I just have fun doing whatever

First, I’ll define “endgame” as “the aspect(s) of the game one plays once the character is at max level.” I feel the need to define the term, because “endgame” is not the same in different games.

That said: if the endgame is WoW style, with raids and gear tiers: 0/10

If the endgame is GW style, with new story campaigns and new areas to explore: 10/10

If the endgame is GW2 style, with compromise gear chase, players being herded to the area of the week and story delivered in bite size chunks, primarily through being the errand person for an npc by clicking Y times on X: 0/10

0/10 if you mean the standard raid, gear grind and only instanced group content.

10/10. I’m a terrible raider but there needs to be something at the end.

MMOs are about progression. You need a ‘final boss’, an ultimate challenge, something that makes you look forwards to finally beating.

Xae Isareth.1364:

10/10. I’m a terrible raider but there needs to be something at the end.

MMOs are about progression. You need a ‘final boss’, an ultimate challenge, something that makes you look forwards to finally beating.

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

For me Endgame is when I’m level 80, fully equiped and still have something to achieve or to do, that ist fun. So to my understanding it is a 10.

For me btw. that’s 70% WvW (with no aim but fun) and 30% PvE (fun and gold). Since season 1 I hardly play WvW and PvE bores me after a while. So I end up not playing more often.

“End Game” for me means and has always meant nothing for me. What I would like to see is more of a real “living world”. By that statement I don’t mean living story updates which are small mini stories that are forgotton some 2 weeks later….

I mean look at the real world, our real world and see what makes it a “living world”. People have jobs right? People have all sorts of hobbies and fun things to do to distract themselves from the sad reality it is. Things such as “fishing” etc which yes, yes has been suggested tons already I know. But still you get my point.

Summary: give us content that is fun, playable at ANY level that is not always story driven or based around “saving the world or someone’s life”. And you know what? It does not even have to involve ANY sort of combat at all!? Odd concept to some I am sure but it had to be said……

Paulytnz.7619:

“End Game” for me means and has always meant nothing for me. What I would like to see is more of a real “living world”. By that statement I don’t mean living story updates which are small mini stories that are forgotton some 2 weeks later….

I mean look at the real world, our real world and see what makes it a “living world”. People have jobs right? People have all sorts of hobbies and fun things to do to distract themselves from the sad reality it is. Things such as “fishing” etc which yes, yes has been suggested tons already I know. But still you get my point.

Summary: give us content that is fun, playable at ANY level that is not always story driven or based around “saving the world or someone’s life”. And you know what? It does not even have to involve ANY sort of combat at all!? Odd concept to some I am sure but it had to be said……

But often the while point of a fantasy world is that it’s different from the real world. You can be anyone, do anything and you can be the hero and be important. These are things that often attracts people.

Also, in the real world there still an endgame. You got your education, your training and certificates, now you can go get a good job and do stuff you can’t do before. Just like how you collect gear, learn to fight and go raiding.

If Endgame is raid, best weapon stats, and that form of perpetual addictiveness in other games I always try to avoid: 0/10 I don’t like the idea of gw2 having such.

If Endgame means certain skins are craft able at levels, certain story instances require levels for continuity of plot, and lands available for higher leveled characters 8/10.
That’s something I can always enjoy.

So less “raid for best content ever” and more “New map open filled with nasty creatures, bring your toughest characters.”

And definitely less “your stats don’t match up with what’s best now” and more “Oh cool, (new skin name) is out now! Level 80s can only get that look.”

So yes I’m a casual player who likes cosmetics over gear grind because I might get that +2 of toughness or whatever.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Paulytnz.7619:

“End Game” for me means and has always meant nothing for me. What I would like to see is more of a real “living world”. By that statement I don’t mean living story updates which are small mini stories that are forgotton some 2 weeks later….

I mean look at the real world, our real world and see what makes it a “living world”. People have jobs right? People have all sorts of hobbies and fun things to do to distract themselves from the sad reality it is. Things such as “fishing” etc which yes, yes has been suggested tons already I know. But still you get my point.

Summary: give us content that is fun, playable at ANY level that is not always story driven or based around “saving the world or someone’s life”. And you know what? It does not even have to involve ANY sort of combat at all!? Odd concept to some I am sure but it had to be said……

But often the while point of a fantasy world is that it’s different from the real world. You can be anyone, do anything and you can be the hero and be important. These are things that often attracts people.

Also, in the real world there still an endgame. You got your education, your training and certificates, now you can go get a good job and do stuff you can’t do before. Just like how you collect gear, learn to fight and go raiding.

My point is that Anet keeps going on about making this game seem more like a “world” than a “game”. To do that you have to add more elements that we have in our real world. I am saying make these be fun and not end game specific or even combat based.

Also yes, while we can do things in the real world does that mean we do? For example can or would you go and train for x amount of years to lets say hmmm be a doctor, then do that job for lets say a month. Then decide, oh I don’t like this anymore I want to be an explorer! Would you go and do this in the real world? No, not exactly feasible is it? yet in video games we can have great opportunities to do these things along with others all in the name of “fun”.

As for this “endgame” that you speak of and “raiding”; quick tip, I never played WoW (well not for any longer than the 2 day trial they gave once and that was enough to tell me not the game for me) so you will have to explain the whole point of this term and that type of game. Also, for any other reasons than to keep people playing said game for longer to earn more bucks. Also, would that really work here in this game, GW2?

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

End-game is maybe a 3 for me. What I need in an end-game is something I can do at my own pace whenever I have time. I don’t want to feel forced to do something that could take hours to complete and must be done in one sitting (or multiple hours-long sessions). I don’t have the luxury of that kind of time anymore. I just need activities that will keep my occupied and are enjoyable (WvW, sPvP, leveling alts, etc.)

My GW2 playing ebbs and flows, some weeks I’m on every day, other weeks I only get on three or four times briefly. It depends on what other games I’m playing. GW2 is the perfect game for someone like me.

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

That’s an interesting comment…that I should acknowledge it. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said that the game I want and my point of view probably doesn’t represent the majority.

However, I do believe that most people thinking dungeon runners and raiders and people who want end game are a huge majority…and that I don’t think is the case.

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

If you’re talking end game as it exists in games like WoW…. 0 / 10 (-10 /10!) .

I have no desire to repeatedly grind a dungeon for a single armor piece, to go repeat it on the next dungeon to get the next armor piece, just to do it again in raids once I have the armor rating to do the raid. This is no less a hamster wheel than the zerg in QD. No different than running CoF1 a dozen times day.

I much prefer just being able to go anywhere, and do anything, without having to worry about gearing up first. All the gear I need, to pretty much anything I want, is readily available.

0/10 I don’t care about traditional end game content.

But I do feel like PVE lacks something.

For me, I’d like to see longer event chains tied to world bosses. For example, right now I see Frostgorge as fighting an incursion of Jormag and the Icebrood. Every so often Jormag launches an attack and we fight him off. The problem is that the exact same outcome occurs whether we defeat him or not.

I can see that if we beat him, he flies off and licks his wounds and comes back to fight again, but what happens if he wins. He flies off and comes back to fight again.

Same problem with the fire elemental in Metrica (the FE should be setting fires all over the place if he’s not defeated) etc… Then there can be an event chain that pushes the FE back to the reactor where he can be fought again.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

If you’re talking end game as it exists in games like WoW…. 0 / 10 (-10 /10!) .

I have no desire to repeatedly grind a dungeon for a single armor piece, to go repeat it on the next dungeon to get the next armor piece, just to do it again in raids once I have the armor rating to do the raid. This is no less a hamster wheel than the zerg in QD. No different than running CoF1 a dozen times day.

I much prefer just being able to go anywhere, and do anything, without having to worry about gearing up first. All the gear I need, to pretty much anything I want, is readily available.

So much this- you said it better than I did.
I love the freedom of this game- I can do whatever I want, when I want, on whichever character I choose.

Elthurien.8356:

End game is such a broad descriptive that has a different definition for each and every player. In GW2 WvW is my end game, on a scale of 1-10 I would rate it as the most important thing in the game for me at 10. However I am only giving an example within the confines of what the game has offered to me that I find appealing or not. That’s not to say I don’t like PvE Raiding or other forms of end game, but I honestly don’t think it would appeal to me like WvW or RvR does any more. I totally despise vertical gear progression such as World of Warcraft or Rift.

In all honesty, I don’t dislike PvE dungeons, raids, or anything else they have to offer, but I look at levels 1-70 as forgotten content after my first character reaches level cap. I would really love to see (and in hindsight would have loved to have seen in this game) level cap at level 20 or 30 and every single map thereafter being of equal level, but of varied challenge. I really dislike how modern MMO’s are trivialising massive persistent game worlds by focusing content into a handful of end zones.

What I would find appealing in a PvE game, would be for it to have a fast level cap (20 or 30), but a massive world past that point, filled with a huge variety of mini-dungeons, group content, raid content and open world events with persistent changes (I really dislike Living world’s fire and forget content). I’d even buy into a game that had no levels at all, where every player had a standard base of attributes, with a horizontal progression system extending from that.

I find that most modern MMO’s have just turned into Lobby games of late. Where players stand around a trading post selling their loot and waiting for dungeon/fotm groups to pop. The large worlds are teeming with dust and tumble-weeds. They don’t feel like Massive Multiplayer Online games any more, but more like an old game of Diablo.

MMO’s should be about a virtual world in which every time you log on, you take part in and improve that world as your character or one of your alternate characters. It is this kind of feature that players are labelling as “Sandbox”, yet it should not be labelled as sandbox, it should just be MMO. Star Wars Galaxies was like this once upon a time, it truly should have been used as an example of an interactive gaming world. Yet here we are in the eve of 2013, over ten years have passed and we are still being fed the junkfood of MMOs (Standing in a city hub, getting a group and doing instanced content).

End game should not exist in MMO’s, that word belongs in Single Player/Multiplayer games where a game is destined to have an ending.

You, sir, have won all of my internets. Massive respect for a well thought out post. I want to play what you want to play.

Morrigan.2809:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

If you’re talking end game as it exists in games like WoW…. 0 / 10 (-10 /10!) .

I have no desire to repeatedly grind a dungeon for a single armor piece, to go repeat it on the next dungeon to get the next armor piece, just to do it again in raids once I have the armor rating to do the raid. This is no less a hamster wheel than the zerg in QD. No different than running CoF1 a dozen times day.

I much prefer just being able to go anywhere, and do anything, without having to worry about gearing up first. All the gear I need, to pretty much anything I want, is readily available.

So much this- you said it better than I did.
I love the freedom of this game- I can do whatever I want, when I want, on whichever character I choose.

I only spoke from experience. It was mind numbing, to say the least. At least in the QD hamster wheel I can kick up some fun conversation, or derail it… depends on my mood.

Vayne…. if by “end game” you mean the content that once completed you log off and uninstall the game then I’d like to know what that content is and would rate knowing it at a 10, but a far as actually doing the content and being finished with GW2, I’m coming up on 3k hrs played and 5500ap I still have lots to do and I’m not near ready to do that content so I’d rate actually doing the content at a 1.

Vayne.8563:

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

That’s an interesting comment…that I should acknowledge it. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said that the game I want and my point of view probably doesn’t represent the majority.

However, I do believe that most people thinking dungeon runners and raiders and people who want end game are a huge majority…and that I don’t think is the case.

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

There’s no real evidence for either side at the moment, but WoW is the single most successful MMO in existence and pretty much every MMO that comes out apart from GW2 has raids. So there must be a substantial demand for them.

Yes I know most WoW players don’t raid, but it’s an iconic feature of the game.

Also, wouldn’t having a MMO based mostly in solo content defeat the purpose of it being a MMO? The 2 Ms ate what makes ESO different from Skyrim.

10/10 for endgame for Guild Wars.

The endgame I see for Guild Wars 2:

• All Elder Dragons exterminated
• Visited all of Tyria (i.e. underground [Dwarfs] & sky & underwater [Largos]& more)
• Cleansed Elona of Palawa Joko and undead
• Explored Cantha once more
• Seeing cleansed Orr
• Found out the origins of all races
• Found out where the Six Gods came from
• Visited the Wizard’s Tower and Isgarren
• Seeing Livia with the Scepter of Orr
• Knowing the fate of the Bloodstones
• Know how Rytlock got Sohothin
• Visited all other realms besides Torment & Madness
• What happened to / how are Dhuum and Menzies doing
• Malyck’s other tree
• Mursaat; Where is Lazarus the Dire
• Finding where the remaining Seers are
• Defeated the remnants of the White Mantle
• And maybe more.

Thats a toughie really. But since I’m pretty neutral to the whole thing a even 5/10 seems accurate.

I don’t mind dungeons, but I don’t care for them. I do them sometimes, but I definitely don’t want to do them all the time. Same goes for anything that could be considered “raid” like Tequatl. Only because I just don’t care anymore these days for the effort of a designated planned confrontation that requires large amount of people. I don’t mind the open world bosses. But the daily grind of them can get kind of boring, so I usually dip out of that after a week or so for a break.

What I would like to see though: More Dragons (open world preferably, but dungeons like Zhaitan is probably more likely), more personal story, just more general lore addition that is stronger then the current LS and more exploration stuff (jp, mini dungeons, scavenger hunts, etc). There is plenty more to be offered, but it is a question of when, if ever, it will occur.

I’ve just generally never been much about the typical end game that most MMOs offer. Was never for me. So I am pretty content with the current GW2 trend…I say content but not satisfied, there are plenty of issues with the current trend as well. But that is for another thread.

10/10

Leveling is a chore, world events a boring zerg, personal story/living world stuff of absolutely no interest to me either. I wish they hadn’t even bothered adding levels to the game – just less to do once you hit 80 which is where you’ll spend the most amount of time unless you’re crazy and actually enjoy slogging through the solo PvE. I want more challenging content, I want better class balance, and I want more PvP modes ideally something larger scale and less strictly organized than tPvP but with less number imbalance/lagginess/PvE mixed in than WvW. In all of the content I do I’d prefer to feel my personal contribution is important and my ability to play my class well a significant factor.

I want content. I want it to be challenging and entertaining at max level. I do not care if others are scaled up or I am scaled down.

If that is what you think of endgame content, give it to me, 10/10.

I do not want the zerg or achievement point grind or ascended item grind as endgame. If that is what you mean, 0/10.

The latter is the endgame we actually have, which is a failure.

I am actually quite shocked by this thread. Why does everyone compare endgame to WoW? Did no one come from gw1 like me?

Gw1 endgame was hardcore elite dungeons that rewarded you with TRADEABLE skins unique to each dungeon path. Whats funny is everyone hails gw2 as the greatest horizontal progression game when gw1 was even more horizontal (if that makes any sense lol). It was by far the most addicting system i have ever played as a gamer.

Since everyone is thinking WoW endgame i would rate it at a 3/10 because i think guild raids (20-50 people) would be a cool addition to the game

Now if its Gw1 endgame content we are talking about then 150/10. Gw2 is very lacking when it comes to ELITE CHALLENGING INSTANCED CONTENT THAT REWARDS SKILL NOT TIME.

Edit: This is the first time i put a sig on my forums account. It says its there but i cant see it. Can anyone else see it?

GW2’s endgame is WvW, and that only rewards stacked servers atm. When you pop into EB and see outmanned, all your fun is gone and all you can do is try to solo roam. Or if you are on a stacked server, you may end up in queue for hours, and that also limits your drop in and play.

- FoTM has a limit because after you get your rings, of the lack of rewards for higher scaling is a turn-off
- sPvP is still only a hot-join mechanic, whereas you can simply win by ignoring fights and backcapping and only rewards you with glory, none of the armor in the lower ranks are worth getting
- Dungeons are limited, I thought the new gold rewards would be a good reward but they’re so low they became not worth doing after dungeon master completed and you have your armour sets
- The LS has become nothing more than a AP to-do list for back items that for whatever reason aren’t going into the acheievment tab like the zenith weapons, so they build up cause you’re afraid to use the one that you got.

10. End-game is definitely a 10 for me. Despite what other people believe, end-game does not have to be all about gear grind or doing dungeons. End-game to me is a variety of fun events or activities to keep you entertained. Traditionally, endgame content should be difficult and more fun than the content before endgame. Save the best for last, am I right? And that’s a very strategic move, because endgame is where players are likely to lose interest, so increasing the fun and entertainment is a must. Guild wars 2 lacks the fun and entertainment that endgame should bring. Instead of participating in various endgame activities, I am pigeonholed into running the meta-boss circle, and forced into the Living Story that is a pretend endgame. There should be much, much more to do once you hit level 80. For me, PvP was a massive part of endgame, but Anet decided to completely separate SPvP from PvE, and that ruined it for me.

Endgame 9/10, very, very important.

Why?

Because that is where players spend 80-90% of there time playing.

Honestly, if I designed a modern game, my starting point would be the end, then the beginning. The middle bit filling itself in nicely.

Too many games are designed from the beginning with the end being ‘rushed’ to get it out for the release date.

If we define “end game” in the more traditional sense as the final piece of the content progression such as raiding, etc. then probably a very low number…maybe 1 or 2. If, however, the “end game” is merely the collection of activities and things to do at max level rather than some structured content/gear progression, then it becomes much more important, say 7 or 8. To be more precise, “my end game” includes things such as finishing map completion on all of my toons, dungeons from time to time, gathering and crafting, and random dynamic events. I sometimes do some of the LS activities but only when it interests me.

My “end game” is merely the collection of things I like doing with my max level characters. Currently all my toons are level 80 so it follows that “my end game” is very important. But, I am anxiously awaiting the next character slot gem sale when I hope to purchase two more character slots – I actually enjoy the leveling…not so much seeing the content again but learning about the professions and trying things out.

The context for my statements is PvE only. End game is important when there is an end to the game. The living story is attempting to circumvent that.

However, end game is still necessary for certain players:
*Players who get through all the story lines available to their character/characters
*Players who play for hard content
*Players who want reward treadmills

Those players likely bring in a sizable chunk of revenue, so from a business perspective endgame must exist. How much and of what quality is up for debate.

I think we’d all like less end game treadmills and more story content. Having several compelling storylines that run in parallel and give satisfying resolutions, while birthing new compelling storylines would be great. There’s just no way to do that in a way that acommodates everyone, since people invest different amounts of time to the game. There’s also no way a dev team has the time to do it.

10 for me. Doesnt have to be super hard but needs to edine correctly. The curremt iteration of gw2 endgame is lackluster and grindy which is the worst kimd.

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

That’s an interesting comment…that I should acknowledge it. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said that the game I want and my point of view probably doesn’t represent the majority.

However, I do believe that most people thinking dungeon runners and raiders and people who want end game are a huge majority…and that I don’t think is the case.

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

There’s no real evidence for either side at the moment, but WoW is the single most successful MMO in existence and pretty much every MMO that comes out apart from GW2 has raids. So there must be a substantial demand for them.

Yes I know most WoW players don’t raid, but it’s an iconic feature of the game.

Also, wouldn’t having a MMO based mostly in solo content defeat the purpose of it being a MMO? The 2 Ms ate what makes ESO different from Skyrim.

Okay so WoW has raids and WoW is successful. Baseball stadiums have hot dogs, but hot dogs aren’t why people go to the ball park. The fact is, before you can get to raids in WoW you have to do a whole lot of other stuff and people who do that often don’t go any further.

But there’s another bit of information here that can also mislead. How popular WoW is is completely irrelevant to traditional end game. First, WoW came out at a time when there was almost no competition. They were piggybacking off the mad success of an RTS with the same name. The company had a ton of money to advertise their product that didn’t come from that product.

I think it’s a mistake to look at WoW as a winning game combination based on any single factor of it. If I had to guess, I’d say timing was the biggest factor of WoW’s success. Certainly the MMO field when it came out wasn’t rife with competition and there were absolutely no free MMOs.

EQ1 came before WoW, so did UO. EQ even made a sequel. Coming at a time when there was no competition or riding on a good brand doesn’t ensure your MMO will last, nor having a lot of money. Just look to the failure of a game that was FF14 1.0 can tell you that, because I would think Final Fantasy’s IP is bigger than Warcraft’s, and I’m not sure which of Square Enix or Blizzard has more cash.

Heck, some (by which I mean a lot) argue that GW1 was better than GW2, despite GW2 having a much bigger production team and much higher of a budget.

Also, raids to WoW is nothing like hotdogs to the ball park. Its a staple and iconic feature of the game. You mention WoW and a lot of people instantly think raids, you mention baseball and I doubt many people think of hotdogs.

The argument was the fact that pretty much every MMO coming out and having raids must mean there is some demand for them, otherwise why would the devs spend so much effort making them. Raids are some of the hardest-to-create content you can have in a game.

Depends on what you call an end game..

More full content to keep me interested, more world to adventure in, more skills to use, more classes to build and use, more actual full stories to follow….

Then yes i need end game 10/10..

Exosferatu.2961:

10/10 for endgame for Guild Wars.

The endgame I see for Guild Wars 2:

• All Elder Dragons exterminated
• Visited all of Tyria (i.e. underground [Dwarfs] & sky & underwater [Largos]& more)
• Cleansed Elona of Palawa Joko and undead
• Explored Cantha once more
• Seeing cleansed Orr
• Found out the origins of all races
• Found out where the Six Gods came from
• Visited the Wizard’s Tower and Isgarren
• Seeing Livia with the Scepter of Orr
• Knowing the fate of the Bloodstones
• Know how Rytlock got Sohothin
• Visited all other realms besides Torment & Madness
• What happened to / how are Dhuum and Menzies doing
• Malyck’s other tree
• Mursaat; Where is Lazarus the Dire
• Finding where the remaining Seers are
• Defeated the remnants of the White Mantle
• And maybe more.

I think you should be working for Guildwars 2..

For me, I’d rate the importance of a true end-game at 8.5/10.

The concept of “end-game” can mean various things. I guess when it comes down to it, the most accurate definition in my experience would be “continued progression at max-level” – something GW2 really lacks.

IMO, raiding is the perfect end-game. It doesn’t have to include a gear grind. It could be like GW1, where getting better skills to improve your build/heroes would make bosses more killable. The point is that raiding gives you something to focus on with your guildies and friends and feels really rewarding when you finally get a difficult boss down.

And besides that, the “gear grind” of raiding isn’t an intense grind at all. You get items all the time while doing the raids themselves. It’s not even 1/10th of how much of a grind getting full Ascended trinkets is. And you also don’t get bogged down by other grinds, like daily achievement points/limited time meta achievements that aren’t even fun, or grinding gold for hundreds of hours so you can buy a weapon skin.

5/10 Because I’m split on the issue. Most things that happen at ‘end game’ interest me like Raiding and dungeons, however that content should not only be available at max level as with most MMO’s. That’s the good thing about GW2: the scaling, perhaps even one of the best things in there. While I would like to see more dungeons, fractals etc. more I do not want to see it under the ‘traditional’ way it’s usually presented with geargrinds, old content just collecting dust etc.

Honestly,
I want things that I can do with my guild.

I’m the leader of a 200 person guild and there is nothing in this game which challenges us.
Figuring out how to kill Tequatl was entertaining when we failed the first 2 times to kill him and succeeded on the 3rd.
We have 100-120 people run guild missions with us, it’s literally a joke: we all get on TS and joke around while we go find one bounty. We wait 5 minutes for everyone to get to the bounty and we burn the bounty within a 30 seconds. Rush is the most challenging but still isn’t much of an issue. Challenge and Puzzle is a joke.

I want something to do with my guild which isn’t a breeze! I want something to challenge us which would provide appropriate rewards!

I’ve killed Tequatl with my guild over 50 times and I still haven’t gotten a tequalt mini or an ascended chest.

I want people who see think “Oh kitten, this guy’s from [Insert Guild Name] they’re able to (insert difficult content), I should talk to him about it”.

Mash Hog.5672:

Honestly,
I want things that I can do with my guild.

I’m the leader of a 200 person guild and there is nothing in this game which challenges us.
Figuring out how to kill Tequatl was entertaining when we failed the first 2 times to kill him and succeeded on the 3rd.
We have 100-120 people run guild missions with us, it’s literally a joke: we all get on TS and joke around while we go find one bounty. We wait 5 minutes for everyone to get to the bounty and we burn the bounty within a 30 seconds. Rush is the most challenging but still isn’t much of an issue. Challenge and Puzzle is a joke.

I want something to do with my guild which isn’t a breeze! I want something to challenge us which would provide appropriate rewards!

I’ve killed Tequatl with my guild over 50 times and I still haven’t gotten a tequalt mini or an ascended chest.

I want people who see think “Oh kitten, this guy’s from [Insert Guild Name] they’re able to (insert difficult content), I should talk to him about it”.

Experiencing the exact opposite with my guild. We are a small group of players and we can’t do those guild missions because they require a lot more people than we have. Oh well..

Direksone.3867:

Mash Hog.5672:

Honestly,
I want things that I can do with my guild.

I’m the leader of a 200 person guild and there is nothing in this game which challenges us.
Figuring out how to kill Tequatl was entertaining when we failed the first 2 times to kill him and succeeded on the 3rd.
We have 100-120 people run guild missions with us, it’s literally a joke: we all get on TS and joke around while we go find one bounty. We wait 5 minutes for everyone to get to the bounty and we burn the bounty within a 30 seconds. Rush is the most challenging but still isn’t much of an issue. Challenge and Puzzle is a joke.

I want something to do with my guild which isn’t a breeze! I want something to challenge us which would provide appropriate rewards!

I’ve killed Tequatl with my guild over 50 times and I still haven’t gotten a tequalt mini or an ascended chest.

I want people who see think “Oh kitten, this guy’s from [Insert Guild Name] they’re able to (insert difficult content), I should talk to him about it”.

Experiencing the exact opposite with my guild. We are a small group of players and we can’t do those guild missions because they require a lot more people than we have. Oh well..

That’s unfortunate, you’re free to piggyback with us when we do ours for the merits like we invite other guilds from our server to do so!

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

snip

snip

snip

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

There’s no real evidence for either side at the moment, but WoW is the single most successful MMO in existence and pretty much every MMO that comes out apart from GW2 has raids. So there must be a substantial demand for them.

Yes I know most WoW players don’t raid, but it’s an iconic feature of the game.

Also, wouldn’t having a MMO based mostly in solo content defeat the purpose of it being a MMO? The 2 Ms ate what makes ESO different from Skyrim.

Okay so WoW has raids and WoW is successful. Baseball stadiums have hot dogs, but hot dogs aren’t why people go to the ball park. The fact is, before you can get to raids in WoW you have to do a whole lot of other stuff and people who do that often don’t go any further.

But there’s another bit of information here that can also mislead. How popular WoW is is completely irrelevant to traditional end game. First, WoW came out at a time when there was almost no competition. They were piggybacking off the mad success of an RTS with the same name. The company had a ton of money to advertise their product that didn’t come from that product.

I think it’s a mistake to look at WoW as a winning game combination based on any single factor of it. If I had to guess, I’d say timing was the biggest factor of WoW’s success. Certainly the MMO field when it came out wasn’t rife with competition and there were absolutely no free MMOs.

EQ1 came before WoW, so did UO. EQ even made a sequel. Coming at a time when there was no competition or riding on a good brand doesn’t ensure your MMO will last, nor having a lot of money. Just look to the failure of a game that was FF14 1.0 can tell you that, because I would think Final Fantasy’s IP is bigger than Warcraft’s, and I’m not sure which of Square Enix or Blizzard has more cash.

Heck, some (by which I mean a lot) argue that GW1 was better than GW2, despite GW2 having a much bigger production team and much higher of a budget.

Also, raids to WoW is nothing like hotdogs to the ball park. Its a staple and iconic feature of the game. You mention WoW and a lot of people instantly think raids, you mention baseball and I doubt many people think of hotdogs.

The argument was the fact that pretty much every MMO coming out and having raids must mean there is some demand for them, otherwise why would the devs spend so much effort making them. Raids are some of the hardest-to-create content you can have in a game.

Actually you mention baseball and a lot of people do think about hotdogs. They go together which is sort of my point. If the majority of the playerbase doesn’t do raids, I don’t believe that raids are necessary.

EQ 1 had a tiny population compared to WoW. All those games did. To play EQ 1, and start it, you had to almost dedicate your life to it. There were very few casual EQ 1 players. It wasn’t called Evercrack for nothing. UO had even less people playing it than EQ 1.

They were niche games. EQ 1 was a hard game with a ton of grind. People waiting for and camping bosses in open world dungeons that would show up like every fortnight or even longer. The masses were never going to look at EQ 1.

WoW piggybacked off the success of Warcraft, a popular computer game. They had a ton of money as already said and what they did was dumb down the genre. They made it more accessible for casuals. Raids almost certainly had nothing to do with it, whether or not raids are an iconic part of WoW or not.

Simply put, there is no actual way to deduce from history whether or not raids were a necessary part of WoW’s success. You can believe it is, if you want, and that’s fine. But there’s no actual way to prove it.

I believe WoW would have been a different game without raids and that would have become the standard.

Because most players are sheep. They don’t question their gaming experience. The tiny percent of players who post on forums don’t represent the biggest percentage of the playerbase.

Particularly at the beginning, the number of people who raided in WoW was tiny. In my opinion it would have done just as well if raiding had never been introduced. It would have been a different game, but no one can know if it would have been as successful.

The problem is, WoW success is what DEFINED the end game. And everyone just bought into it. Well a lot of people did.

I wasn’t one of them.

WoW was a big success, because it gave you quests for leveling and no meaningless grind. It gave you challenging dungeons, with great boss fights, compared to what else was available in MMOs at that time.

What raids did WoW have early on? The Molten Core. For a long time. Which was a chore compared to all other content in the game.
UBRS and LBRS where in between, and at least UBRS was endgame, with some other 5man.

Raiding like we have it now came way later, when Blizzard realized, that they could create relatively little content, that would entertain a lot of people for a long time, as long as the quality was good and the reward was a nice carrot on the stick.

WoW, early on, was a success, because it was a quest grind, instead of just a grind. People like doing stuff for a reason. People like to be involved.

And that is where GW2 fails. You never talk to npcs, unless you need to sell stuff. You just do heart quests, without ever talking to someone. So it feels more like a mindless grind than quest grind.
Endgame implies, that things that happen before are building up, and endgame is the conclusion. ANet tried so with the Zhaitan story arc and you can say, Arah is the endgame of this. But after that, endgame (like fractals) is just too random, too out of place.
The LS erases the connections to the new endgame (like the new TA path), which is even worse. For people who have missed the story, this place is simply a random place, with random enemies, so there is very little motivation or emotional desire to go there.

ANet has to build up content, and bring it to a conclusion. But the content has to last, like the Zhaitan story arc, or the final content (the leftover so to say) will become white dots on the map. Players need to be emotionally bound to the endgame on their way there, to have a desire to do it. Especially in a game without proper boss loot as motivator.

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

That’s an interesting comment…that I should acknowledge it. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said that the game I want and my point of view probably doesn’t represent the majority.

However, I do believe that most people thinking dungeon runners and raiders and people who want end game are a huge majority…and that I don’t think is the case.

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

There’s no real evidence for either side at the moment, but WoW is the single most successful MMO in existence and pretty much every MMO that comes out apart from GW2 has raids. So there must be a substantial demand for them.

Yes I know most WoW players don’t raid, but it’s an iconic feature of the game.

Also, wouldn’t having a MMO based mostly in solo content defeat the purpose of it being a MMO? The 2 Ms ate what makes ESO different from Skyrim.

Okay so WoW has raids and WoW is successful. Baseball stadiums have hot dogs, but hot dogs aren’t why people go to the ball park. The fact is, before you can get to raids in WoW you have to do a whole lot of other stuff and people who do that often don’t go any further.

But there’s another bit of information here that can also mislead. How popular WoW is is completely irrelevant to traditional end game. First, WoW came out at a time when there was almost no competition. They were piggybacking off the mad success of an RTS with the same name. The company had a ton of money to advertise their product that didn’t come from that product.

So it’s popularity is partly based on timing, and partly based on the deepness of its pockets as well as what actually is in the game.

I think it’s a mistake to look at WoW as a winning game combination based on any single factor of it. If I had to guess, I’d say timing was the biggest factor of WoW’s success. Certainly the MMO field when it came out wasn’t rife with competition and there were absolutely no free MMOs.

Have to disagree with you here sorry Vayne. Search for something called “Runescape”, been out 12+ years and there has ALWAYS been a FREE version available. It is a very successful game as well with MILLIONS of players and over 100+ servers which is what we would call worlds here….

10/10

The whole game is an endgame in GW2 is bs.

0/10

As long as my character is constantly progressing while I’m having fun, I don’t care if I ever hit the level cap. That’s what made original EQ so amazing is that your character never stopped progressing.

Unfortunately, this game kind of limits the ways in which your character can progress. Once you make 80, you can only progress 15 minutes a day though the dailies and 1 day a week for guild missions. Visual progression was something that was talked about back in the day but I just don’t see it here in GW2.

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

That’s an interesting comment…that I should acknowledge it. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said that the game I want and my point of view probably doesn’t represent the majority.

However, I do believe that most people thinking dungeon runners and raiders and people who want end game are a huge majority…and that I don’t think is the case.

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

There’s no real evidence for either side at the moment, but WoW is the single most successful MMO in existence and pretty much every MMO that comes out apart from GW2 has raids. So there must be a substantial demand for them.

Yes I know most WoW players don’t raid, but it’s an iconic feature of the game.

Also, wouldn’t having a MMO based mostly in solo content defeat the purpose of it being a MMO? The 2 Ms ate what makes ESO different from Skyrim.

Okay so WoW has raids and WoW is successful. Baseball stadiums have hot dogs, but hot dogs aren’t why people go to the ball park. The fact is, before you can get to raids in WoW you have to do a whole lot of other stuff and people who do that often don’t go any further.

But there’s another bit of information here that can also mislead. How popular WoW is is completely irrelevant to traditional end game. First, WoW came out at a time when there was almost no competition. They were piggybacking off the mad success of an RTS with the same name. The company had a ton of money to advertise their product that didn’t come from that product.

So it’s popularity is partly based on timing, and partly based on the deepness of its pockets as well as what actually is in the game.

I think it’s a mistake to look at WoW as a winning game combination based on any single factor of it. If I had to guess, I’d say timing was the biggest factor of WoW’s success. Certainly the MMO field when it came out wasn’t rife with competition and there were absolutely no free MMOs.

I’ll agree with this. But I will contradict when I say that Blizzard’s ability to mtaintain 7+ million subscribers for…8 years is not necessarily due to lack of competition or timing. Many MMOs have come into the market since WoW with as much hype as GW2, and faded into the mists.

WoW launched at the perfect time.

But, WoW is also successful because of the fantastic lore they have, and they play off of that lore instead of creating new lore(except for pandas..really, not in their lore too much. A few lines is all). But also because of endgame. Things to do.

Cont’d on next post.

When I think of endgame, I think of the following:

-max level content

-content that has longevity. This does not mean time gating, it means that people will WANT to experience the content over the course of months.

-content that challenges you. You have leveled to max level and should have a good understanding of your class. Combined with gear, you must test your skill. Combined with your skill, you must test your gear’s meddle.

-content that is either solo OR group/guild content. It does not have to be exclusive to one. Rift’s chronicles are a good example of solo content that would be fantastic(FANTASTIC!!!) in GW2. Im so sad that there isn’t something like this.

-content that gives you the best rewards in the game for completion. End game is simply that..end game. It should be hard. If everyone could do it, I wouldnt consider it endgame. Now, Im not talking about raids, but if everyone could complete the endgame content, it is merely just ‘content’ to me.