Guild Wars 2

The last time I played this game, which was quite some time ago considering the last signed in IP address in my security history, I found this game to be entertaining and than suddenly very boring.

My problem was the exploration hearts that they made you do just to be the correct level for a story mission; the latter being the part of the game I really enjoyed (it didn’t help that they were nerfing the Elementalist left and right in those days).

However, with this game getting an expansion pack plus the considerable amount of time that has passed I’d figure I’d ask if this game is actually good now for those of us who may like to do the story missions, World vs World (go Jade Quarry! <- if that’s still a thing :P) and the occasional PvP.

So, is this game worth trying out again or are there still those annoying gaps where you have to spend hours going around “exploring” (or as I like to call it, the most boring activity in an MMO I’ve ever played because of its bad execution)?

I think I stopped playing at level 58 or 63 – I don’t remember. Did I miss a lot?

If you didn’t enjoy artificial gating at low levels (minimum level for personal story) I have some great news for you!

Arenanet completely revamped the levelling process! Making all skills quick and easy to obtain, removing all artificial gates, awarding skill points more often and allowing access to every part of the game to a brand new player!

Just kidding. They did the opposite.

New players unlock weapon swapping at level 10 or so, can’t access most of their skills until level 30, and get their elite slot at 60! Also you don’t start with downed state, so what happens when you die at a low level? You just drop.

Also don’t get any ideas about doing pvp before your designated pvp level. Or using class abilities (this means attunements too! I hope you like playing on only fire )

In all, you should definitely come back so you can enjoy arenanet’s New Player Experience™

If you stopped playing at around level 60 then you basically never experienced the game the way you were supposed to once level 80. I know the game starts on level 1 but it’s true you have a different feeling once clad in gear of your choice with all the traits and excelling at stuff you like doing (WvW, dungeons, etc.)

So i would say you missed essentially everything. Personally i would say the game is worth trying (as technically i would not call your coming back a comeback).

Lorgus.6148:

If you didn’t enjoy artificial gating at low levels (minimum level for personal story) I have some great news for you!

Arenanet completely revamped the levelling process! Making all skills quick and easy to obtain, removing all artificial gates, awarding skill points more often and allowing access to every part of the game to a brand new player!

Just kidding. They did the opposite.

New players unlock weapon swapping at level 10 or so, can’t access most of their skills until level 30, and get their elite slot at 60! Also you don’t start with downed state, so what happens when you die at a low level? You just drop.

Also don’t get any ideas about doing pvp before your designated pvp level. Or using class abilities (this means attunements too! I hope you like playing on only fire )

In all, you should definitely come back so you can enjoy arenanet’s New Player Experience™

Oh how i love a hyperbole early in the morning. You forgot to mention that if he has a level 60 char, he won’t have any problems with all those things you wrote about.

no, can i has your stuff?

Leveling still sucks and has gotten worse, BUT the good thing about leveling is its temporary do it and get it over with. Use it to learn a profession, experiment with skills, weapons etc. You wont know if the game is good for you now if you dont try it….so try it, JQ is still strong in wvw, pvp has gotten a considerable revamp especially in terms of rewards, ele is still…eh, anyways try it see how you like it. It gets better at lvl 80, and there has been a lot of updates to the game.

If you like PvP, you can get Tomes of Knowledge from the reward tracks that will give you one level for every tome you use. Then you don’t have to level your character in the world at all and can get to 80 that way.

Lorgus.6148:

If you didn’t enjoy artificial gating at low levels (minimum level for personal story) I have some great news for you!

Arenanet completely revamped the levelling process! Making all skills quick and easy to obtain, removing all artificial gates, awarding skill points more often and allowing access to every part of the game to a brand new player!

Just kidding. They did the opposite.

New players unlock weapon swapping at level 10 or so, can’t access most of their skills until level 30, and get their elite slot at 60! Also you don’t start with downed state, so what happens when you die at a low level? You just drop.

Also don’t get any ideas about doing pvp before your designated pvp level. Or using class abilities (this means attunements too! I hope you like playing on only fire )

In all, you should definitely come back so you can enjoy arenanet’s New Player Experience™

If you are going to post stuff like this can you at least get your facts right.

Weapon skills unlock: 1, 2, 4, 7, 10
Utility skills unlock: 13, 17, 19 (not can’t access most until level 30)
Elite skill unlock: 31 (not level 60)
Weapon swapping: level 15 (not level 10) was level 7 before the NPE

It’s one thing to state your opinion but at least do the simplest amount of fact checking before you post.

Uhm no.
If you never even reached 80, didn´t even understand the difference between the standard leveling with hearts and actually experiencing the world by finding EVENTS and were already bored, this game still isn´t for you.

And to be honest they pretty much drove it to a stand still throughout these years.

Oh and the personal story is also pretty much broken after the lvl 60 claw island quest, but the main story head honcho has recently at least acknowledged this and a fix can only be weeks away.

What you actually missed was something that superemely annoyed me but may have been right up your ally.
The Living Story.
Google it or search for vids on the UTub. It´s over/on hiatus right now and was the main reason we´re all waiting for an expansion instead of having one for months.

GuardianHope.8145:

So, is this game worth trying out again or are there still those annoying gaps where you have to spend hours going around “exploring” (or as I like to call it, the most boring activity in an MMO I’ve ever played because of its bad execution)?

GW2 PvE leveling is meant to be played exploration style. A lot of the content is hidden away, so if you don’t bother to watch and listen, you’re going to miss a lot of stuff. Most events for example tell a story and continue on after they’ve been completed and also before they have started. Hearts aren’t even a main part, they’re an afterthought when they found that WoW players couldn’t grasp not being told what to do. However, all you really need to do to level is 100% the map and move on.

Also, the personal story is now in chunks and only available every 10 levels. There’s also a new personal story (season 2) available at level 80, though you would have to purchase it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Weapon swapping: level 15 (not level 10) was level 7 before the NPE

Also, you can bypass this by going into the heart of the mists and equipping 2 seperate weapons (and you can bypass the level 22 for pvp by going to the mists portal in LA)

Personally, while i wasn’t huge on “heart events”, in my opinion, they are leaaagues better than quest systems in other games.

Put bluntly, if you didn’t like the game before, you won’t like it now. Not that it got worse (imo it’s improved) but at it’s heart, it’s still the same game.

I actually went ahead and updated my Guild Wars 2 client since I still had it installed (why not? I have an obscene amount of storage). When I signed into make sure everything was still there I noticed something – aside from my character which is actually level 58; all of my lower level ones have suddenly moved up to 20. There’s a character that I literally never did anything else but play PvP that was at level 2 or 4 when I last played a year or so ago that is suddenly a 20. Did they change something?

There was this one event I played where you fought those horse creatures (it’s really early in the morning; I can’t remember the name :P) which I used to level from 30-58 (with some food bonuses) because it was the only event I stumbled upon where people were lining up to play.

I keep hearing that the game really doesn’t “open up” until level 80 – the trouble is getting to 80 without it being so tedious.

I’d be interested in knowing more about these Tomes of Knowledge are. They sound like an easy way to bridge the gap from 58 to 80 without repetitively playing the only active event I could ever find (seriously, the rest of them were like abandoned).

It’d be nice to finally make it to 80 and see if those events that I’ve seen on YouTube at the so called “end game” are actually fun. I already know World vs World is (for a time, that’s all I played) and PvP I know is pretty fun too.

Have dungeons improved? I only ever did two dungeons because it seemed like the only thing people were ever interested in a year or so ago was “speed running” them (etc.).

Collecting ToK until your 56 gets 80 takes ~ 56 days of just logging in and taking the dail y chest and logging out (should be >2 min) but you will not have any clue what to do. you should ask for ToK from the 28th chest, nettinmg you 16 ToKfrom dailies every 28 days..

Speed running is a niche, zerk is a niche and wvw is a choice, ele in wvw is very squishy, zerk ele in wvw is not a good thing and when speedrunning you are still squishy.

Ele = squishy. Deal with it, also at 80.

Dungeons come in 4 flavors, Open, l80, l80 Exp and l80 speedrun.With or without zerker armor. Generally the last 3 groups use zerk not always tough, except the final one which uses zerk as standard, no zerk = problem (though I’d accept all decent build DPS setups (cause some support will benefit from alternate armors, and in some cases assassin is nice as well.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Weapon swapping: level 15 (not level 10) was level 7 before the NPE

Also, you can bypass this by going into the heart of the mists and equipping 2 seperate weapons (and you can bypass the level 22 for pvp by going to the mists portal in LA)

Personally, while i wasn’t huge on “heart events”, in my opinion, they are leaaagues better than quest systems in other games.

Put bluntly, if you didn’t like the game before, you won’t like it now. Not that it got worse (imo it’s improved) but at it’s heart, it’s still the same game.

That’s what I do on my new chars. However if the char is below level 15, you have to go back to the PvP lobby every time you want to change the weapon(s) in the bottom (swap) set as it’s not truly unlocked, it’s just a work around.

Interesting. It sounds like the game has had some improvement and some… not good ideas added as well.

Well, I will hop on JQ again and see for myself. And google more into these Tokens thing.

@PaxTheGreatOne: I know Elementalist are supposed to be “squishy” but the were getting to a point where there ANet just kept nerfing any offensive ability they had to the point where a running joke back in my day was that Elementalist was “hard mode” because you die if you are breathed on wrong and you had to do 2-4 times the work than any other class. I am hoping the that last part is fixed.