Guild Wars 2

I stopped playing a few years ago, after all my friends quit playing. I picked it up again this week after reading about the giant patch and the change in game directors, so I’ve been puttering around. I’ve convinced a few friends to come check it out again as well, so we’ll see if the next few weeks gets us back in again or not.

In the meantime, some questions, mostly relating to reasons I stopped.

1) Why no new dungeons in HoT? Why a raid?

2) Is there challenging open world pve content in HoT areas?

3) World bosses all still seem to be a giant zerg where you can push 1 and collect chests of loot (they are really cool looking bosses at least!). I saw that they made a big deal of their Shatterer revamp, but I barely noticed a change to the fight – zerg familiarity in the same way as Teq, or HoT power inflation, or both? Dungeons are a slight step up from that. I’m assuming higher level fractals and then raids are the next step from there. Have the devs commented at any length (or shown through previous action) about how they plan to develop challenging PvE content going forward? Are raids it, or are they looking at other avenues?

4) From my limited experience with LFG, dungeon groups are every bit as toxic as when I stopped. New player and/or not running approved build/class? Immediate kick or complain loudly. Part of this seems to be related to the way dungeons are run – the same as they were when I stopped, which is speed running them and skipping as much as possible. Have the devs given any indication they plan to revisit or revamp dungeon content, or are they being mothballed in favor of new open world content and raids?

5) New content. Have the devs indicated if they’re moving to a ‘proper’ expansion pack model, or is there going to be some mix of living world story content and expansions? I didn’t like LW1 much, but as it was temporary content, my friends will never experience it now. Getting them to pay for LW2 is likely a non-starter. End result, they’ll be transitioning from vanilla to HoT with little connective tissue story-wise. That may harm the experience for some of them significantly, I don’t know yet, we’ll find out soon enough. Coming back to any mmo late you can expect to have some disorientation, but GW2’s… odd… method of content delivery is exacerbating that issue.

6) Real money market content. I have an uneasy relationship with f2p style content and microtransactions in general, as do my group of friends. The feeling that content is being developed for a paywall or that free content design decisions are being affected by market considerations (ie, rate of xp gain/item acquisition when boosters are in the mix), none of that produces feelgoods. Inventory slots and bank space tied to the gem store produced a pretty strongly negative reaction in my group. For long time veterans, how do you feel the gem store content has been handled over the last few years?

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That’s all, just looking for some more clarity on issues that were important to me or my group of friends. There are (were?) a lot, lot of things I love about GW2, but there were unfortunately also a lot of frustrating or baffling decisions that whittled down my guild and then my friends and then ultimately me as well.

Evilgamer.3964:

I stopped playing a few years ago, after all my friends quit playing. I picked it up again this week after reading about the giant patch and the change in game directors, so I’ve been puttering around. I’ve convinced a few friends to come check it out again as well, so we’ll see if the next few weeks gets us back in again or not.

In the meantime, some questions, mostly relating to reasons I stopped.

1) Why no new dungeons in HoT? Why a raid?

2) Is there challenging open world pve content in HoT areas?

3) World bosses all still seem to be a giant zerg where you can push 1 and collect chests of loot (they are really cool looking bosses at least!). I saw that they made a big deal of their Shatterer revamp, but I barely noticed a change to the fight – zerg familiarity in the same way as Teq, or HoT power inflation, or both? Dungeons are a slight step up from that. I’m assuming higher level fractals and then raids are the next step from there. Have the devs commented at any length (or shown through previous action) about how they plan to develop challenging PvE content going forward? Are raids it, or are they looking at other avenues?

4) From my limited experience with LFG, dungeon groups are every bit as toxic as when I stopped. New player and/or not running approved build/class? Immediate kick or complain loudly. Part of this seems to be related to the way dungeons are run – the same as they were when I stopped, which is speed running them and skipping as much as possible. Have the devs given any indication they plan to revisit or revamp dungeon content, or are they being mothballed in favor of new open world content and raids?

5) New content. Have the devs indicated if they’re moving to a ‘proper’ expansion pack model, or is there going to be some mix of living world story content and expansions? I didn’t like LW1 much, but as it was temporary content, my friends will never experience it now. Getting them to pay for LW2 is likely a non-starter. End result, they’ll be transitioning from vanilla to HoT with little connective tissue story-wise. That may harm the experience for some of them significantly, I don’t know yet, we’ll find out soon enough. Coming back to any mmo late you can expect to have some disorientation, but GW2’s… odd… method of content delivery is exacerbating that issue.

6) Real money market content. I have an uneasy relationship with f2p style content and microtransactions in general, as do my group of friends. The feeling that content is being developed for a paywall or that free content design decisions are being affected by market considerations (ie, rate of xp gain/item acquisition when boosters are in the mix), none of that produces feelgoods. Inventory slots and bank space tied to the gem store produced a pretty strongly negative reaction in my group. For long time veterans, how do you feel the gem store content has been handled over the last few years?

—

That’s all, just looking for some more clarity on issues that were important to me or my group of friends. There are (were?) a lot, lot of things I love about GW2, but there were unfortunately also a lot of frustrating or baffling decisions that whittled down my guild and then my friends and then ultimately me as well.

1 is rhetorical so cannot really provide an answer.

2 Hot is challenging throughout, thers a lot of people complaining its difficult, its not really but it demands attention.

3 No idea, theres not a lot of demand.

4 There isn’t much toxicity in comparison to any other mmo out there, the meta people have learned a bit now so its not quite as prevalent apart from raids which is more tightly tuned.

5 rhetorical

6 rhetorical

1) They stoped making dungeons ages ago. They improved fractals, they also improved dungeons (both rewards and some mechanics) with the last update. And why not raids?

2)Dragons stand i guess, among other meta events.
Oh and also, the pve mobs in general are buffed up compared to your regular moas you encounter in the “old” tyria world. People who go full zerker glass cannon builds still try to face a group of raptors as if they are a group of bandits from queensdale. They quickly get downed and complain its too hard and it is imbalanced for them to get downed in 2 seconds (even tho they have 0toughness and 0 vitality….)

3)Some bosses gained more mechanics as well as more options and ways to fight it. Yes people could still stand and hold 1 on shatterer, but they have to deal with few mechanics to prevent him to heal up to 100% via cristals. I assume ,with time, some other world bosses will follow such changes. Currently we are expecting the final raid wing, after which we can expect the living story season 3. Im not sure about adding even more raids or more stuff like that. But im pretty sure they will modify and upgrade existing things like they have done with the last quarterly update patch

4) As said before there will be no new dungeons. New fractals might come tho.
As for LFG. It all depends. When it comes to dungeons everyone expects people to do speedclears. If you dont want speedclears then dont join “lvl 80 full zerk only” parties. Instead just make your own parties ,or simply tag it with “everyone welcome”.
It really is that simple….but ive seen far to many “shy” people who arent doing dungeons or even fractals cause they are afraid of them being rejected…

5)They are working on expansion No2. No idea how it will look like but we might expect something similar to hot (when it comes to story at least). As in we get a personal story , a story that goes on in the world, and later a living world season.
I suggest you log in in the starting window when season 3 kicks in. That way you unlock it permanently for your account. Season 1 is said to be implimented as season 2 some day….someday.

6) While you do have the option to spend real money to gain gold, you would have to pay a TON of money to “win” (by buyng out…idk..cultural armor for skins? or a legendary ? Is that wining? You spend 360$ for a 4000g legendary?)

The gem shop always offered conveniences. Besides the skins and outfits that offer no upper hand what so ever, i only ever bought a few char slots and bag slots. I also bought silverfed salvage kit (same stats as a regular one from the npc vendor) and permanent gathering tools (also same stats as oricalchum ones from ncp vendors) and i bought them all with my gold.

I dont see what great advantage i have by having 10 characters instead of 5, or having
180bag slots instead of 100 (honestly 100 is plenty. people slavage,sell and deposit mats all the time form their inventory that they never actually need more than 100 slots.

Exp boosters can be “countered” via in game tomes of knowledge, lvl 20-30 level scrolls, writs of experience, 15% exp boost from food, 10% from utility, 10% from guild exp buff…

And the permanent home instance gathering nodes are only giving you a bunch of nodes ( expensive ones ) that everyone has access anywhere else in the world (and much more of them as well)

Hope that helps.

Another note that id like to mention is that the game is free to play, and since you already bought it you have access to everything for your whole life. I highly suggest simply playing it by your self or with your friends however you like.

Unfortunately there are too many players out there that do nothing but whine,complain and bash the game and anet for the dumbest reasons you can think off….and they can seriously wear people down.
I dont claim the whole game is perfect, but the things they complain about is mind numbing.

For example:
-Legendary armor will be DLC (and they kept going on and on and oooon how they think it will really happen and anet is bad because they will do that.
-XYZ profession is OP in pvp, and then you hear that the same professions suck and need a buff because they get 1 shot and cant kill anyone when THEY play it….

Seriously tho. Ive been playing for more than 3 years almost everyday. And theres plenty more for me to do in the game. For me it is fun and completely worth the total of 110$ i spent for the original deluxe and now HoT expansion.

But hey, if you dont like it nobody is forcing you to play it..and youre not rly loosing anyhting by not playing it

6) Things in the gem store can also be bought with gold through the exchange. XP is so easy in GW2 that complaining about that seems incredibly silly. Magic find is basically snake oil.

Open world is nigh on impossible to design for challenging content. It doesn’t work to design content for 100+ people to skilled enough at the same time. That is not what open world is for.

That said, the below all have non-zerg mechnaics

- Triple Wurm
- Vinewrath (silverwastes)
- Various meta bosses in Verdant Brink
- Auric Basin Octovine
- Chak Gerent (Tangled Depths)
- The end sections of Dragon Stand

These, whilst not “hard” (except maybe TT) require organisation and that is where the challenge is. High level fractals and raids are where the challenge is. Open world HoT was challenging on launch for regular play, but was recently slightly nerfed due to massive unpopularity.

The toxicity will exist still in dungeons, fractals and even more so in raids. It’s a sad fact of life of an MMO.

New content. We just had an expansion. We will continue to get expansions with LS seasons in between going forward. So to answer your question, it will be mixed. LS require the expac to play and I believe when you buy HoT, you are esentially paying for LS3 (I’m not 100% on that, but someone will clear it up for sure)

Gem store. It fund the game and does a good job of it. I’m not sure what you mean about “market considerations”, but there are regular new items in there. Yes, it would be nice to have more armours and gliders in game, but to be honest, I’d rather this than a sub which is the only alternative to fund a game of this size and scope. Despite any conspiracy theories you will hear, it does not get added to at the expense of the main game.