Guild Wars 2

I’ll warn you now that I’m going to be dropping the word ‘WoW’ in this so just be warned.

Lemme start by saying I’ve been waiting for this game for a year and a half. It started whenever I saw TotalBiscut cover a very early version of this game at Gamescom. When I saw this game I was like, “Wow this game looks friggin amazing!” Not doubt it is/was. When I played in the BWE events I was so excited and impressed with everything going on. The questing was great, pvp was fun, everything was going awesome.

Fast forward to release, game comes out and my friends and I are playing non stop having a blast. We are like, “This games got nothing on WoW.” So we level and level but as time goes on I fall behind around the 50s region because I wanted to play some other games. Meanwhile my friends all hit 70/80. So I come back from time to time gaining a single level and then logging off just because I’m bored.

Why?

Questing feels like a chore now, the population has dropped in areas so its near impossible to do some of the group quests, and the biggest reason is I’m too anxious to do my personal story mission but I can’t because the current leveling speed is far behind the story required levels. Also I’ve run out of hearts in my leveling zones thus forcing me to go back to lower areas and 100% them. None of it is fun to me, just feels like a chore since I have sprint my way back and forth across areas.

I talked my friend about whats what around 80s. He said honestly theres nothing to look forward to. Just endless grind for gear thats near useless since theres zero endgame content. He said the last dragon boss was the easiest out of all the dragons that are already a joke to fight since there is no fear of failure.

After hearing that I just said to myself, “Whats the point of leveling then?” This game prides itself on having open world raids and such but its near impossible to get any true challenge since there is no holy trinity or organization for that matter.

I don’t want to use the world casual to describe this game but thats exactly what it is. There is really no appeal to the hardcore MMORPG player in this game. Theres no raiding content, spvp is a mess which I don’t really see taking off as an E-Sport anytime soon. Definitely not like GW1 pvp. Dungeons are just a mindless zerg fest that is apparently dominated by Warrior/Guardian only groups. Yea I got kicked from a group because I was a Elementalist. Was I mad? No. Because they said why would we take you when we can get a Guardian that has way more survivability and healing? So I figured that made sense and I just moved on. But I digress.

I’ve tried really hard to sit down and just quest just so I can hit the cap, but I can’t. I just get so bored of running back and forth trying to search for that last Point of Interest. Theres no endgame in this game. I don’t think there ever will be (at least on a WoW standard of raiding a such) just because there is no Holy Trinity. They pushed that as there main marketing thing. But now that I look at it, its really working against them. They can’t bring order to this game at all, it will be forever just a zerg fest. The comboing system is near pointless, cool on paper but execution was poor.

I really thought this would be my messiah for MMORPGs but I can’t keep to it since it caters to such a casual audience. Again I don’t mean casual as an insult but in a game where theres little to no incentive to hit max level I can’t find my self playing this game long term like WoW.

Of course I’ll keeping playing from time to time but I’ll really only be playing SPvP since thats the only part that interests me.

The search continues.

Can’t really help you there. What’s letting me come back every day is the fact that I love exploring for the sake of exploring, helping friends and random strangers and generally not working towards any goal (controversial as that may sound – I don’t use the game to achieve something, I use the game to relax).

One thing I did notice was “I really thought this would be my messiah for MMORPGs …”

Isnt it possible you let yourself get hyped up to the point where the game was bound to be a disappointment anyway? Every time I’ve let myself get carried away like that in the past, the game in question turned out to be disappointing. Mainly because you come to expect certain features in the game, and if those are not there, you’ll miss them even more to the point where you stop playing. Where if I approach a game more open-minded and let the game guide me instead of my own expectations, it turns out way more fun than I expected it to be.

…then don’t. It’s a simple as that. I love GW2 – but I still play TERA, FFXIV, WoW, Aion, TOR, Rift, RO…etc…

But what I love about GW2 is the ‘casual’ feeling it has. It’s my “I’ve got 45 min between tasks and I want to kill time” game. I can hop in, play a for a while – get some items, gain a level, explore an area, do a DE – then hop out. It gives me the same amount of content on what normally would take me half a day on another MMO.

If you’re bored, you’re bored.

Don’t level in this game, do activities and make fun with friends

Just going to put some points in.. Next time, just really, really try hard to not get over hyped on a game. As you stated it was the ‘messiah’ of MMOs is a very bad way to think of new games. It’ll always upset you in the end usually because you have assumptions and expectations that you don’t know if they’ll be filled or not. The reason is because you’ve already played games and MMOs for a long time, so there will always be some elements that will be the same for you and you will lose that excitement from the hype.

Also because of this you may not get that nostalgia from any new games since this usually only occurs when you’re young or just starting to play games. I could be wrong though but I haven’t had much nostalgia now that i’m much older, but I just enjoy games as they are now.

Also it sounds like you sorta got left in the dust which is pretty mean.. Sadly I don’t see the point at all in playing MMOs if you don’t play with friends or make friends to play with, since well, it’s never fun anymore if you solo an MMO. Can’t really say it’s casual since the grinding at the end is pretty crazy, it may be that because you know there isn’t an awesome boss at the end (which yeah is disappointing) that it doesn’t seem worth it. This is entirely your opinion and that’s perfectly fine. I’d definitely say you still want WoW again since you miss the raiding content which is basically also endless grinding but also have a challenge. Just going to point out though that Anet always stated that Engame was all over the place, and not at 80. Which has been sorta true, I’ve died at a few bosses in random places. So in all seriousness i’d say go play WoW again, because you guys sound like you play for long periods of time, and GW 2 right now doesn’t have as much content as WoW does for the time being.

No idea how anyone could wanna play wow now a days other than being 8 yrs old getting excited for kung fu panda’s hunting pokemon and being a garbage casual that likes no kind of challenge what so ever in a game. Need motivation from people to lvl up? really? Try to do a dungeon with low levels and see how good that goes. That’s enough motivation needed.

Your friend was right Sushi, there is nothing to look forward to. You’ve already seen it all. Not being sarcastic, go read Anet’s article “the endgame reimagined” where they tell you to go do the leveling zones again because “the whole game is endgame”. Yeah it’s lame.

i agree with the op! but than again i didn’t expected much of gw2, i have my ffxiv 2.0 coming soon, and tera is there as well, so this game is not a let down that much for me, only thing i really hated from the start was that there are no priests which is my fav class. so i distanced myself from the game from the start. ff14 white mages and tera priests are awsome

I think the PvE content and the freedom to explore in it is easily the best thing in the game and more than makes up for other systems, which need some revision. So if you don’t enjoy doing that and don’t like WvW/sPvP then I’m not sure there’s a lot in the game for you. In the end PvE = content and when you have had your fill of the content then that’s it.

That sums it up for a lot of people. Many of us at least got to 80 to see the sudden wall of “what just happened??” for ourselves. Although I didn’t go in expecting much of anything. I expected another disappointment, so when the game was actually fun, it was a relief. The fun was just so short-lived for a MMO.

But then again, this game just isn’t meant to be absorbed like other MMOs. I think your’e supposed to just stop playing then start playing, then stop playing, ect. Then again, when you do that the social aspect basically goes out the window. Hard to connect with people that are on again off again. I’ve long outgrown simple chit chat in a video game so if I’m not really playing, I’m logging. I won’t spend hours doing “stuff” in a MMO when I have lots of other games that don’t have you doing just “stuff”. There’s actual game to play, not grinding for a nicer skin that wears off right after you get it. “ooooh, coool”. Then, “OK, what do I do with this nice armor”? I can’t WvW when I can’t see 1/2 the people I’m fighting=(

The “nothing to look forward to”, rears its ugly head when you think about rolling an alt, because you already know whats going to happen, so you think “Why am I doing this again?” Whats the incentive? Fun?? But I already know its not going to be fun once I hit Orr. Sigh…

Great game. Just no longevity.

I have two geared level 80’s, working on a third. I honestly can’t understand the negativity towards end-game. I’m usually overwhelmed by the amount of dungeons, character customization, exploration and the plethora of non-combat activities to do. I can see myself playing this game at least for the next year exclusively — only occasionally making time for minecraft.

I will say, however, that WvW needs fixing. At least the matching system and server transfers. Most PvP I’ve seen on Blackgate this week in WvW was from costume brawls.

You really just have to keep yourself entertained with stuff you find interesting. Since you’re still on your first toon, I’m sure there’s a lot of the world you haven’t explored yet, and there are some interesting things to see out there. But really if you aren’t excited about playing the game then hopefully there’s something else that you’re excited about out there that you can go play, and hopefully you got your money’s worth out of this game (which is pretty tough not to do imo).

@KOLZ: I play both games and getting a gold in any challenge mode dungeon, or hell, downing any heroic raid boss in WoW is harder than anything in GW2, so please take your uninformed trolling elsewhere. The games are apples and oranges anyways.

There can certainly be benefits to having a strong endgame for people that like that style of MMO, but Anet isn’t really trying to appeal to that particular crowd imo.

The problem is you are making it into a chore. Try logging into the game and just do whatever you feel like. And if you can’t think of anything you want to do, then why the hell are you playing the game in the first place?

Also; there are no raids or endgame in Guild Wars 2. You play the game for what it is, not what it’s going to be.

Terok.7315:

I have two geared level 80’s, working on a third. I honestly can’t understand the negativity towards end-game.

The negativity towards endgame is that there simply isn’t one unless you either like to farm/grind endlessly or you enjoy going back to do content for which you are vastly overpowered and where the drops and rewards are no longer relevant. It’s as simple as that.

One thing we do share though, is alts. For me, making multiple alts is the only viable way of getting enjoyment out of all the content that there is right now – and really there’s a lot of it! and its probably the best, most detailed content yet in any game, not to mention dynamic events (when they work).

So alting is OK for now, but I’d really love my first toon to be able to do everything in the game and am waiting to see if Arenanet come up with any better ideas for that (better downscaling, hard modes etc).

Levels are merely there so that the entire world is not available at the get go. Leveling makes it more available and allows you entry into dungeons without being total deadweight.

As for alts… it’s not endgame, but there is some replay value since they all have a different flavor in how encounters are dealt with and some slightly different perspectives on the story (assuming you also change up the races).

Dungeons are just a mindless zerg fest that is apparently dominated by Warrior/Guardian only groups. Yea I got kicked from a group because I was a Elementalist. Was I mad? No. Because they said why would we take you when we can get a Guardian that has way more survivability and healing? So I figured that made sense and I just moved on. But I digress.

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

Look, the dungeons aren’t that bad. You can’t just semi-AFK and mash your 2 dps buttons (or 2 heal buttons, or 2 taunt buttons…), but class comp does not really matter.
Trust me. My staff necro generally tears it up in instances. Flesh Golem decides that we need to pull additional packs of mobs sometimes.. but if the group’s paying attention and knows how to play, well, as I was telling my guildies last night.. “We’re still winning on my screen”.

Yeah imagine, doing well in an instance is more about people knowing how to play their class and the game than it is about class comp.

I talked my friend about whats what around 80s. He said honestly theres nothing to look forward to. Just endless grind for gear thats near useless since theres zero endgame content. He said the last dragon boss was the easiest out of all the dragons that are already a joke to fight since there is no fear of failure.

Actually, no. WoW is an endless grind for gear that’s near useless since any gear you get will only allow you to keep doing the same thing in a new place. GW2 is anything but an endless grind for gear. I have only 1 more exotic to get my hands on until I’m filled out — for my first stat setup, at least! — and I’ve been taking my time. … and also doing silly things like dropping 17g for the scythe skin (BECAUSE I’M A NECRO!).. yeah, gear is easy in this game, and you can experience all content with whatever you’re wearing.

I hate PvE, but I’m loving it in GW2 because it’s entirely optional, my only motivation to do it is to have fun — at no point am I compelled to run this instance over that instance because I need this or that drop, at no point am I compelled to repeatedly run any instance just to get into another instance later. I just.. do whatever seems like a fun time.

It’s fantastic.

And if you’ve run out of places to level, try moving to a new zone. There’s a bunch of different areas for any given level range, yanno. iirc there was a bit of a lull for my (human) necro around level.. 30? 50? I forget, but I dipped into some Norn areas for a bit, explored some over-leveled content and found that killing mobs over my level wasn’t TOO hard after all.

If the zones are as empty as you imply, you should be getting ridiculous exp from mobs. Friend of mine was getting 1% of a level per mob kill thanks to the bonus exp from it not having been killed in a long time. That’s.. fast. That’s very fast.

There seems to be two types of WoW players that got GW2: Those like me who were just looking for an alternative style of MMO, and those who were looking for the NEXT WoW. It’s that second group of people I see that are consistently disappointed in GW2.

I had friends who got this game, started a guild, power leveled to 80 in a week, and now they’re gone. Sucks for me, because I bought the game to play with them, now I’m the only one left! I like it, so I’m sticking around.

Leveling is the easiest thing to do in this game because not only does doing anything at all give you XP, but the climb to higher levels is almost a flat line.

You don’t do things in this game to level up, you do things because you decided you want to.

I disagree with just about everything you said, except this:
“Theres no raiding content, spvp is a mess”

You’re correct, it’s just that I don’t care about either of these.

You are so in a box they built for you, and I don’t even think you know it.

The best game in the world ever designed could come out tomorrow having features that a majority of the population likes, new designs and theories, and you’d still be in your box, unable to be happy. I hope you can find a game that makes you happy!

I agree with the OP on just about all his points, particularly the part about struggling to summon the will to continue playing. Every time I log in, I ask myself, “What’s the point?” Gameplay, to me, is repetitive, uninspired, and just plain boring, i.e., no fun. If there were some interesting challenges to look forward to, this might be bearable, but I don’t consider 100% map completion or dressing up my toon to be among them.

GW2 lacks ways to meaningfully progress that other games provide. I know for some, that’s a non-issue (or even a plus), while for others the game does provide it.

But not for me.

Have you tried WvW? It’s not unbelievably great, but it is different and lets you contribute in a variety of ways. I believe it will improve over time, but even now it’s better than WoW’s large-scale battlegrounds ever were.

I am going to go a different route here, no, I won’t try to motivate you to play this game. Why you may ask? Because this is a game, in the grand scheme of things, there is no point to this at all. It’s meant to be fun and if you aren’t having fun then stop playing and go do something else you’ll enjoy.

No amount of cheerleading can make you enjoy something that obviously does not spark that feeling of fun in you. Forcing yourself to play any game is defeating the purpose of the game in the first place and you should just stop playing. Maybe stop for a month and come back, maybe a year and come back or don’t come back at all.

I have played a number of games I really wanted to enjoy and love but they just never clicked with me. I suffered through months of really not wanting to play and hating every minute I played out of some bizarre sense responsibility to the game thinking that I had to play it.

Just stop playing, find something else to do and have fun doing that.

The Orr area is actually pretty cool to see, and the zergs there can be fun (for a brief amount of time.. certainly not fun enough to grind the karma required for full exotics).

So I suppose that’s a reason to level. Beyond that though… yeah. The game certainly does present options and things to do, but if you don’t find them compelling (I personally do not), then you may want to decide whether this game has lasting intrigue for you.. same as any other MMO.

Similiar to flynn above, I find myself logging on only to try a 1 or 2 sPvP games with some different class or build, getting bored, switching over to my main (who’s been parked in LA for weeks now), wondering why I’m here, and then logging out. There’s a lot I haven’t seen yet (only to level 15 or so in personal story, maybe 48% total map completion, no dungeon runs yet), but I just have no drive to do any of it.

I’ve enjoyed my playtime here immensely, but at some point the shine wore off, and quickly. And when that happens in a game that on the surface is this good, it makes me think that the real issue isn’t GW2, but that I’m burnt out on the genre entirely.

If you play with that mindset you won’t enjoy GW2. You will quit at 80.
This is because you’re playing GW2 as a traditional MMO.
It’s like playing chess with tic-tac-toe rules.

Do yourself a favore, either quit traditional MMOs for a while and go play some single player games to see how a game actually looks, or play them until you puke.
Then, play GW2.

Since there’s no monthly subscription fee, I tend to compare GW2 with other $60 single player games. You finish the campaign, the credits roll, then you maybe go play the separate multi-player mode till it bores you and then you move on to another game. You don’t cry about there being no infinite endgame. There’s no endgame because you’re not paying for one. The question you need to ask yourself is, “Did I get my $60 worth?”
Does Borderlands 2 have an endgame? Does Diablo 3 have an endgame? I paid 60 bucks for each of those games and saw all the content after two weeks and now I’m done with em. I’ve seen everything there is to see. I spent $60 on Dishonored and finished it in 4 nights. I’ve been playing GW2 for 2 months and I’ve seen maybe 2/3rds of Tyria, I’ve only done 1 dungeon, and I haven’t even touched PvP or WvW yet. And hey… free Halloween party!! And hints of more to come! And when I’ve seen everything there is to see and get tired of the PvP game, I’ll play something else until the expansion comes out and not have to worry about cancelling a subscription fee.
Thanks Anet. Best 60 bucks I’ve ever spent on a game.

I think you don’t have the motivation to level because you don’t see anybody in the zones anymore, at least that’s how I was feeling. I still managed to get to 80 but it was a pretty lonely experience, beautiful zones but nobody in it. On pre launch day the game felt so different seeing so many people in the zones, it made it feel live and you just wanted to follow everyone and didn’t even think about if leveling took long or not.
I made a post about a week or two ago to just add mounts already because I feel that the waypoints is whats causing the zones to be empty. People just teleport anywhere they want so you hardly see anyone anymore.

from my experience even on multiple servers is like this.. if you want to see people and how they level in this game the pattern is…

1 Do all the starter zones
2. When your about level 17 and notice that there’s nobody around and want to see people then go to kessex hills and that’s were everyone is grinding it out on chain de’s until level 30.

3. At level 30 do couple ac’s and craft in cooking, once you get to about 35 or 37 and want to see people again then grind it out with everyone else in harathi hinterlands. Most people are doing the chain de’s there youll see it in chat when people will say " Kol is up! " you can take it all the way to level 50 if you want.

4. after 50 the zones are just dead and for me it was a lonely experience so I spent most of my time in ac or just even hanging out in front of ac. It doesn’t pick up again till around level 70ish in orr is when youll see a bunch of people again.

This has been my experience…

slybri.2946:

Since there’s no monthly subscription fee, I tend to compare GW2 with other $60 single player games.

Thank you. I keep trying to tell people that they’re playing this game with the wrong mindset. I dunno, I think they just want a new treadmill to run on, rather than an actual video game to play.

Btw, that’s what your motivation should be, OP. To play a video game and have fun doing it. If you are having fun, fantastic. Who cares if you level? Your level 80 buddy can come play with you. It’s more fun than Orr anyway. GW2’s designed in such a way that you never really need to pay attention to your level; if you play the game (I said it again!), the levels come to you.

(btw, those of you looking for the treadmill, I highly suggest Rift. It’s virtually the same as that other treadmill, but with better graphics and the best class customization I’ve ever seen.)

Corian.4068:

Thank you. I keep trying to tell people that they’re playing this game with the wrong mindset. I dunno, I think they just want a new treadmill to run on, rather than an actual video game to play.

You’re right, I reckon. But Guild Wars 2 design is a bit schizophrenic, because although the most enjoyable way to play it is probably to just explore, do the content and not worry about levels there are incentives in the game to level fast and farm for rewards. Sometimes the design feels a bit as if one hand didn’t know what the other hand was doing.

I’ve only ever read on the forums of these incidents where people are booted from a dungeon group for being one particular class or another. I’ve never actually seen it happen in-game. Not saying that it doesn’t happen, but I’ve taken dozens of runs into every dungeon on the game — with Guild members as often as pick-ups — and have yet to ever see anybody even mention kicking somebody out of a group simply because they are an ‘unwanted’ class. Seems to me the OP just needs to find some nicer folks to play with.

If he/she keeps playing, anyway. Which I have not even a small iota of care invested into. But trying to paint the game as a bunch of jerkholes who only want Guardians and Warriors in their groups is just not accurate.

Are the starting areas underpopulated compared to what they were a month ago? Absolutely. I guess I don’t care that much, though, as I’ve found the vast, vast majority of PvE content to be perfectly manageable solo. Which I like. Granted, it’s not everybody’s cup o’ tea, but as it stands I’ve found that if I clear a few maps and hit a dynamic event or two between each story quests, I have no problem staying leveled with the personal story content.

LEVEL OR ELSE!!!

Did that work?

Corian.4068:

slybri.2946:

Since there’s no monthly subscription fee, I tend to compare GW2 with other $60 single player games.

Thank you. I keep trying to tell people that they’re playing this game with the wrong mindset. I dunno, I think they just want a new treadmill to run on, rather than an actual video game to play.

Btw, that’s what your motivation should be, OP. To play a video game and have fun doing it. If you are having fun, fantastic. Who cares if you level? Your level 80 buddy can come play with you. It’s more fun than Orr anyway. GW2’s designed in such a way that you never really need to pay attention to your level; if you play the game (I said it again!), the levels come to you.

(btw, those of you looking for the treadmill, I highly suggest Rift. It’s virtually the same as that other treadmill, but with better graphics and the best class customization I’ve ever seen.)

I know this wasn’t meant for me but I highly disagree that you don’t need to pay attention to your level because you actually do have to pay alot of attention to your level as of now. Most people will not run a explorer dungeon with you if your not above the minimum level requirement. Most people prefer level 80s when running exp dungeons so if your at the min level requirement then your not always going to have an easy time finding a group.

Btw I was always under the impression that guildwars 2 wanted to be competitive in the MMO genre and expand this Game. Ive read articles on them saying how they are excited about the future of Guildwars 2 etc and that they want to give the players what they want etc.. People on here make it sound like this is just a video game that you play and then forget about it . Is Anet trying to make this game big or is this no different then a diablo series.. I actually want to hear it from them because if this isn’t a game that is trying to expand then I got my info wrong and it would be time for me to move on.