Guild Wars 2

Basharic.1654:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

A lot of the GW2 community kind of reminds me of that one kid at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

See, when you go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you eat pizza and you play games (or I guess you could spend your whole day in the urine-soaked ball pit). Some games give out tickets. Those tickets can be exchanged for little gifts. To complete the experience, it’s nice to at least go home with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil topper.

But there’s always that one kid who knows the trick. He knows that skee-ball pays out way more tickets than anything else, if you’re good at it. And he’s good at it. So that’s all he plays for 6 hours straight, with only a quick break for pizza. By the end, he’s probably sick of skee-ball. But the tickets! He’s going home with pencil toppers of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

There’s a lot more to do in the game when you’re not chasing the tickets.

This right here is dead on. I’ve been playing since beta, and I know I’m in the ball park of 2500 hours played. 2 k of which is on my main. And I still love the hell out of this game.

It retains my interest through living story, WvW, and sPvP, all of which I do depending on my mood. I have all that time in and STILL not even close to significant rank in PvP, nor a dungeon master title. I hate plugging and my guild is both small and often busy irl.

The key is I never do anything that doesn’t really interest me. It creates this positive feedback loop where every time I Iog in I’m entertained or challenged in some way. Which keeps me logging in.

Yet somehow while playing this game in ways the “uber” players would consider stupid and inefficient, I’ve managed to enjoy the hell out of this game to date, AND still have plenty left to do.

You sir, are exactly like me.

Not sure why people complain about no temple armor. Just guest on a server that has it.

Zelyhn.8069:

There was an endgame: playing fotm 70+, but they are taking this away from us.

Particularly since ascended gear was introduced I shy away from anything in this game that requires a huge time investment. They can just suddenly decide to pull the rug out from under you and you’ve lost your progress. ( like fotm, )

-You can pour time into a legendary and they can nerf the weapon you’re using.

-removing the karma jugs daily/monthly was a huge issue. New players come along and they have to grind it all out.

-crafting? new tiers/materials levels

-Magic find? the gear and runes were expensive then one day poof = its gone.

I would just PVE, get my temple armor and exotic armor and I stop there.

SHM.7628:

Basharic.1654:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

A lot of the GW2 community kind of reminds me of that one kid at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

See, when you go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you eat pizza and you play games (or I guess you could spend your whole day in the urine-soaked ball pit). Some games give out tickets. Those tickets can be exchanged for little gifts. To complete the experience, it’s nice to at least go home with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil topper.

But there’s always that one kid who knows the trick. He knows that skee-ball pays out way more tickets than anything else, if you’re good at it. And he’s good at it. So that’s all he plays for 6 hours straight, with only a quick break for pizza. By the end, he’s probably sick of skee-ball. But the tickets! He’s going home with pencil toppers of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

There’s a lot more to do in the game when you’re not chasing the tickets.

This right here is dead on. I’ve been playing since beta, and I know I’m in the ball park of 2500 hours played. 2 k of which is on my main. And I still love the hell out of this game.

It retains my interest through living story, WvW, and sPvP, all of which I do depending on my mood. I have all that time in and STILL not even close to significant rank in PvP, nor a dungeon master title. I hate plugging and my guild is both small and often busy irl.

The key is I never do anything that doesn’t really interest me. It creates this positive feedback loop where every time I Iog in I’m entertained or challenged in some way. Which keeps me logging in.

Yet somehow while playing this game in ways the “uber” players would consider stupid and inefficient, I’ve managed to enjoy the hell out of this game to date, AND still have plenty left to do.

You make some very valid points. You should only do what you enjoy. I’d never enjoy a great deal of what this game has to offer because much of it is for the uber player. I find what i like and I do it too.

Anyway, the intent behind my post is that I like to PVE. I put in the hours get to 80 nad I’ve done all the PVE I enjoy already. I think it’s more a question of the content not being grated properly than it being bad per se.

I am not a gear chaser either. There’s really only one set of gear you are going to focus on That is your top tier 80 gear. But why? I’ve run through the content without it. The same could be said about crafting. Why bother?

Gating isn’t going to fix your issue. You are making the choice to ignore 2/3 of what the game offers and then on top of that ignore half of the segment you do focus on.

The thing is even if you treat GW2 as a single player experience, you’ve long since gotten your money’s worth and will continue to get added value on into the future. If you’ve currently done all that interests you, move on to some other game and come back when they add something new. Buying this game is literally a lifetime pass to Tyria and all it offers with no other commitment on your part.

In fact, the very thing you say is a problem helps you do this: Your level 80s are already maxed out and adequately geared to deal with anything new ArenaNet might add. You can jump in, do the new stuff and pop right back off again.

I’ve just had a guildie come back after months away. The guild got her up to speed on the latest popular builds, then went and did living story together. All she missed out on was content, some of the most interesting bits of which are about to be re-added into fractals, the accompanying skins, and getting laurels.

ArchonWing.9480:

Not sure why people complain about no temple armor. Just guest on a server that has it.

if you were talking about me. It took me three days of guesting to get the specific armor I wanted. the whole “nightmare within” living story had Orr pretty empty. It’s far from impossible to do. It was a pain though at that specific time.

SHM.7628:

ArchonWing.9480:

Not sure why people complain about no temple armor. Just guest on a server that has it.

if you were talking about me. It took me three days of guesting to get the specific armor I wanted. the whole “nightmare within” living story had Orr pretty empty. It’s far from impossible to do. It was a pain though at that specific time.

I see this complaint a lot, so it’s not just you. It’s also tangential to this discussion meaning it wouldn’t really solve your issues anyways I guess. But it’s my feeling that everyone that has the karma and the wps should be able to get it without any hitches.

Though I’m not sure why it would take so long. I regularly go down there for temple armor and it takes 10 minutes to find the right server; there’s a number of sites that have information on which sites have them or not. My complaint with temple armor is the really bizzare stat combinations if you want the whole set and lack of intresting stats in general.

However, I guess they really do need to fix Orr a bit. A new living story down there would be spectacular but they must hate those maps or something.

end game is to dress up your pve doll and toss it with other pve dolls in an arena called wvwvw.

SHM.7628:

I just finished leveling a necro and it dawned on me. I grinded away to 80 It’s finally time to get get my gear, but I did everything. The maps entierly open. By 80 your build is pretty etched in stone.

Of course, I can’t get any temple armor because good luck getting one open durring a living story event. I would like to do get the temples for fun anyway. Let’s face it, Orr is a graveyard anyway. (no pun intended.)

Yes there’s living story, but that is dead in a week after release. Plus it further kills the other maps. Personal story? Once you don’t need the XP what is the point? Its usually an unrewarding pain.

When you leveled and geared, you played solo and at best pugged some dungeons or did some zerg events. In order for you to find the “end game” here, you need to look at your community and your guild. Maybe you need to switch guilds.

Get on your servers voice chat, there are many options for the so called end game. Organized WvW, dungeon runs, various bosses. To me, best end game is to beat faces in WvW in the most shiny and stylish way possible with my legendary and completely geared out toons yours may vary, but either way, if you do not get involved in your community or leave a dead guild if you are in one, then your game is pretty much over except maybe become a T6 farmer for legendaries.

alcopaul.2156:

end game is to dress up your pve doll and toss it with other pve dolls in an arena called wvwvw.

Or to progress in an unlimited dungeon that is both limited and reset upon new content.

Tongku.5326:

SHM.7628:

I just finished leveling a necro and it dawned on me. I grinded away to 80 It’s finally time to get get my gear, but I did everything. The maps entierly open. By 80 your build is pretty etched in stone.

Of course, I can’t get any temple armor because good luck getting one open durring a living story event. I would like to do get the temples for fun anyway. Let’s face it, Orr is a graveyard anyway. (no pun intended.)

Yes there’s living story, but that is dead in a week after release. Plus it further kills the other maps. Personal story? Once you don’t need the XP what is the point? Its usually an unrewarding pain.

When you leveled and geared, you played solo and at best pugged some dungeons or did some zerg events. In order for you to find the “end game” here, you need to look at your community and your guild. Maybe you need to switch guilds.

Get on your servers voice chat, there are many options for the so called end game. Organized WvW, dungeon runs, various bosses. To me, best end game is to beat faces in WvW in the most shiny and stylish way possible with my legendary and completely geared out toons yours may vary, but either way, if you do not get involved in your community or leave a dead guild if you are in one, then your game is pretty much over except maybe become a T6 farmer for legendaries.

TY for the suggestions but WvW/PvP is not my thing. I despise gear chasing too. I have neither the time nor the will for that. When I play I just like to do my PVE thing, some living story and my daily/mothly achievements

I probably wouldn’t make a good guildmate now because my RL schedule has gotten even more busy as of late.

I wasn’t even really complaining about no there being endgame, just musing. I don’t really think there is an end game. Ironicly, I think its more about bad structure than it is about lack of content.

there are 2 choices for endgame in GW2:

Mindlessly run the same dungeon over and over (fractals)

Try to make a name for yourself in WvW (a system that doesnt show enemy names or deathspam because it might hurt feelings; PvP is about ego Anet, let us have our names known!).

IndigoSundown.5419:

SHM.7628:

There’s no necessecity for a toon to be 80 to wear max gear. look at GW1. You could buy max gear as soon as you could get to it and afford it. By the time I was doing my alts i could get max gear at very low levels.

To be fair, the stats on gear in GW make up a lot less of your character’s capabilities than it does in most MMO’s, including GW2. Still, I’d have to agree that I found the GW gear method more fun than I find the GW2 method, or the WoW method for that matter.

I liked the GW gear method better too. Not to say it wasn’t without its costs. You paid for it and if you wanted the fancy stuff then you really paid for it.

I just liked the progression better in GW. You need to unlock skills and learn to use them. You unlocked your heroes. You set your skills on everyone. You runed an armored everyone. It was more of a process. You got better over time.

It was never about paying for stats. You got to max level and armor relatively quickly. You became good from mastering the game, not from your armor.

Moshari.8570:

Have you seen your achievements tab?

End game. Go get your achievements….done every mini dungeon? done ever goggles? done every jumping puzzle? done your slayer achieves? Dungeons can be done with LFG…I only PUG dungeons and have never waited more than 10 minutes for a group…even during living story. Fractals? Got your world explorer?

People who complain about no endgame haven’t actually looked. I have found more to do here than in WoW because I don’t need a group of 40 people to do GW2 “endgame”.

Yes, I’ve seen the achievemnts tab. I’v got close to all of slayer done. That is because I like that one. Plus It gets done by in the normal course of playing However, I don’t go in for all that mindless busy work. Of course I didn’t go for GWAMM in this games predecessor either. That stuff is for the hardcore, not me. Busy work is not endgame.

Play dress up, get all tiers of cultural, for all races, max all crafting skills, level all class’s to 80, master DES, explore wave, master all dungeon paths, grind fotm, etc etc etc

Now you might say they are boring, but what I’m saying is, they are all endgame. Oh, did I forgot to say get legendary, then get another one, and another…then there spvp…oh my

Honestly, my endgame is trying to solo champions all the time. It is very doable with full exotics and probably quite easy with ascended. This used to be just a mere exercise in kitten-measuring, but since they added bag loot tables to them, it’s a little less obscure.

It worked for me. It made the game a lot harder so I started investing more time into building properly and reading visual cues on monsters with the idea that if I get hit once, even if I live, I’ve probably lost. Transforms the game from being a simple 1 spam to a very reactive experience.

There is an endgame, but that endgame is not satisfying. What people want with endgame content is a challenge, like the final boss of a game, where you use everything you learnt so far to conquer it and have your skills tested to the limit.

That exists in GW2. Arah, FotM, etc all do that. But you get nothing out of beating that challenge. There’s nothing you can’t get in P3 which you can’t get in the other paths, and theres nothing desirable you can get exclusively from very high fractal levels (40+) even after the update (tonics are not very popular).

Yes, for some people the challenge is the reward but this is a MMO. MMOs have always largely have been about the loot and there is not enough loot in endgame content to justify doing them.

SHM.7628:

Basharic.1654:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

A lot of the GW2 community kind of reminds me of that one kid at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

See, when you go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you eat pizza and you play games (or I guess you could spend your whole day in the urine-soaked ball pit). Some games give out tickets. Those tickets can be exchanged for little gifts. To complete the experience, it’s nice to at least go home with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil topper.

But there’s always that one kid who knows the trick. He knows that skee-ball pays out way more tickets than anything else, if you’re good at it. And he’s good at it. So that’s all he plays for 6 hours straight, with only a quick break for pizza. By the end, he’s probably sick of skee-ball. But the tickets! He’s going home with pencil toppers of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

There’s a lot more to do in the game when you’re not chasing the tickets.

This right here is dead on. I’ve been playing since beta, and I know I’m in the ball park of 2500 hours played. 2 k of which is on my main. And I still love the hell out of this game.

It retains my interest through living story, WvW, and sPvP, all of which I do depending on my mood. I have all that time in and STILL not even close to significant rank in PvP, nor a dungeon master title. I hate plugging and my guild is both small and often busy irl.

The key is I never do anything that doesn’t really interest me. It creates this positive feedback loop where every time I Iog in I’m entertained or challenged in some way. Which keeps me logging in.

Yet somehow while playing this game in ways the “uber” players would consider stupid and inefficient, I’ve managed to enjoy the hell out of this game to date, AND still have plenty left to do.

You make some very valid points. You should only do what you enjoy. I’d never enjoy a great deal of what this game has to offer because much of it is for the uber player. I find what i like and I do it too.

Anyway, the intent behind my post is that I like to PVE. I put in the hours get to 80 nad I’ve done all the PVE I enjoy already. I think it’s more a question of the content not being grated properly than it being bad per se.

I am not a gear chaser either. There’s really only one set of gear you are going to focus on That is your top tier 80 gear. But why? I’ve run through the content without it. The same could be said about crafting. Why bother?

Ironically, the so-called uber player detest this game for catering to so-called casuals (which you seem to be and isn’t and actual pejorative, as many take for granted), so evidently both of you hate the game for exactly the opposite reasons. Who is right? Perhaps both are wrong by focusing in areas of the game that weren’t necessarily meant for the kind of players they are.

There’s plenty to enjoy for your type, but it’s also fair not to love what’s available-that doesn’t mean the game is a failure but that it may not be for you. either that or you must approach it differently, accepting it for what it is rather than for what you wish it was.

^ that’s because a lot of those uber players never did any of the uber content. They just did champ farms, AC, CoF and thought that was it, the top tier of content in the game.

And they’re kind of right. You don’t need to go Arah P4 etc to get BiS gear, and, in fact there’s very little point in doing the hardest content the game has to offer, especially if you don’t care about vanity gear.

If they put some very useful skills or traits as drops from Arah P4, I’m quite sure you’ll get less people complaining PvE is too easy.

Star Ace.5207:

SHM.7628:

Basharic.1654:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

A lot of the GW2 community kind of reminds me of that one kid at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

See, when you go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you eat pizza and you play games (or I guess you could spend your whole day in the urine-soaked ball pit). Some games give out tickets. Those tickets can be exchanged for little gifts. To complete the experience, it’s nice to at least go home with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil topper.

But there’s always that one kid who knows the trick. He knows that skee-ball pays out way more tickets than anything else, if you’re good at it. And he’s good at it. So that’s all he plays for 6 hours straight, with only a quick break for pizza. By the end, he’s probably sick of skee-ball. But the tickets! He’s going home with pencil toppers of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

There’s a lot more to do in the game when you’re not chasing the tickets.

This right here is dead on. I’ve been playing since beta, and I know I’m in the ball park of 2500 hours played. 2 k of which is on my main. And I still love the hell out of this game.

It retains my interest through living story, WvW, and sPvP, all of which I do depending on my mood. I have all that time in and STILL not even close to significant rank in PvP, nor a dungeon master title. I hate plugging and my guild is both small and often busy irl.

The key is I never do anything that doesn’t really interest me. It creates this positive feedback loop where every time I Iog in I’m entertained or challenged in some way. Which keeps me logging in.

Yet somehow while playing this game in ways the “uber” players would consider stupid and inefficient, I’ve managed to enjoy the hell out of this game to date, AND still have plenty left to do.

You make some very valid points. You should only do what you enjoy. I’d never enjoy a great deal of what this game has to offer because much of it is for the uber player. I find what i like and I do it too.

Anyway, the intent behind my post is that I like to PVE. I put in the hours get to 80 nad I’ve done all the PVE I enjoy already. I think it’s more a question of the content not being grated properly than it being bad per se.

I am not a gear chaser either. There’s really only one set of gear you are going to focus on That is your top tier 80 gear. But why? I’ve run through the content without it. The same could be said about crafting. Why bother?

Ironically, the so-called uber player detest this game for catering to so-called casuals (which you seem to be and isn’t and actual pejorative, as many take for granted), so evidently both of you hate the game for exactly the opposite reasons. Who is right? Perhaps both are wrong by focusing in areas of the game that weren’t necessarily meant for the kind of players they are.

There’s plenty to enjoy for your type, but it’s also fair not to love what’s available-that doesn’t mean the game is a failure but that it may not be for you. either that or you must approach it differently, accepting it for what it is rather than for what you wish it was.

Here’s the funny part. I don’t dislike the game. I have to be truthful and say the game has been mishandled quite a bit, but failure? No. As you so aptly put it, I am a casual player. I realize that I can’t expect everything in the game to be for me. I’m not getting legendaries or culteral armor. That’s fine.

Example: Look at crafting.I like crafting. I would never have the real life time to sink into it to master it. I felt unfairly discuded from halloween crafting by the material demands. Obviosly if I am not hardcore, I won’t have the materials or the gold to buy them.

Anyway, I just think people are right when they say there’s no endgame. Seems to be a consistent theme throughout the game that its fun, but there is ultimately no payoff. That can be frustrating.

Summing it up: I like GW2 but the end is anticlimactic.

Xae Isareth.1364:

There is an endgame, but that endgame is not satisfying. What people want with endgame content is a challenge, like the final boss of a game, where you use everything you learnt so far to conquer it and have your skills tested to the limit.

That exists in GW2. Arah, FotM, etc all do that. But you get nothing out of beating that challenge. There’s nothing you can’t get in P3 which you can’t get in the other paths, and theres nothing desirable you can get exclusively from very high fractal levels (40+) even after the update (tonics are not very popular).

Yes, for some people the challenge is the reward but this is a MMO. MMOs have always largely have been about the loot and there is not enough loot in endgame content to justify doing them.

As much as a lot of people would like to disagree with you, I think you’re right. MMO players are loot minded. The last 2 living storiies (Halloween and the nightmare within) They got the mini’s and achievements from them fast and then they sat untouched.

I liked the nightmare tower instance and mad king laberinth. After a week they were just frustrating to do. Most of the PVE sits empty until a meta event begins and then it is flooded. They don’t flood it for the event the flood it for the chest/ loot bag. Or they zerg train champs in queensdale. Mindnumbingly boring, but it’s for loot.

I agree, fixing loot would help a great deal with end game. It certainly wouldn’t fix everything, but its a good start.

SHM.7628:

Qaelyn.7612:

SHM.7628:

What do i want? I’d like to be fully geared and leveled before I hit 80 and all the content is done. What’s the point of finishing everything first? That is like getting all warmed up before a nap.

Huh? How can you be fully leveled when you haven’t hit the level cap? And how can you wear gear when you haven’t reached its level yet? This makes no sense to me.

Your questions: How can you be fully leveled when you haven’t hit the level cap?

I’ve pretty much unlocked all PVE maps from stater areas to cursed shore by the time I ding 80. I did it equipped with level 70 greens and weapons. I hit 80. I get the gear and I am all dressed up with no place to go. No hard mode and no additional maps.

You might have ‘unlocked them’ in the sense that you’ve been to the map and the name now shows up on your world map, but you can’t seriously claim to have done everything – 100% on all the Explorer titles, 100% World Completion (these two are different) and played through all or most of the dynamic events before you got to level 80. I haven’t done the maths but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible because even a fraction of that would give you enough XP on it’s own to get to 80.

If you think ‘unlocking’ a map is all there is to it then that’d be a big part of your problem with this game – you’re not seeing, or ignoring, a very large chunk of the content.

Think of it more like Skyrim (and the other Elder Scrolls games) – there you only have one (overworld) map and as soon as you’re out of the tutorial you can wander freely around it. But no one would seriously say “Well I’ve unlocked the map so I don’t have anything left to do except the stupid side quests” would they?

Have you helped out the Bunny Acolytes in Wayfarer Foothills? Found a way into Guutra’s Steading in Lornar’s Pass and found out what her secret is? Completed the Flame Temple Tombs in Diessa Plateau? Become the champion of the Battle Pit in Gendarran Fields? No? Then you haven’t done everything. And those are just random examples off the top of my head, there are many, many more events and activities I could have used as examples.

Devs: “We will make a game having no endgame. The entire game is the endgame.”
Players: “This game sucks, it has no endgame.”

I mean honestly…do players even read what they are buying these days?

Personally – I hate the traditional form of “endgame”. When a game I bought and enjoyed suddenly morphs into something completely different, usually something I don’t even want to do. Because “endgame” most often means a stupid and pointless gear treadmill. And don’t even get me started about the raiding content this gear usually drops in – these five hour long endeavours, four of which are usually being spent getting set up, waiting for people’s afk and bickering about who’s getting what loot or who caused the latest team wipe with a slight mistake are NOT my idea of fun.

Me? I usually quit a MMO when I max out my level on 2-3 characters. Because to me “endgame” really means just that: End of the game. I am glad that GW2 is not like that.

What they should do is be more consequential about their own design. At least for a game that’s all about collecting good looking armour and weapons GW2 has a remarkable lack of good looking armour and weapons to collect. They really need to add more (and more different) skins for us to hunt. My ranger really doesn’t need another trenchcoat…

Kimyrielle.3826:

Devs: “We will make a game having no endgame. The entire game is the endgame.”
Players: “This game sucks, it has no endgame.”

This sounds about right.

I think the elephant in the room here is WoW. I hate to bring it up but it is essentially the comparison being made, even if it hasn’t been mentioned yet.

The reason people say there’s no endgame is because they miss WoW endgame content, especially the early days before Blizz did something they didn’t like, and they bought GW2 blindly thinking it’d be a WoW replacer. GW2 developers were pretty clear on what they hoped to deliver, especially on what they wanted to set them apart from other MMOs.

Danikat.8537:

SHM.7628:

Qaelyn.7612:

SHM.7628:

What do i want? I’d like to be fully geared and leveled before I hit 80 and all the content is done. What’s the point of finishing everything first? That is like getting all warmed up before a nap.

Huh? How can you be fully leveled when you haven’t hit the level cap? And how can you wear gear when you haven’t reached its level yet? This makes no sense to me.

Your questions: How can you be fully leveled when you haven’t hit the level cap?

I’ve pretty much unlocked all PVE maps from stater areas to cursed shore by the time I ding 80. I did it equipped with level 70 greens and weapons. I hit 80. I get the gear and I am all dressed up with no place to go. No hard mode and no additional maps.

You might have ‘unlocked them’ in the sense that you’ve been to the map and the name now shows up on your world map, but you can’t seriously claim to have done everything – 100% on all the Explorer titles, 100% World Completion (these two are different) and played through all or most of the dynamic events before you got to level 80. I haven’t done the maths but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible because even a fraction of that would give you enough XP on it’s own to get to 80.

If you think ‘unlocking’ a map is all there is to it then that’d be a big part of your problem with this game – you’re not seeing, or ignoring, a very large chunk of the content.

Think of it more like Skyrim (and the other Elder Scrolls games) – there you only have one (overworld) map and as soon as you’re out of the tutorial you can wander freely around it. But no one would seriously say “Well I’ve unlocked the map so I don’t have anything left to do except the stupid side quests” would they?

Have you helped out the Bunny Acolytes in Wayfarer Foothills? Found a way into Guutra’s Steading in Lornar’s Pass and found out what her secret is? Completed the Flame Temple Tombs in Diessa Plateau? Become the champion of the Battle Pit in Gendarran Fields? No? Then you haven’t done everything. And those are just random examples off the top of my head, there are many, many more events and activities I could have used as examples.

I have maxed out 7 toons. have i gotten every achievement with every toon? No! and I don’t want too! I am not one of those players. If you’ve my posts on this thread, youd see that i am not complaining about a shortage of content. There’s plenty of content, it’s just not in the endgame.

I think this is more about progression and grating than it is about specific content. BTW, you gave some very good examples. Yes, I visit in on that stuff sometimes. Am I going to do it 8 times? No.

Does stuff that I’ve done in lower levels ungeared qualify as endgame? For me it doesn’t. Perhaps this is could turn into philosophical debate on what endgame is. I’m sure different people have different ideas on that.

Perhaps this is a pitfall of a sandbox game? You get thrown in and you do whatever. It’s not truly a sandbox game in that it’s so level based. You can’t do whatever you want. You are still bound by 80 levels .

Kimyrielle.3826:

Devs: “We will make a game having no endgame. The entire game is the endgame.”
Players: “This game sucks, it has no endgame.”

I mean honestly…do players even read what they are buying these days?

Personally – I hate the traditional form of “endgame”. When a game I bought and enjoyed suddenly morphs into something completely different, usually something I don’t even want to do. Because “endgame” most often means a stupid and pointless gear treadmill. And don’t even get me started about the raiding content this gear usually drops in – these five hour long endeavours, four of which are usually being spent getting set up, waiting for people’s afk and bickering about who’s getting what loot or who caused the latest team wipe with a slight mistake are NOT my idea of fun.

Me? I usually quit a MMO when I max out my level on 2-3 characters. Because to me “endgame” really means just that: End of the game. I am glad that GW2 is not like that.

What they should do is be more consequential about their own design. At least for a game that’s all about collecting good looking armour and weapons GW2 has a remarkable lack of good looking armour and weapons to collect. They really need to add more (and more different) skins for us to hunt. My ranger really doesn’t need another trenchcoat…

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it. What the devs meant when they said that was that everything in the game will always be valid, which is different from having no endgame.

That’s where the problem lies. There’s the difficulty progression. Arah is definitely harder than AC, but there’s no point in doing Arah P4 because AC gives you the same rewards and you can just do the much easier other paths if you want tokens. They’ve basically created an inversion of the traditional endgame problem and made such that the ‘startgame’ invalidates the endgame.

The devs certainly did not mean that the game is basically the same at the beginning as the end.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it.

I stopped reading there, because I totally disagree with that. That’s YOUR opinion and not the law of nature you make it sound as.

I don’t play games to be challenged and brag with my loot, but to get entertained. I don’t mind difficult content in the game for the people who want that (GW2 has that!), but I totally mind being offered ONLY difficult content from a certain point on and every worthwhile reward being offered ONLY there. Which most ‘endgames’ do, for most often there is nothing to do except raids, raids, raids. Which is why I end up quitting these games.

Kimyrielle.3826:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it.

I stopped reading there, because I totally disagree with that. That’s YOUR opinion and not the law of nature you make it sound as.

I don’t play games to be challenged and brag with my loot, but to get entertained. I don’t mind difficult content in the game for the people who want that (GW2 has that!), but I totally mind being offered ONLY difficult content from a certain point on and every worthwhile reward being offered ONLY there. Which most ‘endgames’ do, for most often there is nothing to do except raids, raids, raids. Which is why I end up quitting these games.

There is room in the same game for players who want progressive difficulty and those who don’t play for challenge. However, the loot issue always rears its ugly head. Then, it turns out the demographic that wants challenge is actually composed of both players who just want challenge, and players who want the challenge to be a qualifier to getting the best loot unless you face that challenge.

GW handled this better, imo, than most games. There was challenging content with exclusive rewards. None of the loot was stat improvements, which defused a lot of the objections. The best skins could be sold, providing another outlet for those who wanted the skin and could farm — but who were unlucky with RNG (or whatever). Also, the elite instances could be completed by almost anyone with friends, but the less skilled weren’t speed running them. Hard mode added even more challenge, but the rewards were usually just a better chance at the skin, not an exclusivity barrier.

Personally, I think the GW model did a better job of appealing to multiple types of players than either raid games or GW2.

Kimyrielle.3826:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it.

I stopped reading there, because I totally disagree with that. That’s YOUR opinion and not the law of nature you make it sound as.

I think you did yourself a disservice by not finishing his post. He was starting to make a a pretty valid point. The game progresses until about level 70, and then progression grinds to a halt.

I am by no means hardcore and finished the maps by the level 75 with green level 70 gear. If I’m an average player then where does that leave everyone else?

I hit 80, bought my exotics, but I had no were new to go with them. What was the point? Perhaps if there were some level 80-85 maps? Or a purpose to play on with my geared 80? Not sure, but something was missing.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Kimyrielle.3826:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it.

I stopped reading there, because I totally disagree with that. That’s YOUR opinion and not the law of nature you make it sound as.

I don’t play games to be challenged and brag with my loot, but to get entertained. I don’t mind difficult content in the game for the people who want that (GW2 has that!), but I totally mind being offered ONLY difficult content from a certain point on and every worthwhile reward being offered ONLY there. Which most ‘endgames’ do, for most often there is nothing to do except raids, raids, raids. Which is why I end up quitting these games.

There is room in the same game for players who want progressive difficulty and those who don’t play for challenge. However, the loot issue always rears its ugly head. Then, it turns out the demographic that wants challenge is actually composed of both players who just want challenge, and players who want the challenge to be a qualifier to getting the best loot unless you face that challenge.

GW handled this better, imo, than most games. There was challenging content with exclusive rewards. None of the loot was stat improvements, which defused a lot of the objections. The best skins could be sold, providing another outlet for those who wanted the skin and could farm — but who were unlucky with RNG (or whatever). Also, the elite instances could be completed by almost anyone with friends, but the less skilled weren’t speed running them. Hard mode added even more challenge, but the rewards were usually just a better chance at the skin, not an exclusivity barrier.

Personally, I think the GW model did a better job of appealing to multiple types of players than either raid games or GW2.

I agree 100%.

SHM.7628:

Kimyrielle.3826:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it.

I stopped reading there, because I totally disagree with that. That’s YOUR opinion and not the law of nature you make it sound as.

I think you did yourself a disservice by not finishing his post right there. He was starting to make a a pretty valid point. The game progresses until about level 70, and then progression grinds to a halt.

I am by no means hardcore and finished the maps by the level 75 with green level 70’s gear. If I’m an average player then where does that leave everyone else?

I hit 80, bought my exotics, but I had no were new to go with them. What was the point? Perhaps if there were some level 80-85 maps? Or a purpose to play on with my geared 80? Not sure, but something was missing.

Look, some of the things you say make me wonder if your basic problem with this game is that you wrongly assume game design approaches from other games to make any sense in GW2 when they are not even meant to. Like…gear progression. Yes, you’re absolutely right, there is no content in the game you totally -need- Exotics for. Which you think is a problem, but in isn’t, for GW2 isn’t about gear progression and the devs repeatedly said so. Yes, there -is- gear progression in the game (we have got Ascended and Legendary tiers, after all), but it’s just…vanity. You get legendary weapons for no other purpose than having a legendary and it being pretty. In WoW, you needed whatever their equivalent for legendary weapons was to get certain content done, for WoW was designed around vertical gear progression, while GW2 is designed around vanity.

I realize that some people will find this less than satisfying. Me? I love it. Which is why there are games catering to both groups and GW2 seems to be catering more to me than you, perhaps. What I don’t get is that people continue to complain about GW2 not being what it’s not even meant to be. It’s like buying a BMW and then complaining about it not being a Mercedes.

Kimyrielle.3826:

SHM.7628:

Kimyrielle.3826:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Whether it has an endgame or not, every game needs progressive difficulty with a purpose for it.

I stopped reading there, because I totally disagree with that. That’s YOUR opinion and not the law of nature you make it sound as.

I think you did yourself a disservice by not finishing his post right there. He was starting to make a a pretty valid point. The game progresses until about level 70, and then progression grinds to a halt.

I am by no means hardcore and finished the maps by the level 75 with green level 70’s gear. If I’m an average player then where does that leave everyone else?

I hit 80, bought my exotics, but I had no were new to go with them. What was the point? Perhaps if there were some level 80-85 maps? Or a purpose to play on with my geared 80? Not sure, but something was missing.

Look, some of the things you say make me wonder if your basic problem with this game is that you wrongly assume game design approaches from other games to make any sense in GW2 when they are not even meant to. Like…gear progression. Yes, you’re absolutely right, there is no content in the game you totally -need- Exotics for. Which you think is a problem, but in isn’t, for GW2 isn’t about gear progression and the devs repeatedly said so. Yes, there -is- gear progression in the game (we have got Ascended and Legendary tiers, after all), but it’s just…vanity. You get legendary weapons for no other purpose than having a legendary and it being pretty. In WoW, you needed whatever their equivalent for legendary weapons was to get certain content done, for WoW was designed around vertical gear progression, while GW2 is designed around vanity.

I realize that some people will find this less than satisfying. Me? I love it. Which is why there are games catering to both groups and GW2 seems to be catering more to me than you, perhaps. What I don’t get is that people continue to complain about GW2 not being what it’s not even meant to be. It’s like buying a BMW and then complaining about it not being a Mercedes.

I do see where your coming from. However I don’t think that GW2 gets the balance right.

There is a gear grind in this game. Ascended gives stat bonuses That is in my opinion a problem. I don’t want to be a hardcore elite dungeon runner. Yet I don’t also think I should be discluded from having top tier specs on my armor.

If on the other hand there is in fact no need for exotics or above then they should be removed entirely. All they do is create elitists in dungeon running. skins are fine I’m of the opinion that there’s too much armor in this game anyway. Crafting and armor are a convoluted mess.

If I work for my exotics/ascended why shouldn’t I have a viable PVE environment (endgame) in which to test and use them?

Scrambles.2604:

i think for a lot of people WvW is endgame.

You mean WvW is the only end-game that stays enjoyable. Yep you’re right. And yet, it’s the champion farms that give the best rewards. Does Anet want people to go back to the empty and repetitive PvE world?

Sirendor.1394:

Scrambles.2604:

i think for a lot of people WvW is endgame.

You mean WvW is the only end-game that stays enjoyable. Yep you’re right. And yet, it’s the champion farms that give the best rewards. Does Anet want people to go back to the empty and repetitive PvE world?

i dunno, i find WvW rewarding in itself…

…in those rare instances where it plays like its supposed to, haha.

I love big zerg v zerg battles, but otherwise, i see no difference between a zerg train dropping keep lords and a champ train dropping champs. Except at least the WvW trains function like a contested zone and i can experience that wonderful tension of not knowing if i’m gunna get pounced on by an enemy.

I do find myself returning to PvE for living story, though.

The simple truth is that there is no endgame here as found in traditional MMOrpg’s.

The creators wanted an inclusive game where all content was accessible by everyone with a minimum amount of playing effort involved. Most other MMO’s practice exclusivity, where progression is required and one of the easiest ways to make things exclusive with as little work as possible is by gear gating content.

They could have progression related endgame content here if they so choose, without relying on gear progression gating, but they have chosen to not go that route. I don’t believe we will ever see true end game progression here, outside of chasing better particle effects. It’s good for some players, for some it’s not.

This truly is a game for casual MMO players, and it will always have a place in the market I believe.

But for players who desire conventional end game progression, this game just doesn’t have it. The good news is that there is a game coming that is the flip side of this coin, hopefully, with Wildstar. Will just have to wait and see.

killcannon.2576:

The simple truth is that there is no endgame here as found in traditional MMOrpg’s.

The creators wanted an inclusive game where all content was accessible by everyone with a minimum amount of playing effort involved. Most other MMO’s practice exclusivity, where progression is required and one of the easiest ways to make things exclusive with as little work as possible is by gear gating content.

They could have progression related endgame content here if they so choose, without relying on gear progression gating, but they have chosen to not go that route. I don’t believe we will ever see true end game progression here, outside of chasing better particle effects. It’s good for some players, for some it’s not.

This truly is a game for casual MMO players, and it will always have a place in the market I believe.

But for players who desire conventional end game progression, this game just doesn’t have it. The good news is that there is a game coming that is the flip side of this coin, hopefully, with Wildstar. Will just have to wait and see.

I think when all is said and done, you hit the nail on the head.

My opinion is that this game has tried to be too many thing for too many people and has fallen short as a result in almost every area. Often they vacillate between extremes without finding a good balance. It’s a game of paradoxes.

-They offered a low grind game then put 80 levels and a gear grind in it.

-One minute there’s almost no karma gain. The next it’s raining karma jugs, then its dry again.

-Then they say play how you like, then you get slapped with DR when you do.

Frankly, I think they should separate PVE and PVP/WvW completely. It’s caused more balance problems than anything else. Bouncing back and forth for rewards has only made maps empty. They also mishandled how guesting works.

SHM.7628:

killcannon.2576:

The simple truth is that there is no endgame here as found in traditional MMOrpg’s.

The creators wanted an inclusive game where all content was accessible by everyone with a minimum amount of playing effort involved. Most other MMO’s practice exclusivity, where progression is required and one of the easiest ways to make things exclusive with as little work as possible is by gear gating content.

They could have progression related endgame content here if they so choose, without relying on gear progression gating, but they have chosen to not go that route. I don’t believe we will ever see true end game progression here, outside of chasing better particle effects. It’s good for some players, for some it’s not.

This truly is a game for casual MMO players, and it will always have a place in the market I believe.

But for players who desire conventional end game progression, this game just doesn’t have it. The good news is that there is a game coming that is the flip side of this coin, hopefully, with Wildstar. Will just have to wait and see.

I think when all is said and done, you hit the nail on the head.

My opinion is that this game has tried to be too many thing for too many people and has fallen short as a result in almost every area. Often they vacillate between extremes without finding a good balance. It’s a game of paradoxes.

-They offered a low grind game then put 80 levels and a gear grind in it.

-One minute there’s almost no karma gain. The next it’s raining karma jugs, then its dry again.

-Then they say play how you like, then you get slapped with DR when you do.

Frankly, I think they should separate PVE and PVP/WvW completely. It’s caused more balance problems than anything else. Bouncing back and forth for rewards has only made maps empty. They also mishandled how guesting works.

They have tried to gather diverse groups of differing play styles together and keep them happy. For the most part, I don’t believe it has worked out quite as well as they might have hoped it would. They may have been better served to just have bled the initial players who wanted more gear progression, and stayed true to their original ideas.

One of the things I feel is truly lacking in the game is a unified vision of who exactly they want to play their game. WoW tried going down the same path and lost a lot of subscribers because of it. They have successfully (arguable) weathered the storm because they had already had a huge initial install base, but the longer they don’t have a clear focus as to who their target audience is, they will continue to bleed. GW2 doesn’t quite have the same kind of wiggle room. While wanting to be all things to all gamers looks good on paper and to statisticians, it doesn’t always play out too successfully when implemented.

The dichotomy we see in GW2 is mostly because of these divergent groups of players. By instituting one change in a certain direction, they veer away from one group, then they almost always over correct back in the other direction, or just institute something on a wildly different tangent. People wanted better rewards for champs (they did indeed need something better than nothing), and they went too far and made them too profitable and now that is all people do. It seems that everything looks like a nail because the only thing they know how to use is a hammer. We have seen very little finesse in the first year of GW2.

I’m not sure if they ever will achieve a satisfactory balance without making some drastic changes that will lose them a portion of their audience. But in the end, they may be better off if they do.

killcannon.2576:

SHM.7628:

killcannon.2576:

The simple truth is that there is no endgame here as found in traditional MMOrpg’s.

The creators wanted an inclusive game where all content was accessible by everyone with a minimum amount of playing effort involved. Most other MMO’s practice exclusivity, where progression is required and one of the easiest ways to make things exclusive with as little work as possible is by gear gating content.

They could have progression related endgame content here if they so choose, without relying on gear progression gating, but they have chosen to not go that route. I don’t believe we will ever see true end game progression here, outside of chasing better particle effects. It’s good for some players, for some it’s not.

This truly is a game for casual MMO players, and it will always have a place in the market I believe.

But for players who desire conventional end game progression, this game just doesn’t have it. The good news is that there is a game coming that is the flip side of this coin, hopefully, with Wildstar. Will just have to wait and see.

I think when all is said and done, you hit the nail on the head.

My opinion is that this game has tried to be too many thing for too many people and has fallen short as a result in almost every area. Often they vacillate between extremes without finding a good balance. It’s a game of paradoxes.

-They offered a low grind game then put 80 levels and a gear grind in it.

-One minute there’s almost no karma gain. The next it’s raining karma jugs, then its dry again.

-Then they say play how you like, then you get slapped with DR when you do.

Frankly, I think they should separate PVE and PVP/WvW completely. It’s caused more balance problems than anything else. Bouncing back and forth for rewards has only made maps empty. They also mishandled how guesting works.

They have tried to gather diverse groups of differing play styles together and keep them happy. For the most part, I don’t believe it has worked out quite as well as they might have hoped it would. They may have been better served to just have bled the initial players who wanted more gear progression, and stayed true to their original ideas.

One of the things I feel is truly lacking in the game is a unified vision of who exactly they want to play their game. WoW tried going down the same path and lost a lot of subscribers because of it. They have successfully (arguable) weathered the storm because they had already had a huge initial install base, but the longer they don’t have a clear focus as to who their target audience is, they will continue to bleed. GW2 doesn’t quite have the same kind of wiggle room. While wanting to be all things to all gamers looks good on paper and to statisticians, it doesn’t always play out too successfully when implemented.

The dichotomy we see in GW2 is mostly because of these divergent groups of players. By instituting one change in a certain direction, they veer away from one group, then they almost always over correct back in the other direction, or just institute something on a wildly different tangent. People wanted better rewards for champs (they did indeed need something better than nothing), and they went too far and made them too profitable and now that is all people do. It seems that everything looks like a nail because the only thing they know how to use is a hammer. We have seen very little finesse in the first year of GW2.

I’m not sure if they ever will achieve a satisfactory balance without making some drastic changes that will lose them a portion of their audience. But in the end, they may be better off if they do.

You’re right. In the end I think they’ll favor the players most likely to use the cash shop. Probably the hardcore. The only thing I ever bought from the cash shop was karma boosters with in game gold.

I’d throw them the occasional bone if they had something I wanted. (IE something useful) However, I decided not to make any real money purchases when they implemented DR. When they added ascended gear I realized that I made the right decision.

Honestly, I feel like I’ve been jerked around a lot by bad decisions made since Beta. As much as I like GW2, that is no way to get me to spend more cash

SHM.7628:

In the end I think they’ll favor the players most likely to use the cash shop. Probably the hardcore. The only thing I ever bought from the cash shop was karma boosters with in game gold.

It’s more likely that the time-based hardcore will farm gold and buy gems than that they will spend cash. The group more likely to spend cash are the ones with full-time jobs, who have discretionary income but lack the time to farm in game. This group may be difficulty-based hardcore or casual, but would be time-based casual.

SHM.7628:

You’re right. In the end I think they’ll favor the players most likely to use the cash shop. Probably the hardcore.

Mind you that casual players outnumber hardcores by at least an order of magnitude, so guess where the money really is?

Myself, I am a casual attitude player playing a hardcore amount of time, and I don’t think ANet can complain about my cash shop revenue. shrug

What is true is that it’s a myth that a game can cater to both casual and hardcore players in the long run with any hope to satisfy both. It can’t. More likely it’s going to turn into an equal opportunity offender this way, satisfying neither group. Ascended gear is an example of that. Casual players mind it for being gear progression in the first place. Hardcore players mind it for it not being needed in any (challenging) content in the game.

In the end, GW2 needs to decide what it wants to be.

Kimyrielle.3826:

SHM.7628:

You’re right. In the end I think they’ll favor the players most likely to use the cash shop. Probably the hardcore.

Mind you that casual players outnumber hardcores by at least an order of magnitude, so guess where the money really is?

Myself, I am a casual attitude player playing a hardcore amount of time, and I don’t think ANet can complain about my cash shop revenue. shrug

What is true is that it’s a myth that a game can cater to both casual and hardcore players in the long run with any hope to satisfy both. It can’t. More likely it’s going to turn into an equal opportunity offender this way, satisfying neither group. Ascended gear is an example of that. Casual players mind it for being gear progression in the first place. Hardcore players mind it for it not being needed in any (challenging) content in the game.

In the end, GW2 needs to decide what it wants to be.

^
Truth.

If you look back at what they said they wanted for this game, and compare it to how the game currently is, you’ll notice that they are actually not delivering on what they advertised. The elephant in the room is actually GW1, not WoW. Yes, GW2 and GW1 are two different games, but GW1 epitomized the horizontal progression that GW2 had aimed for. GW2, instead, has horizontal progression in the sense that there is little to no truly challenging content, while throwing in pointless vertical progression (ascended armor, anyone?). Ascended trinkets were probably a mistake, but they could have just left it at that and focused their attention on adding more challenging, permanent content instead of compounding their mistake by adding even more half-efforted vertical progression.

Because after cap GW2 is nothing like WoW.

A lot of the issues regarding 80 content is that it’s not interesting. What do you do in CoE p1-3? Get up close to alpha and kill him. What do you do in CoF p1-3? Get up close to xxxxx boss and kill him. Rinse and repeat.

The creators of the game SEVERELY limited THEMSELVES by creating armor with stats. They wanted to be like other MMOs but unless you are that MMO, you’ll never be it. You want to be like WoW? Make WoW. You want to be everquest? Make everquest. You are guild wars developers, make guild wars.

GW1 PvE was vast and grinding was for looks- yet the CONTENT drove innovation and interesting game play. Anet thought of destroying “the trinity” of gaming but didn’t realize there’s not a lot left without structure.

data.4093:

A lot of the issues regarding 80 content is that it’s not interesting. What do you do in CoE p1-3? Get up close to alpha and kill him. What do you do in CoF p1-3? Get up close to xxxxx boss and kill him. Rinse and repeat.

The creators of the game SEVERELY limited THEMSELVES by creating armor with stats. They wanted to be like other MMOs but unless you are that MMO, you’ll never be it. You want to be like WoW? Make WoW. You want to be everquest? Make everquest. You are guild wars developers, make guild wars.

GW1 PvE was vast and grinding was for looks- yet the CONTENT drove innovation and interesting game play. Anet thought of destroying “the trinity” of gaming but didn’t realize there’s not a lot left without structure.

This is a bit off topic, well a lot off topic, but, given your comment, I feel as if I must put it out there.

I like GW2, I like it a lot actually – but not having a trinity is a tough pill for me to swallow. It sucks for me, too – in a trinity MMO I always main heals and tank on the side. Rarely will one see me DPS because, well, over the long haul, it’s a boring role. Sure you have tanks in GW2, but they are “tanks.” Likewise you have healers, but they are only “healers.” Fact is, GW2 is a DPS-centric game. I would be willing to wager a lot that if I conducted a study seeking to answer who most loved GW2, it would be people who preferred DPS in trinity games. As much as I want to, I just can’t get totally sucked into this game. I must admit, however, in a way that is a good thing: This world, the way armor looks, this [awesome] community, Anet itself (whom I respect); how Anet managed to capture that snappy, ultra responsive combat that a lot of MMOs can’t nail; the mobs, the dungeon layout, and I could go on for pages… considering all that, kitten I am happy there is no real (by “real” I mean dedicated) healing in this game. I would be so friggin’ addicted to this game while opening my wallet to the Gem Store – it wouldn’t be funny.

I am back off a 4 month hiatus due to family stuff, but even before that GW2 was only fun in short bursts. It fails to captivate me. Sadly, after 7 years, WoW still does that, and I am faaaaar from alone. I know a lot of WoW players who are eagerly awaiting the next MMO that blows them away. I feel it’s a testament to the sad state of affairs in the MMO industry when the king of the block is an MMO that just celebrated its 9th birthday.

I have an 80 Thief, I actually love the class (no, really it’s a genius take on the classic “thief” class), but at 80 there just isn’t much to do save what I did leveling up, exploring zones and running 5 mans. I’m no real PvP’er and it’s like I have nothing of merit to play for. I reckon we can debate the nature of endgame, but, for me, it feels like I am scraping the bottom of the mayonnaise jar to get it.

Alas, I have faith in GW2. The game is young, the devs are still realizing the potential of this game, and, perhaps, in a few years I’ll be posting on these very boards telling newbies how I played “vanilla” GW2, looking through my rose colored goggles telling them how awesome it was. I mean, I don’t expect a holy trinity to ever manifest in this game, because that’s not the foundation of GW2. I do believe, however, that we’ll begin to see more robust content that can be called endgame.

Two things that I believe really hurt GW2:
1) No trinity
2) No noteworthy endgame.

If GW2 had those two things, it would be well on its way to ruling the MMO market (especially with its buy to play model). It would be different enough from WoW to not be called a clone, but still have what WoW, and “WoW minded players” players covet. It woulda hit the sweet spot.

Meh, in the end I like the game for what it is, something to play while I am locked outta WoW raids. But c’mon Anet, make me and a couple million WoW players cancel our accounts (because secretly we’re dying to do so).

SHM.7628:

I just finished leveling a necro and it dawned on me. I grinded away to 80 It’s finally time to get get my gear, but I did everything. The maps entierly open. By 80 your build is pretty etched in stone.

Of course, I can’t get any temple armor because good luck getting one open durring a living story event. I would like to do get the temples for fun anyway. Let’s face it, Orr is a graveyard anyway. (no pun intended.)

Yes there’s living story, but that is dead in a week after release. Plus it further kills the other maps. Personal story? Once you don’t need the XP what is the point? Its usually an unrewarding pain.

There is so much to be done that I dont know where to start…. the big thing is you might have all the map open but you have definitely not experienced every dynamic event… so one option is to go back an experience them, see what story they tell… you can do that with your main or create a new alt.. up to you.

You can go explore find some of the secrets hidden in the game

you can do jumping puzzles

you can try to complete the various achievements

you can do WvW / PvP

Go for a particular Armor set (temples might not be open but thats the whole point… get a group together and go open them, it shouldnt be about the reward but about game play that gets you to the reward so this is actually a good thing imho)

level up crafting

collect some of the rare crafting recipes

discover crafting recipes

craft legendary / named weapons

do dungeons / fractals and get the unique skins they offer

do world bosses / Champions and get the unique skins they offer

Do variations of the personal story to fill in the blanks

play mini games

simply explore

level alts and equipment them

there is plenty to do to fill 1 week every 2 if you’re done with the living story in 1 week.

Zelyhn.8069:

There was an endgame: playing fotm 70+, but they are taking this away from us.

my words.. there will be NO ENDGAME:)

Sarabande.8260:

This is a bit off topic, well a lot off topic, but, given your comment, I feel as if I must put it out there.

I like GW2, I like it a lot actually – but not having a trinity is a tough pill for me to swallow. It sucks for me, too – in a trinity MMO I always main heals and tank on the side. Rarely will one see me DPS because, well, over the long haul, it’s a boring role….

I disagree.. Its just done differently…. there is no healer role per-se in guild wars 2 but there is a support role you can play and the tools you’re given as a support role blows away every other MMO.

This is how I look at it personally… perhaps it will not apply to you but nothing lost by considering the following…

as a healer your primary aim is to keep your allies alive. In the majority of MMOs that means healing, buffing and cleansing conditions. In some games you cannot even do all these 3 at the same time but rather you need to choose one or two paths out of the 3. In Gw2 you’re not restricted in any way but you need to remember that in guild wars 2 keeping your allies alive isnt just about healing and buffing anymore. Its also about ensuring your allies arent hit (using conditions like blinding or reflect projectiles etc…) Its about ensuring that if an ally is in dire straits they can escape long enough to heal. (that can mean chilling, fearing, pushback etc…) It means reducing the damage they get (weaken the attacker, protection / aegis on friendly). It means helping your allies win before they die… (give them boons like might, quickness, retaliation etc..) as well as the usual heals and cleansing of conditions.

If you want to play support, its there, its just done different from what we’re used to thats all.

Alt’s are my endgame. I wish it was more alt friendly.

quaniesan.8497:

Is end-game supposed to be some sort of an enlightenment state to be looking forward to? Sort of like Diablo II where you got all the top rune words and hit 99, that’s boring because what else is there to do. You either start over with a different character or roam around killing stuff that yield no further better rewards. I’m glad there is continually new contents, new class of equipment to seek out.

end-game:
A state of the game where a player is effectively invulnerable and can gank low level players (see “n00b”) with impunity.

That’s what end game means in pretty much any mmo out there. Thank the 6 GW2 doesn’t have that.

Galen Grey.4709:

SHM.7628:

I just finished leveling a necro and it dawned on me. I grinded away to 80 It’s finally time to get get my gear, but I did everything. The maps entierly open. By 80 your build is pretty etched in stone.

Of course, I can’t get any temple armor because good luck getting one open durring a living story event. I would like to do get the temples for fun anyway. Let’s face it, Orr is a graveyard anyway. (no pun intended.)

Yes there’s living story, but that is dead in a week after release. Plus it further kills the other maps. Personal story? Once you don’t need the XP what is the point? Its usually an unrewarding pain.

There is so much to be done that I dont know where to start…. the big thing is you might have all the map open but you have definitely not experienced every dynamic event… so one option is to go back an experience them, see what story they tell… you can do that with your main or create a new alt.. up to you.

You can go explore find some of the secrets hidden in the game

you can do jumping puzzles

you can try to complete the various achievements

you can do WvW / PvP

Go for a particular Armor set (temples might not be open but thats the whole point… get a group together and go open them, it shouldnt be about the reward but about game play that gets you to the reward so this is actually a good thing imho)

level up crafting

collect some of the rare crafting recipes

discover crafting recipes

craft legendary / named weapons

do dungeons / fractals and get the unique skins they offer

do world bosses / Champions and get the unique skins they offer

Do variations of the personal story to fill in the blanks

play mini games

simply explore

level alts and equipment them

there is plenty to do to fill 1 week every 2 if you’re done with the living story in 1 week.

Thanks for the reply Galen. I’ve done a lot of what you said. 7 toons at 80 & geared already and 1 left. I never said there was nothing to do I said there was no endgame. Like you said these are great time fillers. I don’t find myself with a lot of extra time to kill. Some of the stuff you suggested is too time consuming or frankly boring. (especially this far along in the game.)

alcopaul.2156:

end game is to dress up your pve doll and toss it with other pve dolls in an arena called wvwvw.

As opposed to? Dressing up your PvE doll farming the same content over and over for new dresses to replace your older out of fashion dresses and then have to farm new content over and over for yet another new dress when the new fashion season comes out?

Yea, I’d rather do WvWvW thanks…