Guild Wars 2

Well….been playing GW now since the fist launch day of GW1… GW2 was released and now HOT. I’m still playing so it can’t all be bad? How long’s that now then? 6 years?

I’m sure I’m not alone in how I play either… I have a life outside GW (and a full time Job) so I play a couple of times a week for maybe 2-3 hours a time. I stick with PVE and generally play solo.

I appreciate that there are an enormous number of people out there who spend hours every day grinding away in PVE, WVW and PVP, who are members of enormous competitive Guilds. These people spend an inordinate amount of time filling the forums with posts on how it’s now a requirement to have Ascended gear to go on raids in HoT or how it’s now another few hundred Gold to make something… but what about the people like me…the little people… the ones who aren’t in the big guilds, don’t have hundreds of gold in the bank, have never made Ascended or Legendary gear because they haven’t got the time to grind that much????

So…what have I (and several other people I know who play along the same lines) noticed…

The gameplay seems to be becoming unbalanced with each new release. There is more and more becoming available to those who put in the hours (or who can afford to buy gems with real life cash) and less and less for the little guys. I guess it’s because we won’t earn Anet much cash at the end of the day but we’re loyal supporters as much as the next guy. Content is becoming ‘fenced’ off. Yeah, we get all the nice new areas to explore (and the scenery is amazing) but have you tried to solo explore Dragons Stand without Ascended gear and Legendary weapons? Agro 1 single mob and you’re dead in seconds! Don’t get me wrong…it’s a challenge trying to figure out how to do more in the game as a soloist but it seems that it’s becoming a lot more difficult these days! For difficult read ‘time intensive’! Is it even possible to defeat a Champion as a solo player? I just run away which I guess is the correct approach???

Even before HoT there were issues… I’ve never been into any of the Dungeons because you need a party of 5 just to get in. Despite the persistent world, GW2 isn’t exactly a friendly, sociable place. I’ve wasted many hours sat outside a dungeon entrance (or even the final Arah story mission) shouting for a Group without success. Everyone seems to have their own acronyms for specific builds they want in their Group but the little guys generally only have 1 build and I doubt it has a name! Consequently we don’t get the invites. GW1 had ‘Heros’ and ‘Hench’ that you could use to build a party to get into UW but we don’t have that in GW2. In GW1 there was also a Guild search facility but again…missing from GW2. Just how do you find or get invited to decent guilds these days? It would be nice to join a Guild of ‘Little Guys’ so that we could all help each other out when needed! Maybe it’s all out there and I’m just missing it somehow?

…and what’s going on with the economy? When I started playing GW1 we were dealing in platinum…GW2 we were dealing in copper. After 2 years playing GW2 I had amassed a 50g fortune! Now I’m seeing items on the TP for over 1000 gold!

The GW2 economy has now (within the last year) turned upside down… 2 months ago I created a new GW2 account…yep…I gave Anet more money! I log into that account each day for a sum total of around 1 minute. My new character hasn’t left Divinity’s…in fact I only use 2 waypoints to travel between the TP and a Laurel trader! I trade the laurels from my daily login rewards for heavy mats bags and sell the T6 mats at the TP. That character is now level 40 and has 150g! This wasn’t possible when GW2 first started. The daily login rewards have not only made me rich but also levelled me up without even having to play! What’s that all about? I read an awful lot about ‘Gold sinks’… you don’t need them if Gold isn’t readily available.

It seems to me that the only strategy Anet are interested in now is ‘how to make more money’ rather than maintaining the integrity of what, in GW1 at least, was a fantastic game.

…and yes… I still jump back into GW1 regularly to remind me just how awesome it was. :-)

+1 to op. I feel quite disgruntled with the game in its current, post HoT state and I dont like the smell of whats to come.

I played the HoT Story (Read : Grinding Masteries), then tried to do 100% HoT Map as I always do in Tyria, I left HoT map shorty when facing more and more gameplay wall.
Now, I’m in Tyria with fresh new character (Revenant) and I have alot more fun.

Garathorn the Brave.3162:

Yeah, we get all the nice new areas to explore (and the scenery is amazing) but have you tried to solo explore Dragons Stand without Ascended gear and Legendary weapons? Agro 1 single mob and you’re dead in seconds! Don’t get me wrong…it’s a challenge trying to figure out how to do more in the game as a soloist but it seems that it’s becoming a lot more difficult these days!

Mainly playing solo myself and since I play all classes with about the same interest I don’t have a main and I think I may have 3 or 4 ascended armor pieces across my characters and like 4 or 5 ascended weapons, also spread across multiple chars.

Exploring DS solo isn’t possible because of the meta. Certain parts of the map are locked until the meta progresses. But everything available on a fresh map I find easy enough especially so since the groups patrolling DS are a mixed group. I also solo VB metas if I cannot find a full map and hope for players joining in (having bought the commander tag helps).

Combat in HoT is not rushing forwards and spamming your skills (at least not with multiple enemies) – it’s more a rush and attack – dodge/block/retreat – close and attack again circle. Once you know which enemies to go for first and once you packed some kind of condi removal (2 vet tormentors can really ruin your day) and once you learn when to evade/block and when to attack even the groups of 5 in DS don’t pose much of a threat. Its also fairly easy to just run past them – most groups will stop chasing you after a really short time.

Usually stealth classes (thief, mesmer, engi) have it far easier as they can run in with reckless abandon, lead the group away from where you want to go, stealth and break aggro. Classes with block or high moblity will also do nicely (warrior, elementalist).

Classes that lack both face a bigger challenge … my necro or my guardian usually will have to fight their way through as they cannot escape as easily. Ranger can try to use the pet as distraction which usually works quite well.

the “I have a life and a job” thing is really getting old. Newsflash: That is quite normal for adult human beings. Implying everyone being more skilled or more succesful in a game has to be a no-lifer is a boring and worn strategy in 2015, seriously.

Hi:)

I’m solo-ist too (and a fresh player), I like GW2 as it is now. I have grown up to say it. (hmmm, AA meeting or sth? :P )

GW2, as it is now, offers different things for different ppl. Its amazing, if u think about it using cold brain:)

I just wanna say, even if HoT is not for everyone, head’s up. We still have core content to have fun with.

Economy, farming, loot, crafting is only a bonus for me. Sth i’ll do between having fun with events.
No need to rush, stress, worry about. We have real life to have stress.

Have fun, and dont be worried:)

Algreg.3629:

the “I have a life and a job” thing is really getting old. Newsflash: That is quite normal for adult human beings. Implying everyone being more skilled or more succesful in a game has to be a no-lifer is a boring and worn strategy in 2015, seriously.

its not. sure is “normal” to have job and family life: THIS is the main player base of GW2. THAT IS why so many keep saying this, because it was the most casual friendly mmorpg out there. now it is broken and those people voice their concerns. other then that, stop derailing the OP.

Trolley.7956:

I just wanna say, even if HoT is not for everyone, head’s up. We still have core content to have fun with.

not for veterans playing since headstart weekend. We done the core game. hell i did it with 8 characters.

I’m sorry OP, but I think you’ve been mislead. If you can’t survive with exotics, you won’t be able to survive with ascended gear either.

I’ve run through all the zones in exotics and it’s not very different from running it with ascended. A bit different, but you’re not limited in anything but raids (and if you’re that casual, you probably won’t be able to do raids anyway).

However, aside from raids, most of the content is available in exotics. If you think you need ascended gear you’re wrong.

Oh, and legendaries and ascended have exactly the same stats.

What you describe would be power creep, and I feel that that isn’t too bad overall. If anything, the way masteries are designed prevent power creep, as it is progressing in horizontally rather than vertically. Yes, some things are being ‘locked’ for you as it requires a group effort, but at the same time that group content satisfies players that have been asking for it. The only things I have not been able to do are; Raids, and I have to admit that without significant effort I will not be able to in the near future either; some Guild activities, as this requires a significant effort in communication and planning.

With the LFG function doing a dungeon with randoms (even casual randoms) is easier than ever, a Champion can be beat with exotic gear just fine (yes it’s a challenge, but come on, it’s a CHAMPION), and I manage running solo in VB and the second map just fine (admittedly, I haven’t progressed much further than that, and I imagine it to be hard but not unimaginably difficult).

Thornum.8607:

What you describe would be power creep, and I feel that that isn’t too bad overall. If anything, the way masteries are designed prevent power creep, as it is progressing in horizontally rather than vertically. Yes, some things are being ‘locked’ for you as it requires a group effort, but at the same time that group content satisfies players that have been asking for it.

Pre-Hot had plenty of group content as well as plenty of content that wasn’t 1990s group-or-die .. HOT has 100% group-or-die with most of the expansion locked behind gates that can only be opened by groups.

Group-lovers had plenty to do pre-HOT, group-avoiders or those not happy having their character progression dependent on others had plenty to do .. post-HOT one group has it all and the other has next to nothing.

HOT isn’t GW2, it’s a 1990s throw-back GW3.

Garathorn the Brave.3162:

When I started playing GW1 we were dealing in platinum…GW2 we were dealing in copper.

There’s a 250 year difference between the two. Trading in gold coins and jewels isn’t exactly common in real life anymore either.

Garathorn the Brave.3162:

That character is now level 40 and has 150g! This wasn’t possible when GW2 first started.

You might think that’s a lot, but a month into the game I had 100g. Sadly, I only converted half of that into gems. At the time, it was 1g for 400 gems. That 100g was worth 40k gems, which is now worth ~5k gold. For comparison, that 100g is now worth ~550 gems and Dusk for example was around 25g compared to the 1.1k it is now.

In short, you might have had far less gold, but it had a much higher value.

Kraggy.4169:

HOT has 100% group-or-die with most of the expansion locked behind gates that can only be opened by groups.

There’s a big difference between group-or-die and random players joining in for events. One requires a preformed group whereas the other is solo friendly. GW2 has always tried to play off the concept of ad-hoc grouping, which was one of their original launch features. All of the major living world events for example assumed a certain level of participation and was commonly referred to as zerg content.

You should be capable of exploring through the majority of HoT entirely solo, with the main exception being the group hero challenges. Unlike most other MMOs however, GW2 is a skill based game. Instead of increasing your character’s power to compensate for the more difficult content, a higher level of personal skill is required. For those not capable, it feels like group content. See how people think everything is designed for the zerg, when actually, rarely more than 3 people per event is needed.

Masteries? Simply play through the adventures. Personally, I spent probably 24 hours of play time just exploring each zone (solo) and every day I started by doing the adventures I had found. By the end of TD (~10 days later), I was basically done with experience.