Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

Sorry, post got rather long but i REALLY hope someone will help me

Well i was wondering if this game was for me. I bought it (or got as a gift) and now i have to convince myself to invest the time in it. I am currently playing WoW, and have been on and off for a while (have tried countless MMO’s). I like the PvP aspect of WoW, and it’s all i do. Battleground and Arena’s, and from what i can understand, guild wars 2 has PvP as one of it’s main focuses? is this true?

Anywho, to determine wether this game is for me i have a couple of questions if someone doesn’t mind answering them

- Can you play high-level PvP from the get-go? create a new character, and hop into the action with him right away with no experience as that class, and be pitched against people who invested weeks in their character? To me, it seems a little shabby. I mean you get pitched up with people who levelled their character to max level? i can see the idea, i mean you don’t have to grind you’r way to it, but part of the grinding is what makes you get familiar with you’r class, isn’t it? and won’t is just cause a giant headache when you start doing PvP coz instead of getting a new skill here and there you get 100’s new ones? maybe i’m misunderstanding the concept, so that’s why i’m asking to this. So in short, how does PvP actually work?

- Why would one want to level to 80? If you just wan’t to PvP, what’s the point of leveling?

- Rewards from PvP? From what i understand you all get the same gear to make it all about skills and not gear. But, what’s the rewards then?

- Casual player friendly? I can’t play more than a few hours here and there, so is this game casual friendly?

Anything else you can let me know about the game would be lovely. How it’s like, what you like, what you don’t like and so on. I know a lot of people might just tell me to start playing, but i like to know what i’m getting into

Thanks on advance!
Best Regards

The answer is yes to all your questions aside from the why level to 80 question.

As for that question, at level 80 you are more effective because you have level 80 gear.

No subscription – just play the game and decide for yourself.

Level 80 gear? So, a level 80 in PvP will actually be more effective and have better gear than a level 10?, so all from level 1-79 got the same gear and all from 80?

What about the rewards from PvP? What do you fight for?

In order of questions… (well question marks)

Yes.
Yes.
No.
PvP stuff.
Better PvP gear and PvP rankings.

To clarify, there are two types of PvP. World v. World with large groups of people working to control towers and keeps and supply points, and Structured PvP which is similar to WoW arenas in that you have a smaller map and five people on a team.

In WvW you are kicked up to 80 on entry but you don’t get any traits and skills you haven’t learned already and your gear will be pretty low. You can level in WvW, though, but the rewards will be PvE ones. Higher levels will definitely help in WvW, they just aren’t required to get in and learn the maps and how things work there.

In sPvP you are 80 with all traits and skills unlocked and any weapon and runes you want to apply (at least lowest tier ones). You don’t level there but you can make any class you want to get kicked up to 80 and try it out. You can’t pick your team mates for a match unless you are doing the paid tournaments, I think (I haven’t done sPvP at all since the one time I tried was in the first week and the system was down).

In my opinion you are missing out on a lot if you don’t do the PvE part of the game. If nothing else, it really helps train you in what all your skills do and what weapons feel best to you. But the game is made for people to do only what they want in it, with bonuses as incentives rather than requirements to do it all.

Seerex.4358:

- Casual player friendly? I can’t play more than a few hours here and there, so is this game casual friendly?

Yes! This is probably one of the best reasons to play this game. You can log on for less than an hour and feel like you are doing some productive and fun.

This is a great game for a casual player. Jump into WvW and see how the war is going. Try your hand at PvP and see how you measure up to other players. Or explore a zone and complete some events, find a vista or just discover a little piece of lore.

All these things can be done in minutes of logging on. I would recommend giving it all a try.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy your time in Tyria!

Lovely, this really sounds like it might be a good game i’ll give it a try!

Now, to choose a class! :P that’s always a tough choice. Think i’ll try an elementalist

Seerex.4358:

- Can you play high-level PvP from the get-go? …

Right, this is very easy to answer… I played WoW for years but stopped at the beginning of Cataclysm, I’ll translate to WoW talk for you!

There are multiple versions of PvP that you can get into:

WvWvW
sPvP
tPvP

WvWvW stands for World vs World vs World and it equates to Wintersgrasp from Wrath of the lich King. But instead of facing the opposing faction on your server, in GW2 you face 2 opposing servers. There are no factions in GW2 so it’s your entire server vs two other servers in a 3 way battle for control over 4 massive maps. It’s very much about capturing keeps with siege weapons and large groups of players. Although there are small objectives such as supply camps etc for smaller groups.

sPvP stands for Structured PvP and basically equates to WoW’s smaller battlegrounds. It’s an 8v8 instead of WoW’s 10 v 10 and is often called hotjoin as there are mutiple servers open and you can join anyone (much like going up to a battle master in WoW). As I write this there are 5 maps and they are all capture the bases (equivalent to Arathi Basin) – All slightly different with a “unique” mechanic on each one (for example, one map has an enemy boss which if killed nets you 150 points for your team).

tPvP stands for tournament PvP and equates to WoW’s arena’s. It’s a 5v5 using the same maps as sPvP. There are free tournaments which are like practice arena’s in WoW – some pre-made groups some random groups. And paid tournaments which you pay tournament tickets (which you can earn in game by winning free’s doing dailies etc). Paid tourneys usually consist of pre-made teams that have farmed tickets for themselves just like normal WoW arenas.

One glaring difference however is the lack of a matchmaking system. This has been said to be in development and should be here soon, so here’s hoping! fingers crossed

Now that I’ve made those distinctions for you I can say it is very very easy for you to hop straight into PvP as you originally asked. There is a bit of a difference however. in WvWvW your level 1 character will be boosted to level 80. BUT there is a massive drawback. WvWvW uses your characters PvE stats. Someone who has invested their time to grind up to level 80, gotten to know their character will have a distinct advantage. A level 80 character in WvW will have all their traits unlocked (WoW Talents) and will normally be full exotic (WoW’s Epic) geared. If you’re a level 1 character none of your traits (talents) are unlocked, and you’ll stats will be boosted to that of a very basic level 80 (equivalent to being in WoW’s green level gear). So you can see the difference.

sPvP and tPvP are very different. You enter a PvP instanced zone that has a number of vendors around. These vendors have access to all weapons, all armors and your characters traits (talents) etc are all unlocked. It is from here you design your character how you want, you pick which weapons to give them, which runes and sigils (WoW’s weapon and armor enchants) etc – it’s all completely free. This is what they mean by everyone having the same stats and being on an even playing field. Once you have designed your character in this area you go up to the PvP NPC’s (battlemasters) to join either sPvP or tPvP.

what’s the point of leveling?

In WvWvW it is advised (as you can see above) to level your character up to unlock everything. It will also allow you to get to know your characters abilities better. But it isn’t required if you intend to do tPvP or sPvP. You will have to do the PvE tutorial, and then after that jump straight into the PvP instanced zone where you’ll be boosted to 80 and given all the options I listed before. Many sPvP and tPvP players still have level 1 characters. It’s completely up to you!

- Rewards from PvP?

The rewards are all based on looks. There is a ranking system much the same as WoW’s used to be in vanilla. The more you play, the higher rank you’ll get, and this will give you access to different looking gear. With this, certain gear types are linked with higher ranked characters and people can see what rank you are from looking at your gear.

Play modes like tPvP give you access to unique looking gear as well. Free tournaments are known to give access to certain looking gear, and paid tournaments give access to other looking gear. If we’re to translate it to WoW. Imagine knowing a piece of gear was only accessible from rank 2400+ . You can tell a person is that rank by having that piece of gear. The only difference between WoW and GW2 is the stats are the same, it doesn’t make you more powerful, as they want everyone to stay on the same power level so we know if you win, you win because of skill, not power level.

- Casual player friendly?

sPvP allows you to join games whenever you want just like WoW’s battlemasters. It’s extremely player friendly in this regards. Free tournaments you can sign up to as a single person and you’ll be matched with randoms. Again, extremely casual friendly in that manner. The lack of ranking systems however goes against the casual friendly. There is much discussion on the forums atm how new players often get ganked and overwhelmed in PvP when they first enter. But it’s no different (in my opinion) than someone entering WSG for the first time and being jumped on by a Rogue. If you can cope with that type of play and are willing to learn you’ll soon become a good PvP.

The lack of monthly subscription fee also make this game extremely casual friendly, as unlike WoW you’re not wasting money by not playing.

Anything else

You really will have to play to find out, but I can say this. I no longer play WoW. Since playing WoW I have been looking for my new MMO and so far GW2 has not disappointed me. If you need anything else just contact me in game. My names Towren and I’m from [EU] Desolation server!

Wow Towren, that was really informative and helpful! I am convinced and started my elementalist last night (Level 3, yay!)

Here’s hoping i picked the right class hehe

Again, thank you for taking your time to write that, i really appreciate it!

I have been trying to get used to this new PvP idea in gw2 and to be honest it sucks IMO…..

I can’t find the motivation to play PvP for gear that is just for looks….so I will be doing dungeons in this game….the few dungeons that are in gw2 that is……