Guild Wars 2

Can’t say this makes me happy, I usually play no more that 60 – 90 minutes per day, really just enough time to the the daily and maybe a couple of other small things. As a Casual player I apprecaited the fact that I could do maw typically at least once if not twice with two different characters. Typically the Maw event for me was used to help clear up dailies such as Champion event or Group events. I play early morning which helps minimize the fact that in the evening I can barely get a hit in with the mega-amount of players all farming maw.

This to me may be the deal breaker in moving on to the next MMO, Don’t get me wrong I think GW2 is a great game, but they keep nerfing the game from casual to hard core. Not sure what I want to do at this point, but there are some potential games coming that are looking mighty good.

I play 1 – 2 hours per day max, and I have plenty to do with my 80’s and my alts. By the time I do the daily, which can take 20 minutes – 60 minutes depending on the mix and match I decide on. That leaves me a little time to explore, or maybe run a quick dungeon run, grind or craft. Yes, if you play 10 hours a day 7 days a week, I can see how this game gets tedious. So to those who insist on rushing through content only to find level 80 boring I am sorry that you felt you needed to level faster than I.

Harry

I have two level 80’s. and only play an 1 – 2 hours mon-friday and maybe 3 – 4 hours saturday and sunday. my game play is:
1 Do daily, that can take 20 – 60 minutes depending on which of the options I pick.
2. Explore,
3. Events
4. Gather
5. Craft
6. Personal Story line on my alts
7. Dungeon runs if I can on weekends
8. Avoid Fractal, WvWvW and sPvP.

As a very casual gamer, this game is for me, I like the fact that I can do just about anything I want without having gear gated content (with the exception of high level fractals). With luck I have 1 – 2 hours to play, with that I can do the daily and once a month get a amulet or ring, I have enough Karma for a full set of exotic gear when I can be bothered to decide which of my level 80 is worthy of the the set. (my ranger is already fully exotic geared)

When I can be bothered I do some crafting, do a few Dynamic events, do a few puzzles, do hearts, farm mats. For my 1 – 2 hours a day I think GW2 gives me good value for my 0$ per month.

Sorry gaming is just not that important, I love to log on, kill a few mobs, take down maw, do the daily and get off. So GW2 is for me.

I have had External Ice drop once in a Maw event, other than that all my exotics are from either Arah Vendor or from a Dungeon Vendor. Through I do seem some Exotics linked from Maw most days. now

I did the Arah event to finish my story line, That dungeon was a joke, in story mode, the reward for the “BIG FINISH” was some rare that I could not use because I was already in Exotic gear. The end of the personal story line should feel like you have accomplished a major event with a reward that reflects the hours put in to finish your personal story line.

GW2 will always have a following, but with Elder Scrolls and Neverwinter Nights coming up Anet needs to pick up its socks, as there are a number of FTP games coming down the line.

Every time they change the dailies they seem to get worse, through I am limited in time, and usually only play an hour to an hour and a half a day, typically I do the dailies monday through friday and do dungeons and storylines on the weekend. I was able to do today’s daily in maybe an hour.

Mystic forge is quick, craft up 20 blue items, and bang done.
13 kill varieties, run through any zone kill 13 different enimies
While killing different mobs gather items, not like low level nodes are few and far between
Wolfmaster – Maw 2 events both are frequent spawns
Undewater kill, this is quick, and can add to your kill varieties.

Total time less than an hour, maybe 40 minutes top.

1. Which class do you consider to be the “most overpowered”?
Warrior

2. Which class do you consider to be the “most underpowered”?
Engineer

3. Which aspect of the game do you think needs the most work done? (sPvP, PvE dungeons, PvE open world, WvW)

sPvP and WvW they are not even close to the quality other games have.

4. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being good and 1 being bad, how would you rate the in game economy?

1 – overpriced goods in trading post

5. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a lot and 1 being very few, how would you rate the amount of bugs/glitches in the current build of the game?

1 – I have not noticed anything.

6. Which aspect of the game do you want to do more, but have no reason to currently do so? (sPvP, PvE dungeons, PvE open world, WvW)

sPvP and WvW, rewards need to have better value. Also WvW zerfest sucks.

7. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being great and 1 being the worst, how would you rate the community interaction between players? (things such as parties, dungeons, etc)

5 – no better or worse then most MMO’s.

I do the daily for the most part in the Wayfair hills, through if you do the undewater kills I finish in another zone. But you can get 13 kills variety, gather, kill 50 mobs, dodge, gather, do events. This zone is well farmed especially for the maw event, which is an easy 5 event chain lasting 10 minutes or less. Even this morning I finished the daily in less than 40 minutes, including having to craft to throw stuff in the mystic forge.

Through I do say some of the daily tasks suck wind, while the mystic forge is easy to do, it is a waste of resources. The Group event daily nice idea, but often if you are not in one of the popular zones findind someone to do a group event to take down a champion is a pain, (But you can do Maw twice at least).

Not sure that I am liking the direction of this game at this point.

I feel your pain, the other morning while trying to finish the monthy, I was on my 57 Mesmer. In theory this should be very survivable in AC in Explorer. I was booted almost instantly from the group. I did get a group when I switched to my level 80.

But I have run this dungeons with players less that level 40 and it always ends in disaster. AC is a tough dungeon, path 2 can often be a diaster in the last part due to the number of silver mobs popping and I have seen level 80’s wipe mutilple times to get this one done. So anything less than an 80 has no real chance in that dungeon. Sad but true.

I have had no Exotic drops what so ever, I can count on 2 hands the number of rares that have dropped. My exotic’s were bought, or owned through tokens running dungeons.

I had no issues leveling an elementalist through to 80, I had a lot of fun with the profession and yes he is a bit less durable, but I have been able to do many Dynamic events that I have come across. Yes there are some where the respawn is nuts and that you get mobbed. I just move on, as you can’t expect every DE to scale down to 1 player. Even now, I rarely go into the level 80 zones, unless I am specfically looking for mats for crafting.

This game is far from Anti Casual, the closes you get to an endgame is the upper FOTM, all else is doable with normal Mastercraft and Rare gear. Want Exotic and don’t want to pay. You can do your dailies and do the DE and get enough karma to buy a full set in about a month. Most exotic weapons from dungeons only takes 5 to 8 runs to get enough tokens. Don’t like the rune, by another which is what I did for the AC bow.

I think Gear Gating is the death nell to a casul game. I do think that the best gear should be available to everyone, however, the effort that you put into the game should be proportional to the time it takes to get the better gear. More effort should mean faster gear up, less effort means it is going to take longer, but you will get there in th end.

In my mind there is nothing to debate, the best LFG tool I have come across in my 10 years of playing MMO is from RIFT. Where players are selected for there roles and then put in a group.

For some players like myself with limited play time a cross server tool, would be more helpful then standing in LA yelling out LFG for half hour with no responses. At least if there was a tool of some type, I could continue to farm and play while waiting for a group to pop. I realize that MMO’s are meant to be time sinks, but not in away that forces me to sit in LA for valuable playing time hoping to get into a dunteon run.

Cheers

actually suits my playing style as a very casual player, I can jump on and off as I need to, and I don’t have to gear grind hours upon hours. Through I have to say sPVP and WvWvW are lacking in my opiinion

Yes, it was a major snooze fest, I felt it was anti-climatically, with no real useable rewards after spending the hour or so to do the story. Sorry Anet I was hoping for something better

My thoughts on this is thank goodness it does not take up an inventory slot. I figure at the very least I will have enough for the Amulet and infusion in 40 days if I do the daily every day.

I am trying to get the monthly done but it has been a challenge to get a PUG to do dungeons anymore. I am hearing less call outs in LA for dungeons and fractals, which I can only conclude is that folks are slowly leaving the server or quiting the game. This game has some great potential, but to many paths leads to nothing.

Example, PvP I see no complelling reason to do this, I can’t even do a daily often because I have to get high stat, as a ranger I seem to be dead more often than alive. I see PVP as a time waster.

WvWvW another time waster in my opinion giant zerg lag fests, that have little reweards.

My 2cents

I have only been through dungeons as a Ranger or Elementailst, for token runs I like the Ranger we had two Necro’s, 1 ranger, 1 warrior and 1 Guardian and we burned AC pretty quickly.

Would like to try Mesmer in dungeon, which will happen as I just got to the AC level, Weapon switching is a must to keep a good steady supply of clones going. Have to read up on mesmer in dungeons to find the best weapon combo and traits

Agreed, that events often drop squat espeically the bigger chains that you invest a lot of time in. It is dishearting to do a lvl 80 event to only get a bunch of blues and maybe a useless green, then go over over to one of the starting areas and a chicken mob at level 6 drops a rare lvl 80.

It would be nice to see maybe a few dungeon tokens thrown in for DE’s in the same zone as the dungeon. My server now it seems it is getting harder to find anyone doing dungeons and even factals now. Not sure how that is on other servers, but by making DE’s that offer chances at dungeon tokens, I could be happy with that instead of the miniscule drop rate of rares.

I play Ranged almost exclusively, so the dodge is a bit of a pain, but its doable fairly quickly. Most of the Daily can be done in 20 – 40 minutes depending on the mix.

I was doing a run yesterday the first dungeon run after the patch (I only have time on weekends to do a dungeon or two). With Rez Rushing gone it really changed how the game is played. If they are going to do that, they need to do a couple of things.

1. The Choas of the mixed groups need to be fixed, there needs to be a tank type that can hold agro on a boss fight.
2. There needs to be a support mode where someone can play healer with a battle rez, trying to rez a completed downed target is almost impossible. I don’t mind the downed player, but one that is defeated is almost impossible to get back up in a fight.

We did mange to get the boss down after a few tries, but frankly when you walk away with blues after every boss fight, I can get those off of trash mobs anywhere even low level events like Maw.

GW2 I like because of its casual nature but the state of the game is worrying me at the moment.

cheers

Revive is easy, typically I just find an event where a champion has killed all the NPC in some fort and revive as the champion walks around on the opposite side. Quick and easy. Wayfare hills is an easy place to get your dailes, one Maw event 5 dynamics easy. I have two level 80’s with little time play except saturday and sunday morning rest of week I just get my dailes.

I hope so, I decided to check it out and found that the only thing going on was able to do volunteer acheivements, Like Put up signs, collect something off of dead refugees, ignite fiire and help wounded refugees, all add to to the acheivement, but no experiance from helping. So I am not sure how the progression is going to work at this point as so far I am not convinced to waste my time helping for no reward.

But time will tell the bigger picture.

Yes, I remember this as a Problem in LOTRO, having to store and keep these various tokens. Tthat take up valuable inventory slots in the bank or in person.

As a casual player, often not being able to log on for anymore time then to do the old dailies, I was not happy to see that the new dailies have more time consuming tasks. It took me 15 minutes to do the 15 Attack Dodges. As an Elementalist and Archer, I don’t typically try to go toe to toe with mobs. I found myself going to a low level zone and dodging low level mobs to complete.

Also the killing of Veteran mobs, while it was only 5, finding 5 really sucked. Through between the Maw Event and the Giant Veteran Worm that pops near there I completed it. Reading some of the other tasks, required grouping that is going to suck as I don’t often group at all. It looks like Anet is trying to move towards Gear Grinding and the need to group. Which for a casual player that is going to suck.

I found that it was better to sell your blues and greens, to a vendor then throw it in the MF. I might consider breakign down a green if it has a good Rune/Sigil on it. But typically I just vendor them. Most rares I keep, for now as I am leveling more alts to 80 so level 80 rares I tend to keep for now. I have yet to try some MF recipes but maybe sometime in the future it might be worth it.

I have no set zones, but usually finish with a chain event that is easily 4 – 5 events, I have played on days when looking for an event was tough, but events like Maw are pretty frequent and plenty of folks typically around to finish him off quickly. Typically I can do dailies in 45 minites of less. depending on which zone and which avatar I play with.

I don’t have an issue with a game that is mainly solo, as a casual player, I do very little dungeon and Fractal running. The only reason I am in a guild is because my daughter who plays is in that particular guild, so it makes it easier to play with her and her friends. Personally its about time a MMO is more geared to an individual rather than having to have a guild to do everything and to get all the best equipment. I am sure as time goes on we will see Raid content, but frankly better Dynamic events with good drops and exp could negate dungeon runs.

Even the Exotic gear is not hard to get, do the daily and you can have a full set for your level 80, if you just did the 5 events and the daily you can have full set of exotic gear in 50 days give or take.

Just follow your story line, that will take you to the area’s you need when you need them. Want to level fast, explore, harvest nodes, kill mobs, craft, do hearts and events as you come across them. Also do you daily(s),, which if you do PVE you can do the PVE quite easily by just killing mobs, gather and do events. You can do a level easy. A full set of Orr exotic will cost 252,000 so get those dailies done.

Same here, I have not seen an exotic drop yet, and I barely see rare drops. Most or my rares have come off of Random mobs, even in a low level zone out of a chest. I can farm in 80 zones and get nothing, do one event and bang a rare. Go figure

My biggest beef is the drops, running dungeons and comeing out with not even a rare at the end. The drop rate of rares in Fractal seems to be much better, through I would love to see more focused loot, why having done fractals I have 3 rare rifles and a Focus and I play a ranger. I am not saying a bow has to drop every time, but rares that I can use would be great.

You can do greens for the most part, you can buy them at the TP usually for 2 – 3s if you get one you like cheap you can add a component if your Green does not have one or overwrite the existing one for one that fits your play style, The nicer Mastercraft componets can cost more than your Armour. Do your dailies as you go along int he next 20 levels by completing at the very least regular daily you get 4500 karma. Lvl 80 Exotic in Orr are 42,000 each. If you do your dailes you can get a few pecies when you turn 80 pretty quickly.

Also look for Bargins in Rares, you often can get a cheap bargin under 10s if you look, just have to drop in to the TP maybe once at the beginning of your play and at the end.

Had a similar issue, I have to run the game as an administrator. Even through my account on my machien is an administrator account. Whether that is your issue or not can’t say, but do have a look I think it is simply a right click and run as adminisrator.

I don’t think it is possible to level to 80 with just crafting, Crafting does come in handy and I have certainly leveled crafting items, You can get some good experiance (with a booster) crafting items you have never crafted before. But many crafting items are dependent not just on harvesting nodes, but also drops from various mobs, like vials of blood, fangs, totems etc..

My leveling guide,

1. Harvest everything
2. Kill everything you see
3. Do events as you come across them
4. Craft as you can
5. Do hearts
6. Explore (Jumping Puzzles, POI, Hearts and waypoints)
7. WvWvW ( I personally don’t like it but hey lots of folks do)
8. Do your story line.

Since the game more or less scales down, you can stay in zones much lower then your level and still level up. But totally crafting just is not going to happen.

Cheers

I don’t consider the Ranger a broken class, for PVE they do have some advantages over non-ranged classes. But i do enjoy the game, my only fault is that the TP is going crazy and prices are hyper inflating, to the point where I am thinking of buying gems to open slots in the bank and a couple of new character slots. because the rate that I am gaining gold does not keep up with geting jems.

Depends on your style of play, I like ranged so ranger is a no brainer, good for PvE, thorugh in WvWvW and PvP tends to be middle of the road on one on one duels. It really is a matter of play style, Engineers are fun, but DPS output is on the low side, but they do have some good support traits for dungeons. best advice play to have fun.

The only time I use waypoints is when I have to get somewhere in a hurry, Why miss the opportunity to do events, harvest and kill mobs on the way to where you are going.

GW2 compared to other MMO has a very small learning curve compared to other games, there are multiple paths to level, you can kill things, harvest things, do Hearts, discover maps, dynamic events, WvWvW, and even craft. Play the game you want to play, go out have fun and if it is not fun go do something else. My main focus right now is at least Getting the Daily done and doing Dynamic events as I come across them, Karma can be your friend when you find something on a vendor you want. Or saving up for a set of exotic gear (252,000 needed for an Orr Set).

Generally you can do find in Mastercraft armour/weapons (green) that can be found or bought cheaply in the TP. Don’t count on Rares in the TP there are some bargins if you look for them, but for the most part you will find them 10 – 20 x more expensive then Mastercraft.

This is a pretty casual game, and I found on my server that folks are quite willing to answer questions in Map Shout outs. So don’t be afraid to shout out and ask.

Cheers

For me I always enjoyed Ranged play, so I played a Ranger to 80 now. The engineer is a lot of fun because he has a interesting array of gadgets and skills, such as flame thrower, gernade and bombs, not to mention typical weapons like Rifle and Pistols. I also enjoy the thief and the Elementalist. I want to open a few more chracter slots to give the Necro a chance I tried one earlier on and did not like the mechnanics, but now I would like to give it a go. When I can afford to drop some real money I will get some gems and open another character slot.

I like the fact that the reveiewer likes the game, but points out many of the weaknesses of the game. In my opinion he is spot on, crafting is pretty useless, leather and Tailoring are two very hard crafts to get up because of the lack of materials. At least in Warcraft and Rift, you can skin to get leather, and often humonoid creatures drop farbric. While Salvage works, there are often not enough drops to make it worthwhile to spend any time crafting.

I think we also level way to fast, scaling allows for us to stay in zones far longer that we should. My level 80 has only seen 43% of the map. In some cases, evening finding how to get to a zone that is the appropriate level can be fustrating. While the class quest helps move you a long, I think alternate quests lines should be available, if you belong to the order of whisperers maybe you should be able to pick up quests lines that move you through other zones in quest chains.

Fortunetly there is more right with GW2 then wrong.

I use the Naga gaming mouse, the 12 buttons on the side are great as I never have to use my keyboard other than to move.

I myself consider myself casual, I just don’t have the time to spend more then an hour or two a day. Sometimes on the weekend I can get 3 – 4 hours in, but my overall play time is 10 – 15 hours a week. The issues in MMO’s is always the Haves (hardcore) vs the Have nots (casual). I certainly believe that the casual players deserve to have the top tier armor and weapons. Developers need to give those players alternate paths to them which GW2 folks seem to be doing.

Hardcore players who put time in reap the rewards, that is just a fact of life, they do get the advantages in PvP or WvWvW because they have access to better stuff then us casual players have. But GW2 has much to offer even at the casual levels and that we can get there eventually should be good enough.

I am in the final stories of my class story, I have to say running around cursed shores was a miserable experiance solo. Trying to get to one story area from another was annoying as you could not go more than a few yards with yet another group pull of 2 – 3 mobs. Now I would not mind so much but the fact also was that way points were so contested that I could not pick them up on the way through, I also died a couple of times and had to start back to a way point so far back each time that this quickly became a chore not a game. Now I like a challenge, but fighting mobs every step of the way for little or no in game rewards sucks.

The 2 issues as I see it:
1. This zone was freaking empty, I did see the odd player but for the most part, events went on with no players and many of them were impossible to do solo as mob respawns for a solo player made it impossible.
2. Wall to Wall mobs, battling every step of the way could be OK if there were some worthy loot. At the very least up the copper that drops. At least enough to cover way points and repair.

my 2 copper peciecs, well if they drop I would put that in.

While I am not up to the point where I am worried about Legendary weapons, as I quickly approach 80, I have noticed that making money in this game is very difficult. Vendor trash amounts to basically nothing. Materials you gather are so abundent for the most part you can’t farm lower level mats for crafters and make any money.

Finding Mats for leather and Cloth items suck. At least in some other MMO you can skin animals for leather. Here you have to hope some salvagble items drops. Buying Leather and Cloth at the Trading company is to expensive. The only good reason I can think of to make an item is to make 4 of something and throw them in the forge and hope you get an upgraded item.

Also Death is a killer, in some higher level zones it can cost almost 2 silver to get to a way point when you die, then another 1 – 2 silver to repair. I don’t mind paying but it nice when you can play for an hour or two and come out ahead.

now that I am hitting the higher level zones maybe that will help. But the exchange rate for gems are killers now, I looked the other day in game gold for gems is almost 1 gold per now and rising, when this game first came out it was 30S per.

I solo events if I come across them as I travel the lower level zones, often through I find respawn rates are faster than I can take them down and wind up leaving before completion, if I am on long enough I something eventually. My biggest pet peeve is that if you drop the boss mob at the end usually the loot sucks. I have had better drops from random trash mobs then in events. I know in some of the zoned exp for event can be well worth the 10 – 20 minutes it takes to complete it. If events dropped better loot and Cash people might be more inclined.

I saw the same issue in Rift, eventually people stopped doing Rifts because Loot suck. if an event is easy then yes I would expect little, but if I solo and it is difficult the Risk Vs reward must be better than it is currently.

I consider myself a casual player and I play approx. 5- 15 hour per week. My goal in the game is to have fun, I enjoy questing and crafting, and compelled to level slowly enjoying the aspects of the low level games. I do not rush to the max level because I know once there I really will not be doing dungeons and raid events because my time committment is limited and once you hit max level it becomes a game tha in most MMO, start to gear gate content.

While I do not disagree that content needs to raise the bar for the those at max level, but we need to recongize that Casual gamers like to get there sometime. Each time an expansion hits, it often hits the casual gamers the hardest as they fall further behind.

I think that the casual gamer is the silient minority in games, its those hard core that drive new content and wanting the first 79 levels easier so they can get another alt up through the game so they can get to that end game content without much issue. Which then dumbs down the game for he rest of us.

No easy answer here, its ashame that a week after this game is out people are running around at max level complaining there is no content for them. Some of us have a life outside games and like a nice progression without hardcore players ruining the game for the rest of us.

I don’t know why people in PvP get so mad when they die, it is a fact you are going to play PvP you are going to Die, the good news is there is no real penalty in this game for dying in PvP. Now in WvWvW, I found out that you take a hit in your equipment when you die at the hands of another player, i was very unhappy with that aspect of the WvWvW game. I don’t mind dying but when you have to spend more copper/silver than you earn whats the point. The early levels of this game is pretty stingy on the money, and costs for crafting materials, salvage kits, travel and death can add up. I realize that the economy has to be watched but there has to be a fine balance between reward and penalties.

I have an elementalist, and I have leveled him up nicely, yes there were some of the Quest line that were difficult but it was more along the issue of figuring out the best weapon and traits to use. Kiting is not impossible for an Elementalist as well, taking advantage of the less directional spells etc…. This game is one of the easiest to play of all the MMO’s There are a few challenges here and there and yes you die, through I don’t often get one shotted.

While I do jump into WvWvW occasionally, after a few tries playing PvP the current model is underwhelming. While I like PvP in general, many games do them much better. Presonally I think RIFT had one of the best models but SWTOR was not bad either but it took them a couple of months and a few patches and changes to make it better. My biggest beef is that PvP should have some real PvE benefits, maybe a rank, items you can purchase with pvp points. Even WOW has that. I think with all the MMO’s and models on PvP out there, GW2 missed the mark. However, maybe in a patch or two this will reslove itself.

I use a razar-naga mouse while the key presses are awkward at first, with some practice you will never see yourself reaching for the numbers again. Having tried other gaming mouses, dollar for dollar this mouse does give you good value and with most games using the 1 – 0 key and +, – you can use it for plenty of your other games.