New players, beware

[Bladestorm]

gw2 is not what it seems. There is a difference between what gw2 and supporters say it is and what it actually is. There is a lot of misinformation regarding this game and I'm going to cut right through it. gw2 is sorely lacking of in-depth and proper analysis. I speak as a 10-year player since launch. I have seen the ups, downs and shenanigans. New players. Do NOT just accept the kool-aid that a lot of community leaders say you should drink. Remain skeptical. You can think of this as a veteran's warning to new players as well as a review. I should also say that I am blatantly biased against mmos since they're pretty much shallow, overrated gaming experiences and that I've stopped playing them for 2.5 years now.

Design
-------
If you come from an rpg with dedicated roles, skip this game. gw2 is basically an action-rpg hack-and-slash where there are minimal and cosmetic differences between classes. gw2 and its community loves to pretend that it has 'roles', but the combat is not designed for them. Every class has healing, dodging, buffs, debuffs and an evenly split skill bar between weapons and utility skills. In that sense, every class essentially functions the same way and is basically a hack-and-slash killing machine. Which wouldn't be a problem if gw2 came out as an action game, but it decided to pretend that's it's an rpg as well!

Narrative
----------
While the main story and expansions are passable enough, the 'living world' makes up the bulk of the story in this game. And yes...it is bad. The 'living world' functions as basically a modern sitcom with all the cheesy one-liners and Saturday morning cartoon villains (Hello Scarlet!). A story structure like this is basically like fast food. That is, made to order. What is instead advertised as a 'fantasy rpg epic' ends up being like an immersion-breaker, meta-narrative. A bootleg Rick and Morty, which means that the authors play around with the story too much by injecting modern conveniences and pretending how great they are. As I grew and changed over the years since I've played this game, the story simply has not aged well at all.

Gameplay
-----------
(pve)
Like I said, it's a hack-and-slash. Open-world pve, though immersive in its event system, pretty much consists of getting masses of people together to just spam the 1 key until the boss' HP reaches 0. Don't even get me started on the ridiculous boss HP in an obvious attempt to stretch out encounters. Dungeons, fractals, raids. Same thing. Just add a small party plus a corridor.
(pvp/wvw)
spvp. Garbage. Atrocious. Full of cheaters and match manipulators. A rigged matchmaking system and algorithm. Just stay away. spvp is a relic of the past where it tried to compete with MOBAs and failed flat on its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ face. wvw is arguably the best part of gw2 if not for masses of people clustered together in massive balls of death steamrolling anything with lesser numbers with barely no counter to them.

Graphics
---------
It looks good, however you will have trouble if your pc is not as cpu-intensive as the game. Basically: "IT IS NOT YOUR PC'S FAULT, IT IS THE GAME" If you have a good pc and are afraid or in regret that you 'wasted money', don't be. The game functions as if it's coded like spaghetti.

(CONCLUSION)
That's all I pretty much wanted to say. I would say all of this in the forums or on Reddit, but gw2 has plenty of loyalists in those places as with any typical game these days that apologists put on a pedestal. Also, I would probably get my post taken down. So, I say it here on Steam, more or less an independent platform where things can be discussed openly without much concern.

[amarrminer]

Messaggio originale di Smol Hobbit:

Messaggio originale di amarrminer:

i can ask you the same. apparantly you have the perfect game waiting for you,
so why are you here?. and i am here to warn new players about the expansions.

That's an absurd question, i'm actually a gw2 player who plays guild wars 2 who also enjoys the game and participate in this and other gw2 communities.
Imagine asking a CoD player why hes participating in the CoD forum or why a Dota player talks about dota stuff

But you don't know anything about the expansions specially the most recent cuz you stopped playing this long ago yet you come here and "warn" people, that's interesting, anyways im here to debunk the lies and misinformation and exaggerations and all the wrong data but also to have fun and help people.

dont know anything? i was there long enough to unlock BM, holosmith and several other
elites. i was there long enough to abandon my toons, and all the work i put into them..
go and look at endgame guides for this "game", most of them are about the most efficient way to farm gold.
most of hot is made of "repeatable " content", AKA ginding.
do you have anny other arguments?

[Q]

Nah i don't think so, i mean, the part about holosmith and all of that but its cool, welcome back !!
Those guides are amazing! i wrote some of those guides myself, lots of gold means more gems to buy cool stuff and yes! i have many arguments, do you want to know more?

[Tiberius]

Messaggio originale di amarrminer:

Messaggio originale di Smol Hobbit:

That's an absurd question, i'm actually a gw2 player who plays guild wars 2 who also enjoys the game and participate in this and other gw2 communities.
Imagine asking a CoD player why hes participating in the CoD forum or why a Dota player talks about dota stuff

But you don't know anything about the expansions specially the most recent cuz you stopped playing this long ago yet you come here and "warn" people, that's interesting, anyways im here to debunk the lies and misinformation and exaggerations and all the wrong data but also to have fun and help people.

dont know anything? i was there long enough to unlock BM, holosmith and several other
elites. i was there long enough to abandon my toons, and all the work i put into them..
go and look at endgame guides for this "game", most of them are about the most efficient way to farm gold.
most of hot is made of "repeatable " content", AKA ginding.
do you have anny other arguments?

grinding is not the problem. The worst part is the timegated content. It's so bad, anet tried to fix the problem by giving an easier method to alleviate the problem (ie: IBS ice shard for s4 tokens. the new method of getting skyscale)

[Bladestorm]

Messaggio originale di Alasdair:

OP:

I don't like MMOs, I consider they can steal life from people and project a social mirage just like digital social networks do. That said, I played GW1 as a teenager and GW2 since 2013. I spent many hours on it, more than any other game, specially in the beginning, with ocasional "stops" and "comebacks" as new content poured into the game (most times free). It's my "fallback" game between singleplayer ones. And I can tell you, I still enjoy it. And I'm no innocent and ignorant GW player. My account has nearly 40,000 achievement points and I have beaten all the hardcore content. No casual player here, so if I speak the opposite to what you say, I think I'm well "authorized" to do so and deserve no discredit.

And I state it's a good game. Not suited to all tastes, but a good game. Even if there are many things I don't like or I even despise, such as the recent social agenda and political matters. Also, it is known for having one of the best and most helpful communities of all the MMOs out there (at least in PvE). And even if your opinion is perfectly valid, you have no right to tell other people that are wrong because they don't share that same opinion, which you yourself recognized as "biased".

To me, all this effort to make this kind of negative propaganda towards a game, which is free for all to test, and trying to make your own vision to be the one and only, makes me wonder if it's not some kind of personal issue or vendetta: either you were fired from Anet or permanently banned from the game, losing all your stuff.

You say I have 'no right'. Is there a group or administrative body around here that gets to decide who or what opinions can be expressed?

As far as the 'social agenda' goes, who cares. It's the 21st century, folks. Like it or not, diversity is here to stay. gw2 is bad due to many things, but this so-called "woke" agenda is not one of them.

Messaggio originale di DarkSlayer197:

Messaggio originale di Succubus Tasha:

GW2 fans when someone criticizes it: "Other MMOs do the same!!1"
GW2 fans when someone points out other MMOs do something better: "It's GW2, not every other game!!1"

I'll happily agree time-gates are annoying for any MMO. But trying to say time-gate is an example of grinding, any person will look at the example with confusion. The two are not alike. Plus, that is a different topic as I pointed out.

So, you had to create a strawman. Not exactly productive nor agreeable. All you do instead is poison the well and make bad faith arguments. You know better.

Time-gating and grinding, though not alike, are similar. Both give the same result. That is, artificially increasing the player's time when engaging with some task. Grinding though, at the very least, can be directed toward a specific purpose. Time-gating, though, is a deliberate attempt to not only increase the player's time for some task, but also to artificially extend the game as a way to pad it out, to make it seem longer than it actually is. In gw2, the leveling system, crafting system, a portion of world bosses(I'm talking to you Drakkar...), the implementation of currencies are notorious for this.

[BlackDino]

I'm a new player. and I'm enjoying the game....thats all I'm saying.

[ah_puch]

Wish game was more popular though, only 4k on Steam and most people don't even know it even exists. Even ex GW2 players are suprised game is still running.

[amarrminer]

Messaggio originale di BlackDino:

I'm a new player. and I'm enjoying the game....thats all I'm saying.

im guessing that you are still in core tyria. just wait until you reach the expansions.

[amarrminer]

Messaggio originale di ah_puch:

Wish game was more popular though, only 4k on Steam and most people don't even know it even exists. Even ex GW2 players are suprised game is still running.

2 mio players per year on average. plenty of people have given it a chance, but
very few people want to pay for a job.
just saw that wow have almost 300 mio accounts now.

[amarrminer]

Messaggio originale di Smol Hobbit:

Nah i don't think so, i mean, the part about holosmith and all of that but its cool, welcome back !!
Those guides are amazing! i wrote some of those guides myself, lots of gold means more gems to buy cool stuff and yes! i have many arguments, do you want to know more?

in what world is gold farming not grinding? unless you let a bot do it ...

[Gh0st.exe]

plenty of people have given it a chance, but
very few people want to pay for a job.

Which is true for every other MMO out there as well, so what exactly is the point you are trying to make here?

just saw that wow have almost 300 mio accounts now.

Would you mind providing a source for that claim? Not to mention that as with every other MMO there is a difference between "All accounts that have been created since release and that arent banned" (which is the number most games use in advertisement) and "active accounts" (something that is easier to estimate in subscription based games compared to F2P games).

[amarrminer]

Messaggio originale di Gh0st.exe:

plenty of people have given it a chance, but
very few people want to pay for a job.

Which is true for every other MMO out there as well, so what exactly is the point you are trying to make here?

just saw that wow have almost 300 mio accounts now.

Would you mind providing a source for that claim? Not to mention that as with every other MMO there is a difference between "All accounts that have been created since release and that arent banned" (which is the number most games use in advertisement) and "active accounts" (something that is easier to estimate in subscription based games compared to F2P games).

other games werent created with the EXPLICIT anti grind policy in mind.
it was on one of the mmo sites, and it is prolly all the accounts ever made,
including banned and inactive accounts. AFAIK theyre at 1,5- 2 mio players now

[Gh0st.exe]

other games werent created with the EXPLICIT anti grind policy in mind

Which is why most of them feature a rather forced grind know as the "gear treadmill". GW2 as still far less grind then most of the other games, and the things that are grindy at least get unlocked for the whole account (so you dont have to grind them again once you switch characters).
And your statement still kinda confuses me. You say people dont want to pay for job, but whether or not you have to grind doesnt change with the initial goal / policy in mind when the game was created. Someone who doesnt want to pay for a job aka grinding wont do so in different game either, no matter what the devs said about grind. So "people dont want to pay for a job / grind" is as much an argument in other MMOs (WoW for example) as it is with GW2 since a) GW2 still has less "forced / required" grind and b) those other MMOs have subscriptions, meaning people would "pay" even more just to grind.

In other words:
If someone doesnt play GW2 solely because of its supposed grind, they most likely wont play most of the other MMOs either since they feature even more grind (and require you to pay for it monthly).

[𝒞𝒶𝓉𝓎𝒶♡]

Messaggio originale di Gh0st.exe:

other games werent created with the EXPLICIT anti grind policy in mind

Which is why most of them feature a rather forced grind know as the "gear treadmill". GW2 as still far less grind then most of the other games, and the things that are grindy at least get unlocked for the whole account (so you dont have to grind them again once you switch characters).
And your statement still kinda confuses me. You say people dont want to pay for job, but whether or not you have to grind doesnt change with the initial goal / policy in mind when the game was created. Someone who doesnt want to pay for a job aka grinding wont do so in different game either, no matter what the devs said about grind. So "people dont want to pay for a job / grind" is as much an argument in other MMOs (WoW for example) as it is with GW2 since a) GW2 still has less "forced / required" grind and b) those other MMOs have subscriptions, meaning people would "pay" even more just to grind.

This.

But, for anyone with a normal life (even for unemployed like me) there is budget for both. I have been playing FF14 (sub fee on top of base game + Endwalker expansion) so i have right now paid 338eur (dollar conversion close enough so people gets the picture) in TWO years i have played it. Yes, i used calculator app to count, my brain was not wake enough yet to count in head. :P

And i have on going sub on it, as i like doing instanced raids and stuff there.

But also did without hesitation buy all GW2 expansions (and SotO pre-order when it came) and i have been playing it for 5 months, but no sub fee and i can earn gold and trade for gems and get cool stuff from shop for free also. :)

I pay for both, and enjoy both. And don't mind spending money on good entertainment. I pay for my HBO sub etc also without sending them messages that why do i have to pay for a service lol?

People just complain about nothing and want everything for free lmao. To be honest, no point arguing with certain people.

FF14 (same for WoW) is actually more grindy than GW2, since gear grind starts over every big update when item levels rises (if you like Savage tier raiding), so old gear goes worthless every certain interval. In GW2 after gets Ascended gear, can just chill since has BiS stats, then can collect Legendaries for the ultimate QoL of being able to choose stats on the go also for different build needs. GW2 system is great, then can just do the content that likes. Same gear relevant still that was relevant year ago.

Does not work like that on FF14 and WoW, since they have the old gear threadmill grind, where often needs certain parts from certain raid/instance, then repeating that same until gets it, often competing with others on loot rolls on top of that. For each gear slot. And rinse and repeat after 4 months again when new raid content comes. It becomes actually tiresome chore. And i feel it to be SO grindy and boring. And they give the gear basically from ONE source always only.

That model is SO outdated.

As said, in GW2 can get best in slot stat gear from any type of content, even pvp & wvw, both Ascended and Legendaries. And soon open world Legendaries also, already had Ascended so best stats. And gear relevant every four months. Maybe needs to tune build a bit if Anet does balancing patch, but changing build takes 1 minute. In FF14 i have weeks to grind gear again to BiS lmao.

In GW2 can just like.. play the game and have fun, and not grind. Some mounts and collectibles, aka long term goals are just good. And while some time-gates can suck, i feel there is not too much of them in GW2 to feel gated all the time by something.

Anyone saying any different is just plain wrong, or pretending not to remember that gear threadmill item level being the most grindy thing in any mmo ever. Like yes, it can feel "Progression" the first times in any games, but after years.. it's predictable and item level raise is same and you don't feel any more powerful even, since they just increase the hp pool of the bosses each tier also, so everything feels the same with new gear too, with time-gated 1 part per week type of things. And some defend that lmao?

[Torinux]

Messaggio originale di Lelu💜:

FF14 (same for WoW) is actually more grindy than GW2, since gear grind starts over every big update when item levels rises (if you like Savage tier raiding), so old gear goes worthless every certain interval. In GW2 after gets Ascended gear, can just chill since has BiS stats, then can collect Legendaries for the ultimate QoL of being able to choose stats on the go also for different build needs. GW2 system is great, then can just do the content that likes. Same gear relevant still that was relevant year ago.

This is why I just started to play the game. I'm sick and tired of vertical progress where your hard earned gear gets useless as soon as you reach the next level of power creep. Horizontal progress is the best.

[Bladestorm]

Messaggio originale di Gh0st.exe:

other games werent created with the EXPLICIT anti grind policy in mind

Which is why most of them feature a rather forced grind know as the "gear treadmill". GW2 as still far less grind then most of the other games, and the things that are grindy at least get unlocked for the whole account (so you dont have to grind them again once you switch characters).
And your statement still kinda confuses me. You say people dont want to pay for job, but whether or not you have to grind doesnt change with the initial goal / policy in mind when the game was created. Someone who doesnt want to pay for a job aka grinding wont do so in different game either, no matter what the devs said about grind. So "people dont want to pay for a job / grind" is as much an argument in other MMOs (WoW for example) as it is with GW2 since a) GW2 still has less "forced / required" grind and b) those other MMOs have subscriptions, meaning people would "pay" even more just to grind.

In other words:
If someone doesnt play GW2 solely because of its supposed grind, they most likely wont play most of the other MMOs either since they feature even more grind (and require you to pay for it monthly).

Just because grinding is not forced does not mean it ceases to be a problem. Horizontal progression is but an optional treadmill and collection of cosmetic and monetary items in favor of substantive game quality. gw2, having been free-to-play, gets a LOT of leeway here.

Frankly, modern mmos aren't all that different from the old, typical vertical gear-grind. It's why I stopped playing them entirely. It's not only mmos either. This sort of mmo-style business and predatory, addiction-fueling practices (micro-transactions, game passes, gear and cosmetic grinding, etc) leaks into the broader gaming market and yeah..it ain't good...