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.

[Joker]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von z__frog__z:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von armedpoop:

I hate to keep banging the same drum as everyone else, but you don't play a game for 10 years if it's bad. You quit that game probably the same day, after a couple weeks tops. You can talk all the trash you want, but at the end of the day GW2 was good enough for you to spend a not insignificant portion of your life on it.

That's a glowing review to anyone with half a brain. You might not enjoy it anymore, but as others have already said, you might just not like MMOs anymore and that's fine but that doesn't make GW2 suddenly a terrible mmo with a "scummy business model".

to be fair , OP review may be feel too "agressive" but as old player
played since the alpha/beta / B2P model , some critics "re right , since few years the game chanded , mostly how player feel the game on a new character .

GW2 was never a great mmo for lore/story even old mmo like as Rift done better , the success on the first years of GW2 its mostly all about his community . doing pvp , ding pve , guild ... very active and friendy both for casu and hardcore gamer .

but GW2 miss the turn around after the first dlc , it was that time Aerena net change how 'll become GW2 . feature like as crafting , cooking or other jobs were irrevelant , even class were now as by a paywall .
how to keep together a community or when on a guild for example some player can access or not on some features : it was a diseaster . both for pve and pvp contents .
and like as i said , story on this game was not great , just the mininum to show new feature gameplay or leveling up .

for F2P player , its good to spend some time on it , but if the goal its story , high end content ( crafting , pve , pvp ) go for 100$ . and hope your friends payed all those 100$ stuff/dlc/contents/features

Only expansions you have to buy.
Living story you can earn in game.
No sub fee

[tatiana]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von z__frog__z:

for F2P player , its good to spend some time on it , but if the goal its story , high end content ( crafting , pve , pvp ) go for 100$ . and hope your friends payed all those 100$ stuff/dlc/contents/features

I disagree on that point. $100 USD is the price if you decide to buy everything at the Same Time. If you only buy the Heart of Thorns + Path of Fire bundle, it will be a lot cheaper, will still give you access to about half of all available content, two thirds of all elite specialisations and remove all F2P restrictions.

As Joker said above, it is possible to then earn enough gold to buy the gems needed for the Living Story seasons. If you don't care about the Living Story rewards and only wish to know the storyline, there are YouTube playthroughs you can watch.

End of Dragons and all subsequent expansions can easily be bought on sale. The cosmetic and convenience items in the shop are all optional.

By the way, crafting, PvP and fractals don't require expansions, unless you wish to craft very specific Legendary items or be super-competitive. Competitive PvP and Legendaries are also so time-consuming, that people who are interested would probably want to buy expansions anyway.

[Bladestorm]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von armedpoop:

I hate to keep banging the same drum as everyone else, but you don't play a game for 10 years if it's bad. You quit that game probably the same day, after a couple weeks tops. You can talk all the trash you want, but at the end of the day GW2 was good enough for you to spend a not insignificant portion of your life on it.

You act like I just poofed this opinion overnight. No, that is not the case.

[Rhapsody]

"Poofed" seems like entirely accurate description for enjoying a video game for almost a decade and then coming up with all this doomsaying and presenting it as if it wasn't all based on your subjective experience.

[Naommie]

to be honest the past decade of games have been mediocre at best idc about trinity base mmo i just want a game to play with ppl that doesnt become a ghost town 2 month after luanch ..........staring at my wall and eating lead base paint chips is starting to get old

[squalllion1]

thank you for your warning

[Naommie]

i generally like when game do utilize roles in group play but have the classes not role locked but that cause i and prolly other generally play some roles better then others and when everyone can sustan them self that pretty much make one of the role im gud at unnessary
im pretty gud at playing support or melee stealth scout


most range classes i sux at cause maintaining distance isnt a skill my non existance patients can handle

[Naommie]

as for tank i almost always will die of boredom long befor my hp dies but i death of the mind is still a death eso does a gud job of non role locked classes but still using roles in group play.........just most he pve content back when i played it was horribly boring cept for the raids idk bout it currently i played it when it was new and not many played now ihear it poping over there

[Teratus]

There's definitely "roles" that can be played in Gw2, that's not even a question.
But Roles in Gw2 serve mostly to make content quicker and easier to beat more than anything.

They're not "essential" but they are definitely useful.
What's far more important than roles in Gw2 is understanding mechanics.

In group content especially there's very little room for ignoring mechanics and cheesing bosses, and it's a good thing when players find ways to do exactly that and the game gets updated to stop it, I only wish it didn't take so long sometimes.

But familiarising yourself with the mechanics of a boss and learning how to deal with them is always going to be significantly more important then what your build is and how much DPS you can do.

[lordlethal28]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von JTGuevara:

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.

I will remain sceptical. Sceptical of this critique.

[AngryPancake]

That is a whole lot of words you just used to say absolutely nothing.

[Orb]

Absolutely useless post full of disinformation.

[Xeph The Tamagotchi]

can we just point out that this poster is warning new players away yet they played this game for 10 years....i mean if it held their attention for 10 years then it can't be as bad as they claim lol.

[Astrallight]

Its bad when you know your old account you payed 60 € last time on to buy the first two x-packs has been locked for security reasons and you cant get it back cause all info you need to write down in thier mail is gone aswell.

They secretly want you to buy everything again on a new account. I'm not going to bother doing that again.

[Gh0st.exe]

Its bad when you know your old account you payed 60 € last time on to buy the first two x-packs has been locked for security reasons and you cant get it back cause all info you need to write down in thier mail is gone aswell.

Sorry, what? From what i can find via Google, some of the information they require to unlock the account consists of:
- Account Name (its email adress).
- First and last name.
- Date of birth.
- Serial code.
- Display name.
- Maybe some character names.

While i could understand that you forgot the display name and character names (depending on how much time has passed since the last login), it seems a bit strange to say "the info is gone" regarding the rest of it. I mean, your name and date of brith dont exactly change that much, do they? What information exactly did they ask for in the mail?

They secretly want you to buy everything again on a new account. I'm not going to bother doing that again.

Yeah, no, please leave the conspiracy theories outside. That makes no sense for multiple reasons:
- They usually dont just ban accounts after a certain time passed, plenty of people can log into old accounts without problems.
- They offer a simple way to unlock the account again if you can proof that it is your account.
- The vast majority of people wont just go and buy the game / expansions again. I mean, why would they? They already - supposedly - lost an account for - supposedly - no reason. Why would they risk all that again by creating a new account?