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GW2 is a great game, ive been playing it since 2015 but they are different in many aspects, just a heads up, calling it right now, expect this person ahpuch and probably few more to come here and say that gw2 is trash and ESO the most exquisite thing mankind has ever made. For a reason some have been talking trash bout gw2 for over a year its like a hobby for them so their opinions are biased, twisted, cant be taken seriously and have little next to no value.
The good thing bout gw2 is that you can play it whenever u want, has no sub, no vertical progression, you could play it as your 2nd mmo just to chill n when u think ur at risk of eso burnout.
I dont talk trash about other mmorpgs i hate mmo tribalism (unlike... well you will meet them soon enough right here in the forum) every mmo has their own special thing and all of them can be fun and a great adventure. By the way you own gw2 since years? means you have an account made in arena net gw2 official site, that one is not compatible with steam version or the dlc on steam, but i suppose you could add that version to steam by using the -provider portal trick (a topic for another occasion) just dont buy anything here for anet gw2 accounts, it wont work they are not compatible.
Lets not forget that personal anecdote is not a fact.
There's no task that requires massive amounts in starter zones, except world bosses. Since vanilla you have many new jp's, more than 10 thats for sure and some are quite challenging like "chalice of tears" or draconis mons which require living world season 3 content.
About steam deck no idea.
However, if you just picked up ESO and are enjoying yourself, I see no reason to switch to GW2. I'd wait until you get bored of ESO. Neither game is going anywhere.
Last time I remember Zergs in the low areas were the Champion Trains being done for leveling and loot.
They both do their own things, like ESO gives entire story lines for every map, and you can easily get into those and be antisocial while having fun.
GW2 does still have trains, in the core game they won't stay in 1 map, they will constantly jump from world boss to world boss as it spawns in each map. In the expansions there are hero point trains because expansion hero points are worth 10 points unlike the core games ones.
I personally feel that GW2 combat and rotations feel a lot better, which is why when I play ESO I mostly muck around with a stealth kajiit and rob all the NPCs between quests and exploration.
GW2 has big questlines, but they're hidden in the dumb achievement tab because GW2 hates the idea of actually having quests. This unfortunately means some story lines can only be experienced once per account.
Although they play very differently, the features themselves are mostly the same. ESO has large maps that rewards exploration and big linked questlines. GW2 has large maps that rewards exploration and various multi step meta events.
I can't say any end-game players in ESO are going to return to a starter map for anything other than the hidden craft benches or map specific armour sets from locked chests. GW2 players will sometimes return to starter areas for meta events, festivals, achievements, or just to hang out. The other day on new years someone even held a concert with in-game playable instruments at the starting norn area.
In the end it depends on what your favourite play style, combat, and world building is.
In my experience, it doesnt. I tried to get it to work on steam deck but its really not controller supported. You can move around and the right analog becomes the camera control but its very rough. Maybe with some work you can get it working but I stopped trying after an hour.
I can't say much about ESO beyond my subjective opinion. I do enjoy GW2 for what its is and like that I can always just drop the game and come back later without missing out huge chunks of content.
If you want a fair comparison, I'd refer you to the content creator who is probably most knowledgeable about playing many different MMOs overall, Josh Strife Hayes.
This is a short clip of him talking about how ESO doesn't quite click with him, although it makes a lot of really good decisions on paper. It comes down to the clunky combat to him:
https://youtu.be/QQZm3eawMis
This is a 13-minutes video titled "Should you play ESO in 2021?":
https://youtu.be/mQ1pBwIP0KU
And another 10-minutes video asking the analogous question about GW2 in 2021:
https://youtu.be/IVPXXYZwBjw
Granted, there are newer videos out there, but since you wanted a comparison, I think taking these two videos by the same guy side by side will give you a good impression.
But apart from all that, just try them both.
I'm saying that the biggest map advantage ESO has over GW2 is the zone quests, but once they're done the only reasons I'd return are what I listed.
Alternatively GW2 has repeatable events that can sometimes be map-wide, which although they aren't always better quality, they always are an option. ESO has gates and some bosses, but when I played the bosses were left alone. Gates are everywhere, so unless a special drop or achievement is tied to zone specific gates I don't see the need to visit earlier zones for them. There's also fishing if you like that, GW2 has fishing too but it's locked behind End of Dragons expansion and needs some masteries to be reliable.
Of course certain ESO maps are fun to return to, like the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild DLCs. Dark Brotherhoods even got that arena battle I remember people lining up for, and that large Minotaur out in the ruins. And for the fun of RP, world immersion, and stealing from different NPCs I would return to early areas.
I don't have a Steam deck, there is a vid on this page from the GW2 forum > https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/120369-guide-how-to-set-up-guild-wars-2-and-its-controls-on-steam-deck/ < that might help in setting it up.
I do, however play ESO and GW2, so here's my comparison.
Monetisation.
Both are big map games and both have a lot of DLC. While neither *require* a subscription ESO has one that unlocks almost all the current DLC and the crafting bag (which stores all those annoying crafting materials that otherwise clutter your inventory). The ESO sub does not unlock the latest chapter which you will still have to buy, unless its part of the package you bought on Steam. ESO is also sneaky in that you may have bought a zone as part of a package, but you won't get the 4 player dungeons that are located there. You have to buy those separately.
While GW2 is 'free' that free play is restricted to two characters and no mount, until you purchase a DLC pack. GW2's dlc gives you everything in that DLC, but not the linking living world stories that run between the DLC. The exception is Living world season 1 which is now part of the 'free' base game. GW2 has an auto crafting mats gathering button in the inventory that sucks them into a special place in your bank. The number of each is restricted, but its far better than ESO's system for non-subscribers.
Both have real money shops, and most of the items in them are cosmetic. However GW2 allows you to convert gold into the shop currency (gems), so you can get the living world stories this way as well as the few quality of life items (like more bank space) just by converting gold. ESO sort of does but it relies on a messy player to player trade system that can get abused. This is why you'll see the 'wtb x crowns for a massive amount of gold' sometimes in ESO's chat.
The game play.
Combat
GW2's combat is cool-down based. You fire an ability and then need to wait before you can do so again. The exception is your 1st skill, which you can spam, and the Thief, which uses resource management for some skills. ESO's combat is all resource management, you can use any ability - including block and roll dodge - provided you have the resources - either magica or stamina - to do so. Both games have food and drink buffs, however ESO adds potions that can heal, increase stats etc, over a shorter time. Both have 'ultimate' abilities, in ESO this recharges over time after you light or heavy attack (concepts that don't exist in GW2). In GW2 its on a very long cool-down. Since I started in ESO I sometimes struggle with the cool-down concept and find it troublesome that you can only roll dodge twice before having to wait for that to recharge. ESO also allows you to wear any weight of armour in any charter, GW2 restricts the armour weights to particular classes. There is nothing wrong with this, but it does mean you have to be a bit more careful when you roll a new character as you can’t change from light to heavy armour for more survivability. Both games have different skills for different weapons and classes (professions in GW2), but where as ESO allows you to use any weapon with any class, GW2 restricts particular classes to particular weapons. That said GW2 has some unique classes, like the Engineer, Revenant and Mesmer which do not have any real equivalent in ESO. They are different games with different systems. Neither is ‘better’, but I do like ESOs flexibility.
Quests
Both have massive quest lines. GW2 has the concept of a character’s back storey making it very alt friendly, at least initially, where you will get different quests based on the choices you make when creating a character. These merge however about half way though the initial base story which then runs the same whatever character you have. ESO really only has 3 options based on your chars race and which alliance they belong to. GW2 zones are level based initially, maxing out at level 80. This means that you meet monsters at a fixed level for that zone. Once you reach level 80 and enter DLC zones then there is no further ‘levelling’ but you gain experience in masteries, which unlock new abilities – such as gliding. ESO's zones are levelled on your character. Meaning that rat that gave you problems at level 1 is going to give you problems ay level 50. ESO also caps basic levelling at 80, but then opens up the CP system where you earn points in 1 of 3 skill trees, so actually caps out - gear wise - at level 80, CP160.
Both have linear quests with few choices and it hardly matters what you pick. GW2’s story more consistent so you can’t generally ‘time travel’ to a different part of it before you have completed all the preceding parts. ESO allows you to go anywhere in any zone you own, so messy time traveling is entirely possible. You can find a character at a point in time in ‘their’ quest that is much later than the point in time you are, resulting in confusion and possible spoilers. The zone ‘Elsweyr’ is a classic example of this. The quests that happen there are after the ones that happen in your characters ‘main’ story in the base game. Oh and finding that main story is a nightmare as well. There is nothing in the game that says ‘This way to the main story’, you either fall over it, have to read through forums or miss it completely.
ESO has the classic ‘idiot npc with arrow over their head needing help’ quest tracking and with the exception of the main quest and a few others you are often following quests as a lone traveller – or one with a companion who dies a lot. GW2 has a few of these npc needing help quests (renown hearts etc) but is more dynamic with its multiple quest chains and metas. The personal story also has you running quests with a recurring group of npcs throughout the base game and DLCs. GW2 has a lot more puzzles, including the jumping ones, and multi level maps – which you either love for the variety, or hate as you keep getting lost. Both have multi-player dungeons (ESO’s 4 player dungeons and 15 player raids; GW2s, somewhat abandoned dungeons, and active fractals and strikes).
This is getting a long post, so I’ll skip housing (ESO’s is more fleshed out) and crafting (ESO’s is a horrible time gated grind, GW2’s makes some kind of sense) and finish with the elephants that both have in their respective rooms; bugs, server reliability and player population.
ESO’s bugs get fixed eventually, only to often re-appear at the next update, GW2’s bugs are either fixed – eventually – or immortalised in the game’s wiki. ESO’s servers are fragile, often falling over after an update and go down at least once a week for hours for maintenance, whether there is an in game event running or not. GW2’s servers are more or less 24/7, very rarely crashing and updates are simply rolled out via the launcher. In short GW2’s servers work, ESO’s work until they do not.
Both games are mature (which means there is no excuse for the long standing bugs). The one shot questing of ESO can mean that some dlc maps can feel a bit empty (and the PVP zone Cyrodiil is often devoid of anyone much), the exceptions being around main towns and areas where there are daily quests running. GW2 has ‘abandoned’ content, that is content that long time players of the game don’t run often, mainly dungeons (not fractals or strikes these are different) and some larger meta events like Triple Trouble and the Twisted Marionette, both of which tend to only get enough players for completion at particular times of the day. Some DLC maps also feel rather empty, for example some from the Path of Fire expansion. However, and this is true of all such games, neither are dead and the number of players on a map depends on the time of day and – particularly in the case of GW2 – what is happening there right now. Both have large active player bases, though not as large as they were, and you will find people playing most of the day and night (depending on where you are located).
Neither is better than the other. I like ESO for its story, character build flexibility and the combat style fits my play better. I like GW2 for the story, threads of humour and silliness that runs through it, the large scale – ‘where is everyone going?’ - metas and puzzles.
You’ll notice I have not mentioned much about PVP. There is a good reason for this, I’m rubbish at PVP.
It's why 2022's EoD is a buggy, rushed mess; it's why 6 years of claims of "Alliances" for WvW being "in development", and "to be released this year!" have now become "Alliances are cancelled but don't worry...!"; it's why Living World has been cancelled, and in its place are poorly received recycled maps, enemies, events, assets etc, to be farmed.
I wouldn't hold my breath for anything but maintenance mode, especially after the recent expansion's poor sales. You can see on GW2efficiency that less than a quarter of players have even unlocked the "weapon mastery" thing -- the only feature in the "expansion".
Not looking good, and hasn't been for many years...
I would advise not taking him seriously. A lot of us have him blocked due to his disingenuous arguments he often makes.
WvW Restructuring Beta has been announced to start on Jan 12th through February 2nd. As well as more content (New Legendary Armor, New Class Weapon Proficiencies, etc although those will be released in February).
Check back in a few years. GW2 will still be getting content. LSD will still be here, telling you the game is going to go Maintenance Mode aaaaany day now.
I like both games for different reasons. Just try GW2 when you get bored of ESO. It'll still be here.
The entire purpose of "restructuring", as claimed repeatedly by the devs, was to pave the way for "Alliances". And then the other weeks, they announced that actually, we won't be doing "Alliances" after all -- after 6 years of promises.
Alliances have been cancelled. So what's the point of world restructuring?
It's like the change to megaservers: a means of dealing with a hugely reduced population...who have left precisely because of this abandonment and false promises.
1668 DAYS
TIME SINCE ALLIANCES WERE ANNOUNCED
2163 DAYS
TIME SINCE LAST DUNGEON
3845 DAYS
The game is doing great.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release
You won't mention new zones, fractals, strikes, or adventures. You know, things people like doing.