I'm now level 80 in full exotic gear

[NightGlider]

So as a F2P player that haven't purchased any exapansion (because it's currently not on sale and I missed the last one during Christmas time), I'm just giving my thoughts on this game so far.

Now that I've run the dungeons and did a lot of exploring (and continuing to do these) I find that this game can be a bit boring at this point. There is no real need for Ascended or Legendary gear as a F2P in the base game. I'm having just fun exploring all the map regions and the heart quests as well as finding all the "lookout" points in this game. But I feel that I am heavily restricted to progress getting Ascended gear or Legendary gear as a F2P player without buying any of the expansions and that is fine by me as I plan to purchase at least the Path of FIre/Heart of Thorns expansions once there is a next sale and get easy Ascended gear from the WvW vendor after that happens.

But yeah, after getting max level 80 and exotic gear, honestly feels like the only thing really to do in this game is map exploration and finishing quests in those regions. I'm still a newbie, only played for about 1 or 2 weeks so far. I'm sure I'll try raids and WvW or even PvP eventually....but...I don't know....I feel like the only reason I should play is to get Ascended or Legendary gear to look "cool" and that there doesn't really seem to be a need for it?

I guess after I get Ascended gear and complete the map region - "exploration", there really is not much that would motivate me to keep playing? Not sure if many people feel this way but I think that is what will end up happening.

One other criticism I found about this game is that at end game, the gear doesn't really feel very diverse at all. There is only a couple of sets it feels like that end game players will use and that was disappointing as I thought it would be more like gearing in Path of Exiles where you could min max all different affixes of your gear stats. :/ or even add special abilities to gear.

[NightGlider]

Originally posted by Helloween:

Originally posted by NightGlider:

Ok I just had to respond to this as this guy sounds truly arrogant to imply that mmos are not your thing crap.

First of all I've played EQ1 when it first came out to end game for years. Then I played WoW to end game and stopped during the Panda Expansion. Played Lineage 2 for years, Aion, Terra, Arcgeage, ESO, BDO, Lost Ark and many more than I care to think about. I've played ALL these games to END GAME. If you actually look at my profile on steam, you should see that reflected there as well for some of the games I listed here, BEFORE I actually started to play on STEAM. I've even played MMORPGs BEFORE even the INTERNET was born such as BBS system like Tradewars. So mind you little boy, before you say mmorpgs aren't someone's "thing" with your puny knowledge of games you've played so far, I'd take more of a humble approach to responding.

Ohh you played lineage and everquest :D amazing titles, just like the others you mentioned of course, all mmos have something special and unique imo.
Where u played l2? back in the old day in official? bartz? or during goddess of destruction when game went f2p, i was in freya and zaken servers and well many times on diff private servers.
Everquest 1 and 2 are truly worthy of such name. literally endeless quests everywere and amazing lore, Norrath, Luclin, Veshan, Firiona, etc all the races, Iksar, ratongas, gnomes, elves, fae, dark elves.
GW2 is a great game but there's little next to no gear treadmill like everquest or lineage 2, lineage is p2w totally you wont find epic stuff like antharas ring or valakas necklace or zaken earring to boost your stats and be more powerful neither a draconic bow enchanted to +15. GW2 is horizontal progression anyways trust me, its worth it, great game, ive been playing it since 2015 wait for a special sale and get the hot and pof expansions both for $7 bucks totally worth it.

Yep I do plan to buy the expansions when there is a sale again. Currently I'm just trying to finish the exploration stuff casually in the base game. Sucks I have to walk everywhere right now though lol since my trial raptor disappeared after the 10 hour trial period. But, I think it makes the exploration more enjoyable on foot since I get to explore parts of the map that most new players probably just whiz by.

I also still play BDO and log in occeassionally to get the dailies. Stopped playing that for 2 or 3 years and got back into it couple months ago to update my character to at least have a gear score of 700+ which I'm almost done with...just need a PEN accessory...and some quest related "blackstar" level gear...but for now shelved it to try out Guild Wars 2.

I played EQ1 on Firiona Vie server, raided with Resolution guild when they were sometimes the top 1 guild and sometimes not always in conflict with Fire n Fury guild. Those were good times. It's really too bad that EQ1 never had a successor game to it's series. EQ2 was a horrible let down but WoW popped up around this time and a whole bunch of players from EQ went there as well as a whole bunch of new people lol...they were at the right place at the right time to start a new mmorpg back then...explains why WoW is still dominant today...as EQ1 was the dominant mmorpg before WoW and WoW actually designed a lot of their systems to be "like" EQ1.

Anyways, I hope ArenaNet will have a sale on their expansions again soon. It's still WINTER so they shoudl bring that sale back.

[Cyanmurder]

I missed Shaiya, its a shame they shut it down.

[Mez Koo]

Originally posted by NightGlider:

I guess after I get Ascended gear and complete the map region - "exploration"

Ascended gear is a distant goal for now, definitely 100% the world map for now and enjoy the exploration.

Originally posted by NightGlider:

There is no real need for Ascended gear as a F2P in the base game.

But yeah, after getting max level 80 and exotic gear, honestly feels like the only thing really to do in this game is map exploration and finishing quests in those regions.

Fractals.

Originally posted by NightGlider:

But I feel that I am heavily restricted to progress getting Ascended gear or Legendary gear as a F2P player without buying any of the expansions

Do what we all did back in the day before ascended gear became more accessible, craft it using materials you gather while exploring the world although I don't know how restrictive the trading post is so you might not be able to buy the materials needed to level up crafting.

Also isn't the wizard's vault a free option or does it require an expansion upgrade? Because you can buy 1 ascended weapon and 3 ascended armor per "season" and you still have about a month left until the next vault refresh so if you can do the wizard's vault then I'd definitely recommend doing the daily and weekly bonus and buy 1 ascended box each week.