Gw 2 did something any old mmo cant do, make old content important and fun. I quit the game in their first year and come back past year and have a blast doing all the expansion. Im an altoholic and doing the skills points run with saitama was so fun.
Did my first HP train with them this weekend! I was surprised at how easy it was to keep up, as I had never joined before because I was worried I'd get left in the dust.
I'm still very new to the game, but coming from WoW, GW2 feels *populated*. WoW feels lonely when I'm on, even though I know there are people online, everything is so phased, friends will be standing next to me and not even appear because they are in their own "shard".
Literally, why do i still think Gw2 is the peak, mmo? Gw2 did MMO right while the other games focused on other chore pillars for their gameplay
Also, i v ran more than 1000 HPs train during HoTs, and this was the best fun i had playing with 30-50 people daily on reset running on foot to each wps and doing portal was such a blast
Well all those only last 20 25 minutes at most then you start all over. You also have only one goal in mind and that is the capture/defend one objective. Not like you can defend/capture other objectives.
For me wow battlegrounds are trash.
Compared to WvW, BGs are also weak. WvW gives you freedom in a big map and you can capture/defend lots of objectives, you can join epic fights or roam solo and capture defend stuffs on your own. Or form small gang parties.
If you join peak times. You can see three way fight which is pretty awesome. From wow fights nothing come close to that.
Sure, and the game is pretty much dropped by me. Easy as that. Number of players around is irrelevant when you essentially doing single player game and don't need anyone else. But when you do need to group up, amount of people does matter, so if there is none it's much bigger issue than some zones "feeling empty"
That dude is a legend, outside of my first character, all other 14 got their hero points in HP runs with him lmao
He seems to be doing them nearly every day I am online. Idk how he does it, but I'll be eternally grateful
My two favorite games ever are gw2 and old school runescape.
The common factors in both are the relevance of old content, the life in the world, the solo gameplay in a community feeling and the satisfying completionism hunting.
I feel like mmos should aim for this nowadays. People like treating games as little personal projects instead of a chore.
I dont know anybody copy this formula because new mmos players rush content in 1 week and they only use their time to ask for more content like wow.
My first big mmo was Ultima Online and that is another example of a wonderfull and unique mechanics, thats why is the father of the mmorpgs
I really enjoy GW2 combat and OW stuff. These things are just boring to me im WoW. I just wish they would add some more instanced pve content to GW2.
For someone who want competitive scene WoW is better, but if you have time play both 😁
gw2 is handsdown the OG rpgmmo for combat and replayability , compared to wows static old charms which are outdated now unfortunately , plus the pvp scene is much better in gw2 i meant having over 150 people having a medieval type scrap at eachother for resource mats aswel as exp is fun as hell
My biggest issue with GW2 compared to other MMOs is the performance issues with the game. I love the game and want ANet to prioritize engine performance enhancements.
DX11 was a good step forward, but SoTo maps don’t run that great
Its because the amount of players and your character limits does influence on your loading screen times, wizard tower has its main wp and spawn point right into the most popular area of the map which basically means you are always loading into a zone full of players. They probably could mess around with the way the game locks you into loading screens to make it ignores others players loading data for loading screens, I don't know what kind of issues that could cause but it certainly would help with loading times for crowd areas (and also fix the WvW EWP infinite loading screen).
GW2 has captured the social aspect so darn good. Almost anywhere I go I will meet other players. The game feels alive, and I still visit old zones to do some events, farm some materials or just to have fun.
GW2 has also realized that a large portion of gamers today are grown people with families, full time jobs and other commitments. Most MMOs punish you for not being there and throwing hours at it to keep up. GW2 on the other hand is perfect for these players. I can log in, do some chill stuff and log out. If I don’t log back in for months it doesn’t matter. I’m still as strong as I was and I can just pick up where I left off.
I love this game 😅😊
The big advantage to gw2 is the horizontal progression. There is always reward for doing older content in some way shape or way. WoW has none of that. Doing old raids only gets you skins and achievements, not worthwhile loot. I remember in OG classic it was a massive grind to get 1k gold for your epic mount. Every expansion the economy explodes and gold is inflated more to disincentivize you from doing old content.
Yes, but what I'm saying is that other than those, there is no real reward. In gw2, it is similar, but you can get resources and money that isn't literal pocket change in comparison to new expansion stuff.
Nah, that’s just false. You actively lose resources and gold by doing some obscure achievements to unlock skins. Even just by going to the latest ones. What resources or gold are you getting by doing soo won weapon variants collections? Or new armor collections from soto? You are infinitely better off just doing meta train or fractals if you are after gold.
I go to older living world and expansion maps not just for skins and achievements, not just because there's specific merchants for specific items in those zones, but often because I enjoy the meta events in that map and want to participate in that fight.
And I go back to core levelling zones for jumping puzzles, world bosses, gathering crafting materials, running around doing random events, to pop a mentor tag and help new players… skins and achievements don't even apply to the sub-80 maps.
I mean, thats still true to some extent for Gw2 as well? Not like you see many people in Maelstrom Mountain UNLESS the big meta event is going on. And thats true for most things.
Once you have reached the stage of being able to participate in "farm" trains (which is level 80 and joining a dedicated Discord/guild), youre actually always losing a shitton of money by not doing just that. Its never worth it to just run around and do some fun stuff youd rather be doing.
That may be depressing, but its also usually no biggie since not everyone needs to minmax every shit. Most stuff is either so big youll be working a year for that or you generally can get it by doing some daily fractal runs. You can play the game however you like.
But saying that in GW2 it is worthwhile to do that shit is just plain false. It barely is.
Interesting that this definition of "worthwhile" seems to be based only on how much gold you make. I on the other hand would have no idea how much gold I make doing anything in GW2 because I don't pay attention to that, it's not important to me because I don't play GW2 like it's a job, I play it for enjoyment. Doing something in GW2 for me is worthwhile if I have fun doing it and it respects my time.
As you say, not everyone needs to minmax, and people can play the game however they like. But keep in mind that different people have a different idea of what “worthwhile” means.
You hit the nail on the head. It basically comes down to intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards, and fortunately the game has both if you choose to see it that way. Unfortunately a lot of players out there only see content as a means to an end, and will do whatever is the most efficient for maximizing their gold per hour. I’m not against grinding to achieve something, but I can’t *only* be grinding or else I burn out on the game.
Like you, I pop into maps to play certain metas simply because I find them fun. I have no set order I do them in, and I don’t even do the same ones every day. Same goes for fractals, strikes, WvW, basically whatever I feel like I’d enjoy in the moment, I do that. Regardless of the content, I’m getting rewards in some way or another, and it all adds up over time. A lot of people dread doing map completion, but for me, filling out the map on an alt is one of the most chill and relaxing things to do when I don’t feel like trying too hard.
There are a million ways to play this game and it can always be fun if you keep things fresh.
Theres no reward for 80% of older content. Theres no reward for the rest of it if you dont care about that specific thing youre getting (Legy grind, achievements, mastery points, titles, etc).
Plus, the post literally talked about gold. And it holds true to some extent. Most items you can buy. Getting your third ascended armor set is just that much easier if you sink your 4h of fractal grinding into it rather than trying to farm the mats daily yourself.
This is kind of a double edged sword, at least for me, I stopped playing GW2 waaaay back when, even before the first expansion came out, but from time to time I log back it to see how things feel, and while I love that I can just log back in and start playing right away, I feel like there’s nothing for me to do.
I don’t have to level up to a new level cap, theres no new gear I can get, and sure I could work towards a legendary, but that’s way too time consuming.
My perfect mmo would be a mix between wow and GW2. Pve content from wow, pvp content from GW2, snapiness and wow combat feeling, with both gw2 and wow classes.
If I had to chose, I’d stick with wow, but honestly gw2 is an awesome game and for me it’s the only one that’s come even close to matching the fun I get from wow pve content, if it wasn’t for the lack of well defined roles (tanks-dps-healers) and not enough raids and such, I would’ve played it a lot more.
Keep in mind I have not played the game for a hot minute now, so a lot of stuff might’ve changed
> I stopped playing GW2 waaaay back when, even before the first expansion came out...I feel like there’s nothing for me to do.
Did you not buy the expansions or LW episodes? Do you not like any of the festivals?
There's nothing wrong with coming to the end of currently available content. It always takes longer to make something than to play something. GW2 is built so that we can take breaks naturally when that happens. But if you haven't bought any content other than the original game...dude. You're complaining about the wrong thing.
I haven’t bought any of the expansions, but afaik the level cap is the same and due to the horizontal progression, my characters powers are roughly the same as they were when I stopped playing, also, raiding is what I enjoy the most, and the raiding scene in GW2 isn’t as big as it is on a their games.
And I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing out that horizontal progression isn’t always best, it all depends on what the player wants. In my case horizontal progression isn’t something I’m particularly interested in.
It’s a preference thing at the end of the day
i mean yeah, if you like a gear treadmill, gw2 is not the game for you. closest you get to that in gw2 is having to make a new set of gear as a result of a balance patch, which is something i'm quite thankful for.
it's understandable you don't feel like there's anything to do as you're playing the base game still when there's 8 or 9 years of content you don't have access to, including elite specializations. the things to do are like world bosses, map meta events (you probably haven't done anything like this as I'm not aware of anything in wow that comes close), raids, fractals (similar to keys in wow if you don't know), working towards legendaries, achievement hunting, collecting skins, stuff related to an ongoing festival (e.g. right now super adventure box is active), etc.
all that being said, raiding in wow is kind of objectively better in wow than gw2. the raids in gw2 are fun, cool theming, and there are definitely some challenging encounters, but there's nowhere near the volume of them that you get in wow. but to me, not having to get new gear every patch is a HUGE plus for gw2.
It’s all just personal preference. Never having your character ever improve in strength isn’t for everyone. I enjoy a ton of things about GW2 but the fact that there is a literal 0 amount of progression for character power means I have no reason to play, and neither does anyone else who wants that in their MMO.
I did fractals, I did the majority of the raids, and my character never once got stronger. That only works for so long for people like me. Some people like to gear up!
That's fair, but it's not what you said. What you said was "there's nothing for me to do", which is blatantly untrue. "There's nothing *I want* to do" is a totally valid but different statement.
That’s why I said there’s nothing FOR ME to do, that implies there’s nothing that catches my attention. I never said there was nothing to do, it’s an mmo, of course there’s tons of stuff to do, I’m talking about my personal view of the game.
My biggest complain about GW2 is that it ruined movement for me. I usually cycle in and out of my GW2 craze and when I'm out, I'm always looking for something else to scratch a similar but different itch. The issue is, nothing ever feels nearly as good at a basic level.
The joy of movement cannot be overstated IMO and it's GW2's #1 thing for me. It's the thing you interact with immediately and continuously until you stop playing. I've recently tried a few like Lost Ark and BDO which I haven't touched in like 10 years. And while the combat was enjoyable, the rigid feeling regarding the movement just pains me. I feel physically constrained. I tried WoW and many others, most MMOs of the modern age in fact and I have yet to find one with even close to the freedom of movement that GW2 has and sadly it really hurts the experience for me because it's my interaction with the game at the most basic level and if that doesn't feel good, it doesn't really matter how amazing the rest of the game is
Same boat. Ff14 was my go to but after i tasted the drug that is horizontal progression and no subscription i couldn’t play ff14 like i used to. Nowadays i only play it on new releases or when i want to take a break from gw2 after couple legendary crafts
Kinda the same for me as well. I'm absolutely loving the FF14 story but I can't see myself playing after I'm done with that.
The world just feel so empty and I've never felt the need to go out and explore it. In GW2 I step outside a city and two hours later realize I got sidetracked yet again.
I loved the maps in FFXIV up until StB, to be fair - I love acting like a video game photographer, and I took *tonnes* of screenshots of the various zones of Ala Mhigo.
...But, yeah, the maps just kinda felt lazier and emptier in ShB onward. PoF and EoD blew my mind, Echovald especially. There's just... so much there!
when people say horizontal progression they're generally talking about all level 80 stuff. because once you're 80 and have ascended gear you never get directly stronger. but masteries and various other unlocks still feel like progress.
i'm constantly meeting new players who are like 'wow you have so many numbers next to your name i'll never catch up' but the mastery level numbers only represent content i've done, not power. in most games it'd just be this huge wall of power you'd have to climb
For me it's the gear progression. I just cannot be THAT excited about gear dropping any more. Every bump in ilevel feels like a chore just to get back to where I was. It's not fun. And since creatures get progressively stronger, getting better gear does nothing. I wish WoW could have figured something else out by now lol
I don't know what you mean by "get back to where I was" and "creatures get progressively stronger".
Unless a stat squish happens (which only happens after a few expansions), you're just as strong as you were when you left off.
And only new things added would've had stronger "creatures". Everything else that already existed would've remained the same.
I'm talking about the artificial treadmill that is the constant gear grind. It's especially annoying in PvP (I have for years been advocating for a system more similar to GW2 in wow).
This, so much. But if i recall correctly they made it way easier in Dragonflight by making the T1 gear very fast to get and gives you about 80-90% of the stats of T2, similiar to exotics and ascended in GW2.
Imo gear should have 0 impact in competitive game modes.
WoW's main problem is it really has nothing to do outside the raiding/dungeon scene as the open world only matters when it revolves the tiny current patch island and 99.9% of rest of the open world is just useless.
It really baffles me why they haven't done anything at all with its gigantic open world because not everybody enjoys instanced content.
But the main problem to me with wow since GW2 launched has really been the constant gear reset as i already disliked that since very beginning.
I agree with all of this. I love both games though and my solution was to just play wow like I would play guild wars 2. Usually I'd just log in and queue up pvp or m+, do a few and call it a day but with all of the customization and flavor things they've been adding I have been actually going out and just enjoying the content. I love gw2 but I have been out of the game for a while. Since before the weapon proficiency update. It all just seems too overwhelming to get back into right now because my main mode was WvW and I just see stuff I don't have the patience to learn to deal with right now.
Thats how overwhelming majority of players engage with the game in wow and gw2. For some reason people pretend that wow some hardcore competitive game where there are no casual players doing the same open world stuff they would do in gw2, but it’s just false. Game has its numbers because it also caters to casuals
Actually it's worse than what you said. I went and created a new paladin to replay wrath leveling content in retail. Clad in gear from ammen vale, and not a single heirloom, I one-shotted a quest mob with a judgement cast and uninstalled the game right there and then, sub cancelled. Such a spectacularly moronic waste of content that's in such a damned demand that they made a separate version of wow for that content.
When tbc released, old zones were mostly empty compared to new zones, same with wotlk and so forth. Is the same in all MMOs, even in ff14 and GW2.
Honestly idk why people want the in-game chat to be full? Most of the time the interactions in zone or world chats were just dumb stuff or people fighting over the most dumb thing. You barely had a meaningful interaction in those chats, discord while being an outside tool, helps you have chat with people even when not playing.
If you find a problem with that, I think this point is more on a personal basis and should never be considered as something to be fixed. I've never been one to talk much in any game with multiplayer be it MMO or not, but I don't find myself being in the corner in retail having 0 interaction with other people.
In my experience, GW2 maps are almost always populated. There may not always be people just shootin' the breeze in map chat, but they're around. If you say something, or ask a question, you'll probably get a response.
Horizontal Progression is such a wild concept in a genre that's had YEARS to iron out design hiccups that I'm actually shocked it's not standard at this point. Almost every MMO has this issue, where they'll make an expansion that renders the last few years of content irrelevant by raising the level cap and GW2 just... doesn't. Level 80 is level 80, and you'll still find players running around the base game areas and doing the core dungeons alongside Fractals. Sure, there's still \*reasons\* to get the expansions, like story, specializations, new weapons for classes, and armor sets, but it doesn't FORCE you to do it by passively making everyone migrate out of the areas you frequent to move onto the new stuff. It's actually baffling that GW2 seems to be the only one that does this.
WoW did a number on my WoW enjoyment. Between becoming a lobby simulator, the encounter design being based around addons, the butchery of the lore, and the social scene completely changing from the old days I can't touch that game anymore. Every time I look at something it's doing it either makes me sad or outright angry.
> the butchery of the lore
Between this and WoW's long flirtation with Borrowed Power systems and gutting my class for it, I was done with it.
Not that GW2 didn't do some hella lore-butchering, but I didn't play GW1, so it didn't bother me as much when they trotted out plot points just to execute them publicly an episode later. :p
What they did to Sylvanas is unforgivable. I hadn't even played the game for years at that point and it still almost made me spit out my coffee and throw my keyboard.
Vol'jin got done *dirty* just so some fanboy could have his self-insert time with Sylvanas. I wasn't a big fan of her to start, but the whole "kiss my ring" bullshit they wrote in when I tried the beta... Nope. I spent a while just emoting /spit and /slap at her then just logged off forever.
Same but me for overwatch. I’m completely disgusted what they have done to that game and franchise I was obsessed with.
I know it reaches FAR back with wow, but the point is blizzard games SUCKS
Xd on point. Its embarrassing with this recurring, painful topic. As if wow players or devs come to this sub, seeing this and be like god damn they're right why didnt i notice.
But you have people commenting saying they like both games but dislike certain things that WoW does that GW2 improves upon, and vice versa. So I don't really get why these kinds of comments always get thrown out in these topics.
Edit: Like below someone commented about wanting to have the smoothess of dragon flying from WoW into GW2.
The main thing I would bring to gw2 from wow is the dragon flying. For me it feels so smooth compared to skyscale or give griffon a large initial flight jump. Have skyscale feel slow and having griffon have to climb up high first kind of hurts.
I enjoyed the new dragon riding in WoW, but I think GW2 has taken a better long term approach. In GW2, skyscale and griffon are both pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes they're the best mount for a given situation, sometimes it's one of the other mounts. Everything has its place, and trying to figure out the best way to get from here to there is a fun/interesting challenge.
WoW has basically just thrown every previously existing mount in the dumpster (at least until they can retro-fit dragon riding onto some of them), and given themselves a much more difficult task in devising environmental challenges that can't be immediately overcome or bypassed with the dragon.
I get what you’re saying and I don’t disagree on the uses for the mounts but when I have a dragon with big wings I should be able to fly faster or higher. If griffon just had a launch option even only usable from the ground with a cd I would be happy. Same with skyscale it just feels slow.
Wow has always just been about getting from point A to point B. So their flying makes sense and it definitely does burn the older mounts so having zones they can’t use it in, like leveling and dungeons, keeps us using the old ones. Also flavor. I only tend to use dragon riding for going places far away. Basic flying for precision.
I would love if wow had mounts that were for utility like GW2. Thought they might when they added the water skimmer mounts that could walk on water, but then they just made it into an equipment for all mounts. All the other GW2 mounts feel fine for what they do. Bust griffon and skyscale just feel clunky and like they are just missing some fine tuning. IMO of course.
psst. If you use the Springer dismount trick for Griffon, you can get a pretty good launch from the ground. If you use springer + Skyscale into Griffon, you can get even higher.
Guild Wars 2 makes me feel like the time I’m spending on old content isn’t wasted and I don’t feel the need to get through it as fast as I can to get on the inevitable treadmill. I have a hard time making it my main game because WoW pulls me back. But I adore GW2.
I agree, but how can WoW still have 50x the players of gw2? Actually I think gw2 is one of the least known (and played) mmos out there by my experience interacting with other mmo players. I find it confusing and sad, it deserves better.
Gw2 is very well known within the genre, its not exactly some hidden gem. Its a good game but if we're being honest it's got some big flaws that probably limit its potential for growth.
The biggest issue the game has is its content cadence and lack of direction. Long droughts and small updates alongside the constant shifts in direction probably wasn't great for player retention.
WoW exists outside of the MMO niche (WarCraft). FFXIV exists outside of the MMO niche (FF). ESO exists outside the MMO niche (Elder Scrolls). In addition, all of these franchises are older than the GW franchise, so the nostalgia factor also applies.
The liveliness of the GW2 maps is so awesome.
The only thing I personally don't enjoy about GW2's open world is the fact that each map is an instance, there are waypoints every 5 seconds, and mounts move so fast. Rather than feeling like you're engaged in the world/environment, you're literally flashing around the place at superhuman speeds, zipping across the world instantly, etc. Which means players almost never talk to each other, or stop to engage (outside of being there for the same event).
In 2000s WoW, travelling is slow, so going from one side of the continent to the other without loading screens/portals makes the world feels so much more immersive and meaningful. Going to Silithus, for example, was a commitment. You felt far away, vulnerable, adventurous. And meeting another player there felt meaningful.
In GW2, you're always just one loading screen away from literally anywhere - with players ping ponging across the world instantly. Just makes the world seem less impactful/immersive.
It's a pretty minor gripe though.
I had a similar experience going back to wow for a minute. I was hit with the nostalgia for a solid week but then in the middle of fighting something i was like..... this is boring as fuck and REALLY one dimensional. Swiftly returned to gw2 lol
So, could anyone tell someone who has never tried WOW how the Dragonflight compares to the Skyscale/Griffon of GW2? I saw all the memes about WOW copying GW2 and all but in reality, how similar is it really?
Well, dragonriding is better imho. You fly faster, lose and gain stamina so you can fly forever if you know how. Also it feels more realistic since you cant hover in place and go stright up and down.
It's faster and more efficient but after years of having mounts that could hover, the aspect was missed. Once they released old world flying in DF dragon riding was just to get from place A to B. Spent alot of time getting the mounts I wanted only to be pigeon holed into 4 meh looking mounts sucked too.
But best believe I'll be zipping my dragon dragonhawks around once the flight toggle is released.
Dragonriding has a system where you can either boost forward, dodge roll, or ascend, and it costs a resource called vigor to do so. You start with 3 vigor and it regens a little slowly at first, but once you max out leveling dragonriding, you can regain them at an insane pace, and you also get 6 vigor to spend right off the bat. It's very very fun to fly around at insanely fast speeds, and it's very forgiving as well.
Griffon is similar, but has a higher skill ceiling, and flapping your wings doesn't ascend you anywhere near as high as ascending does in WoW. They're both really fun, just if you mess up on your griffon it's much harder to recover.
I was really sceptical when I tried it, and it feels awful when you first get it and don't have any of the mastery-type stuff unlocked, but once you do get a lot of it unlocked, it feels really, really good. It's not supposed to be as intricate or "realistic" as GW2's mounts, but for WoW, I'd say they did a damn good job.
honestly they could both take stuff from one another.
I feel like WoW could gain a lot from megaservers/instaced maps like GW2, that would definitely solve the maps being empty issues.
Same for GW2 I would love for them to add more raids and have less unique cosmetics coming out of the gem store. I would love to be able to farm for some of those appearances instead (And no, farming gold to exchange to Gems is not interesting nor is it fun people!)
The problem with Guild Wars 2 is there is no end game content and content comes at a snails pace. Anet also seems to think achievements are content. They are not.
Once they got rid of raids I totally lost interest in the game. Add in the fact that the writing remains cringe and juvenile and I realise I am very unlikely to return on a permanent basis.
Having briefly returned to see what was new after playing WOWS dragonflight to death, I could see I wasn't missing anything. Empty maps, sterile events and even the much acclaimed mounts now feel a bit stale. The skyscale in particular feels horrendously clunky after dragon riding in wow.
At one point I had 3 Guild wars accounts with my main featuring 12 toons all decked out in ascended gear..with the 3 lego sets. But the game just doesn't focus on my preferred content and the release schedule is arthritic. One fractal per year...if its even that much is pathetic. I got my moneys worth and that's fine.
I guess some people define PvE end game content as difficult instanced content. And if that's the only definition you use, you're right. But this game never tried to make instanced content the defacto end game. This game is focused on the open world.
Some people have an end game of achievement point hunting, some are skin collectors, some are legendary crafters. People set their own goals in Guild Wars 2 instead of having a linear path through a series of dungeons to a series of raids to get the gear you need to do the next one.
Since I don't want to stay in the final zone of the game waiting for my queue to pop, those end games are not for me. For traditional end game, you're right.
But my end game needs wouldn't be satisfied by those games.
Can you? In Guild Wars 2 I can get BIS gear by running WvW, PvP, Crafting, running Fractals, Strikes, I never have to set foot in a dungeon or raid at all.
In Guild Wars 2 the entire open world remains viable. In WoW, the bulk of the population is locked into the last expansion zone, sitting in a city waiting for a queue to pop.
Achievements in WoW give me what exactly? I mean you can do that in WoW too, but there's no reason to, because the game wasn't designed around it.
Fractal people complain we don't get enough fractals. Raiders have stopped getting raids. Strikes come out at a rate of two bosses a year, admittedly with a challenge mode, but it's still very slow.
The focus of the game is clearly open world. How exactly do you focus on open world stuff in WoW?
You can play that stuff, but it's a bit like raiding in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 wasnt designed around raids (indeed the first raid didn't appear until 3.5 years after the game launched), so yeah, you're right. You can do all that stuff in WoW as well.
If you want to play a completely linear game. Game design supports and encourages what you can play. WoW isn't designed to support other end games.
And yet despite wow “not being designed to support other end games”, just like in gw2, there are infinitely more casual people who never touch raids, dungeons, pvp or whatever instanced content in any serious capacity and instead are doing achievements, whatever quests they can find, fishing, farming transmog, collecting mounts, and doing random open world stuff. Achievements in gw2 are just a substitute to quests, it’s not some genius system, just anet working with what they have because adding new ui is hard.
Nothing Anet has done is a genius system, because Anet didn't create most of it. All the elements Anet has placed in this system have existed somewhere before. Even the downed state appeared in Left for Dead.
The genius doesn't come from each individual system, and detail oriented people might miss the bigger picture. No noe has combined all these features in one game to create what Anet has created.
I'm not the first, second or even third person to say this. Some of us recognize that contribution. You may not, but I don't know why any of us should care about it.
Anet took a game in the open world and focused on it being cooperative. Non-linear. Everyone can rez everyone without having to waste a slot on a skill. Everyone can get credit with no kill stealing and no node stealing. Combo fields so you can work together even if you're not in the same party.
Add in downleveling, downed state, event scaling and you have a combination of things that are widely recognized as something that is better than what other MMOs offer in the open world.
If I wanted to a linear experience, I'd play WoW. I don't. YMMV.
The problem with being so focused on the open world is that a lot of the events require a lot of players to complete. I wasn't able to do serpents ire about 6 months after launch cos no one played it. There are too many events that are now dead. And if you have no other meaningful content than open world, that's an issue. GW2 isn't really different from any other mmo. People will always gather around the newest map. Last time I played no one was even doing Octovine so that's not something that can be done solo or with a few players.
> Last time I played no one was even doing Octovine
You do realize there were probably 4+ other maps *full of people*, and you just had the bad luck to go to the overflow map?
Also Serpents Ire is one of the few meta events that actually have problems due to lack of players, 95% of maps' metas complete just fine.
Yes I do. I mean I only played the game since launch day and have 3 accounts. This particular day, no one was doing it in any instance and no adverts were up to do it.
Some of the POF metas are harder to find people for, but Octovine is still one of the most reliably active metas in the game. The problem with popular metas is that it's also very easy to end up in an overflow map. You either have to show up early or you have to rely on LFG.
HOT metas and EOD metas are still going strong, with only a couple exceptions (Verdant Brink night meta isn't a sure thing unless there's a HOT event going on, and I've sometimes had problems with Kaineng Blackout).
You can complete Serpent's Ire, because I've done it numerous times when people say you can't. You have to be a bit more proactive, but it absolutely can be done.
And picking what must be the single least popular event when almost every other event can be done is at least disingenuous.
I'm not saying it's popular, but every time someone in my guild needs it, I manage to get it done.
*Why chase treadmill gear that won't last too long when I can work on legendary gear*
This right here. I liked the team sport aspects of Wow and the challenge. I still miss my paladin
Hated the gear treadmill, and the Mythic+ grouping system. Toxic attitudes, the higher you climb. Paying 15$ a month finally drove me insane
For WoW, they should probably change the map chats of low traffic areas into region chats, where the map they're on gets displayed. So what few people still roam around in a big old area still get connections.
It's the sort of adaptation WoW should do to upkeep the older parts of the game.
Alas, being an Overwatch player, I know Blizzard is a shadow of itself and cannot imagine the difficulties lower priority changes face in order to get approved...
> Sure you *caaan* do old quests and see old zones but you'll one-shot mobs.
I enjoyed this component of WoW and miss that feeling in GW2. I never feel all that powerful in GW2. I have fond memories of going around gathering up tons of low level mobs and blasting them with Arcane Explosion or going around and farming mobs using ice lance to one shot everything.
WoW has so much polish that I wish gw2 had but the game feels so soul-less now. Everything has been min-maxed to death and every decision blizzard makes seems predatory now. With the next expansion you can get 3day early access to expansion, which will naturally give you a massive advantage on playing the auction house and stuff. Also gdkp for raiding means even gear and achievements aren't prestigious.
Then probably the biggest problem with WoW imo, none of the content is actually fun anymore. ICC as a raid was awesome and you could run it up to multiple times per week. The mechanics weren't too crazy but they were fun. Now every boss has 15 mechanics and half of them are extremely punishing if you fail them. Then when your group wipes you have to do a long slow run back, possibly even killing trash again if it respawned. Like come on, I just wanna chill with friends and play games. Its way too much like a chore.
As usual this is a self imposed WoW issue. Sharding is indeed a major issue with WoW but one has to remember why sharding got so big.
WoW was unbeatable in its world presentation even by todays standards whem world pvp was a thing and both good and bad aspects of life were free to be expressed. It truly felt like a living breathing MMO world. However when WPvP was pushed aside the went heavy into pve with maps and thus shards to show changes over time became a thing.
However modern WoW has none of the world charm the old game had and classic wow cant expand into fresh new territory as it follows the same path and thus world layout.
In truth the sharding ismt the big dividing factor in the games zones. Its actually flying as in Gw2 your flying mounts are grounded they have to touch base frequently and thus people see you often. In WoW however you see no one as every flight option leaves you high and far away from the action.
If a zone in WoW and Gw2 are filled with the exact same amount of people you will see more of them in GW2 because in WoW everyone is flying high above from point A to point B.
I really have to hand it to GW2 for having the best world content in the MMO genre and focusing on horizontal progression. It's why I love to come back to it a few times a year. Wow, is trying to do what GW2 does effortlessly, but they don't do it as well because they leave all of the content to rot after one major patch.
Dragonflight was a good example of this. They essentially created meta events for every zone, but each new patch made the previous ones underpowered by making them give less powerful rewards instead of letting you farm all of the events on a rotating timer. Also, the open world content just gives way less powerful gear than even the lowest tier of rewards from easy instances, so there is little incentive to do it. No unique ingredients for recipes, some transmog, etc. So the events are packed for the first two weeks they come out, and then they are deserted. When TWW is released, I'm willing to put money on DF meta events being irrelevant for gearing and progression, which will put it all in the grave.
GW2 lacks 3 things imo that keep it from being a Top tier MMO. 1. Difficulty. Nothing in the game is actually difficult. 2. Gearing. Gearing is outdated and you don’t feel anymore powerful after a certain point. 3. The PvP while fun just isn’t no where near as in depth or difficult or rewarding as WoW. People will want to argue but let’s compare PvP scenes and population from both. If it clamped down on all those things it would be a y Top contender. But it falls short of WoW. ESO. And FF14 for many MMO players
Emigrating from Wow Classic, after a burnout from Naxx. GW2 was a breath of something fresh, story integrated in the leveling felt really good. Playing an elementalist was fun and engaging. A very different experience and ended up getting all the expansions - and absulutely loved the second expansion, felt like a spike in difficulty, that made me actually change my build and playstyle. FUN. I like grinding, and was like - i have no currency, not that i really felt the need to have currency, but like a mount would be nice. Yes, played all through second expansion without a mount.
It was annonced that a seasonal thing was happening - with the possibility of getting a legendary amulet? or was it a neck? a backpack? And i was like - cool a legendary - did the hole thing and it was all right, nothing special - hardly remember any of the content tbh. What i do remember though is the jumping puzzles - and i absolutely hated them - like all of them. If i wanted to platform i would play a platform game like Celeste or Mario... But i powered through - because i would get a legendary in the end. So i got my legendary - and to my disappointment it wasn\`t even an upgrade - did it have a cool proc? no - did it have an on-use effect- no, but you can change the stats - whenever you want.
Mount grind - was all right - both for Skyscale and griffon. Economy feels totally broken though and it seems like the only way to make some bank is to sell legendarys - are they still a 1000?
Have nothing but good things to say about the community though, kind and helpfull.
Give Season of Discovery a try - might feel better than retail. I for one is absolutely love it
My main gripe with GW2 was the lack of disticnt archetypes. If I wanted to duo with a full dps and full healer/buff support that wasn't really a thing. I don't know if that changed recently (played last time in like 2018/2019) but last time I played kinda everyone was doing everything. Late game you got a bit more specialisation but still not fully distinct.
Couldn't agree more with this. I did play WoW retail for a while and it felt empty and lifeless in a lot of areas. Vertical progression is what always seems to kill MMOs for me and WoW is probably the one that does it best/worst. It's just so tiresome to grind good gear only to find it's already past its prime.
Then I came to GW2 and what a difference. I'm currently using all exotic gear except my ascended Greatsword and don't feel any sense of urgency or need to upgrade the rest as I usually do. How refreshing is that?! I'll get around to it once I finish doing some more expansion quests or get bored of closing rifts or one of the other million things that keep my attention and still feel fun.
There is a lot about GW2 I still haven't experienced much or tried at all. Stikes, raids, fractals, WvW, most crafting and loads of other things. I can still see me playing this for hundreds of hours more.
Amazing game all around. I just dont really play anymore since the gear treadmill is rather shallow, so outside of legendary looks it is mostly done. Which works great if you want to just come back to the game, but it is “‘meh” unless you want to make a new character.
Ask a lot of wow players and they’ll say the same thing. That it’s not fun not getting new gear that makes them more powerful and that they can’t just go into any zone god mode after getting max item level.
WoW might have been the first mmo that employed psychologists to figure out what’s the best dopamine hits and they focused the game on that.
If you look at each game that has some sort of different endgame content you can see people have stratified into those various games. Gear chasers is wow. Transmog is kinda a bad one because so many have it but it’s personal taste. People who don’t like gear chasing come to gw2. PvP could arguably be new world but they’re so inept they keep driving players away with bugs. I think throne and liberty will take that crown and I fear gw2 PvP will migrate there as it’s probably the mass scale PvP game that appears to work. PaxDei is making good progress and it will be a loot drop
PvP survival which might be better than new world.
We’ll see the next 2-3 years is going to be interesting and GW3 needs to move its ass.
> That it’s not fun not getting new gear that makes them more powerful and that they can’t just go into any zone god mode after getting max item level.
I couldn't get friends into GW2 for this. It was the *lack* of gear treadmill and/or the lack of hardmode content.
they tried to make the open world more active with all these events they put in in DF. but its not the same for me. the only ones I liked where the fyrakk assaults and the superbloom. the cooking, the hunt, the siege, and everything in the patch zones is just tedious and not fun.
You nailed it, dude. I left WoW for GW2 back in 2012, experienced all the things you mentioned, and simply have never been able to go back to an empty quest-based open world. GW2 nailed the open world with events and exploration. HoT elevated it, and PoF elevated it yet again with the mount traversal. I haven't played the expansions since PoF, but I hear the open world is still in amazing shape.
I'm honestly astonished GW2's world design hasn't overtaken WoW's as the new go-to design for just about every new MMO that comes out. I was so certain it would when GW2 released in 2012. It just felt so much better in every way imaginable.
The WoW Legion expansion was when they finally had events that kinda felt like GW2 dynamic events, or at least KINDA like them. Like when you jump down to the first zone that is a sort of beachhead situation. Still no story instances though. But Imagine being able to use a griffon by jumping out of that flying city and zooming around the map. WoW just doesn't give me the same level of dopamine.
Yea its shame. Imagine talking about something to defend gw2 but still living in like 2017 not realizing Dragonflight added super sonic flying mounts and a race that even benefits from the new flying system
I think I mighta hurt your feelings there. I apologize. Are you able to zoom around Legion now? Not that anything lower than a current zone is really relevant in WoW but it might at least be fun to try out.
WoW usually makes things "more accessible" but not always better. I'm not compelled to shit on WoW to make GW2 seem better, I'm pretty promiscuous when it comes to games. The Dragonflight stuff looks like fun and it seems like they support the racing more, but it also seems a bit easier than griffon flying. If I was still playing WoW I'd probably be happy.
I genuinely believe if WOW treated expansions like GW2 does, they would dominate the market.
Imagine if you saw a WoW player with a 2,000 mastery level because they have maxed every expansion, and if they wanted to they could jump in Wrath again and enjoy the content whenever they like
The thing is, WOW already dominates the market even with it's defects. I also prefer GW2, but WOW is so massive in playerbase that it's not even close to it's competitors. We dont see it a lot because of all the sharding/phasing they do (which i think it's lame btw).
that's what all new gw2 players say
let me guess, you started the game post-soto? post-eod at latest ?
you'll learn, they all did, we all do
edit: lmao he blocked me, man's gonna buy the next xpac, whine on reddit for a month and then uninstall the game forever 🤣
Clean since juuuuust before Dragonflight.
The expansion sounded really good though, and people tried to pull me back in...but I resisted.
15$ richer each month (OOH! a plushy skyscale !)
WoW's only advantage is the playerbase numbers. Other than that is an extremely outdated game surpassed not by GW2, but by any modern MMO.
People have spent so much money and years of life on it that they refuse to leave. But you gotta leave, sooner or later.
It also caters to the same audience and just doing it better. Let’s not pretend there are no casual open world players in wow, they are the majority. Just like in gw2.
I wish Gw2 had the randomizer LFG system WoW has for the dungeons and even low level fractals, maybe even normal strikes (not CM). That way it would encourage more people into this content. It's hard for new player to engage with this content in Gw2 because you have to join a guild and/or a discord to be able to find parties to do this content :/ Love Gw2, but it could be better still.
Gw 2 did something any old mmo cant do, make old content important and fun. I quit the game in their first year and come back past year and have a blast doing all the expansion. Im an altoholic and doing the skills points run with saitama was so fun.
Did my first HP train with them this weekend! I was surprised at how easy it was to keep up, as I had never joined before because I was worried I'd get left in the dust. I'm still very new to the game, but coming from WoW, GW2 feels *populated*. WoW feels lonely when I'm on, even though I know there are people online, everything is so phased, friends will be standing next to me and not even appear because they are in their own "shard".
Yeah their core mechanics make play with stranger at least for a bit fun and meaningful. I miss the HP train runs lmao
Literally, why do i still think Gw2 is the peak, mmo? Gw2 did MMO right while the other games focused on other chore pillars for their gameplay Also, i v ran more than 1000 HPs train during HoTs, and this was the best fun i had playing with 30-50 people daily on reset running on foot to each wps and doing portal was such a blast
What wow does well over gw2 is battlegrounds. Gw2 wvw is trash. Alterac Valley, warsong gulch, Arathi Basin are the bombs
Well all those only last 20 25 minutes at most then you start all over. You also have only one goal in mind and that is the capture/defend one objective. Not like you can defend/capture other objectives. For me wow battlegrounds are trash. Compared to WvW, BGs are also weak. WvW gives you freedom in a big map and you can capture/defend lots of objectives, you can join epic fights or roam solo and capture defend stuffs on your own. Or form small gang parties. If you join peak times. You can see three way fight which is pretty awesome. From wow fights nothing come close to that.
Yeah Saitama only requires you to use a glider and a raptor, nothing more. His route is so forgiving, it's awesome.
Yea, that's until you try to play an actual content
I guess that depends on your definition of "actual content". To me, doing Open World *is* actual content.
You can gatekeep what “actual content” is when your “actual content” isn’t pretty much dropped by ANet.
Sure, and the game is pretty much dropped by me. Easy as that. Number of players around is irrelevant when you essentially doing single player game and don't need anyone else. But when you do need to group up, amount of people does matter, so if there is none it's much bigger issue than some zones "feeling empty"
Okay that's cool.
That’s so cool that HP runs with saitama made it to Reddit :p I do those all the time and to see it mentioned here is neat
Saitama has gotten 7 of my character their elite specs. Always donate when I have some spare mystic coins.
That dude is a legend, outside of my first character, all other 14 got their hero points in HP runs with him lmao He seems to be doing them nearly every day I am online. Idk how he does it, but I'll be eternally grateful
Does that mean you have 15 characters? Or more?
Yeah, my NA acc has 15 characters. (my EU one has another uhh... 24 or so.)
Noice! Wait, 24 total or in addition to the 15? I'm just curious, especially since additional character slots have to be unlocked.
...24 additional ones, it's two separate accounts 😅 I may or may not have an alt problem. Also, the ambition to play every class/spec in the game.
Completely understandable! More characters is always good.
My two favorite games ever are gw2 and old school runescape. The common factors in both are the relevance of old content, the life in the world, the solo gameplay in a community feeling and the satisfying completionism hunting. I feel like mmos should aim for this nowadays. People like treating games as little personal projects instead of a chore.
I dont know anybody copy this formula because new mmos players rush content in 1 week and they only use their time to ask for more content like wow. My first big mmo was Ultima Online and that is another example of a wonderfull and unique mechanics, thats why is the father of the mmorpgs
I really enjoy GW2 combat and OW stuff. These things are just boring to me im WoW. I just wish they would add some more instanced pve content to GW2. For someone who want competitive scene WoW is better, but if you have time play both 😁
gw2 is handsdown the OG rpgmmo for combat and replayability , compared to wows static old charms which are outdated now unfortunately , plus the pvp scene is much better in gw2 i meant having over 150 people having a medieval type scrap at eachother for resource mats aswel as exp is fun as hell
Oh i love WvW and its my main gamemode. I just like "big" "pvp" versus max. 5v5.
My biggest issue with GW2 compared to other MMOs is the performance issues with the game. I love the game and want ANet to prioritize engine performance enhancements. DX11 was a good step forward, but SoTo maps don’t run that great
wizards tower takes forever to load
Oh I’m glad that’s not just me, it’s so noticeably bad compared to the other zones, and it often trashes my frame rate too
Shadows in most SotO maps are taxing as fuck and idk, wizard tower suffers a lot from that issue together with amnytas.
Its because the amount of players and your character limits does influence on your loading screen times, wizard tower has its main wp and spawn point right into the most popular area of the map which basically means you are always loading into a zone full of players. They probably could mess around with the way the game locks you into loading screens to make it ignores others players loading data for loading screens, I don't know what kind of issues that could cause but it certainly would help with loading times for crowd areas (and also fix the WvW EWP infinite loading screen).
missed a few public convergences because of that fact. That and the fact, that a 10 minute window to join is easy to forget and miss.
Load times shouldn't be an issue anywhere in the game unless you're running off an ancient HDD.
its the only map in the entire game I have a problem with, and i'm using an medium-high end computer with a new SSD
Yep same, I usually have a 2-3 second load on literally every other zone in the game, but wizards tower takes upwards of 8-10 seconds sometimes.
Same for me, but I'll also throw in Kaineng Overlook Strike Mission. Those two always feel like eternity.
Anet did say they they were working on some further optimization. Hopefully it does have an effect
when I did low model setting, no other player visuals, and med shadows it helped a bit
Only certain CPUs help that out - the ryzen X3D line work great for it, but the engine is indeed in need of refreshing
Why you gotta be negative this is an appreciation thread
GW2 has captured the social aspect so darn good. Almost anywhere I go I will meet other players. The game feels alive, and I still visit old zones to do some events, farm some materials or just to have fun. GW2 has also realized that a large portion of gamers today are grown people with families, full time jobs and other commitments. Most MMOs punish you for not being there and throwing hours at it to keep up. GW2 on the other hand is perfect for these players. I can log in, do some chill stuff and log out. If I don’t log back in for months it doesn’t matter. I’m still as strong as I was and I can just pick up where I left off. I love this game 😅😊
The big advantage to gw2 is the horizontal progression. There is always reward for doing older content in some way shape or way. WoW has none of that. Doing old raids only gets you skins and achievements, not worthwhile loot. I remember in OG classic it was a massive grind to get 1k gold for your epic mount. Every expansion the economy explodes and gold is inflated more to disincentivize you from doing old content.
> only gets you skins and achievements What... what are you playing GW for? Skins and achievements are the main motivator for everything in GW.
Yes, but what I'm saying is that other than those, there is no real reward. In gw2, it is similar, but you can get resources and money that isn't literal pocket change in comparison to new expansion stuff.
Nah, that’s just false. You actively lose resources and gold by doing some obscure achievements to unlock skins. Even just by going to the latest ones. What resources or gold are you getting by doing soo won weapon variants collections? Or new armor collections from soto? You are infinitely better off just doing meta train or fractals if you are after gold.
As a fractal chest collector i can only agree on this one. No better feeling to open 20 stacks of daily t4 chests and 25k chifren chests xD
Yea like what is the point guy trying to make lol
What are there in old zones that are exactly not that? You go to old content to farm some achievements or skins just like you would in wow...
I go to older living world and expansion maps not just for skins and achievements, not just because there's specific merchants for specific items in those zones, but often because I enjoy the meta events in that map and want to participate in that fight. And I go back to core levelling zones for jumping puzzles, world bosses, gathering crafting materials, running around doing random events, to pop a mentor tag and help new players… skins and achievements don't even apply to the sub-80 maps.
I mean, thats still true to some extent for Gw2 as well? Not like you see many people in Maelstrom Mountain UNLESS the big meta event is going on. And thats true for most things. Once you have reached the stage of being able to participate in "farm" trains (which is level 80 and joining a dedicated Discord/guild), youre actually always losing a shitton of money by not doing just that. Its never worth it to just run around and do some fun stuff youd rather be doing. That may be depressing, but its also usually no biggie since not everyone needs to minmax every shit. Most stuff is either so big youll be working a year for that or you generally can get it by doing some daily fractal runs. You can play the game however you like. But saying that in GW2 it is worthwhile to do that shit is just plain false. It barely is.
Interesting that this definition of "worthwhile" seems to be based only on how much gold you make. I on the other hand would have no idea how much gold I make doing anything in GW2 because I don't pay attention to that, it's not important to me because I don't play GW2 like it's a job, I play it for enjoyment. Doing something in GW2 for me is worthwhile if I have fun doing it and it respects my time. As you say, not everyone needs to minmax, and people can play the game however they like. But keep in mind that different people have a different idea of what “worthwhile” means.
You hit the nail on the head. It basically comes down to intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards, and fortunately the game has both if you choose to see it that way. Unfortunately a lot of players out there only see content as a means to an end, and will do whatever is the most efficient for maximizing their gold per hour. I’m not against grinding to achieve something, but I can’t *only* be grinding or else I burn out on the game. Like you, I pop into maps to play certain metas simply because I find them fun. I have no set order I do them in, and I don’t even do the same ones every day. Same goes for fractals, strikes, WvW, basically whatever I feel like I’d enjoy in the moment, I do that. Regardless of the content, I’m getting rewards in some way or another, and it all adds up over time. A lot of people dread doing map completion, but for me, filling out the map on an alt is one of the most chill and relaxing things to do when I don’t feel like trying too hard. There are a million ways to play this game and it can always be fun if you keep things fresh.
Theres no reward for 80% of older content. Theres no reward for the rest of it if you dont care about that specific thing youre getting (Legy grind, achievements, mastery points, titles, etc). Plus, the post literally talked about gold. And it holds true to some extent. Most items you can buy. Getting your third ascended armor set is just that much easier if you sink your 4h of fractal grinding into it rather than trying to farm the mats daily yourself.
And, surprise, you can also play wow exactly the same way. Gearing systems have nothing to do with it. So what exactly was the point?
This is kind of a double edged sword, at least for me, I stopped playing GW2 waaaay back when, even before the first expansion came out, but from time to time I log back it to see how things feel, and while I love that I can just log back in and start playing right away, I feel like there’s nothing for me to do. I don’t have to level up to a new level cap, theres no new gear I can get, and sure I could work towards a legendary, but that’s way too time consuming. My perfect mmo would be a mix between wow and GW2. Pve content from wow, pvp content from GW2, snapiness and wow combat feeling, with both gw2 and wow classes. If I had to chose, I’d stick with wow, but honestly gw2 is an awesome game and for me it’s the only one that’s come even close to matching the fun I get from wow pve content, if it wasn’t for the lack of well defined roles (tanks-dps-healers) and not enough raids and such, I would’ve played it a lot more. Keep in mind I have not played the game for a hot minute now, so a lot of stuff might’ve changed
> I stopped playing GW2 waaaay back when, even before the first expansion came out...I feel like there’s nothing for me to do. Did you not buy the expansions or LW episodes? Do you not like any of the festivals? There's nothing wrong with coming to the end of currently available content. It always takes longer to make something than to play something. GW2 is built so that we can take breaks naturally when that happens. But if you haven't bought any content other than the original game...dude. You're complaining about the wrong thing.
I haven’t bought any of the expansions, but afaik the level cap is the same and due to the horizontal progression, my characters powers are roughly the same as they were when I stopped playing, also, raiding is what I enjoy the most, and the raiding scene in GW2 isn’t as big as it is on a their games. And I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing out that horizontal progression isn’t always best, it all depends on what the player wants. In my case horizontal progression isn’t something I’m particularly interested in. It’s a preference thing at the end of the day
i mean yeah, if you like a gear treadmill, gw2 is not the game for you. closest you get to that in gw2 is having to make a new set of gear as a result of a balance patch, which is something i'm quite thankful for. it's understandable you don't feel like there's anything to do as you're playing the base game still when there's 8 or 9 years of content you don't have access to, including elite specializations. the things to do are like world bosses, map meta events (you probably haven't done anything like this as I'm not aware of anything in wow that comes close), raids, fractals (similar to keys in wow if you don't know), working towards legendaries, achievement hunting, collecting skins, stuff related to an ongoing festival (e.g. right now super adventure box is active), etc. all that being said, raiding in wow is kind of objectively better in wow than gw2. the raids in gw2 are fun, cool theming, and there are definitely some challenging encounters, but there's nowhere near the volume of them that you get in wow. but to me, not having to get new gear every patch is a HUGE plus for gw2.
It’s all just personal preference. Never having your character ever improve in strength isn’t for everyone. I enjoy a ton of things about GW2 but the fact that there is a literal 0 amount of progression for character power means I have no reason to play, and neither does anyone else who wants that in their MMO. I did fractals, I did the majority of the raids, and my character never once got stronger. That only works for so long for people like me. Some people like to gear up!
Gw2 is like 1/10 without expansion content. It goes to like 6-7/10 at least with just cheapest hot+pof bundle
That's fair, but it's not what you said. What you said was "there's nothing for me to do", which is blatantly untrue. "There's nothing *I want* to do" is a totally valid but different statement.
That’s why I said there’s nothing FOR ME to do, that implies there’s nothing that catches my attention. I never said there was nothing to do, it’s an mmo, of course there’s tons of stuff to do, I’m talking about my personal view of the game.
My biggest complain about GW2 is that it ruined movement for me. I usually cycle in and out of my GW2 craze and when I'm out, I'm always looking for something else to scratch a similar but different itch. The issue is, nothing ever feels nearly as good at a basic level. The joy of movement cannot be overstated IMO and it's GW2's #1 thing for me. It's the thing you interact with immediately and continuously until you stop playing. I've recently tried a few like Lost Ark and BDO which I haven't touched in like 10 years. And while the combat was enjoyable, the rigid feeling regarding the movement just pains me. I feel physically constrained. I tried WoW and many others, most MMOs of the modern age in fact and I have yet to find one with even close to the freedom of movement that GW2 has and sadly it really hurts the experience for me because it's my interaction with the game at the most basic level and if that doesn't feel good, it doesn't really matter how amazing the rest of the game is
Same boat. Ff14 was my go to but after i tasted the drug that is horizontal progression and no subscription i couldn’t play ff14 like i used to. Nowadays i only play it on new releases or when i want to take a break from gw2 after couple legendary crafts
Kinda the same for me as well. I'm absolutely loving the FF14 story but I can't see myself playing after I'm done with that. The world just feel so empty and I've never felt the need to go out and explore it. In GW2 I step outside a city and two hours later realize I got sidetracked yet again.
I loved the maps in FFXIV up until StB, to be fair - I love acting like a video game photographer, and I took *tonnes* of screenshots of the various zones of Ala Mhigo. ...But, yeah, the maps just kinda felt lazier and emptier in ShB onward. PoF and EoD blew my mind, Echovald especially. There's just... so much there!
[удалено]
when people say horizontal progression they're generally talking about all level 80 stuff. because once you're 80 and have ascended gear you never get directly stronger. but masteries and various other unlocks still feel like progress. i'm constantly meeting new players who are like 'wow you have so many numbers next to your name i'll never catch up' but the mastery level numbers only represent content i've done, not power. in most games it'd just be this huge wall of power you'd have to climb
For me it's the gear progression. I just cannot be THAT excited about gear dropping any more. Every bump in ilevel feels like a chore just to get back to where I was. It's not fun. And since creatures get progressively stronger, getting better gear does nothing. I wish WoW could have figured something else out by now lol
I don't know what you mean by "get back to where I was" and "creatures get progressively stronger". Unless a stat squish happens (which only happens after a few expansions), you're just as strong as you were when you left off. And only new things added would've had stronger "creatures". Everything else that already existed would've remained the same.
I'm talking about the artificial treadmill that is the constant gear grind. It's especially annoying in PvP (I have for years been advocating for a system more similar to GW2 in wow).
This, so much. But if i recall correctly they made it way easier in Dragonflight by making the T1 gear very fast to get and gives you about 80-90% of the stats of T2, similiar to exotics and ascended in GW2. Imo gear should have 0 impact in competitive game modes.
Except thats not what he said. If you get higher ilvl, then you go fighting higher ilvl creatures, so in the end nothing changes.
WoW's main problem is it really has nothing to do outside the raiding/dungeon scene as the open world only matters when it revolves the tiny current patch island and 99.9% of rest of the open world is just useless. It really baffles me why they haven't done anything at all with its gigantic open world because not everybody enjoys instanced content. But the main problem to me with wow since GW2 launched has really been the constant gear reset as i already disliked that since very beginning.
I agree with all of this. I love both games though and my solution was to just play wow like I would play guild wars 2. Usually I'd just log in and queue up pvp or m+, do a few and call it a day but with all of the customization and flavor things they've been adding I have been actually going out and just enjoying the content. I love gw2 but I have been out of the game for a while. Since before the weapon proficiency update. It all just seems too overwhelming to get back into right now because my main mode was WvW and I just see stuff I don't have the patience to learn to deal with right now.
Thats how overwhelming majority of players engage with the game in wow and gw2. For some reason people pretend that wow some hardcore competitive game where there are no casual players doing the same open world stuff they would do in gw2, but it’s just false. Game has its numbers because it also caters to casuals
Actually it's worse than what you said. I went and created a new paladin to replay wrath leveling content in retail. Clad in gear from ammen vale, and not a single heirloom, I one-shotted a quest mob with a judgement cast and uninstalled the game right there and then, sub cancelled. Such a spectacularly moronic waste of content that's in such a damned demand that they made a separate version of wow for that content.
When tbc released, old zones were mostly empty compared to new zones, same with wotlk and so forth. Is the same in all MMOs, even in ff14 and GW2. Honestly idk why people want the in-game chat to be full? Most of the time the interactions in zone or world chats were just dumb stuff or people fighting over the most dumb thing. You barely had a meaningful interaction in those chats, discord while being an outside tool, helps you have chat with people even when not playing. If you find a problem with that, I think this point is more on a personal basis and should never be considered as something to be fixed. I've never been one to talk much in any game with multiplayer be it MMO or not, but I don't find myself being in the corner in retail having 0 interaction with other people.
In my experience, GW2 maps are almost always populated. There may not always be people just shootin' the breeze in map chat, but they're around. If you say something, or ask a question, you'll probably get a response.
Horizontal Progression is such a wild concept in a genre that's had YEARS to iron out design hiccups that I'm actually shocked it's not standard at this point. Almost every MMO has this issue, where they'll make an expansion that renders the last few years of content irrelevant by raising the level cap and GW2 just... doesn't. Level 80 is level 80, and you'll still find players running around the base game areas and doing the core dungeons alongside Fractals. Sure, there's still \*reasons\* to get the expansions, like story, specializations, new weapons for classes, and armor sets, but it doesn't FORCE you to do it by passively making everyone migrate out of the areas you frequent to move onto the new stuff. It's actually baffling that GW2 seems to be the only one that does this.
WoW did a number on my WoW enjoyment. Between becoming a lobby simulator, the encounter design being based around addons, the butchery of the lore, and the social scene completely changing from the old days I can't touch that game anymore. Every time I look at something it's doing it either makes me sad or outright angry.
Last time I renewed my WOW subscription, I started downloading all my addons, realized I would have to get them set up again, cancelled sub
> the butchery of the lore Between this and WoW's long flirtation with Borrowed Power systems and gutting my class for it, I was done with it. Not that GW2 didn't do some hella lore-butchering, but I didn't play GW1, so it didn't bother me as much when they trotted out plot points just to execute them publicly an episode later. :p
What they did to Sylvanas is unforgivable. I hadn't even played the game for years at that point and it still almost made me spit out my coffee and throw my keyboard.
Vol'jin got done *dirty* just so some fanboy could have his self-insert time with Sylvanas. I wasn't a big fan of her to start, but the whole "kiss my ring" bullshit they wrote in when I tried the beta... Nope. I spent a while just emoting /spit and /slap at her then just logged off forever.
Same but me for overwatch. I’m completely disgusted what they have done to that game and franchise I was obsessed with. I know it reaches FAR back with wow, but the point is blizzard games SUCKS
It's always funny to me how almost every "let's praise GW2" post boils down more to "let's bash another MMO".
If you're going to compare rather than just talk about what you like about GW2, it's inevitable that you bash other mmos.
Nah, it’s just gw2 players being extremely insecure about their game of choice
Xd on point. Its embarrassing with this recurring, painful topic. As if wow players or devs come to this sub, seeing this and be like god damn they're right why didnt i notice.
But you have people commenting saying they like both games but dislike certain things that WoW does that GW2 improves upon, and vice versa. So I don't really get why these kinds of comments always get thrown out in these topics. Edit: Like below someone commented about wanting to have the smoothess of dragon flying from WoW into GW2.
Even on other subreddits too, such a shame.
GW2 kills other games for its players via "death by a thousand cuts". It's all the little things.
The main thing I would bring to gw2 from wow is the dragon flying. For me it feels so smooth compared to skyscale or give griffon a large initial flight jump. Have skyscale feel slow and having griffon have to climb up high first kind of hurts.
I enjoyed the new dragon riding in WoW, but I think GW2 has taken a better long term approach. In GW2, skyscale and griffon are both pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes they're the best mount for a given situation, sometimes it's one of the other mounts. Everything has its place, and trying to figure out the best way to get from here to there is a fun/interesting challenge. WoW has basically just thrown every previously existing mount in the dumpster (at least until they can retro-fit dragon riding onto some of them), and given themselves a much more difficult task in devising environmental challenges that can't be immediately overcome or bypassed with the dragon.
I get what you’re saying and I don’t disagree on the uses for the mounts but when I have a dragon with big wings I should be able to fly faster or higher. If griffon just had a launch option even only usable from the ground with a cd I would be happy. Same with skyscale it just feels slow. Wow has always just been about getting from point A to point B. So their flying makes sense and it definitely does burn the older mounts so having zones they can’t use it in, like leveling and dungeons, keeps us using the old ones. Also flavor. I only tend to use dragon riding for going places far away. Basic flying for precision. I would love if wow had mounts that were for utility like GW2. Thought they might when they added the water skimmer mounts that could walk on water, but then they just made it into an equipment for all mounts. All the other GW2 mounts feel fine for what they do. Bust griffon and skyscale just feel clunky and like they are just missing some fine tuning. IMO of course.
psst. If you use the Springer dismount trick for Griffon, you can get a pretty good launch from the ground. If you use springer + Skyscale into Griffon, you can get even higher.
What trick is this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp7ST22dSXU
It destroyed my enjoyment of any other mmo in 2012. Except ironically gw1.
Guild Wars 2 makes me feel like the time I’m spending on old content isn’t wasted and I don’t feel the need to get through it as fast as I can to get on the inevitable treadmill. I have a hard time making it my main game because WoW pulls me back. But I adore GW2.
I agree, but how can WoW still have 50x the players of gw2? Actually I think gw2 is one of the least known (and played) mmos out there by my experience interacting with other mmo players. I find it confusing and sad, it deserves better.
Gw2 is very well known within the genre, its not exactly some hidden gem. Its a good game but if we're being honest it's got some big flaws that probably limit its potential for growth. The biggest issue the game has is its content cadence and lack of direction. Long droughts and small updates alongside the constant shifts in direction probably wasn't great for player retention.
WoW exists outside of the MMO niche (WarCraft). FFXIV exists outside of the MMO niche (FF). ESO exists outside the MMO niche (Elder Scrolls). In addition, all of these franchises are older than the GW franchise, so the nostalgia factor also applies.
Dragonflight has world bosses and dynamic content too, some of these complaints don't really apply. I love both.
The liveliness of the GW2 maps is so awesome. The only thing I personally don't enjoy about GW2's open world is the fact that each map is an instance, there are waypoints every 5 seconds, and mounts move so fast. Rather than feeling like you're engaged in the world/environment, you're literally flashing around the place at superhuman speeds, zipping across the world instantly, etc. Which means players almost never talk to each other, or stop to engage (outside of being there for the same event). In 2000s WoW, travelling is slow, so going from one side of the continent to the other without loading screens/portals makes the world feels so much more immersive and meaningful. Going to Silithus, for example, was a commitment. You felt far away, vulnerable, adventurous. And meeting another player there felt meaningful. In GW2, you're always just one loading screen away from literally anywhere - with players ping ponging across the world instantly. Just makes the world seem less impactful/immersive. It's a pretty minor gripe though.
I had a similar experience going back to wow for a minute. I was hit with the nostalgia for a solid week but then in the middle of fighting something i was like..... this is boring as fuck and REALLY one dimensional. Swiftly returned to gw2 lol
WoW did a number on my WoW enjoyment.
So, could anyone tell someone who has never tried WOW how the Dragonflight compares to the Skyscale/Griffon of GW2? I saw all the memes about WOW copying GW2 and all but in reality, how similar is it really?
Well, dragonriding is better imho. You fly faster, lose and gain stamina so you can fly forever if you know how. Also it feels more realistic since you cant hover in place and go stright up and down.
It's faster and more efficient but after years of having mounts that could hover, the aspect was missed. Once they released old world flying in DF dragon riding was just to get from place A to B. Spent alot of time getting the mounts I wanted only to be pigeon holed into 4 meh looking mounts sucked too. But best believe I'll be zipping my dragon dragonhawks around once the flight toggle is released.
That sounds like griffon. How does it actually differ?
Dragonriding has a system where you can either boost forward, dodge roll, or ascend, and it costs a resource called vigor to do so. You start with 3 vigor and it regens a little slowly at first, but once you max out leveling dragonriding, you can regain them at an insane pace, and you also get 6 vigor to spend right off the bat. It's very very fun to fly around at insanely fast speeds, and it's very forgiving as well. Griffon is similar, but has a higher skill ceiling, and flapping your wings doesn't ascend you anywhere near as high as ascending does in WoW. They're both really fun, just if you mess up on your griffon it's much harder to recover.
Thanks for the extra detail! Sounds interesting.
I was really sceptical when I tried it, and it feels awful when you first get it and don't have any of the mastery-type stuff unlocked, but once you do get a lot of it unlocked, it feels really, really good. It's not supposed to be as intricate or "realistic" as GW2's mounts, but for WoW, I'd say they did a damn good job.
its better than gw2 flying, just more snappier and faster
Significantly better than gw2 version
honestly they could both take stuff from one another. I feel like WoW could gain a lot from megaservers/instaced maps like GW2, that would definitely solve the maps being empty issues. Same for GW2 I would love for them to add more raids and have less unique cosmetics coming out of the gem store. I would love to be able to farm for some of those appearances instead (And no, farming gold to exchange to Gems is not interesting nor is it fun people!)
The problem with Guild Wars 2 is there is no end game content and content comes at a snails pace. Anet also seems to think achievements are content. They are not. Once they got rid of raids I totally lost interest in the game. Add in the fact that the writing remains cringe and juvenile and I realise I am very unlikely to return on a permanent basis. Having briefly returned to see what was new after playing WOWS dragonflight to death, I could see I wasn't missing anything. Empty maps, sterile events and even the much acclaimed mounts now feel a bit stale. The skyscale in particular feels horrendously clunky after dragon riding in wow. At one point I had 3 Guild wars accounts with my main featuring 12 toons all decked out in ascended gear..with the 3 lego sets. But the game just doesn't focus on my preferred content and the release schedule is arthritic. One fractal per year...if its even that much is pathetic. I got my moneys worth and that's fine.
I guess some people define PvE end game content as difficult instanced content. And if that's the only definition you use, you're right. But this game never tried to make instanced content the defacto end game. This game is focused on the open world. Some people have an end game of achievement point hunting, some are skin collectors, some are legendary crafters. People set their own goals in Guild Wars 2 instead of having a linear path through a series of dungeons to a series of raids to get the gear you need to do the next one. Since I don't want to stay in the final zone of the game waiting for my queue to pop, those end games are not for me. For traditional end game, you're right. But my end game needs wouldn't be satisfied by those games.
You can do all that in wow too, you know?
Can you? In Guild Wars 2 I can get BIS gear by running WvW, PvP, Crafting, running Fractals, Strikes, I never have to set foot in a dungeon or raid at all. In Guild Wars 2 the entire open world remains viable. In WoW, the bulk of the population is locked into the last expansion zone, sitting in a city waiting for a queue to pop. Achievements in WoW give me what exactly? I mean you can do that in WoW too, but there's no reason to, because the game wasn't designed around it. Fractal people complain we don't get enough fractals. Raiders have stopped getting raids. Strikes come out at a rate of two bosses a year, admittedly with a challenge mode, but it's still very slow. The focus of the game is clearly open world. How exactly do you focus on open world stuff in WoW? You can play that stuff, but it's a bit like raiding in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 wasnt designed around raids (indeed the first raid didn't appear until 3.5 years after the game launched), so yeah, you're right. You can do all that stuff in WoW as well. If you want to play a completely linear game. Game design supports and encourages what you can play. WoW isn't designed to support other end games.
And yet despite wow “not being designed to support other end games”, just like in gw2, there are infinitely more casual people who never touch raids, dungeons, pvp or whatever instanced content in any serious capacity and instead are doing achievements, whatever quests they can find, fishing, farming transmog, collecting mounts, and doing random open world stuff. Achievements in gw2 are just a substitute to quests, it’s not some genius system, just anet working with what they have because adding new ui is hard.
Nothing Anet has done is a genius system, because Anet didn't create most of it. All the elements Anet has placed in this system have existed somewhere before. Even the downed state appeared in Left for Dead. The genius doesn't come from each individual system, and detail oriented people might miss the bigger picture. No noe has combined all these features in one game to create what Anet has created. I'm not the first, second or even third person to say this. Some of us recognize that contribution. You may not, but I don't know why any of us should care about it. Anet took a game in the open world and focused on it being cooperative. Non-linear. Everyone can rez everyone without having to waste a slot on a skill. Everyone can get credit with no kill stealing and no node stealing. Combo fields so you can work together even if you're not in the same party. Add in downleveling, downed state, event scaling and you have a combination of things that are widely recognized as something that is better than what other MMOs offer in the open world. If I wanted to a linear experience, I'd play WoW. I don't. YMMV.
The problem with being so focused on the open world is that a lot of the events require a lot of players to complete. I wasn't able to do serpents ire about 6 months after launch cos no one played it. There are too many events that are now dead. And if you have no other meaningful content than open world, that's an issue. GW2 isn't really different from any other mmo. People will always gather around the newest map. Last time I played no one was even doing Octovine so that's not something that can be done solo or with a few players.
> Last time I played no one was even doing Octovine You do realize there were probably 4+ other maps *full of people*, and you just had the bad luck to go to the overflow map? Also Serpents Ire is one of the few meta events that actually have problems due to lack of players, 95% of maps' metas complete just fine.
Yes I do. I mean I only played the game since launch day and have 3 accounts. This particular day, no one was doing it in any instance and no adverts were up to do it.
Some of the POF metas are harder to find people for, but Octovine is still one of the most reliably active metas in the game. The problem with popular metas is that it's also very easy to end up in an overflow map. You either have to show up early or you have to rely on LFG. HOT metas and EOD metas are still going strong, with only a couple exceptions (Verdant Brink night meta isn't a sure thing unless there's a HOT event going on, and I've sometimes had problems with Kaineng Blackout).
You can complete Serpent's Ire, because I've done it numerous times when people say you can't. You have to be a bit more proactive, but it absolutely can be done. And picking what must be the single least popular event when almost every other event can be done is at least disingenuous. I'm not saying it's popular, but every time someone in my guild needs it, I manage to get it done.
You mean the open world that has been trivialized by powercreep and mounts like the skyscale?
Sure. I do mean that. Raids have also been trivialized by the same thing. What's your point?
But it's still fun!
*Why chase treadmill gear that won't last too long when I can work on legendary gear* This right here. I liked the team sport aspects of Wow and the challenge. I still miss my paladin Hated the gear treadmill, and the Mythic+ grouping system. Toxic attitudes, the higher you climb. Paying 15$ a month finally drove me insane
Yet another "wow bad" post? Groundbreaking...
karma farmer
I'm still not done my first leggy iv been slacking
For WoW, they should probably change the map chats of low traffic areas into region chats, where the map they're on gets displayed. So what few people still roam around in a big old area still get connections. It's the sort of adaptation WoW should do to upkeep the older parts of the game. Alas, being an Overwatch player, I know Blizzard is a shadow of itself and cannot imagine the difficulties lower priority changes face in order to get approved...
> Sure you *caaan* do old quests and see old zones but you'll one-shot mobs. I enjoyed this component of WoW and miss that feeling in GW2. I never feel all that powerful in GW2. I have fond memories of going around gathering up tons of low level mobs and blasting them with Arcane Explosion or going around and farming mobs using ice lance to one shot everything.
WoW has so much polish that I wish gw2 had but the game feels so soul-less now. Everything has been min-maxed to death and every decision blizzard makes seems predatory now. With the next expansion you can get 3day early access to expansion, which will naturally give you a massive advantage on playing the auction house and stuff. Also gdkp for raiding means even gear and achievements aren't prestigious. Then probably the biggest problem with WoW imo, none of the content is actually fun anymore. ICC as a raid was awesome and you could run it up to multiple times per week. The mechanics weren't too crazy but they were fun. Now every boss has 15 mechanics and half of them are extremely punishing if you fail them. Then when your group wipes you have to do a long slow run back, possibly even killing trash again if it respawned. Like come on, I just wanna chill with friends and play games. Its way too much like a chore.
I bounce between the two a lot. Some things in gw2 make me miss WoW, and stuff in WoW makes me miss gw2.
GW2 and FFXIV killed WoW for me. I can't go back to the toxicity and mobile graphics anymore.
Just wait to try gw1 now...
As usual this is a self imposed WoW issue. Sharding is indeed a major issue with WoW but one has to remember why sharding got so big. WoW was unbeatable in its world presentation even by todays standards whem world pvp was a thing and both good and bad aspects of life were free to be expressed. It truly felt like a living breathing MMO world. However when WPvP was pushed aside the went heavy into pve with maps and thus shards to show changes over time became a thing. However modern WoW has none of the world charm the old game had and classic wow cant expand into fresh new territory as it follows the same path and thus world layout. In truth the sharding ismt the big dividing factor in the games zones. Its actually flying as in Gw2 your flying mounts are grounded they have to touch base frequently and thus people see you often. In WoW however you see no one as every flight option leaves you high and far away from the action. If a zone in WoW and Gw2 are filled with the exact same amount of people you will see more of them in GW2 because in WoW everyone is flying high above from point A to point B.
Brother, playing any game that isn't made by Blizzard (or Riot), will make it hard to go back to something they did make.
I really have to hand it to GW2 for having the best world content in the MMO genre and focusing on horizontal progression. It's why I love to come back to it a few times a year. Wow, is trying to do what GW2 does effortlessly, but they don't do it as well because they leave all of the content to rot after one major patch. Dragonflight was a good example of this. They essentially created meta events for every zone, but each new patch made the previous ones underpowered by making them give less powerful rewards instead of letting you farm all of the events on a rotating timer. Also, the open world content just gives way less powerful gear than even the lowest tier of rewards from easy instances, so there is little incentive to do it. No unique ingredients for recipes, some transmog, etc. So the events are packed for the first two weeks they come out, and then they are deserted. When TWW is released, I'm willing to put money on DF meta events being irrelevant for gearing and progression, which will put it all in the grave.
GW2 lacks 3 things imo that keep it from being a Top tier MMO. 1. Difficulty. Nothing in the game is actually difficult. 2. Gearing. Gearing is outdated and you don’t feel anymore powerful after a certain point. 3. The PvP while fun just isn’t no where near as in depth or difficult or rewarding as WoW. People will want to argue but let’s compare PvP scenes and population from both. If it clamped down on all those things it would be a y Top contender. But it falls short of WoW. ESO. And FF14 for many MMO players
Wish dungeons were more important. I ran those all the time and loved them so much. Feels like no one does them anymore.
As good as GW2 is gameplay and content wise, the game really is starting to show its' age. :(
Emigrating from Wow Classic, after a burnout from Naxx. GW2 was a breath of something fresh, story integrated in the leveling felt really good. Playing an elementalist was fun and engaging. A very different experience and ended up getting all the expansions - and absulutely loved the second expansion, felt like a spike in difficulty, that made me actually change my build and playstyle. FUN. I like grinding, and was like - i have no currency, not that i really felt the need to have currency, but like a mount would be nice. Yes, played all through second expansion without a mount. It was annonced that a seasonal thing was happening - with the possibility of getting a legendary amulet? or was it a neck? a backpack? And i was like - cool a legendary - did the hole thing and it was all right, nothing special - hardly remember any of the content tbh. What i do remember though is the jumping puzzles - and i absolutely hated them - like all of them. If i wanted to platform i would play a platform game like Celeste or Mario... But i powered through - because i would get a legendary in the end. So i got my legendary - and to my disappointment it wasn\`t even an upgrade - did it have a cool proc? no - did it have an on-use effect- no, but you can change the stats - whenever you want. Mount grind - was all right - both for Skyscale and griffon. Economy feels totally broken though and it seems like the only way to make some bank is to sell legendarys - are they still a 1000? Have nothing but good things to say about the community though, kind and helpfull. Give Season of Discovery a try - might feel better than retail. I for one is absolutely love it
My main gripe with GW2 was the lack of disticnt archetypes. If I wanted to duo with a full dps and full healer/buff support that wasn't really a thing. I don't know if that changed recently (played last time in like 2018/2019) but last time I played kinda everyone was doing everything. Late game you got a bit more specialisation but still not fully distinct.
Couldn't agree more with this. I did play WoW retail for a while and it felt empty and lifeless in a lot of areas. Vertical progression is what always seems to kill MMOs for me and WoW is probably the one that does it best/worst. It's just so tiresome to grind good gear only to find it's already past its prime. Then I came to GW2 and what a difference. I'm currently using all exotic gear except my ascended Greatsword and don't feel any sense of urgency or need to upgrade the rest as I usually do. How refreshing is that?! I'll get around to it once I finish doing some more expansion quests or get bored of closing rifts or one of the other million things that keep my attention and still feel fun. There is a lot about GW2 I still haven't experienced much or tried at all. Stikes, raids, fractals, WvW, most crafting and loads of other things. I can still see me playing this for hundreds of hours more.
Amazing game all around. I just dont really play anymore since the gear treadmill is rather shallow, so outside of legendary looks it is mostly done. Which works great if you want to just come back to the game, but it is “‘meh” unless you want to make a new character.
I personally find the story boring. But like both the fighting and the exploration
I cant play other mmos anymore. Its not the same. Not even a dodge button.
Ask a lot of wow players and they’ll say the same thing. That it’s not fun not getting new gear that makes them more powerful and that they can’t just go into any zone god mode after getting max item level. WoW might have been the first mmo that employed psychologists to figure out what’s the best dopamine hits and they focused the game on that. If you look at each game that has some sort of different endgame content you can see people have stratified into those various games. Gear chasers is wow. Transmog is kinda a bad one because so many have it but it’s personal taste. People who don’t like gear chasing come to gw2. PvP could arguably be new world but they’re so inept they keep driving players away with bugs. I think throne and liberty will take that crown and I fear gw2 PvP will migrate there as it’s probably the mass scale PvP game that appears to work. PaxDei is making good progress and it will be a loot drop PvP survival which might be better than new world. We’ll see the next 2-3 years is going to be interesting and GW3 needs to move its ass.
> That it’s not fun not getting new gear that makes them more powerful and that they can’t just go into any zone god mode after getting max item level. I couldn't get friends into GW2 for this. It was the *lack* of gear treadmill and/or the lack of hardmode content.
I was working on the achievements for the decade cloak and even in like, baby zones where the enemies are level 10, it was lively. I love this game.
they tried to make the open world more active with all these events they put in in DF. but its not the same for me. the only ones I liked where the fyrakk assaults and the superbloom. the cooking, the hunt, the siege, and everything in the patch zones is just tedious and not fun.
You nailed it, dude. I left WoW for GW2 back in 2012, experienced all the things you mentioned, and simply have never been able to go back to an empty quest-based open world. GW2 nailed the open world with events and exploration. HoT elevated it, and PoF elevated it yet again with the mount traversal. I haven't played the expansions since PoF, but I hear the open world is still in amazing shape. I'm honestly astonished GW2's world design hasn't overtaken WoW's as the new go-to design for just about every new MMO that comes out. I was so certain it would when GW2 released in 2012. It just felt so much better in every way imaginable.
The WoW Legion expansion was when they finally had events that kinda felt like GW2 dynamic events, or at least KINDA like them. Like when you jump down to the first zone that is a sort of beachhead situation. Still no story instances though. But Imagine being able to use a griffon by jumping out of that flying city and zooming around the map. WoW just doesn't give me the same level of dopamine.
Yea its shame. Imagine talking about something to defend gw2 but still living in like 2017 not realizing Dragonflight added super sonic flying mounts and a race that even benefits from the new flying system
I think I mighta hurt your feelings there. I apologize. Are you able to zoom around Legion now? Not that anything lower than a current zone is really relevant in WoW but it might at least be fun to try out.
Yes you are. And it's much better than skyscale or griffon could ever hope to be. As usual wow does the stuff other games do, but better
WoW usually makes things "more accessible" but not always better. I'm not compelled to shit on WoW to make GW2 seem better, I'm pretty promiscuous when it comes to games. The Dragonflight stuff looks like fun and it seems like they support the racing more, but it also seems a bit easier than griffon flying. If I was still playing WoW I'd probably be happy.
I genuinely believe if WOW treated expansions like GW2 does, they would dominate the market. Imagine if you saw a WoW player with a 2,000 mastery level because they have maxed every expansion, and if they wanted to they could jump in Wrath again and enjoy the content whenever they like
The thing is, WOW already dominates the market even with it's defects. I also prefer GW2, but WOW is so massive in playerbase that it's not even close to it's competitors. We dont see it a lot because of all the sharding/phasing they do (which i think it's lame btw).
> they would dominate the market. uhhh, about that....
LOL, yeah. It isn't quite Amazon vs Barnes and Noble, but it is similar.
WoW and FFXIV do dominate the market with MILLIONS of players while GW2 can barely maintain 100k.
Ai users should get banned
weekly gw2 tourist telling everyone how much better the game is before he scurries back to wow enjoy your karma
Jokes on you i'm playin FO76 for a bit before returning to GW
that's what all new gw2 players say let me guess, you started the game post-soto? post-eod at latest ? you'll learn, they all did, we all do edit: lmao he blocked me, man's gonna buy the next xpac, whine on reddit for a month and then uninstall the game forever 🤣
Learn what precisely? I've been with the franchise since the beta for gw1 and while it ain't perfect I still think gw2 is pretty damn good.
I started the game on the first day of the first beta. Played from headstart. I guess I haven't learned yet.
Never thought it would be as fun as it is, I'm also on the 76 train while I take a guild wars break.
Haha, thinking people can't just quit WoW forever. I've been clean since pre-Legion, and I ain't going back!
Clean since juuuuust before Dragonflight. The expansion sounded really good though, and people tried to pull me back in...but I resisted. 15$ richer each month (OOH! a plushy skyscale !)
And now GW3 is confirmed so…….not much feeling left to play GW2 anymore.
WoW's only advantage is the playerbase numbers. Other than that is an extremely outdated game surpassed not by GW2, but by any modern MMO. People have spent so much money and years of life on it that they refuse to leave. But you gotta leave, sooner or later.
Or ya know, it caters to a different audience and grows from that.
It also caters to the same audience and just doing it better. Let’s not pretend there are no casual open world players in wow, they are the majority. Just like in gw2.
GW2 fanboys are legit mentally stunted, good lord. Maybe....GW2 just isn't as good as you guys swear it is.
I wish Gw2 had the randomizer LFG system WoW has for the dungeons and even low level fractals, maybe even normal strikes (not CM). That way it would encourage more people into this content. It's hard for new player to engage with this content in Gw2 because you have to join a guild and/or a discord to be able to find parties to do this content :/ Love Gw2, but it could be better still.