My personal view on the state of GW2

[Valfar.3761]

I personally like not having to worry about gear in GW2. I'm fine with my exotics. Don't feel like grinding for ascended/legendaries/whatever. I just want to play the game.

 

One of the reasons why I ditched WoW for FFXIV was I didn't really have to worry about gear treadmill all that much in FFXIV.

 

In WoW, you have to play for at least 2 hours every day to remain competitive. You have to do your half hour of world quests, then your mythic + run, and then your raids... and you have to gem your gear, and enchant your gear, and then reroll for the right azerite bonuses and affixes, and you have to consult an out of game bot that calculates what's the best build for you... it's just not fun at all.

 

Whereas in FFXIV, all I have to do is just show up on raid night with raid food and potions and I'm good to go. My ilevel doesn't really matter that much, good gear is easy to obtain very quickly. No stat nonsense like in WoW.

 

I like HoT's verticality. Not a fan of the high mob density on the flat maps that were added later on.

 

Regarding raids in GW2, I did a pug for the first tier of the HoT raid when it came out. Played as a healer. I found the experience to be extremely confusing and it wasn't clear what was happening and why. I think FFXIV does a stellar job at teaching you the mechanics of the fight without having to consult an out of game walkthrough. I think GW2 is hamstrung by too many different problems (onscreen clutter/text font/thin aoe lines is a big problem).

 

As for skills, GW2 and FFXIV/WoW are rather different. In GW2, you can buy any skill you want so long as you have the points. Whereas in FFXIV and WoW, you have to wait until you reach a certain level to unlock an ability. This works against those games because the longer the leveling process is, the worse the class design becomes because you're playing most of the game without your core class abilities.

 

As for the story, yes FFXIV wins hands down no contest. That being said, I did enjoy HoT's campaign. Trying to escape Scarlet with the egg was pretty fun, and there was a climatic sense of urgency in the last mission where you're hopping across islands over deadly fog and you're going up that revolving tree and that final battle against Mordremoth and meeting the ghosts of your dead friends, yeah that was fun. But otherwise, besides those set pieces, I never really cared about GW2's story. I don't like anyone aside from Rytlock and I think that the story is very bland. I don't care about dragons or some fire god. GW2's writing is really lacking - both in actual dialogue and making a compelling story - and it doesn't help that the presentation of the story is lackluster (cutscenes, animations, etc). GW2 is pretty much always going to be way behind in that regard.

 

GW2's strength is in jumping puzzles, the climatic meta events like Silverwastes/Dragon's Stand, and the spectacle/set pieces in the campaign. I also loved the vertical maps of HoT.

[Einlanzer.1627]

> @"Valfar.3761" said:

> I personally like not having to worry about gear in GW2. I'm fine with my exotics. Don't feel like grinding for ascended/legendaries/whatever. I just want to play the game.

>

> One of the reasons why I ditched WoW for FFXIV was I didn't really have to worry about gear treadmill all that much in FFXIV.

>

> In WoW, you have to play for at least 2 hours every day to remain competitive. You have to do your half hour of world quests, then your mythic + run, and then your raids... and you have to gem your gear, and enchant your gear, and then reroll for the right azerite bonuses and affixes, and you have to consult an out of game bot that calculates what's the best build for you... it's just not fun at all.

>

> Whereas in FFXIV, all I have to do is just show up on raid night with raid food and potions and I'm good to go. My ilevel doesn't really matter that much, good gear is easy to obtain very quickly. No stat nonsense like in WoW.

>

> I like HoT's verticality. Not a fan of the high mob density on the flat maps that were added later on.

>

> Regarding raids in GW2, I did a pug for the first tier of the HoT raid when it came out. Played as a healer. I found the experience to be extremely confusing and it wasn't clear what was happening and why. I think FFXIV does a stellar job at teaching you the mechanics of the fight without having to consult an out of game walkthrough. I think GW2 is hamstrung by too many different problems (onscreen clutter/text font/thin aoe lines is a big problem).

>

> As for skills, GW2 and FFXIV/WoW are rather different. In GW2, you can buy any skill you want so long as you have the points. Whereas in FFXIV and WoW, you have to wait until you reach a certain level to unlock an ability. This works against those games because the longer the leveling process is, the worse the class design becomes because you're playing most of the game without your core class abilities.

>

> As for the story, yes FFXIV wins hands down no contest. That being said, I did enjoy HoT's campaign. Trying to escape Scarlet with the egg was pretty fun, and there was a climatic sense of urgency in the last mission where you're hopping across islands over deadly fog and you're going up that revolving tree and that final battle against Mordremoth and meeting the ghosts of your dead friends, yeah that was fun. But otherwise, besides those set pieces, I never really cared about GW2's story. I don't like anyone aside from Rytlock and I think that the story is very bland. I don't care about dragons or some fire god. GW2's writing is really lacking - both in actual dialogue and making a compelling story - and it doesn't help that the presentation of the story is lackluster (cutscenes, animations, etc). GW2 is pretty much always going to be way behind in that regard.

>

> GW2's strength is in jumping puzzles, the climatic meta events like Silverwastes/Dragon's Stand, and the spectacle/set pieces in the campaign. I also loved the vertical maps of HoT.

 

A lot of people like not having to worry about gear; that's probably what draws people in more than anything else. However, end game can't just be about fashion wars. The fundamental problem as I see it is the game was designed in too on-rails a way to not end with something like gear progression. What I would prefer to see is them fixing the on-rails part, making the game a little more sandboxy, instead of adding gear progression.

 

Skills and traits are too straightforward, masteries lack sufficient impact to the overall gameplay, and character build/roles in small group content are _still_ not fleshed out well enough. There is nothing to chase in the end game really except for cosmetics, and that is not enough for serious MMO players. Meanwhile, the difficulty of raids, dungeons, and even story instances is off-putting to casual players. It's a paradox that ultimately means GW2 struggles to retain players, and it needs to be aggressively addressed leading up to and going into the Cantha campaign.

 

We are _massively_ overdue for a systems update as opposed to a content update. Stat/trait/skill overhauls, etc. I would even advocate moving away from the elite spec system into something more free-form, integrating elite spec skills and traits into the core classes, adjusting stats, and adding new weapon types with flexible weapon skills, skills and traits you can chase in the end game, etc. I would also favor a level & stat squish down to 40 or 50.