The challenge doesn't start until late game / max level right?

[Soulmancer.4715]

Guild Wars 2 challenge is similar to other MMORPGs in that the content / journey to end game / max level is pretty cake walk easy correct? With challenging content becoming available after? Or does the game gradually ramp over overtime?

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

It depends on your skill level. So long as you maintain level equivalent gear the overworld shouldn't be too hard. However, for some people the base game is just impossible, even after hitting 80 and getting exotics.

[Blocki.4931]

The expansions ramp up the difficulty a ton. Story instances are howeever meant to be easily cleared by even the least skilled of players, so challenge isn't usually there. Some have pretty good challenge modes though

[mindcircus.1506]

The core game of gw2 is largely devoid of any real challenges. There are maybe three encounters in the personal story that will give the average gamer any real difficulty. That's just the story content though.

The actual open world where you spend most of your leveling time is about as challenging as you want it. You can look for slightly harder stuff that you can handle on a number of different maps.

But in essence you are correct. Access to most difficult content comes with LW and the expansions, and fractals. That stuff (and other things) is all gated to 80.

About the only "hard" content while leveling is explorable dungeons, and they are usually trivialized by power creep from other players in your party that are level 80 anyways.

The good news is that at the cap, there are few theme parks that offer this breadth of content.

 

[otto.5684]

The game becomes challenging only if you try to eat more than you can chew. Other than that, if you have experience with pervious MMOs and action RPGs, it should not be challenging.

 

HoT and PoF maps offer more challenging than core maps. For these you have to be level 80.

[Rhyse.8179]

GW2 is not a challenging game. Granted for lots of people it IS a challenge, but for people that game regularly it's really very easy. It's a game for exploring, messing around, collecting stuff, and generally being a doofus without feeling bad about it.

 

HOT has a few challenging areas, but eventually that, too, will become easy since it mostly just about learning the mechanics of a particular fight.

[joneirikb.7506]

> @"Soulmancer.4715" said:

> Guild Wars 2 challenge is similar to other MMORPGs in that the content / journey to end game / max level is pretty cake walk easy correct? With challenging content becoming available after? Or does the game gradually ramp over overtime?

>

 

This game depends a lot on the player's proficiency with the action combat, if you learn the action combat and get halfway proficient with your class/weapons/build etc, 99% of core tyria will be easy.

 

If you don't learn the action combat, and thus don't become proficient with the mechanics (especially active defenses) then no amount of stats or gear will save you.

 

But on the whole, the Core game (Tyria) is pretty easy over-all, and the areas and maps released afterwards (Living season 1+2, expansions HOT/POF, and Living Season 3+4) are all level 80 areas and offer various degrees of more challenge than Tyria.

 

[Randulf.7614]

With the exception of dungeons, the game doesnt really start to provide a challenge until season 2 which is more a learning bridge for the difficulty spike in HoT. From there its is a fairly stable curve, but the main designated challnge comes from upper fractals and raids at max level.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

Raids and or hi lvl fractals are "easy, but hard" in a way that it does take time to learn the boss mechanics and if you slip up you could ruin the whole for fight but that being said it's all simple programmed AI that doesn't really do anything g other then repeat it's actions and hit hard.

 

Spvp/wvw is a challenge in terms of fighting some broken builds lol

[Danikat.8537]

It's one of those "how long is a piece of string?" questions - there are nearly as many answers as there are players because it depends on the person's experience, abilities, how much attention they pay to what the game is telling them, the profession and build they're using, their internet connection and all kinds of other things.

 

Expectations play a part too. I have a friend who thinks dying in a game is a big deal. If anything kills him then he wants to stop and work out what went wrong and how to make sure it never happens again and if he dies again doing the same thing he gets very frustrated. Whereas I like difficult games, bad builds and not paying as much attention as I know I should so to me dying every so often is normal and I'll just carry on. If I feel like I'm getting no where I'll reassess, and usually what I'm doing wrong is obvious, but I'm not going to say a fight is really hard just because it killed me and I'm also not going to say it was easy just because it didn't.

 

In general the open-world, except for HoT maps, is easier than everything else, and the story is designed to be played solo. But there are some parts which are harder than others and it's not always the same stuff for everyone. I'll happily fight the Eater of Souls from the PoF storyline as many times as you like because I didn't have any trouble with it, even though other people find it almost impossible. But I hate having to fight Justicar Adrianne in Out of the Shadows because I can never get it right, even though I've been told it's "insultingly easy" and it's hard to believe anyone is capable of playing GW2 at all and can't beat it. Other things like the Mouth of Zhaitan from the personal story are really hard at first but once you learn the pattern to the fight it's very easy.

 

Add to that the fact that there isn't a linear path through the game - you can do it in almost any order (especially if you use a level 80 boost or Tomes to level up) and you can't count on anyone having gone through all the easier content to have a chance to learn the more difficult stuff.

[Moonyeti.3296]

Challenge doesn't really start until season 2 unless you are really new to MMO's or gaming in general. Season 2 and on the difficulty starts to ramp up, and the encounters start to get some more varied mechanics to them.

[Vavume.8065]

> @"Soulmancer.4715" said:

> Guild Wars 2 challenge is similar to other MMORPGs in that the content / journey to end game / max level is pretty cake walk easy correct? With challenging content becoming available after? Or does the game gradually ramp over overtime?

>

 

The only thing challenging is maintaining the will to log in.

[Carighan.6758]

> @"Soulmancer.4715" said:

> Guild Wars 2 challenge is similar to other MMORPGs in that the content / journey to end game / max level is pretty cake walk easy correct? With challenging content becoming available after? Or does the game gradually ramp over overtime?

 

No, well, it's gradual but there's really no ramp-up.

 

Excluding some minor aspects of the game (the raids, some speed runs, some sPvP, some WvW components) there's really no big challenge involved. Which is, *actually*, the really cool part. It's super laid back and perfect as a leisure game.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

The challenge depends more on the particular enemies and their combinations in groups than the level.

 

Level 30-35 gravelins in ascalon catacombs are much more likely to take down a player with the stunlock spam than most level 80 open world beasts with no particularly notworthy skills. Some groups of enemies can be rather nasty when they have a terrain advantage like krait underwater or dredge on top of scaffoldings.

Most inquest golems are just cannon fodder that goes down without being much of a threat, but in Season 2 inquest golemancers like to spam retaliation in their golems, and that can get someone killed pretty quickly if they do not have boon strip or have a berserker build with lots of hits per second.

At any level, players can dance in circles around most drakes without getting a scratch, but few have never been downed at least once a against a reef drake.

[Skotlex.7580]

Core Tyria content has been significantly toned down since release. This is because the longevity of the game depends on players not quitting early, and it turns out many players are just not that good while levelling up and learning their game and class.

 

Sure, that's boring for players who actually know their stuff, but that's why there are ways you can boost the challenge (like what most new players do and level with really outdated gears and generally no trinkets at all).

 

My only complain for core Tyria is that the scaling of events is dumb-easy, so even group events with five people are easily trivialized (heck, experienced players can solo them and many others can duo them). Apparently this was done to account for new players who just "spam 1" and don't even consider their placing or dodging heavy attacks.

 

Granted, this gets a lot better on level 80 maps, to the point that I wouldn't dare try group events if I am not reasonably sure I'll get support before going down (it does vary by map and event, though).

 

However, scaling seems to have an upper limit, so the vast majority of content can be trivialized by "zerg rushing" it (eg: see Istan meta).

 

Luckily, as a player you can choose in which content to partake, and sort of adjust the degree of difficulty you are exposed to.

[phs.6089]

there are elits and champs on any map if you want to check your skills and get some challenge, go for them solo.

[Wolfb.7025]

The Personal story is just the tutorial on this game, you learn about how gameplay works, how to move, to dodge, it lets you adapt to your class skills, traits and specializations.The only challenging part are the dungeons, which even if they're optional as a side quest, they are essential to understand what's happening to the Destiny Edge's group. You can join experienced players to literal carry you because once you hit the power creep level the dungeons are just a joke compared to other content on the game.

 

And now, the real challenge of the game comes once you reach Lv 80, Fractals has a really pretty nice and friendly learning curve thanks to tiers, but Raids on the other side are just so mechanically challenging that you need to literal take a meta build and practice a lot with that build in order to contribute to your team. Me for instance i'm still doing training raids, and reading a lot about each encounter, because there is a lot of mechanics you need to know before playing effectively.

[voltaicbore.8012]

Yeah the learning curve for this game is different than most others in this class of mmo, I'd say.

 

At the lowest level, I say this game's pve has a deceptively low threshold. A new player really does need a certain minimum amount of understanding and skill to get by, as gear and stats alone will do nothing to save a truly mindless player after a certain point. However, once you meet those minimum requirements (literally: read tooltips, make sure your gear stats match what you actually want to accomplish, know how to time dodges and your big bursts) the vast majority of core Tyria content becomes laughably easy.

 

Dungeons are an easy place for a newly comfortable 80 to begin testing "how good am I really?" Every character I have can solo every mechanically soloable dungeon path, including explorables. It does take quite a bit longer to do things alone sometimes, but sometimes soloing is faster than waiting for some first-timers to finish cutscenes or revive at a waypoint and run back to the group after dying for the millionth time. But more than that, I like that dungeon boss fights don't scale down if you're alone, and sometimes you need to adjust your build and approach to clear the fight. It's a great way to expand your knowledge of your class and game mechanics in general.

 

I can't speak about fractals and raids, as I'm still a t1 fractal noob, and haven't touched raids. About to crack and find a raiding guild to start learning those, but I'm just not available most times groups make time for training.

[Klipso.8653]

If you like challenge play WvW, everything else is a pre-scripted snoozefest once you know the mechanics.

[Limodriver.4106]

level 1-80 is the boring part of this game, once u hit HOT and POF expac thats where the fun begin.

[Trise.2865]

Short answer: "Your Mileage May Vary"

Is expansion content generally more difficult than core content? Yes.

Is core content always easy? No.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Soulmancer.4715" said:

> Guild Wars 2 challenge is similar to other MMORPGs in that the content / journey to end game / max level is pretty cake walk easy correct? With challenging content becoming available after? Or does the game gradually ramp over overtime?

>

 

That depends more on you than it does on the game. There are people who legitimately can't find a challenge and people for whom all sorts of things are challenging including (parts of) leveling up.

 

First, the "end game" in GW2 starts after you complete the tutorial. Due to downscaling, you can return to low level areas even after hitting max level. Second, the game is almost entirely non-linear: you can go nearly anywhere, do nearly anything if you can survive. (Exceptions include expansion/post-expansion maps that are locked to L80 and XP/loot limited if you're in an area 10+ levels beyond yours.)

 

So if you want a challenge before you are L80, you can do dungeons at the level for which they were designed, e.g. Ascalonian Catacombs while L35, with L35 masterwork gear is a very different thing from L80 with full exotics.

 

tl;dr the challenge is mostly up to you.

[maddoctor.2738]

The expansions are a nice bump in difficulty, mostly the veteran mobs, featuring enemies like Awakened Canids, the Hydras and the multiple versions of Djinn in Path of Fire that are challenging to kill solo. Heart of Thorns has some challenging foes too, easier than Path of Fire though. The core game is laughably easy, provided you update your gear as you move on. With proper mix of green and rare gear you can finish the highest level core game zones without any kind of trouble. I mean, you can kill almost everything only using auto-attacks, even the Risen in Orr. How can anyone find that hard I don't know.

 

Dry Top and Silverwastes are the other end-game zones, which feature more complex and interesting foes. You should explore those before you hit the expansions.

[Squirrel.6318]

The expansions provide difficulty. If you want to challenge yourself in the story try going for the achievement objectives, some are really hard.

[Ephemiel.5694]

Only real challenge is in some Fractals, Raids and HoT areas. Everything else has very little challenge, if any.