Guild Wars 2: Jack of All Trades - MMORPG.com

SBFord

Guild Wars 2: Jack of All Trades - MMORPG.com

As I’ve adventured in Tyria, made some alts, and fiddled with some builds I’ve come to realize there is really no wrong way to play Guild Wars 2. I know that is a loaded statement and let me clarify. Casual play is the best way for me to approach Guild Wars. I login, do a couple of quests and zones, do some crafting and logout. No pressure at all. Meet some great people, and genuinely enjoy myself. Not something I can say about MMORPGs lately.

Read the full story here

urinal_goose

It took me about 5 years of repeated attempts, but then something happened and I suddenly loved this game.

I love the combat--tab targeting, yet it feels faster and more dynamic than a game like WoW. And unlike WoW, I don't spend most of my time staring at the combat interface.

I like how there are virtually endless ways to specialize a character. I suppose people who like to min/max will say that that's not the case, but I'm more interested in how a character 'feels' than how how it ranks on dps meters.

One thing I don't really like is the crafting--it's kind of blah and boring. I do like being able to discover recipes, but other than that it doesn't interest me.

I would also like to see ANet implement some way to quickly switch between equipment sets and specializations.

Crescenda

I've been doing MMOs since 2001. At first I was insanely hardcore; then, my life circumstance changed drastically and "casual" became my only alternative. I've played all the so-called triple-A titles and even more that can be characterized as niche.

I am highly competitive and something of a workaholic; thus, the transition from hardcore to casual did not come easily, and given the hours I may spend gaming during any day I'm still unsure that I'm entirely casual -- except, I don't do groups and I'm content with adequate gear rather than always chasing the best. I'm also PvE exclusive.

Of all the games I've played, few seem other than casual friendly. Some do it better than others; for instance, while I adored FFXIV, the developers' desire to drive players into groups at certain choke points finally drove me away.

GW2 was fine and I played it for about a year, but the world never captivated me like its predecessor, which I still play off and on, even after all these years. While GW2 can certainly be played and enjoyed casually, I quite disagree with the author in that this makes it more desirable than very many other titles which cater to casual players.

At the moment, I've returned to a 10-year-old game, but on a private server variant. As individuals, our tastes obviously differ in the broadest context, but I'm most content with games that were designed specifically with casual players in mind. PvP and big-time raiding are all well and good, but I'd rather not deal with the player attitudes that often accompany this content.

parpin

i play gw2's wvw almost every day, you can go kinda semi hard core as well, it is not only playable for casuals it is also good if you are going for legendary armor, weapon and back pack, you can spend a lot of time on gw2 and enjoy it.

Aeander

I currently have:
(1) Warrior (Condi)
(2) Guardians (1 Power, 1 Condi)
(2) Revenants (1 Power, 1 Condi)
(1) Ranger (Condi)
(2) Thieves (1 Power, 1 Condi)
(2) Engineers (1 Power, 1 Condi)
(1) Elementalist (Power)
(2) Mesmers (1 Condi, 1 Chrono Tank)
(2) Necromancers (1 Power, 1 Condi)

Not all of them are geared and some aren't level 80. My condi Firebrand, Etheus, is my main and my roleplaying protagonist. My other geared characters are my condi Scourge, my condi Berserker, and my Chrono tank. 

I have a nasty habit of deleting and rerolling characters, which makes saving gold harder than it should be. I have an end goal of 2 minimum characters for each profession, and like to treat each like a different hero with its own build, story, and style. 

Ungood

Originally.. GW2 was a great game, it had this vast horizontal end game.

and I mean that.. when this game was live, the end game was the whole game, you could do anything and everything and progress to a final point of being equal to everyone else.

So the game was in every sense, what you made of it.

With HoT, and a slew of Legendary Items being dumped into the game, they made for a very myopic end game. Sure you can do what you want, but you will be no closer to a Legendary Back item, or Armor in a Week than you will be in 3 years.. unless do the exact end game content they have laid out for you have to do.

I could get that kind of set up from any and every game out there.

Octagon7711

My favorite game and I agree with the article. I login, do a few of my favorite dynamic events, maybe a world boss or two, then logout. Sometimes I'll work on the living story, sometimes or test my builds by soloing groups of mobs. I can have fun for 10 mins. or 10 hours. It's one of the few MMOs that doesn't beat you over the head with the cash shop and lets you play how you feel like playing in a session.

Arlee

Ungood said:

Originally.. GW2 was a great game, it had this vast horizontal end game.

and I mean that.. when this game was live, the end game was the whole game, you could do anything and everything and progress to a final point of being equal to everyone else.

So the game was in every sense, what you made of it.

With HoT, and a slew of Legendary Items being dumped into the game, they made for a very myopic end game. Sure you can do what you want, but you will be no closer to a Legendary Back item, or Armor in a Week than you will be in 3 years.. unless do the exact end game content they have laid out for you have to do.

I could get that kind of set up from any and every game out there.

Except with GW2 you don't actually need legendary gear for anything. You get the same stat levels by making ascended gear which you can craft FAR easier than legendary gear. The only real bonus with Legendary gear is it's flashy and you can easily stat swap.

Oyjord

I haven’t played in 3+ years, and logged in last week from MMORPG-malaise.

I had a freaking blast.

I have since bought both xpacs (bundled at a very good price), and just today finished the Personal Story questline. I easily see myself playing for many more months, with tons of content yet to explore.

Aeander

Ppiper said:

How is Heart of Thrones?

What kind of player are you?

If you enjoy story and exploration at your own pace, stick with vanilla and Path of Fire.

If you enjoy endgame grind, raiding, and meta events, get Heart of Thorns.

Thupli

Ppiper said:

How is Heart of Thrones?

The heart of thorns maps are some of the most amazing maps I have ever played in any MMORPG. You can solo fine, but you will encounter hard things that you may want to build your traits more defensive for.

HoT is amazing even if just for solo exploring through the maps.

Octagon7711

Ppiper said:

I just leveled a new Necro to 80 after having stayed away from it for years after my first 80 toon. It's so casual that it's almost sterile in terms of feeling like i'm part of something. I have never grouped other than the occasional events that happen and even those got boring after awhile. I still have the next to expansions to trogg though. Sorry, that's how it feels for me. Just no desire to keep on keepin on...

No matter how popular a game is there will be people who don't like it, just as no matter how disliked a game is there will be people who love it. 

ARSoulSin

Guild Wars 2 is the game that MMoRPG veterans are seeking to retired at.

Seens like a joke, but the "King of QoL" is a deserving title.
Jack of all trades seens like something bad to say, but at least on GW2 everything is a solid experience that "works". The game has being up for 6 years and the only thing you may call "old content" is maybe, just maybe, the first 80 levels personal history and the lvl 30~80 dungeons.

That and all the quality of life changes. I can't pass a single day playing FFXIV not complaining about the terrible inventory management and market system. I log in on Blade & Soul and complain about how my inventory is so small. BlackDesert forces me to ride a horse from one side of the map to another without any choice for quick-travel! SAY WHAT!?

GW2 is comfortable to play. The game never punishes you for anything (save wasting your money on stupid stuff). I could quit the game for a year and my character is there, at the right level with the right equipment, waiting me to tackle the last content.

TheDarkrayne

Thupli said:

Ppiper said:

How is Heart of Thrones?

The heart of thorns maps are some of the most amazing maps I have ever played in any MMORPG. You can solo fine, but you will encounter hard things that you may want to build your traits more defensive for.

HoT is amazing even if just for solo exploring through the maps.

I agree, they really are a masterclass in design. Something never seen in an MMO before. Intimidating at first, but amazing once you master them.

Ungood

Arlee said:

Ungood said:

Originally.. GW2 was a great game, it had this vast horizontal end game.

and I mean that.. when this game was live, the end game was the whole game, you could do anything and everything and progress to a final point of being equal to everyone else.

So the game was in every sense, what you made of it.

With HoT, and a slew of Legendary Items being dumped into the game, they made for a very myopic end game. Sure you can do what you want, but you will be no closer to a Legendary Back item, or Armor in a Week than you will be in 3 years.. unless do the exact end game content they have laid out for you have to do.

I could get that kind of set up from any and every game out there.

Except with GW2 you don't actually need legendary gear for anything. You get the same stat levels by making ascended gear which you can craft FAR easier than legendary gear. The only real bonus with Legendary gear is it's flashy and you can easily stat swap.

The QoL upgrade of Legendary Armor, still makes it the best gear in the game.

With that said.. no game requires that you have the best gear, in fact, let me clue you in with something, in WoW, you had to beat the raid with gear that was worse than what dropped in the raid, so you never needed the Raid gear in WoW either.

Let that process and tell me again what exactly sets GW2 apart again?

Ungood

ARSoulSin said:

Guild Wars 2 is the game that MMoRPG veterans are seeking to retired at.

It was.. till HoT. HoT was like a bunch pre-schooners invaded the nursing home and demanded a water slide, just to piss 90% of the population off.

Ungood

Ppiper said:

How is Heart of Thrones?

Well if you are a story player, HoT is gonna suck, but if you can not care about the story, do PoF first, get the mounts, cap out their abilities, and than do HoT, makes it a lot easier to deal with the maps if you have all the various mounts, most notably the bunny and raptor as (by the time I left) the griffon could not use the up-drifts making gliding still the best way to "fly" in HoT.

mercster

'Piqued' your interest, not 'peaked'.

botrytis

urinal_goose said:

It took me about 5 years of repeated attempts, but then something happened and I suddenly loved this game.



I love the combat--tab targeting, yet it feels faster and more dynamic than a game like WoW. And unlike WoW, I don't spend most of my time staring at the combat interface.



I like how there are virtually endless ways to specialize a character. I suppose people who like to min/max will say that that's not the case, but I'm more interested in how a character 'feels' than how how it ranks on dps meters.



One thing I don't really like is the crafting--it's kind of blah and boring. I do like being able to discover recipes, but other than that it doesn't interest me.



I would also like to see ANet implement some way to quickly switch between equipment sets and specializations.

No - the reason being all build have some negative and some positive aspects. Being able to switch would mean that goes way. NO!

Mardukk

I log in almost daily to harvest living season 3 mats for ascended stuff. Or I complete the daily for gold. I have one of every class. I love the freedom (no linear quest hubbing!!) and the amount of content. I still have no ascended armor or legendary weapons. I have no idea how people solo grind for that stuff. The crafting part of the game is possibly the weakest part of the game.

borgy2000

I have been playing GW2 since the beginning and have an off and on again relationship with it. The biggest disappointment with it was HoT which drove me away form GW2 but I came back with PoF. The mount system was the best integration of mounts in any MMO I have ever played. There is a point to mounts besides getting you somewhere fast which is awesome. I do the dailies and craft on a daily basis making the base resources for Ascended gear. Im a casual player so I do dailies and craft so that I can have ascended gear which is not hard to do if you put some time into it. The hardest part of crafting is getting to level 500 which can be expensive. What I do like is that you can get the best equipment without Raiding or doing Fractals so people who don’t want to grind them can go out and resource gather and still get top grade equipment. I agree the crafting system isn't wonderful, but it gets the job done.

For me the greatest problem with GW2 at the moment is the server size. There are so many areas now and even with full servers there isn’t enough players to do some of the meta gameplay… Silverwaste and most HoT areas are empty when it isn’t peak times making it impossible to complete those areas. I feel that more people in each server would change the game. I really like GW2 and it is a great game to play with my wife who loves it as it is very female friendly. The player base is great and people generally help each other out making it feel like a cooperative game. Its great when you die and out of nowhere someone comes and heals you. I don’t usually post but I came to MMORPG.com every day to see what is new. With nothing coming out in the near future for me it is a good choice as a casual gamer with some time to spare.

Wizardry

"ALTS" keyword and THAT is the wrong way to play an RPG.

All that blabber about how they were going to FIX the mmorpg genre and all they did was continue to make it worse.If they don't understand why altaholic is just bad,then i have no time for them.
Besides that,no right or wrong,how many flipping choices do you have when you start the game up?
You run out and start killing stuff and look for that npc standing around somewhere trying to do what we call ZONE clears.yeah zone clears is how a rpg should represent itself.IDk what genre Arena.net should be making games for ,but it is not rpg's.

Aeander

Wizardry said:

"ALTS" keyword and THAT is the wrong way to play an RPG.

All that blabber about how they were going to FIX the mmorpg genre and all they did was continue to make it worse.If they don't understand why altaholic is just bad,then i have no time for them.
Besides that,no right or wrong,how many flipping choices do you have when you start the game up?
You run out and start killing stuff and look for that npc standing around somewhere trying to do what we call ZONE clears.yeah zone clears is how a rpg should represent itself.IDk what genre Arena.net should be making games for ,but it is not rpg's.

Mate.... You like is FF11. You wouldn't know what a good game, much less a good RPG, is if it bit you on the ass. 


Alts are a sign of a good RPG. An RPG not worth replaying isn't a good RPG. 

ZDPhoenix

I've been playing mmo's for 20 years now. And whenever I tried to get into the hardcore aspects of GW2, I found myself frustrated and the single-minded aspect that comes with it. However, like you, I find a wealth of enjoyment whenever I try to enjoy the game and the "journey" it provides, without trying to push for something.

Pushing hard when the latest expansion came out burned me out fast. Now, I've set a much slower pace for myself and I love it. I wish we could see the disparity in chart-form between the people who play the game casually and those that do everything to push as far/fast as possible, in GW2.

Muke

Aeander said:

Wizardry said:

"ALTS" keyword and THAT is the wrong way to play an RPG.

All that blabber about how they were going to FIX the mmorpg genre and all they did was continue to make it worse.If they don't understand why altaholic is just bad,then i have no time for them.
Besides that,no right or wrong,how many flipping choices do you have when you start the game up?
You run out and start killing stuff and look for that npc standing around somewhere trying to do what we call ZONE clears.yeah zone clears is how a rpg should represent itself.IDk what genre Arena.net should be making games for ,but it is not rpg's.

Mate.... You like is FF11. You wouldn't know what a good game, much less a good RPG, is if it bit you on the ass. 


Alts are a sign of a good RPG. An RPG not worth replaying isn't a good RPG. 

A good MMO doesn't 'finish' and you even wouldn't be 'forced' to take up alts.

Aeander

Muke said:

Aeander said:

Wizardry said:

"ALTS" keyword and THAT is the wrong way to play an RPG.

All that blabber about how they were going to FIX the mmorpg genre and all they did was continue to make it worse.If they don't understand why altaholic is just bad,then i have no time for them.
Besides that,no right or wrong,how many flipping choices do you have when you start the game up?
You run out and start killing stuff and look for that npc standing around somewhere trying to do what we call ZONE clears.yeah zone clears is how a rpg should represent itself.IDk what genre Arena.net should be making games for ,but it is not rpg's.

Mate.... You like is FF11. You wouldn't know what a good game, much less a good RPG, is if it bit you on the ass. 


Alts are a sign of a good RPG. An RPG not worth replaying isn't a good RPG. 

A good MMO doesn't 'finish' and you even wouldn't be 'forced' to take up alts.

You don't have to "finish" a game to replay it. If you roll a new character in Skyrim, you are replaying it, regardless of whether or not you've 100% completed every side quest in the game.

A good MMO doesn't finish, but it also allows for and encourages alts.