Hitting A Wall With Guild Wars 2

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Hitting A Wall With Guild Wars 2

Robin's been playing Guild Wars 2 since it launched in 2012, but is noticing her drive to play, especially recently, has cratered. Robin explains why she feels this happened in her latest Guild Wars 2 blog.

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10chai

Skinwars not mmorpg anymore

Aeander

One of the biggest snags I find myself hitting is setting too many simultaneous goals for myself.

I want this legendary. Those skins. To gear multiple new alts. All at the same time. 

It's my bad habit and my fault, but it is exhausting. Contrary to the sentiment that there is nothing to do, I find myself overwhelmed.

botrytis

What is in a guild? It is a way to cajole, laugh, struggle through with others who are of a like gaming style. WvW and other parts of the game are hard w/o a guild. WvW is fun with people try it, especially in voice comms.

The point of the Icebrood Saga is the arrogance of the person who thought he could control an Elder Dragon, was just that, arrogance and misunderstanding and they paid for it (SPOILER ALERT). They wanted to show all the different aspects that each Elder Dragon has. - Modremoth was mind control, his mind superior to yours. Kralkatorrik was Anger and rage. Zhaitan was making everyone it's dead minions. Jormag is the little 'whisper' in your ear, and this one is the most insidious as you are not sure if you are making the decisions or is it the Dragon's influence.

I find the game fun. I do not have any Legendaries nor do I have the Skyscale or Gryphon nor do I need them. It is all choice, your choice. Not forced, but what YOU want.

People now are complaining they have too many choices. What will be next?

Amathe

I enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.

The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.

Just my two cents.

Theocritus

I hit that wall in like 10 days

botrytis

Amathe said:

I enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.

The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.

Just my two cents.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Most games out there have tons of repetitive things. I played many and they all do the same. WoW, RIFT, TERA, LOTRO, etc. Can you name one that doesn't? So, throwing GW2 under the bus for repetitiveness, you throw them all under the bus

Tjaeden

botrytis said:

Amathe said:

I enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.



The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.



Just my two cents.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Most games out there have tons of repetitive things. I played many and they all do the same. WoW, RIFT, TERA, LOTRO, etc. Can you name one that doesn't? So, throwing GW2 under the bus for repetitiveness, you throw them all under the bus

Just because a game is repetitive, doesn't mean that FUN game play isn't possible (i.e. tetris)

botrytis

Tjaeden said:

botrytis said:

Amathe said:

I enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.



The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.



Just my two cents.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Most games out there have tons of repetitive things. I played many and they all do the same. WoW, RIFT, TERA, LOTRO, etc. Can you name one that doesn't? So, throwing GW2 under the bus for repetitiveness, you throw them all under the bus

Just because a game is repetitive, doesn't mean that FUN game play isn't possible (i.e. tetris)

I think GW2 is fun, especially with Guildmates. That is what makes it fun for me.

ultimateduck

GW2 is incredibly well made... and incredibly shallow. Hitting that wall too my about 2 months.

ultimateduck

tzervo said:

ultimateduck said:

GW2 is incredibly well made... and incredibly shallow. Hitting that wall too my about 2 months.

It is quite shallow in terms of world building features - even though its world is beautiful. But there is depth and a big room for game mastery and self-improvement. I remember Wooden Potatoes mentioning that there is a 10-times difference in damage and efficiency between a casual player and a highly skilled one. There are zerg busting groups in WvW. And there are PVP ladders for those who want to demostrate mastery in PVP. To me these are indicators of depth, at least in the combat system.

I guess I was referring to there being very limited paths in character progression.

Amathe

botrytis said:

Amathe said:

I enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.

The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.

Just my two cents.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Most games out there have tons of repetitive things. I played many and they all do the same. WoW, RIFT, TERA, LOTRO, etc. Can you name one that doesn't? So, throwing GW2 under the bus for repetitiveness, you throw them all under the bus

I probably should have said unduly repetitive. And by no means did I intend to isolate GW as the only offender. I could name games I found not particularly repetive, but that would just result in jeers and catcalls of "yes it is!" So let's just say that speaking only for myself, subjectively,  I liked GW but repetiveness wore me down.

rammur65

10chai said:

Skinwars not mmorpg anymore

that dont even make sense anymore the biggest drive in pretty much any and all mmos are the cosmetics people would be bored as hell if they only had 2 or 3 visuals in a game now. even old text based games it was all about the flavor text always and always will be a thing.

BeansnBread

I mean, I've hit a wall in every mmorpg I've played.

Kirzan

Initially, Guild Wars had 1 problem: Itemization. You never "actually" felt like you were getting that much stronger from Rare to Exos. So they added a higher quality, and developed a bit more complexity, allowing for higher numbers.

This is a problem that will only get worse as the game almost only gets seasonal lore content. Expansions come out with a raid, a new major feature, a new probably-meta elite, but gear... doesn't really upgrade that much.

This really disconnects me from the "progression" side of things. Yes, I got slivers of a stat more from completing the raid, between my Exo and Ascended, but does it show? Sure if I compare the entire sets, but as you progress, you probably won't go from no Ascended to full Ascended so, it doesn't "really" show.

-

For new players, I can definitely tell you, having done it recently: The story progression is a massive, steel wall for anyone wanting to get into the game. You'll finish Zhaitan at 80, because it's gated. If you wanna proceed with the expansion, for the glider and the much faster elite progression... Hold your horses, that's not the next step story-wise.

You gotta go through the living world seasons. Character building from the base game is almost completely useless, as the story continues with these new characters introduced in living world. The first season can't be played anymore, so you get a video. That's the equivalent of watching a playthrough on youtube... Not great if you intend to care, to put thousands of hours into the game.

Not only do these take a really long time and barely reward you, they also cost money before and after PoF! It's like ANet doesn't want you to play the story, but that's also the only content that comes out between expansions that are (now) 3+ years apart.

-

For a new player, I guess the game's probably cool if you're gonna treat it like a lobby to do activities.

Gorwe

...you played a game for EIGHT years and now your will to play has crattered. Gee, congratulations for lasting so long, I know I couldn't!

Kendah

Hit that wall myself soon after icebrood, was forcing myself to log in and play, story is not engaging me at all, just discontents me from the game, logged in recently to do the event & waiting for the anniversary reward, then am out until the next annual event or perhaps whenever I feel like playing. I felt this way twice sine the game launched, first time on the release of fractals, and the second time on HoT, couldn't make myself play each time, it was horrible, only after few years came back and got deep into the game again (not fractals though, still hate it), maybe I just need another break for a few more years

Vorthanion

Welcome to belated self-awareness. You finally realize you are a rat in an endless maze and the reward at the end is so terribly pitiful and the journey there is not exactly entertaining.

Hariken

The game was fun and unique before the expansions ,fractals and raid crap. The base game is what people seem to like more and if it didn't go f2p i bet it would have shut down. They need to get back to basics and stop with all the story stuff. Really miss the ideas in that old manifesto. But no they had to cave to the ex wow crowd who hated wow but wanted the game to be like wow.

StoneRoses

Amathe said:

botrytis said:

Amathe said:

I enjoyed this article. Thanks for writing it.

The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.

Just my two cents.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Most games out there have tons of repetitive things. I played many and they all do the same. WoW, RIFT, TERA, LOTRO, etc. Can you name one that doesn't? So, throwing GW2 under the bus for repetitiveness, you throw them all under the bus

I probably should have said unduly repetitive. And by no means did I intend to isolate GW as the only offender. I could name games I found not particularly repetive, but that would just result in jeers and catcalls of "yes it is!" So let's just say that speaking only for myself, subjectively,  I liked GW but repetiveness wore me down.

The repetitive card is still being tossed around like someone's mom in the backseat of a Volvo.

It's fucking amazing that folks still come out swing with the idea and argument on why a MMORPG is repetitive. Talk about the brilliance among us.

What makes any game not repetitive?
There is still a pattern doing the same fucking thing over and over again. 
Some games add more or less steps to the execution.

It's no different than hangout at a bar every night, as it is always raid night looking for that legendary reward drop.

WarWitch

After around wvw 3k or so when you run out of things to spend points on it seems pointless to play. We hit that same wall in eso around 810. We need Long term goals even if its tiny improvements.

Note Changing the gear meta every few months is not exciting at all it simply makes us realize wev wasted our time.

Jaguaratron1

Burnout hits everyone

Albatroes

My thing about guilds in most mmorpgs now is that the only way for them to matter is for the game itself to matter. Too many things are focused on personal achievements which can be actived with little to no player interaction. People will say "well guilds help you connect with others and you can do things together" but you can find people way easier and 'grouping' with people when you're focused on stuff only for yourself tends to be counterproductive. Until mmorpgs value guilds and serious group play across the board (not this 4 different modes for the same content style of development that has been going on for 10+ years), other things can achieve the same social results, like discord/youtube/twitch/etc.

Aeander

tzervo said:

Jaguaratron1 said:

Burnout hits everyone

But most of the times it is not burn out, "the game is getting worse every year", "the last expansion was trash", "the game is dying for reasons".

In this case, the first expansion was trash. The second was actually pretty good.

Nyghthowler

Aeander said:

In this case, the first expansion was trash. The second was actually pretty good.

tzervo said:

I was just being sarcastic about the behaviour of players quitting a game

But for GW2 specifically, I actually loved HoT as much as the base game. I took part in lots of raids and meta events. PoF did not click with me - but that was mostly me having already burnt out after 3.5k hours, was nothing wrong with it.

I have to agree with @Aeander . For me, HoT was purely a repetitive grind-fest with all the faction B.S. and very little actual feeling of accomplishment.
PoF was much better with making me feel like my character was actually progressing.

Ungood

This article was spot on for me, and the break point for me was Raids in HoT.

I loved GW2, because I could play on my terms, I did not have set a schedule, or anything, I could just log in for a little bit, and not only have fun socializing, I could make some progress on whatever, or many no real direction, just make some arbitrary progress.

When raids got put in, the whole dynamic of the game changed for me, now, they were all about "Challenge" and putting in Raids, and having this whole Tier of content that unless I went back to scheduling my time, and building some raid team to run with, I was never going to get. 

Truth be told, the largest appeal of GW2 was that I didn't have to do that.

So.. when they chose to do that, I went back to playing DDO, I mean, look, GW2 is a fun game and all that, but if I was gonna have to raid anyway, DDO's Dungeons and Raid are the best designed content ever, without question.

I did return to GW2 a few times, because, I really wanted to keep loving that game, so many parts were really great, like a 6 course meal of awesomeness, and in the middle of this buffet of a meal was this huge turd called Raids with legendary armor locked behind them. 

To each their own I guess. But I understand where the writer is coming from, just that feeling of wanting to feel like you are making progress, but you know, you're dead ended right where you are.