Still a "side MMO"?

At launch, Guild Wars 2 was advertised as an MMORPG you could play alongside other ones. It was very casual-friendly and sub-free. Since HoT, however, they introduced hardcore stuff. Now there's ridiculous grind. Is Guild Wars 2 still a game you play with other games, or has it taken up most of your time now?

Well, that depends... The grind comes in form of the "optional" items, not the ones you need. So if you want all the fashion, yeah it's grindy. But if you don't care about that, you can still play it very casually.

I think I have 8000+ hours in GW2 now.

I still havent done a single raid. Or gotten past T1 fractals. Or done any strike missions for that matter. I think I've unlocked 10% of all available skins. I feel no need to grind any of it.

It definitely can still be a side MMO.You don't need to do the high-end content or the grinds.I definitely don't do them.

I've never played just 1 game at a time, I think that would lead to me getting bored with that game very quicky. My only other MMO is Elder Scrolls Online and I spent a lot less time on it than I do on GW2 but I'm always playing other things. Along with those two I'm currently playing Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, and I've just bought Valheim. Less frequently I'm also playing Fire Emblem 3 Houses and Baldur's Gate. (Plus Pokemon Go, but I don't really count that because I only play it when I can't play other things.)

I haven't ever found myself faced with 'ridiculous grind' in GW2. There's lots of medium/long term goals, but those aren't ever things you need so they can be done a bit at a time, as and when you feel like it. And if you don't feel like it you can skip it. There's many, many achievements, collections and even areas of the game (like higher tier Fractals) I haven't done because it doesn't interest me. Instead I focus on the things I do like doing, and if I don't feel like playing at all I do something else.

Didn't play much else in the last 8 years, but I've always been very "singleminded" when it comes to games so I might not count.

It is my main MMORPG, but not my main game; I'm bouncing between Final Fantasy 10, FF10-2, Valkyria Chronicles, Disgaea 5, Persona 5 Royal, Forsaken World, and a little bit of Hunie Pop don't judge me i play for the puzzles and the story oooooooof when I don't feel like anything else. The only time I have ever done the gear grind in this game is to get the ascended armor for my Guardian and I only do that in small chunks so I don't get burnt out.

@"Mortifera.6138" said:Guild Wars 2 was advertised as an MMORPG you could play alongside other ones.

never really treated GW2 or any mmorpg im playing as a "main" or "side mmo". i tend to get attached and invested to whatever mmorpg im currently playing so i find it really hard to play another one at the same time.

other mmorpgs i played in the past (in no particular order) are: swtor, ff14, ragnarok online, archeage, and pso2 japan. for each one of them i was just playing one at any given time period unless i was trying out another mmorpg's trial/f2p (or checking out a new expansion/release/big update to an mmo i played before) just to see if i can find a new home -- which would then replace what i was currently playing if it so happens to be good.

@"Mortifera.6138" said:Now there's ridiculous grind.

oh and having played older and newer korean mmorpgs before, i found GW2's "grind" laughable.

I agree that GW2 doesn't fit the "grindy" standard as far as MMOs go. Certainly, there is a ton of content and it's entirely possible some of it won't be your cup of tea. Still, the fact remains that there is very little gear grind. Compare to something like WoW, for instance, where gear is acquired by running the same content repeatedly to acquire better gear in order to progress through the same content on a higher level of difficulty. A process you repeat with every raid release, which are pretty frequent in that game. That's what they call a "gear treadmill" and it doesn't really exist in GW2.

Now, if you want to unlock all of the mounts including the griffon, roller beetle, and skyscale, craft legendary weapons, play through the entire story, and complete all of the annual festival achievements, and max out your masteries? Yeah, that's a mountain of stuff to do, gold/materials to burn, etc. But there isn't really any clock ticking here. The next content release doesn't invalidate your current rewards, forcing you to grind up new ones.

Grind was far worse at launch imo. Getting a legendary was 10x more effort for starters. Imagine getting 250 of each T6 mat without map rewards, there was miniscule levels of t6 mats dropping, no champ bags etc. Ectos were rarer, mystic coins harder to get, precursors harder to get.

Then when ascended was added a few months later, that was a grind to get.

I think people forget how limited the game was at launch. It's just now, we have more stuff people want, but it doesn't all need to be gone for. That doesn't mean grind doesn't exist, but it's mitigated by how easily you can chip away at it over time

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I agree that GW2 doesn't fit the "grindy" standard as far as MMOs go. Certainly, there is a ton of content and it's entirely possible some of it won't be your cup of tea. Still, the fact remains that there is very little gear grind. Compare to something like WoW, for instance, where gear is acquired by running the same content repeatedly to acquire better gear in order to progress through the same content on a higher level of difficulty. A process you repeat with every raid release, which are pretty frequent in that game. That's what they call a "gear treadmill" and it doesn't really exist in GW2.

Now, if you want to unlock all of the mounts including the griffon, roller beetle, and skyscale, craft legendary weapons, play through the entire story, and complete all of the annual festival achievements, and max out your masteries? Yeah, that's a mountain of stuff to do, gold/materials to burn, etc. But there isn't really any clock ticking here. The next content release doesn't invalidate your current rewards, forcing you to grind up new ones.

That's a good explaination. I'd also add that you don't need a lot of the long-term goals. You'll never find an area of the game you can't play because you don't have legendary equipment and even ascended is only required for higher tier Fractals, which are just repeats of the lower tier ones. I think you can play every Fractal map with just a couple of ascended rings (which can be bought with laurels). More importantly though Fractals is largely self-contained, there's rarely a reason to do it if you don't want to, and the things which will send you there are other optional goals like making legendaries.

It's the same with the mounts. There's a few achievements which need the griffon, roller beetle or skyscale but you can skip them if you want to. You'll never find a living world episode or something you can't do because you haven't got those mounts. (The jackal is largely optional too, I know the PoF story doesn't require it, but it is necessary for map completion.)

That's very different to games which require you to get better gear or level up to enter an area, where if you don't feel like doing whatever's necessary for the gear or levels your only option is to miss out on the new content. Of course if you skip all the optional content in GW2 you'll be left with much less to do, but it means everyone can choose the things which interest them or which do seem worth their time and skip the stuff which isn't.

side mmo, most game time goes to ghost of tsushima and valheim.

It has been my main since leaving wow during Pandaria. It may become a second given an injury and the time I had to play other games due to medical problems. There are a lot of positives to the game, no monthly sub and fairly simple abilities. Where I struggle is that it's feeling aged, and there are other games that have brought fun back to gaming. Also not enjoying the effect on hardware, seems to be pretty rough on my PC that can handle other titles quite easily with no problems.

I've lost interest in gaming for 5 or more years.I also can't play more than one MMO at a time.GW2 is the only game I still play, although it has a lot of setbacks and boring stuff (DRM's), I still love unique classes like mesmer, and having all my toons and all the classes maximized helps makes the game still fun.

Does it matter?Some players will always treat it as a 'side MMO', others will never treat it so.Some will switch from one way to the other./shrug

GW2 is the only MMO I play. I will play other single player story driven RPGs or other game types once and a while too, although 80% of my gaming time goes to GW2. If GW2 was more time consuming (note, that I do not mean less difficult) and required more repetition and grind, I just wouldn't play it. I have a near zero interest in all the Icebrood Saga Champions content for this very reason, but there is still tons of stuff, even in the core game areas, that I like doing.

I like the game world (lore) of Tyria even if the story telling could be better. I like the tab-target active combat system. Social interaction (fun community) and character customization are probably one of the reasons why I play GW2 and not just an open world single player RPG.

So, GW2 is my MMO and I am glad it doesn't prevent me from enjoying other games and still having a real life.

Currently not playing any other MMORPG besides GW2, neither updates nor patches from other MMORPGs have been able to sound interesting enough for me to revisit them. I don't see that changing for now, since all of the MMORPGs currently in development (AoC, New World, Crowfall, Elyon etc.) don't seem too promising to me.We don't have any info on Riot's MMORPG and it will most likely take years for that one to release (could be promising, depending on which direction it takes).

Aside from GW2 I'm currently playing PSO2 (mostly waiting for NGS), Valheim, LoL (currently less), Genshin Impact and PoE on new league starts. Finished Little Nightmares 2 a few days ago. I've never "only" played one game, I enjoy playing different genres too much to do that.

So you could call GW2 a "side game", but not a "side MMORPG". I don't have "main games".

GW2 did introduce a lot of optional grinds lately, like all of the weapon collections, but I've never really cared about skins I don't like, so they're easily ignored, as that grind isn't needed to progress in any way. So by not doing certain things like the weapon collections or playing certain content I can atleast share my likes by being a datapoint in the metrics for Anet.It is then for them to decide what they think is the best way to develop the game further. If it is more weapon collections, then other players seem to enjoy that more than I do, and i'm fine with that, even though I won't touch that content (This also reflects my behaviour on other types of content I don't care about).

Still a "side game" for me. I play many other games too, but I would say it's probably now become my main MMORPG. I have done a lot of the grinds in the game over time, but grinding in MMORPGs is no longer my thing. I like that the grinds in this game mostly feel optional, unlike in some other MMORPGs. The open world and event system in GW2 is the main thing that keeps me coming back. Hopefully there will continue to be more high quality open world maps and events in the future.

@Danikat.8537 said:and I've just bought Valheim.Say goodbye to doing much of anything else for a while :)

GW2 has been by far my main game for many years, I've been in it daily since launch with very limited exceptions. Occasionally ESO gets some attention from me, primarily during events or when I have a project (like when I discovered Antiquities, or recently my second character hit 50 courtesy of the winter event so I have been gearing her and working on her skills). However now I have over 60 hours in Valheim in the past 2 weeks, mostly on my own map but the past few days also helping friends on their server. That thing's addictive. I'm not done with GW2 (and as soon as we get more story releases I'll be fully back in) but Valheim is the first time in a long time I've played a game where I really don't notice the time going by for multiple hours in a session.

Still, GW2 is still there, still has projects I can work on, and can still excite me when something new happens. Though once I realized how very many hours of doing the same DRMs I'd have to get through to complete the recipe unlocks for achieves, I fled to my viking land again, heh. My main goal in the soonish future in GW2 is to pug my way through the DRM top responder achieves so I can get /stretch, since recipe gathering ain't a thing. Just not sure pugging is going to work for that, so I keep putting it off.

It’s never been a side mmo to me

It's taken up almost all my time, but I'm also the kind of person that can only play one MMO at a time (previously it was Runescape, then World of Warcraft, then Final Fantasy XIV) , so there's that as well.

I do however, play a 2D fighter called

alongside gw2, often while waiting for world bosses to spawn. I'll also have an idle game called Melvor Idle (although it should really be called Runescape Idle, since it's what the idle game is based off of) running in the background as well.

So basically, this supposed "side MMO" is actually my main MMO, with other games along for the ride lol.

Guild Wars 2 is still sub friendly and still casual friendly so I'm not sure what the OP is actually talking about. As with most MMOs, the people who are harder core will have different goals than people who are more casual. That's sort of how it works.

A casual person might get a couple of characters to 80 and gear them out in exotic/ascended and not go for legendary. Some people will be harder core and go for legendary gear. Working as intended if you ask me.

The game is very unfriendly when you try to get into HoT without knowing how masteries work. Especially when you try to play without doing the story. For new players, it is especially bad with what they give you with the lvl 80 booster.

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:The game is very unfriendly when you try to get into HoT without knowing how masteries work. Especially when you try to play without doing the story. For new players, it is especially bad with what they give you with the lvl 80 booster.

That has nothing to do with friendly. That's end game content. It was introduced 3.5 years after launch. It's expected people play the core game before proceeding to HOT in the same way people go to 6th grade before they go to 12th. A lot of people, not just a few, asked for most challenging open world content. Anet obliged them. Let's not pretend HoT isn't one of the most highly populated open world areas of the game to this day. Some people love it.

People who say it's unfriendly are people who want to master end game content quickly. And HOT really isn't that hard. It just requires a bit of learning to master.

I don't know how much of a gamer I am. I can list the games I've played in my adulthood on one hand and not take up all the fingers despite being in my 40s!I am invested in this game and have not played anything else for longer than a couple of weeks before being annoyed they weren't as fun as this game. That being said, I have not touched raids; I've dabbled in fractals and strikes and pvp but largely I play for exploring at a casual pace and for fun achievements although I am currently working on my third legendary. (I love how some of the precursor crafting has you go back to old content!) I play because this is a pleasant way to unwind for me after work so I am not after any kind of stressful encounter these days.

Still - I have not been having fun in Guild Wars 2 lately. I think my enjoyment began to flag shortly after the death of a certain fairly newly introduced npc, and then I stopped having fun almost altogether with the introduction of Bjora Marches and the story thereafterI understand that the pandemic has affected how the studio operates and I am profoundly impressed by what they have been able to do despite this. But the spirit of the game is different than it was at launch; it's been gutted.

Lately I've been considering trying other things.