Riddle Me This..

So I was talking with some friends about MMOs.

We're all let down by Bless Online (I'm officially done with KR MMO games, not even going to bother looking at Lost Ark or whatever it's called).We're all bored of Black Desert Online and the terrible optimization and design choices. We talked about sub games, and all enjoyed talking about Final Fantasy XIV.I tried telling them to give Gw2 a go. But I haven't played in some time (a few months after PoF release I took another break).

I need some more opinions on Gw2 and what separates itself from the crowd.

I added to the table, it has outstanding Aesthetics and Sound Design, Constant updates, and Deep story.They responded with "So does Final Fantasy XIV", and "but that's sub based" didn't really work.

When I was still playing in the Raid scene in gw2. It felt like a very Elitist/Min-Max unfriendly Community.Dungeons were still dead, Fractals seemed to be improving, and I don't really touch PvP, but if that's now a selling point I'd like to hear.I was talking about the Living World/Personal Story. And they argued, it's a one and done deal, so that isn't really appealing.

So Riddle me this; What would draw you, a new player, GW2 Veteran, or MMO Veteran, to GW2 in 2018.

The only real standalone-features GW2 currently has is 1. the lack of a gear-treadmill and 2. the large open world. Sadly, GW2 has become rather uninnovative and boring and the class-balance is atrocious.

@Riku.4821 said:

When I was still playing in the Raid scene in gw2. It felt like a very Elitist/Min-Max unfriendly Community.

It is, which is one of the reason's I don't touch it.

@Raizel.8175 said:The only real standalone-features GW2 currently has is 1. the lack of a gear-treadmill and 2. the large open world. Sadly, GW2 has become rather uninnovative and boring and the class-balance is atrocious.

I havne't taken a look at the class balance as of late. But the class balance in BDO is what killed it for me and most my friends. Like removing almost all Mobility in PVP and PVE for a class, then reduce their damage to almost nothing, then remove their defense the next week. Lol.

But yeah the gear treadmill is nice in gw2. Once you get Ascended you're done, aside from stats.Are the maps populated? the HoT maps seemed empty often outside of the one Meta in the Golden City map timeframe.Haven't gone into PoF maps since before living story ep1.Are the Vanilla maps/non expansion LS maps still populated?

@Vavume.8065 said:

@Riku.4821 said:

When I was still playing in the Raid scene in gw2. It felt like a very Elitist/Min-Max unfriendly Community.

That's a shame, so its still prevalent?I remember trying to get groups, and if you didn't know every little detail, or messed up once. You got kicked or everyone left. And then you take another hour to find a group lol.

@Riku.4821 said:

@Raizel.8175 said:The only real standalone-features GW2 currently has is 1. the lack of a gear-treadmill and 2. the large open world. Sadly, GW2 has become rather uninnovative and boring and the class-balance is atrocious.

HoT is still good due to game-design. PoF feels really dead. LW-maps... Well, depends on the map. Some farming maps are still ok, especially Istan, other maps though are quite dead.

@Riku.4821 said:Are the Vanilla maps/non expansion LS maps still populated?

Depends on the maps I'd say but for instance SW is still very, very much active all day. On most maps you can find enough people to do all related activities, though PoF maps sometimes are a little scarcely populated for their respective meta (especially Vabbi/Serpent's Ire).

I see.And is PvP still really Niche to the point of being dead?

In brief what I like about GW2 is that it's a very casual friendly game. I don't need to worry about how elitist raiders talk to each other, how many Fractals there are or how active PvP is because I don't need to do any of those things. There's tons of other content, including a lot of things which from what I've heard other MMOs abandon once you're at the max level in order to funnel you into a few designated 'end game' activities. I can spend my time exploring the maps and playing the story, collecting items which interest me, chatting with players and NPCs and learning about the lore, or whatever else I feel like doing.

My first thought on reading your post is that doesn't help you because your friends seem very fixated on conventional hardcore 'end game' content and they might actually be disappointed to hear it's optional in GW2. But maybe not. I've encountered a lot of people who had that attitude at first - their approach to this game was to do the story and open-world until level 80, then drop it to grind through all the dungeons in order, then play raids and Fractals and/or PvP & WvW until they were bored and frustrated that there weren't more raids and Fractals or more PvP modes to play. Some of them did that then quit out of frustration. Others at some point hit the revelation that they didn't actually want to do that, they just thought they had to because it's how their last MMO was designed and how they thought all MMOs had to be played.

Those people were much happier once they broke that habit and realised they could focus on whatever interested them the most - that they could keep doing the Living Story and call that progress even if they never set foot in a raid, or that they could do everything in whatever order they wanted.

Other than that some of the other things I like are:

1) Buy-to-play business model and IMO genuinely optional extra purchases. Admittedly if I was buying the game today I'd absolutely want to get all the Living Story chapters, but that's because it's the type of content I enjoy and want more of, not because I'd feel like I'm unable to play the stuff I already own properly without buying more.

2) No pay-to-win. Yes you can buy a level 80 boost, convert gems to gold and power-level crafting then buy materials to make a full set of ascended equipment on day 1. But what does that really achieve? You can't do anything I can't do with my manually leveled character, even in exotics. Yes you can get into level 80 maps faster but without knowing how to play the character you're really going to struggle and if you skip the lower level maps then you're missing a huge amount of content.

3) No gear treadmill. Once you do get to level 80 and get a full set of exotics and/or ascended you're basically done with levelling and gearing the character and can focus on what you want to do rather than what you need to do next to progress. Yes balance changes will periodically lead to new stats being desirable and new combinations are introduced with expansions but that's optional. You're never going to be told "you can't play the new release because you're using old equipment".

4) Fairly original world & lore. No I'm not suggesting Anet reinvented the wheel here, but it's also not the same old re-hashed high fantasy themes I've seen a thousand times before. One of the very first things that caught my interest about Guild Wars was the charr - this was back in GW1 where they were just enemies and their lore wasn't nearly as well developed but even so huge bipedal, horned cat monsters using wands to cast spells wasn't something I'd seen before and it was enough to get me interested. There's lots of other examples too - the asura, the sylvari, the way dragons are portrayed (especially after what we've learned about Glint during PoF)...all together it's enough that I very rarely feel like I know exactly how a new concept or creature works because I've seen it done before, and that keeps me interested in finding out about it.

I have tried a few MMORPGs over the years and people tried to attract me to FFXIV several times. I played GW2 long enough to get used to a few things which became very important for me. When I see and try a new game, I just check these few things. If the game does not have these special features I am not going to continue it or leave it as a side-game (like my old retro consoles). What am I looking for, what makes GW2 so much better than other games?

• A communicative, friendly, helpful and open minded community. If you ask a question or use say/map-chat, you get an answer. Common sense/manners. Greeting party members in a dungeon and waiting for each other. (no gameplay/soundtrack/storyline can outbalance a bad community)
• A working, up to date source of informations - preferably a wiki or a database with a proper search function. If you are new to a game, there is plenty to learn. You need informations directly and quickly. Searching through several databases which may contain outdated content his horrible. Never again.
• An open and selective matchmaking system. Our LFG is surely not the best, but at least you see what you are up against. You can make your own decisions and do not have to rely on a stupid RNG.
• Either 100% voiced dialogue or acceptable length of written dialogue. GW2 is not fully voiced, but you do not get flooded with text. If partially or fully voiced, the english version has to be of excellent quality. If the game was originally published in another region and later translated into english by an unmotivated team, the immersion will never be accurate. Listening to a language I do not speak, but which is fine with lip-syncing is not an option. Do or do not, there is no try - Yoda.
• No backtracking. This is something I really got used to. You do not need to talk to any npc to activate a quest, you do not have to get back to the npc to get the gold/karma/exp. You can return later, if you want and if you are curious for the karma-vendor stuff. Else you can proceed with the actual game and miss nothing. It is one of the few things you will mostly not find in other games.
• Dodging. The ability to evade your opponents attacks, both physical and magical. GW2 was one of the first games which showed me, that you do not need to separate magic with fighting. I played tons of games with m.atk, m.def, p.atk, p.def .... etc. - less parameters, less confusion. Blocks and evasion works for everything.
• Easy stat overview. If there are a million of parameters for each class to worry about I see myself running calculations or reading guides instead of playing the game. Boring.
• No forced meta. I can play what I want. What is the point of playing a tank in a game when you know every tank in the entire game is played 100% the same, with the same stats, the same rotation and the same weapons/pets. My main reason why I cannot play FF. There is literally no variety within your class. And you get punished if you do not obey the meta. In GW2 you can pick your own stats, weapon, traits and just go. If you manage to get it working, no one is going to block your path. If you feel forced into a certain playstyle try the LFG using the keyword "relaxed" in your discription or join a guild which allows you to play as you want. Except for raiding, no content really forces you into a certain playstyle. And even for raiding, there are dedicated people who gladly proof a forced meta wrong.
• Wardrobe or a very easy system to dye and re-skin your gear without using micro-transactions.
• No story-locking. We do not have a real tutorial in the game and especially new players will have a hard time IF they use the Instant Level 80 Boost. But it is just awesome to be able to play the current story-line or older chapters without being forced to play through the entire story step by step to unlock certain account/game-mechanics.
• A combat system which requires you to think and not just walk out of red triangles/circles.
• A working jump-button tied to a purpose. There are quite a few games out there which allow you to jump, but there is nearly no use for that in the entire game. In GW2 we have Jumping Puzzles. And I still believe that our jump-mechanics are awesome.
• How long can you play until you run into the first invisible wall? Can you swim in the water, can you dive? Is there even underwater combat? Can you die from falling damage?
• Is teleportation affordable as a newbie or are you forced to walk everything until you are highlevel/rich? It is a question of convenience. In GW2 you can use waypoints frequently even as a lowlevel. Better flexibility.
• No gear progression.
• No monthly subscriptions.
• You can leave and return whenever you want and never feel lost.

Storyline, music, overall gameplay, mechanics, staff ... and all the other obvious reasons also matter. But those are the ones I focus on when I look on a new game, people want me to play instead of or next to GW2.

It sounds like your friends are already set on not playing GW2, and are likely to counter any argument you make, regardless of what sense it makes. So the best you can offer is this: free-to-play. GW2 has a free-to-play option. If they don't like it, they're out nothing. If they get hooked, they might spend to gain full access to all the game's features, content and expansions.

Also, not all raiding is hardcore, boot you, min-maxxing. There is casual raiding and raid training out there. Our guild used to do raid training runs and were very much not uptight about it.

Also, any map that has a meta or world boss WILL be populated. Maybe not always, and you might have to use the LFG tool to get into the populated instances, but I feel there are very few maps I would call 100% dead. Plus ANet continues to add "current events" between LS episodes which occur in core maps and give you a reason to return, even at level 80.

From what I've seen, most people either love or hate GW2. A lot of the reasons people hate it are largely why a lot of people love it. The lack of gear treadmill puts off as many people as it lures. Fast paced and active game play does the same thing too.If they keep building as they have done, innovative mounts and varying types of endgame, they will certainly keep growing.

What drew me into GW2?

The active combat. I still love it (even if some of the encounters designs are hot garbage and there's still some issues to work out in balancing).

And GW2 is HUUUGE on some quality of life things other MMOs don't do. (And a few that still need to be done. Looking at you, build templates.)

No gear treadmill, which is great.

Raids are diseased. No multiple modes, the meta is boring and stale, and the raiders are entitled. Hard pass, unless you do it with your guild.

It's also a great "side game" for when you want to focus on other games and goals. Play 2-3 times/week and aside from gold earnings, it's the same as playing heavily every day. Get bored? set it aside, check in once a month or so, and if an interesting patch drops, hop back in!

Which is about where I'm at right now, in favor of FFXIV. But, if you're just jumping in, there's years of content to plow through.

Tell them this:

"Look, the core game is free. And the areas that gives you access to are pretty large, and many of them are actually pretty stunning and have stuff to do. The game we want doesn't exist right now, so why not install GW2 to kill some time in until something better comes along?"

You can't sell them on the game, but maybe the game itself can. But if it can't, or they won't go for it, then drop it and move on. They're your friends, this is just a game.

I am a very casual player with a family, work, other obligations and limited time. GW2 not being subscription based makes this the perfect MMO for me. Echoing what @Danikat.8537 said, I don't have to worry about doing fractals or raids (and dealing with the players therein) because there is a lot of other content available for me to play.

Three words: no monthly payments. That was always been a big seller for this franchise. It's the reason why my dad and I got into it in the first place.

@"Danikat.8537" said:In brief what I like about GW2 is that it's a very casual friendly game.

Just no, no, no!

People constantly mistake easy for casual friendly. Considering the difficulty of open-world and story content, performance (meaning reasonable gear, build and gameplay) doesn't really matter (although ArenaNet did raise the difficulty in the latest story-episodes). That design choice bites back hard in content where performance does matter (WvW, PvP, raids and fractals), up to the point where a reasonable level of accessiblity just isn't given (that's mostly raids and fractal CMs). Getting into that content is a lot more hardcore than in traditional MMORPGs (there is a reason why there are high LI/KP-requirements).

That's only made worse by other design-decisions, meaning the lack of a gear-treadmill (content doesn't necessarily become noticeable easier the older it gets), various design-decisions which make the game rather unsociable (you could even argue that the game is asocial due to its strong focus on the single-player-experience - it's hard to get to know people, finding a static, etc. - and even if you have friends: if they already have a static, they probably won't raid/do fractal CMs with you due to the suboptimal reward-systems) and the crazy class-unbalance (people can't necessarily play the class they have fun with, but the class that's currently "flavor of the patch").

@Riku.4821 said:So I was talking with some friends about MMOs.

When I was still playing in the Raid scene in gw2. It felt like a very Elitist/Min-Max unfriendly Community.Dungeons were still dead, Fractals seemed to be improving, and I don't really touch PvP, but if that's now a selling point I'd like to hear.I was talking about the Living World/Personal Story. And they argued, it's a one and done deal, so that isn't really appealing.

So Riddle me this; What would draw you, a new player, GW2 Veteran, or MMO Veteran, to GW2 in 2018.

1) About raids its largely depends on who you're going with, if you don't want to a toxic experience. Join a non toxic raid guild.2) Dungeons are not dead, less people play them but they do play them in favor of Fractals3) Fractals are excellent atm, imo4) sPvP is still interesting5) Living World is not a one shot deal, its only one shot if you want to do the story and stop.This will cause you to miss out on a ton of extra lore, unique items, ascended items and more

Ff14 I played a lot.

The issue is how they do the gear treadmill. It may have changed so I can only speak on how it was before.

Basically new dungeons released with new tokens you unlock to buy new armor. You do 2 daily dungeons a day to get your max daily tokens. You do this every day until you complete the full set, then move on to raids if you do raids, you basically do that until you get your armor from very lucky drops.

This repeats until you have the best armor, completed the story and then there is nothing the game offers but waiting a month or 2 for the cycle to complete.

Don't get me wrong the dungeons were fantastic and well thought out and ran smooth (unless your a dps your waiting 45 minutes each dungeon).

Gw2? Basically it's the exact same thing but instead of dungeons your running open world content over and over for maybe a cosmetic or farming gold for a legendary weapon. You don't really get any in game rewards except achievements which I didn't care much for which turned me away.

I ended up settling with Eso personally as content in the game is massive. Kinda buggy glitchy game but my favorite.

But overall yea like you said stay away from the Korean mmos yuck.

If you want pvp play gw2 if you want endgame instanced pve play ff14.

Some interesting points.It does seem the free to play model is a big factor.Its one of the big reasons I love Warframe, they've always kept to their motto of "Ninja's Play for Free" even 5 years coming.And it was also something that started me with Gw2 (I use to play Runescape paying for that)

Part of me likes the guild treadmill. But for sure, its such a relief logging into gw2 and knowing I don't need to regear.

Interested to see what others say.

As for ESO, I couldn't. I love TES, but ESO just doens't do it for me.

Played GW2 since launch, loved it and became my favourite and one of the best mmo I have played simply because

1. maps are so interactive, intelligently designed particularly the ones from expansions and there are so many things than just to kill monsters and complete quests e.g jumping puzzles, meta events..
2. WvW is very much alive and pretty good compared to how other mmos do mass pvp
3. dungeons, fractal and raids are very fun to do, they just need to try it
4. great for those who don't have time and need something casual
5. no monthly subscriptions
6. active combat is so fun, dynamic, no grindfest but best of all, it's not tab-targeting!

But this is me after playing so many mmos, I pretty much got bored really quickly of the formula complete quest, level up, complete quest, level up each time I played other mmos and even when there were good content like good bosses or good combat system, in the end, I get to a level where it becomes a grind fest I couldn't be bothered anymore.I stopped playing gw2 to play final fantasy XIV with so much anticipation but I was so bored out of my mind, I left my subscription at level 40 cos playing was just too predictable and the combat system wasn't dynamic enough for me compared to GW2.

However like you said, I'm sure you said all these things but that may not be enough reasons for your friends who like some, cant' get into GW2 cos of the main design aesthetics (not asain looking), not enough flashy moves or who don't mind the grind treadmill and like the idea of being a high-level character. These are some of the reasons why my friends couldn't get into GW2 but I would still challenge them to try it because like them, if they haven't tried it then the barrier really is most likely due to the design aesthetics.

The maps feel alive with events, jumping puzzles, and hearts. I also really like how GW2 rewards you for exploring maps. oh, and I really like the how classes work in the game. Each class can use multiple weapons and a new one with each profession added. I just think it creates a really cool, flexible and dynamic combat system. Some might disagree but, gems to gold/ gold to gems system is pretty cool to. There is also playable music instruments!

If you like fun combat then I’d say GW2.If you like sitting and waiting on a long global cooldown where you start feeling like you’re playing a dragon ball z episode then play FF 14.

If you like to level how you want then play GW2.If you like quests that send you half way across the world just to send you back across the world play FF14.

If you like a game where the devs inform the community about ideas/changes then play GW2If you don’t like knowing anything about how they develop the game and what changes they will make play FF14.

If you like voice acting play GW2.If you like quite possibly the most boring intro experience you’ve ever experienced in your entire life play FF14...(my opinion obviously).

For every raid elitist there are at least 8 sane people. Don't let any one bad experience that gets echoed influence your opinion on something. Make groups yourself, label them training groups and put something together, learn it with others etc.

People just get incredibly moody when they are stuck at a clear and you keep getting people who can't pull their own weight