Who is GW2 for?

I am at a lost to find a place in the game. As a primary pve player that is used to dungeons and raiding as my content i am not seeing a big interest in that in the community. So where do i fit, i do fracts everyday but cant seem to get a group for dungeons. I do some wvw or at least tried it some, but its not something i want to do everyday for end game. I have been told that the game is about the fashion wars, and thats not me. Trying to fit in but i long for a core group to do dungeons and eventually raids with. Is there a big interest in doing that stuff or is everything open world and wvw?

Idk about you but for me I play GW2 to enjoy exploring, doing Jumping Puzzles, replaying the story, hunting achievements, making new builds to experiment with, pvping with some friends, do dungeons with friends, and role play. It's a lot of fun and I enjoy it. I also love learning new abilities with masteries. =) Oh and unlocking new elite specs for each character.

Gw2 is more casual friendly with lots to do. Raids however are to difficult for most casuals (static groups only Regularly clear). Have to find the right guild for that area of the game.

Dungeons (while fun) are not profitable for most and also not being updated by Anet. WvW is the redheaded stepchild of Anet ss well; and Spvp falls in the same boat when esports tanked.

Well. GW2 can be a lot. This is probably not the answer you seek, but I'll still give it: GW2 is what you want it to be.

• For some, it is a great interactive story. Like a good book or a movie, but interactive.
• For some, it is a place to gather wealth, to farm, to trade and to craft.
• For some, it is a place of discovery and exploration.
• For some, it is a battleground, to fight great wars with large factions.
• For others, it is the Colosseum, to fight as gladiators.
• For some, it may just be an advanced chatbox to hang out in with friends.
• Some are occupied by completing countless achievement, collections, titles and other goals for prestige and recognition.
• Some may just like to make a beautiful character with sweet clothing.

Well, pick what you like, and leave what you don't.

You're not alone. I can't talk much, since I'm not very experienced, but pve is what really interests me. Oh, and I definitely wanna try dungeons once I'm ready - my definition of ready is proper equipment/gear. By the way, is exotic enough for dungeons or will I just die all the time?

My interests tend to change. I mean, I like dungeons but wouldn't it get stale if I just did that every time I logged in? It's also a game I can drop at any point and come back to when there is more content.

@"TheLadyOfTheRings.9148" said:You're not alone. I can't talk much, since I'm not very experienced, but pve is what really interests me. Oh, and I definitely wanna try dungeons once I'm ready - my definition of ready is proper equipment/gear. By the way, is exotic enough for dungeons or will I just die all the time?

Dungeons are one trick ponys that rely more on strategy than DPS. A bad level 80 can still die while fully geared, while a knowledgable level 30 can still observe and contribute. I'd say just give it a go - It's a great way to level up. and the only way to learn is by doing. Just don't join "exp" groups with gear/level reqs, because they can't play for shit.

@"Tiviana.2650" said:I am at a lost to find a place in the game. As a primary pve player that is used to dungeons and raiding as my content i am not seeing a big interest in that in the community. So where do i fit, i do fracts everyday but cant seem to get a group for dungeons. I do some wvw or at least tried it some, but its not something i want to do everyday for end game. I have been told that the game is about the fashion wars, and thats not me. Trying to fit in but i long for a core group to do dungeons and eventually raids with. Is there a big interest in doing that stuff or is everything open world and wvw?

If you love dungeons, there is a guild called FvD for "Friends vs Dungeons".

They focus on that along with fashion wars because they have a fashion show regularly.

Since they collect the dungeon tokens, many happen to have the dungeon exclusive skins to mix and match along with legendaries since they require tokens as well.

Let's get 1 thing straitened out right off the bat:

If your understanding of pve content and raids is using a group finder or LFG to rush through content to farm up gear only to repeat the same process over and over each couple of weeks/months, then GW2 will not be for you.

I am targeting specifically the WoW mentality and players here. I played WoW myself for 6 years (vanilla to WotlK) . The goals and aims in that game are very different compared to GW2. Ascended has been the top tier item level stat wise in GW2 for close to 4 years with a reason.

GW2 offers a way more open approach to gearing since it's mostly a function of cost. Most any content you play creates value, thus you will eventually reach your goal of max item level.

If you need constant grind and gear de-appreciation to stay engaged in a game, you will have a hard time here. If you can find longterm goals to work towards or if you are stripped on time (we all grow older and not every one can commit 10h/day) , then GW2 can be of interest to you. This is where people who call it fashion wars are coming from.

WvW is another facet to the game. With only really ESO and GW2 offering this type of content in the western market in a mainstream MMO, GW2 is sort of the place to go. Let's hope the content gets expanded upon.

Finally I can only recommend to find a guild and make friends. The game just like any MMO, becomes way more engaging and fun when shared with others.

It's filthy casual heaven. I'm one. Finest filthy casual poison in the MMO galaxy, right now.And yes that means fashion wars, for me. It's great! Hollow pleasure, just as nature intended MMOs to be.

@"Tiviana.2650" said:I am at a lost to find a place in the game. As a primary pve player that is used to dungeons and raiding as my content i am not seeing a big interest in that in the community. So where do i fit, i do fracts everyday but cant seem to get a group for dungeons. I do some wvw or at least tried it some, but its not something i want to do everyday for end game. I have been told that the game is about the fashion wars, and thats not me. Trying to fit in but i long for a core group to do dungeons and eventually raids with. Is there a big interest in doing that stuff or is everything open world and wvw?

The game is about whatever you & your friends/guildies want it to be about. Some people fashion wars; that's not me, either. (I spend time on it, but it doesn't drive me any more than any other "achievement.")

The trick is finding a group with similar interests. That is difficult in RL; it's not any easier in games. The same tricks work for both:

• Try joining clubs (guilds) to see if anything fits. Look on Discord & Reddit & forums and in game.
• Try starting your own clubs: setting up your own fractals or raids. Or voice. Communicate with the PUGs that join. A fraction will chat, and of that fraction, a smaller group will share goals for the game.
• Try volunteering: offer training or show people tricks about how to do things faster or more reliably.
• Try out parts of the game you never have before. Sometimes you meet people in WvW who love to raid or fractal.

Be prepared to invest time. And be prepared to have lots of false starts.

tl;dr it's not easy to find groups with interests like yours.

GW2 is mostly for people that just want to log on and relax by doing whatever random thing crosses their mind that day. There are raids, and the people that do it are pretty hard core, but it's a very small group compared to other games. 'Dungeons' have been replaced by 'Fractals of the Mists' aka Fracs, but are basically the same thing, and there's a dedicated population that does them as well. You can probably find them on LFG, or by chat trolling in Lions Arch Special Forces Area.

If you are looking to mainly raid and do 5man isntance content raids and fractals are that. That being said if you looking for a game to main doing those things gw2 is not that. The only thing that gets updated at an acceptable pace (and even then) is lw .

If you come from other games (ie: mmos) then I'd also suggest you check out the different open world events and see if you like any of them. Open world content tends to be dull for many other games, but it's the main attraction to a significant number of pve players in GW2.

There's even a wiki page for timers, and that'll give you a glimpse of many of the events you can partake in.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Let's get 1 thing straitened out right off the bat:

If your understanding of pve content and raids is using a group finder or LFG to rush through content to farm up gear only to repeat the same process over and over each couple of weeks/months, then GW2 will not be for you.I suppose you are referring to the gear treadmill, which is a bit limited of a view on other MMOs in my opinion. However, I find that the whole concept of fractals is very much like the gear treadmill. It's not so much about the gear, just infusions that you need to get higher and higher AR with, but it is essentially doing the same zones over and over again.

So GW2 can be for those players as well, just in a somewhat different format. However, then you run into the point where GW2 is very different and that's combat. The dodge and combat ress set up and the lack of trinity (which also has advantages depending on what you're talking about) make it a very different game to play. Also the range of damage output between more hardcore players and casual players is enormous in this game. That makes the core content difficult to balance. And I think, at least for me, that's where GW2 sort of has its identity crisis. It's normal that skilled players who use specific builds and rotations do more damage, but the difference is too big in my view.

Bottom line is that I like this game more as casual roamer that does collections and map completion and stops over at various events. Even making a legendary weapon now. So it really took a big paradigm shift to like this game at all and I had to change what I did here to do so as well. It also means that I'm not as attached to this game as I usually am, but at least it's entertaining for now and as others pointed out you can drop this game and quite easily come back to it.

@Rhyse.8179 said:GW2 is mostly for people that just want to log on and relax by doing whatever random thing crosses their mind that day. There are raids, and the people that do it are pretty hard core, but it's a very small group compared to other games. 'Dungeons' have been replaced by 'Fractals of the Mists' aka Fracs, but are basically the same thing, and there's a dedicated population that does them as well. You can probably find them on LFG, or by chat trolling in Lions Arch Special Forces Area.

What is special forces in lions arch? Is it a chat channel im missing?

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Let's get 1 thing straitened out right off the bat:

If your understanding of pve content and raids is using a group finder or LFG to rush through content to farm up gear only to repeat the same process over and over each couple of weeks/months, then GW2 will not be for you.

I suppose you are referring to the gear treadmill, which is a bit limited of a view on other MMOs in my opinion. However, I find that the whole concept of fractals is very much like the gear treadmill. It's not so much about the gear, just infusions that you need to get higher and higher AR with, but it is essentially doing the same zones over and over again.

I was a established core raider in wow for years, yes this game is very different. In wow you can do anything you want also, lots of people collect outfits or pets or mounts do world quest lines, and lots focus on harder content ie: raids, high level mythics, arena pvp. It is a gear treadmill in the sense that they are always coming out with new stuff that has higher stats, but thats because it goes hand and hand with new content that requires higher stats to beat. I miss having a regular group of friends that meet 2 or 3 times a week to progress on the harder content. I think people think wow raiding =LFR pugging, and thats part of it so players that dont want to invest a lot of time and dedication can see the raid stories and fights. But a big group are dedicated raiders that have been together for years doing this.

I also get that this game focuses a lot on shop income because of no sub, thats fine and all, but it leaves people like me who want to get things from ingame drops etc out of luck. One this i have a peeve about is your transmog system, i come from where you can change your armor or weapons or looks with ingame gold, so fashion was a huge part of players individuality in wow. And changing it wasnt a major endeavor, changing outfits and hair everyday was a thing as long as you had the gold to pay for it. And gold wasnt hard to get. I left wow with 2 mil gold on the account. Its hard to make gold in this game to even get the gear you need to compete, let alone be able to change your looks. GW2 is a beautiful game, im just having a time finding my way through it and adjusting.

@Tiviana.2650 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Let's get 1 thing straitened out right off the bat:

If your understanding of pve content and raids is using a group finder or LFG to rush through content to farm up gear only to repeat the same process over and over each couple of weeks/months, then GW2 will not be for you.

I suppose you are referring to the gear treadmill, which is a bit limited of a view on other MMOs in my opinion. However, I find that the whole concept of fractals is very much like the gear treadmill. It's not so much about the gear, just infusions that you need to get higher and higher AR with, but it is essentially doing the same zones over and over again.

I wanted to give it another chance for GW1's sake and so the next year I gave it another shot with brand new characters. End result was the same: I got to level 80 through the same tedium and got bored again. Fractal dungeons from the very concept also didn't inspire me.

Then jump forward and HoT was released. I heard good things about it and bad things. I waited about a year and got it on sale. I hated the map complexity initially but it grew on me and with the mastery of gliding in particular the game was more fun to me. But it didn't last. Still I felt that time around at least I got my money's worth from the game.

Early last year, after quitting SWTOR, I saw PoF had been released and got it on sale as well. This time I stayed, at least for now, but I stay away from structured group content. That means raids, fractals and sPvP. Why? Because I prefer the endgame for groups in other games. The boss fights don't inspire me here and the combat system is one I don't care for to get deeply into it. In SWTOR I was a raid healer and did the highest level content (Nightmare / Master Mode). I enjoyed that because I liked how classes worked and were more defined.

So what I did was I lowered my expectations for GW2. I play it as a casual and that makes it work for me. But at the same time as soon as they either fix SWTOR back to where it should be or another game comes out that does give more interesting endgame group content, I will likely jump ship. This game is still the game between other games for me. And I do agree with you on the cash shop. First of all I do not like cash shops as a whole. I think they're the worst thing that happened to games in years because it also covers as a surrogate for content. It makes them money so they focus on it. The cash shop did quite well in 2018 by the looks of it and boom, the next expansion is not coming this year by the looks of it. To me delays in content are directly linked to cash shops. I saw that in SWTOR as well. When they make money off cash shop items, the need for them to make new content goes down or slows down. That's why I prefer paying for content than cash shop items. I particularly find RNG loot the worst of it all. GW2 has it in the form of Black Lion Chests and to some degree did it with mount skins as well. The BLCs are lootboxes. You can earn some of the keys in game with another RNG chance when completing maps but if you really want something (like the new shoulders that are also account bound) then you may have to spend a lot of cash. Also because the contents change regularly it gives a now or never feel to it.

So I watch carefully what I spend money on. I don't mind spending some money on the game as long as it really adds to the game enjoyment for me, but I treat it as a necessary evil since there is little choice when you want to play an MMO type game and cash shops are the standard, but I still don't like it.

What I'm saying in the end is that I understand how GW2 operates a lot better now than in 2012 and I had to lower my expectations and really think about what I spend money on as to make sure I don't fall into the trap of spending tons of money on overpriced crap. I learned that lesson in SWTOR where the cash shop also took ridiculous forms and is one of the main reasons I quit playing it. But understanding it doesn't mean I like it all or think all of it is ok. It just allows me to play the game and enjoy parts of it and not buy myself poor on cosmetics. I still think that a lot of the things that are in the cash shop should be in-game rewards and just the point that you can buy stuff with gold to gem transfers is not that. That doesn't give the same satisfaction to me as to have rewards come directly from beating a difficult boss fight or something like that. And the loot tables here are quite boring. Look at what legendary creatures generally drop. It's not very exciting really unless you get that one in a million drop.

My point is I had to adapt a lot to enjoy this game or at least parts of it. That's where I'm at now but it really doesn't compare to other games I played. Sadly those other games took some wrong turns and that left me quitting there. So this is good enough for now but I'll easily jump ship again when I have a reason to. I hope that clarifies my point a bit more. I took years adjusting before I could enjoy this game to at least enough of a degree ;)

Im yet to find another mmo with the same amount of available content for the price you pay.There is tons to do fromPvpWvwSocialGuild missionsMetasFracturalsRaidsLegendary grind

So much to do, i find it hard to be bored

You, my friend, need a guild with sociable people. I wouldn't be playing any more if it wasn't for the same two idiot voices since HoT with whom I have done anything between Metas, Dungeons, Fractals, Raids, PvP and WvW (save SAB, that shit is weird). I try to get the group bigger once in a while but these two are usually the ones that stick until the end.

I feel like this post was introduced with the wrong question. You're not looking for who this game is for, because the answer, "This game is for me," doesn't help you with your actual issue. What you're looking for is a guild that runs dungeons/raids. That's probably what you should be providing as your title. They are definitely a thing.

I usually bounce between:

World Bosses (wish they'd put in more of these),Meta Events,Fractals,Dungeons,sPvP,and WvWvW, when I have friends to roam with.

I have been enjoying just romping around in the open world and fighting huge quantities of mobs lately, and the story post HoT has been really interesting to me (especially with the latest season 4).

Looking at your opening post, I agree with the people above me. Find a guild. Find a couple guilds, even. That tends to make the game ever-more enjoyable, especially if they have discord, voice chat, etc..

MMOs are kinda designed to be played with friends, this one is no exception. They aren't really "solo-friendly" experiences, though if you are like me and easily amused then you can still have a lot of fun in sPvP, WvWvW zerging, and open world events while soloing.

For me, one of the great beauties of GW2 is the ability to pick it up, even if you've been inactive for a month or two. You won't be behind your friends and the others in the game, and you'll be able to pick up exactly where you left off. That is what makes it wonderful for me.

There's not a ton of general interest in raiding - for a lot of people GW2 distinguishes itself by being one of the few MMOs that's NOT all about endgame raiding. However, there are guilds that specifically form to do these kinds of activities - I suggest you seek one of those out. Like-minded people are sure to exist in sufficient numbers, it's just a matter of organising them. If you don't find anything suitable - maybe establish a new guild?

It’s for liberals .

It's made for wanderers if you ask me. E-wanderers, things that i did in other mmos here are on second-third scene, so not important.instanced pve ? I look at it trough my fingers, gear? well i have it, could get more if need. Yet I still love the freedom game gives.I can do anything, I don't have to plan. I open collections, story, do fractals, pvp, go to metas, run bounties, take guildies to training raid bosses. But it's all depend on my mood and time I have, to spend in game. Best thing I never feel, I'm left behind, need to catch up, grind more cus I missed 2 days of dailies or weekly raid etc. There afre new items in game? I don't need to rush to get then, I might never go after them.Slowly but steady, I pile mats for new upcoming legendary GS if i like it I'll make it if no, then I will find another big project to work on.You need a project to work in GW2 with no rush, start small, join a guild and go for map completion, like 1 or half of the map per day.

P.S about gear grind? Try to get x18 5/9 infusions for your fractal toon, without buying matrixes and infusions from market. :)

For white knights on the forums? It's a perfect game, havent you heard?