What's in the horizon players that are completely new to GW2?

[Splat.7981]

Hello everyone.

I have a friend that has been having interest in MMORPG's, he has been trying a few, ESO and FF14 are the ones he tried already, i mentioned World of Warcraft to him, which is the one I'm currently playing only because there is Classic, depending on how things go or if something becomes a let down for me i will be trying GW2 as well.
So this friend of mine is very interested in GW2, he wishes to jump into it before trying more popular titles like WoW.

One thing i am not able to explain to him is how progression works in here or how the devs try to keep players interested and wanting to keep playing the game to a daily basis or almost daily, he understands that unlike other games of the genre GW2 focuses on the horizontal progression instead of the vertical one, but what is that exactly?
In a genre where people always seemed to love to invest themselves in improving their gear by doing dungeons or raids that would provide them their next upgrades, a more powerful sword or a new and better piece of armor, "Nice we killed a world boss! Now let me have that shiny loot!", how does that work here?

What does a player do here to keep moving forward in terms of progression? I know that there are achievements that one could try to complete but we know that people love loot and this one to keep improving. What ways Arenanet uses to keep players interested to play the game daily?

[vandrefalk.6823]

The horizontal progression means that instead of the endless gear treadmill and power creep you get in other MMOs; in Guild Wars you will level quite quickly to lvl 80 and thus be max level. You will get hold of ascended (top tier) armor relatively quickly too, and at that point you're more or less at max - stripping it down to a very simplified version.

Of course, there's various stat versions of ascended armor and elite specializations for your selected profession (e.g. class) depending on whether you want to play your class as DPS or some sort of support type.

But once you're 80 with ascended gear - even exotic gear will be sufficient sometimes - you can play PvP (which uses standardised gear anyway), WvW (large scale, open world pvp where you will not be one shot by someone because they're so much better iLevel gear or power than you, but because they're better/more skillful with their character), or PvE endgame - fractals, strike missions, raids.

The horizontal progression are mostly about QoL but also to some degree necessary in order to do some endgame content, e.g. masteries that give you access to mounts abilities, gliding, resistance to various debuff effects, etc.

Some jokingly call Guild Wars for Fashion Wars because without the endless gear treadmill, your focus just shifts to kitting out your characters in exclusive gear skins (transmogs), infusions, etc. and/or getting hold of legendary gear - which has the same stats as ascended gear, but come with very desireable QoL features such as free stat-swapping so you can tailor them to any build you want on the fly, and free transmogs so you can change the appearance as often as you'd like - albeit among the wardrobe skins you have unlocked.

And then there's a plethora of other endgame bragging rights - that really ought to have been honed better - such as PvP leaderboards, WvW leaderboards, and getting good static groups together for clearing endgame content as quickly as possible, personally working for achievement points that in a way show much of the game you have "cleared", etc.

So... A LOT to play through for new players, and even me still after playing this game since launch day.

[AliamRationem.5172]

45 minutes ago, Splat.7981 said:

Hello everyone.

I have a friend that has been having interest in MMORPG's, he has been trying a few, ESO and FF14 are the ones he tried already, i mentioned World of Warcraft to him, which is the one I'm currently playing only because there is Classic, depending on how things go or if something becomes a let down for me i will be trying GW2 as well.
So this friend of mine is very interested in GW2, he wishes to jump into it before trying more popular titles like WoW.

One thing i am not able to explain to him is how progression works in here or how the devs try to keep players interested and wanting to keep playing the game to a daily basis or almost daily, he understands that unlike other games of the genre GW2 focuses on the horizontal progression instead of the vertical one, but what is that exactly?
In a genre where people always seemed to love to invest themselves in improving their gear by doing dungeons or raids that would provide them their next upgrades, a more powerful sword or a new and better piece of armor, "Nice we killed a world boss! Now let me have that shiny loot!", how does that work here?

What does a player do here to keep moving forward in terms of progression? I know that there are achievements that one could try to complete but we know that people love loot and this one to keep improving. What ways Arenanet uses to keep players interested to play the game daily?

While you don't increase your power level by acquiring progressively better gear, there are still reasons to acquire gear.  For instance, ascended gear is needed to progress fractals (dungeons by another name, essentially) due to the ability to slot infusions.  It's also account bound rather than character bound, so you can keep it and pass it between characters as needed.  The pinnacle is legendary gear, which has all of the benefits of ascended plus the ability to use it simultaneously across every character on your account as well as the ability to choose whatever stats you like whenever you like, cosmetic transmute for free as often as you like, and freely slot/unslot upgrades without destroying them.  And of course there are plenty of cosmetic items players will do achievements and collections for as well.

In addition to gear, there are (mostly) non-combat skills called masteries that players will work toward.  These include mounts and their upgraded skills, gliders, and a wide variety of other active and passive skills.  Masteries often serve to gate progress through open world and story content.  For example, you might need to unlock a specific mount to reach a new area.

Between the story, masteries, gear, and other upgrades there is enough to keep a player busy for years, as you might expect from an 11 year old MMO.  Whether or not this is to taste coming from games that revolve around gear progression is not a question anyone can answer for you.  Coming from WoW myself years ago, I found it a bit aimless initially.  However, once I got into the game more it stopped registering as a "problem" that the game doesn't force me to do most of its content in a specific order so that I can do the next bit.  I also learned to appreciate the fact that you can't trivialize most of the content simply by upgrading your gear.

[hudisgreat.8492]

Dondarrion  gave a great explanation about how the gear works in guild wars2.  The game is very deep and there is so much to learn. For me, the horizontal progression is more about learning your profession(s) and roles in the varied modes of content and getting better at the game. There are tons of builds and playstyles to explore and hopefully click with. Good luck to you both.

[Danikat.8537]

The short answer is to tell your friend it's the same idea as Elder Scrolls Online.

ESO is a bit more complicated because there's different caps for different things, but in both games you'll quickly reach a point where you're basically done with direct progression, especially for gear drops. The highest tier of gear in that game is CP160 legendary (gold) gear. In GW2 it's level 80 ascended (purple) gear, and in both games you can get that relatively easily and can get away with using one tier down (CP160 purples in ESO, level 80 exotics in GW2) in the vast majority of areas.

But that doesn't mean once you've got top tier items you're done with drops. Firstly it's much more important to have the right stats for your build than just getting the biggest numbers so you can spend some time getting gear with the right set and trait in ESO or right stat combination and upgrades in GW2.

But after that there's also a lot of optional goals. A lot of players will collect items purely for the skins so they can customise their characters appearence, and there's achievements to aim for (some of which are the equivalent of side-quests in other games) and of course players in all games will choose to complete and even repeat some things purely because they find it fun.

Oh, one important note: GW2 also has legendary items, which are technically a tier above ascended but they're not required for anything. They have identical stats to ascended and are purely a cosmetic and convenience 'upgrade', and each one takes weeks or months to make. You'll occasionally hear GW2 players talk about wanting full legendary gear, but even for the most hardcore raiding and WvW groups that's an optional very long-term goal, unlike ESO where it can be a minium requirement. (ESO has no equivalent of GW2's legendaries, although now I think about it I'm not sure why, considering collecting and storing every set item that might one day be useful is a constant annoyance for some players.)

[Nabbut.7480]

"Horizontal progression" means you have the same stats while content gets progressively harder, requiring you to become more and more skillful to pass, culminating in stuff like timed raptor jumping puzzles and fighting a God. And second is easier than the first.

[Splat.7981]

20 hours ago, Dondarrion.2748 said:

The horizontal progression means that instead of the endless gear treadmill and power creep you get in other MMOs; in Guild Wars you will level quite quickly to lvl 80 and thus be max level. You will get hold of ascended (top tier) armor relatively quickly too, and at that point you're more or less at max - stripping it down to a very simplified version.

Of course, there's various stat versions of ascended armor and elite specializations for your selected profession (e.g. class) depending on whether you want to play your class as DPS or some sort of support type.

But once you're 80 with ascended gear - even exotic gear will be sufficient sometimes - you can play PvP (which uses standardised gear anyway), WvW (large scale, open world pvp where you will not be one shot by someone because they're so much better iLevel gear or power than you, but because they're better/more skillful with their character), or PvE endgame - fractals, strike missions, raids.

The horizontal progression are mostly about QoL but also to some degree necessary in order to do some endgame content, e.g. masteries that give you access to mounts abilities, gliding, resistance to various debuff effects, etc.

Some jokingly call Guild Wars for Fashion Wars because without the endless gear treadmill, your focus just shifts to kitting out your characters in exclusive gear skins (transmogs), infusions, etc. and/or getting hold of legendary gear - which has the same stats as ascended gear, but come with very desireable QoL features such as free stat-swapping so you can tailor them to any build you want on the fly, and free transmogs so you can change the appearance as often as you'd like - albeit among the wardrobe skins you have unlocked.

And then there's a plethora of other endgame bragging rights - that really ought to have been honed better - such as PvP leaderboards, WvW leaderboards, and getting good static groups together for clearing endgame content as quickly as possible, personally working for achievement points that in a way show much of the game you have "cleared", etc.

So... A LOT to play through for new players, and even me still after playing this game since launch day.

Hellomthere.

About the PvE content, weren't raids removed from the game?

About the Fashion Wars, aren't the best/good looking skins all in the cash shop? GW2 is one of those games that i fear to discover that the loot that you collect in game, while playing it, does look much worse than the one you get from just spending money in the shop...same goes for weapons or weapon skins.

[Dayra.7405]

20 minutes ago, Splat.7981 said:

About the PvE content, weren't raids removed from the game?

No, I am not aware of any plan to do so.

20 minutes ago, Splat.7981 said:

About the Fashion Wars, aren't the best/good looking skins all in the cash shop? GW2 is one of those games that i fear to discover that the loot that you collect in game, while playing it, does look much worse than the one you get from just spending money in the shop...same goes for weapons or weapon skins.

No, I would rate that balanced. But of course taste is individual. But you can also buy gemshops items via ingame earned gold, as you can trade gems/gold with other player.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Splat.7981]

1 hour ago, Dayra.7405 said:

No, I am not aware of any plan to do so.

No, I would rate that balanced. But of course taste is individual. But you can also buy gemshops items via ingame earned gold, as you can trade gems/gold with other player.

Sorry, I meant weren't raids discontinued and replaced by strikes or something like that?

[Dayra.7405]

20 minutes ago, Splat.7981 said:

Sorry, I meant weren't raids discontinued and replaced by strikes or something like that?

The difference between raids and strikes is mainly one fight per strike vs several in a row per raid. The last raid was released June 11, 2019. Since then we got strikes (5-7 (depends if you want to count cold war and forging steel as strikes or not) in IBL, 5 in EoD+LS1, 2 in SotO).

Edited November 11, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Splat.7981]

12 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

The difference between raids and strikes is mainly one fight per strike vs several in a row per raid. The last raid was released June 11, 2019. Since then we got strikes (5-7 (depends if you want to count cold war and forging steel as strikes or not) in IBL, 5 in EoD+LS1, 2 in SotO).

So the strikes now, which have replaced raids, only have 1 fight/boss?

[Lucy.3728]

2 hours ago, Splat.7981 said:

About the Fashion Wars, aren't the best/good looking skins all in the cash shop?

No

Yes

Your taste.

Most of my Charrs wear gemshops items (which I bought for gold not for real money) and I prefer entire wardrobes over single armor pieces. Because most armor pieces look butt ugly on Charr if you're no fan of skirts. Most of my Asuras wear non-gem-shop skins. Humans and Norn is evened out.

The gemshop is meant to be a sink for the in game currency. A lot of convenient stuff is locked there. Not just skins.

GW2 is a game for you if you know how to play for fun and not to collect something. Or if you like to perfect/complete collections just for the sake of completing things. If you want goals, then it's skill to play the professions. They have different difficulty. If you can play piano on your keyboard and like to trains up to muscle memory, you're up for top pvp, gvg and raids.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Lucy.3728

[Danikat.8537]

Raids still exist and are still playable, and still have a lot of unique rewards, including the only animated legendary armour sets. There just haven't been any new ones in a while. Strikes are basically raid boss fights with all the other stuff taken out (and have their own unique rewards).
 

3 hours ago, Splat.7981 said:

About the Fashion Wars, aren't the best/good looking skins all in the cash shop? GW2 is one of those games that i fear to discover that the loot that you collect in game, while playing it, does look much worse than the one you get from just spending money in the shop...same goes for weapons or weapon skins.

What looks best is subjective, but there are a lot of skins available in-game. For example look at the armour galleries: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_heavy_armor

In that list there's 11 gem store armour sets, 1 black lion chest set and 77 available in-game (and that's not counting the ones ones in SotO because they haven't been added to the gallery yet). That includes things like each dungeon having a unique armour set, various ones from collection achievements, PvP and WvW exclusives and so on. It's the same for weapon skins, there are gem store ones and some people might prefer them, but there's a lot to choose from in-game as well. (Also you always have the option of buying gems with gold to get gem store items without paying real money.)

BTW one thing I forgot to say before is it sounds like your friend isn't afraid to try MMOs without you vetting them first, since they're already playing 2 you're not, so you could just tell them GW2 has a free version which works like an unlimited demo so they can try that and see what they think. You can play the entire base game on a free account, the restrictions are just on things like what you can buy and sell on the Trading Post, using map chat, how many character slots you have etc. I wouldn't want to stick with a free account but I think it's a good way to get a feel for the game and decide if it's something you want to buy.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[vandrefalk.6823]

On 11/11/2023 at 8:58 AM, Splat.7981 said:

About the PvE content, weren't raids removed from the game?

About the Fashion Wars, aren't the best/good looking skins all in the cash shop? GW2 is one of those games that i fear to discover that the loot that you collect in game, while playing it, does look much worse than the one you get from just spending money in the shop...same goes for weapons or weapon skins.

There's 7 wings of raid content; true, they're not adding more (that we know of), but the ones that were added are still there, enjoyable to play through and new players will have lots of rewards - including PvE legendary armor - available to them through raids.

As for fashion wars; there's many cool skins in the gemstore, but personally, I enjoy carefully composed looks that look more fantasy-like using the armor pieces that you can get by playing the game. Gemstore outfits (one piece you cannot customise) are nice but then you look the same as everyone else; but using skins from your wardrobe can create some really fantastically, unique looks.