what is the "end game" in GW2?

[Vintoleth.6170]

getting into a debate with a WoW player who i think is quite closed minded.

 

He is claiming the end game in GW2 is transmog.

 

While i dont think this is the case, i cant actually counter him with the actual answer cause i dont know what most GW2 players deem as the end content.

 

i think there are lots of options at max level, not least of which is fun! but im curious what the communities take on what "end game" is.

[Linken.6345]

Some raid.

Some WvWvW

Some Spvp

Some play openworld metas.

Alot dip their toes in alittle of everything.

 

I know one guy who's goal was getting all legendaries mostly with cold hard cash.

 

But yea your friends miss information comes from we dont have a gear threadmill that force us to get new gear all the time so instead some people chase different skins aka fasion wars.

[Samnang.1879]

Getting all the infusions and make a toon looks like a clown.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

• Getting a character with full legendary gear in whatever means suits you.
• Going for max mastery level.
• Going for a lot of achievement points/titles

Edited May 10, 2021 by TheQuickFox.3826

[crewthief.8649]

Legendary gear, I suppose. Fully gearing a toon in legendary would take some time.

[ASP.8093]

The *rewards* are skins, legendaries, and infusions (skins for rich people), but the actual *activities* are Fractals, Raids, and WvW.

 

Similar to how other MMORPGs and online RPGs end up with raids, highly-scaling dungeon thingies, and various kinds of realm vs. realm as their big endgame activities.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The end-game content is when you put the game down because you don't want to play it anymore.  This isn't a subscription based game that is designed to lure players into an endless grind to prepare for the next endless grind.  

[Randin.5701]

2 hours ago, Vintoleth.6170 said:

getting into a debate with a WoW player who i think is quite closed minded.

 

He is claiming the end game in GW2 is transmog.

To be fair, he is, like, 80% right.

[crewthief.8649]

10 minutes ago, Randin.5701 said:

To be fair, he is, like, 80% right.

Yes, but with a caveat. You sort of set your own priority for endgame in GW2. Legendaries are great skins, sure, but there is also a level of convenience and optimization (that comes with them) that is worth the grind for many players. Multiply this by an order of magnitude when the Legendary Armory comes along.

[Vayne.8563]

Guild Wars 2 is different from most MMOs. In most MMOs the PvE end game is raiding. And for some people who play Guild Wars 2, that's true.  For others, it's PvP or WvW.  For yet others it's making legendaries.

Guild Wars 2 is unique among the MMOs I've played in that you choose your own goals. Because you don't have to do the hardest content to get end game gear, here you choose your own goals instead of the game telling you you must do this. So everyone can have a different end game.

I have over 40,500 achievement points.  I'm in the top 150 on the leaderboards. That's one of my end games.  I also make legendaries (I have all but 7 legendary weapons) and I also complete multiple characters in story and map complete (I'm up to 15).

 

Tell your WoW friend that he has one end game dictated by the game. We have an unlimited amount of end game. 🙂

[Zephire.8049]

• Raiding
• Fractals
• WvW
• PvP
• Skins
• Achievements
• Titles
• Legendaries
• Open world metas
• Dungeons
• Helping new players
• Playing music
• Roleplaying
• World completion
• The story (on one or more characters)
• Playing the trading post
• Taking breaks between content patches.
• Just chatting
• Building up a useless collection

 

And the list goes on. GW2 differs from WoW in that the endgame is what you make of it because the choice to go with horizontal progression instead of vertical means once you hit 80 and get exotic gear, you are good to go do anything you want (minus T3/T4 fractals due to agony requirements) and you won't find yourself having to grind content for a dozen hours whenever a new content patch comes out. And once you get ascended gear, you don't have to worry about anything until/if new, better stat combos come out.

 

Which is a tough concept to wrap your head around if you're used to always chasing a specific carrot. Fashion Wars is a big part of the endgame for a lot of people, yes, but it's far from the only thing people can do. And you can always just not play GW2 and go play something else because you'll never have your gear invalidated, so the endgame can be playing other games.

[wolfsblut.9435]

This could sound a little bit cynical,...but

The Endgame in GW2 for me is like the beginning in GW1 - you finally have the ability to swap stats and gear instantly to optimize your character for every single encounter, situation, opponent and patch. I hardly ever read any patch-notes in GW2 yet, but I'm looking forward to it so much, you can't imagine how much. This was, for me, the most fun in GW1 - finding and optimizing the best builds that fits me and my play-style, reading every single line of the next patch-note, imagining the possibilities - I know, that will never get near the GW1 experience, but I'm a lot more humble after all this years.

Till now...I wait some time until some so called "meta build" is established and simply adopt to it.

[SunTzu.4513]

For me it's just having fun. Getting better mechanically and skill wise. Just enjoy the type of content for which i'm in the mood at. I needed to get used to it because i felt my brain was hardwired trough the standart mmo grind for better gear and stuff like this coming from EQ2 and WoW years ago. Now i can't play any other mmo anymore. Just the idea of doing world quests or running dungeons over and over to get my to go/bis slot gear which get devalued with the next patch/xpac seems ridiculous to me and is a great let down to any thoughts of returning to those games.

[ASP.8093]

To break it down a bit more:

 

Getting to level 80 is basically tutorial content. (It's overly long, imo.)

 

There's a rather big midgame that consists of completing the entire storyline (HoT, PoF, Seasons, &c.), getting your full set of ascended gear (best-in-slot stats), and chasing Masteries. This midgame tier is constantly expanding so semi-casual players can easily stay at this tier forever, especially if they like fully building up their alts or occasionally chasing grind-based shinies like the Otter amulet.

 

It's true that most of what you chase in the endgame is cosmetics ("transmogs"), but the alternative is the WoW vertical-progression treadmill where every dungeon is gear-grind for the next dungeon in the sequence. GW2 has a little bit of stuff like that but it's hidden away in the Fractal gear/buff system and only really affects your stats in Fractals, making it more of an opt-in system rather than everyone's shared "endgame."

Edited May 10, 2021 by ASP.8093

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Fashion is the endgame yes.

That being said "fashion" often means doing a lot of other, often hard ingame content, as the cool stuff tends to be hidden behind different game modes. My new look that is in progress will require me to do high end fractals for example among others, not to mention throwing some serious gold at trading post and waiting for certain cosmetic items to be on sale in gemstore.

There's also the legendary grind to get legendary gear and have freedom to build my characters however i see fit. That's the practical endgame, and that too requires me to go places.

[AliamRationem.5172]

9 hours ago, Vintoleth.6170 said:

getting into a debate with a WoW player who i think is quite closed minded.

 

He is claiming the end game in GW2 is transmog.

 

While i dont think this is the case, i cant actually counter him with the actual answer cause i dont know what most GW2 players deem as the end content.

 

i think there are lots of options at max level, not least of which is fun! but im curious what the communities take on what "end game" is.

 

If you want to condense "content" down to mean "rewards", then yes, it's all about transmog because you aren't upgrading your gear.  Of course, once you get away from WoW you realize you were only running on the gear treadmill to give yourself an excuse to play through the content. 

 

From that perspective, what's the difference?  It's not like the content becomes progressively more difficult in WoW endgame.  Instead, you just get stronger with it as you increase your ilvl.  If they rebalanced everything to baseline and released content in sequence exactly the same as they do now, it'd feel the same except...you'd be playing for transmog.

[Hallow.7368]

9 hours ago, Vintoleth.6170 said:

getting into a debate with a WoW player who i think is quite closed minded.

 

He is claiming the end game in GW2 is transmog.

 

While i dont think this is the case, i cant actually counter him with the actual answer cause i dont know what most GW2 players deem as the end content.

 

i think there are lots of options at max level, not least of which is fun! but im curious what the communities take on what "end game" is.

I don't think someone who considers themself a wow player should be trying to be negative towards other MMOs. Wow has been an endless grind simulator for 6 years now. What do they consider end game? Farming loot in a raid just for ilvl to be increased in the next patch with the new raid? Farming gear and endless grinds for slight power increases that becomes worthless in the next xpac? Oh or maybe it's the 45 minute long questline each major patch that gets time gated out 5 weeks long to get you to refresh your sub.

[Lottie.5370]

End game for me is Raids, T4 Fractals & CMs, trying to get each weight of legendary armour, achievement hunting and... fashion wars.

 

I think it's false to say that "transmogs" aren't part of the end game, it would take a really, really long time to unlock all of the skins and it also forces you to do a lot of different content, some of it more challenging than other parts. Since there's no way to progress gear past ascended (stat wise),  it's one of the most natural forms of progression in the game.

 

I guess you can call anything past level 80 endgame though - 80 is where the game unlocks to do pretty much anything you want.

[kharmin.7683]

9 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

The end-game content is when you put the game down because you don't want to play it anymore.  This isn't a subscription based game that is designed to lure players into an endless grind to prepare for the next endless grind.  

It's not for lack of effort by some, though

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/95386-premium-subscripton-concept-20-usd-earns-you-20-usd-gems-and-in-game-bonuses/?do=getNewComment

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/94982-i-would-play-gw2-more-if-it-was-a-subscription-based-mmo/?do=getNewComment

 

[vandrefalk.6823]

To somewhat cite Conan and adapt it to Fashion Wars 2...

 

"To outdress your enemies, to see them drivel before you, and to hear the exclamations of their women."

 

[lezbefriends.7516]

He's right, the end game is fashion, but how's that a bad thing?

[Vintoleth.6170]

12 hours ago, Zephire.8049 said:

the choice to go with horizontal progression instead of vertical

this is specifically what the discussion was about!

 

thank you for the input all. i disagreed with him because when i think of transmog, i think of wow transmog where people try to collect EVERY item. that doesn't seem to be the exact translation in GW2? as transmog means getting a set (or a few) that makes you look how you want. not every item in the game.

 

ty all again :D

[Danikat.8537]

I think one of the nice things about GW2 is that the game is very open-ended and lets you choose what you want to focus on. Once you get to level 80 there's very little you have to do and many things you can do, so the 'end game' is whatever you choose to make of it.

 

I always feel like end game is an inaccurate term for games like GW2. I understand it being used for some single-player RPGs where some side quests only become available after you finish the main story, or you can keep going to finish the side quests you already had. (But I think even some single-player games are stretching the definition.) But I can't imagine anyone seriously getting to level 80 in GW2 or even getting to the end of the personal story and thinking that means they've finished the game and anything left is just a few optional extras. (I assume it's the same for WoW but I've never played it so I don't know.)

 

I think it would be more accurate to say a game like GW2 doesn't end and therefore has no end game, but I realise that's not a popular way of describing it and most people seem to prefer to talk about how most of the game is end game, no matter how contradictory that seems.

 

But in terms of what you do the end game is whatever you make it. For me it definitely felt like the game didn't end because I just carried on with my personal story, then the living world started up (actually I think that was a bit before I finished the personal story), and there were festivals and more maps to complete...I just kept doing what I did before.

 

33 minutes ago, Vintoleth.6170 said:

this is specifically what the discussion was about!

 

thank you for the input all. i disagreed with him because when i think of transmog, i think of wow transmog where people try to collect EVERY item. that doesn't seem to be the exact translation in GW2? as transmog means getting a set (or a few) that makes you look how you want. not every item in the game.

 

ty all again 😄

I think some people do try to get all of them, and others try to collect a sub-set of items, like all the legendary skins or all medium armour or maybe all the swords or something. I know I'm not the only one who collects mini pets, although I don't think I'll get all of them.

 

But if you talk to most GW2 players about "fashion wars" or collecting skins as an end-game goal I think you're right that their first thought would be getting the skins they actually like and want to use to dress up their characters rather than simply trying to get as many as possible.

[Kondor.2904]

Everyone knows Chak Egg Sac is the real endgame.

[Nightcore.5621]

A 5 min dragon fight where you kill 2 dragons doin auto attack...