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  1. #1

    Had some questions about GW2 before i decide to buy it.

    So as title says i've been on the fence about buying this game while i was researching it (mostly because if i get another wow look alike i am going to scream and flip a table) And before you rage at me for not doing the free weekend thing i've tried TWICE now and both time's it says "Sorry! The Guild Wars 2 Free Trial period has ended" during the free weekend which makes it VERY difficult to see for my self without buying the bloody game, But it seems different enough i'm thinking about jumping in and just buying it as it seems something i enjoy, But before i do i figured i would ask a few current players (or players who stopped playing for various reasons) for their opinions as i don't have a lot of money to throw around right now and would be quite upset to buy something i play for a few hours then never touch again, That and i've also read so many mixed opinions about the game that its driving me nearly up a wall so yea....

    Anyway back on topic here the main questions i have are below, But keep in mind i ask them from a wow standpoint as that's where i have the most experience.

    1. is the game still growing/holding steady or is it on a steep downhill slide I.E dead servers no one ever on only able to get into a non social clan guild/clan ect ect if you already have top end stuff?

    2. i've read skill>gear in this game but what is the actual difference I.E if i have entry level gear but average/above average skills would i be able to match/smoke a crap player with top end gear or would said crap player still eat me alive with little/no effort or would we be about equal in dps output?

    3. i am a major hardcore PvE player (was in a top 100 clan with a small stint in a top 30 clan before it broke up in wow, Right up until i finally burned out and stopped playing a month before panda) and am decent at PvP, Is their good endgame PvE content and how does PvP work? (i will admit i didn't do as much research into pvp as PvE and both were kinda vague on what solid things i COULD find that weren't contradicting 6 other opinions)

    4. Am i going to be forced into the tired old role of "set your skills EXACTLY like this" otherwise you will not be accepted because you do 5 dps less and we wont take you/you do less then half the dps of the other skillset?

    5. i've heard mixed opinions on this one so i would like clarification, Basically due to the game being free to play the ingame store has options that turn the game pay to win I.E great gear/massive stat boosts/huge bundles of money to buy anything you want, and that you ether pay through the nose or you spend months grinding out enough tokens/money ect ect to buy ANYTHING where as buying a package you get it in hours/days, Is this true or is it more wow garbage thrown out as chaff to help scare off people like me who are on the fence or is it inbetween I.E you can spend 2 weeks hard core grinding tokens for X item or you can pay for something and just spend a week doing it with the same amount of effort?


    Anyway thanks in advance and i hope i don't rustle any jimmy's asking >.< like i said i've done a lot of research into it but there are so many mixed opinions that even good ol Google broke down and cried in a corner while its flame shield melted with all the back and forth flame wars and contradicting opinions that i gave up and figured i would just ask people who actually PLAY the bloody game.

    (as an aside to the mods i didn't see any rules against this so if i broke any please forgive me, Also to the grammar nazi's i'm posting this from a phone right now as the powers out and i've been meaning to do this for weeks so meh if i made any grammar/spelling mistakes)

  2. #2
    Deleted
    1. The game in my opinion, is not exactly growing, compared to the 6 months after launch, but it still has a decent playerbase, you shouldn't have major problems finding groups or a guild. You don't need to have "top end stuff", as there is no raiding and world PvP scales, most large guilds will take you based on personality and potential as opposed to existing gear/achievements.

    2. Top end gear is mostly cosmetic. This is not an end-game raiding / competitive MMO.

    3. There is a lot of content in the game, some of which can only be done at max level - but I'm not sure what you're looking for here, if you're looking for a game that has competitive raiding, this is not it. There are no raids. Dungeons can be hard and require skill and co-ordination but there's not really a competitive edge to it, most people will complete all the dungeons, and the gear rewards are largely cosmetic.

    4. There are no DPS meters, your exact DPS is not that important compared to simply not dying in a dungeon. No one is likely to care that much about your exact rotation and at the end of the day they have no way of telling if your DPS is underpar anyway.

    5. There are a few items in the store which will make your life easier; it is all about convenience though, not power. There is definitely no "great gear", other than cosmetic skins, there are some exp boosts and things that will make levelling go faster, but you're not going to be any more "powerful".

    I'm sure others will give you details. If you're looking for a casual MMO with a lot of content to explore and enjoy I'd highly recommend GW2. If you're looking for something with a highly serious / competitive edge, I'm not convinced you'll find what you're looking for.

  3. #3
    Fair enough as for looking for highly serious not exactly i'm looking for in between the 2 something that takes skill/is a challenge to do but not another life sucking wow game that if i don't devote hundreds and hundred of hours to i will get passed up for EVERYTHING besides i'm going to collage AND have a fulltime job XD if i got sucked into a major hardcore guild i would end up as THAT guy.....you know the one the guy who twitches all the time due to getting less then 3 hours of sleep a night and drinks mountain dew by the gallon that when you walk upto or touch screams in shock and yells something about slaying the evil dragon....

    Also nice to know about the not having DPS counters that's always a plus, All 3 other MMO's i've tried you ether got to be above or matching X dps for your level or you get booted which can be very infuriating when your just getting started in an established game and have no idea what the hell you are doing unless you spend 30 hours researching every skillset to use while leveling and to use when you get to X gear levels, As for it not growing i can understand that but as long as its not going into a nosedive i could care less if its holding roughly steady so i can still find guilds, Also nice to know about the store that one more then anything made me hesitate as i've tried a few games where you have pay to win items and it made the games....pretty bad.

  4. #4
    I was really looking forward to GW2.. but here is the jist of it. Think of GW2 and a single player game with a great story and some replay value that just happens to not be single player... is Skyrim worth the price? The story is great.. the combat is great but you get max gear VERY early and thats it. Most of their added content is quite temporary and buggy as hell or laggy as hell and you cannot get all you need to out of it before it is gone. The store is in no way pay to win but if you want to open your stack of 100 chests... guess what.. buy keys from that damned shop.

    The combat is very hard in your hard dungeons BUT not hard in a good way. Things just hit hard.. you can do everything right and die many times per dungeon... that ISNT fun! My advice.. if you want an MMO that will be like WOW used to be.. challenging. Keep an eye on Wildstar.. I cannot say for sure whether its good or not as I havent played it but I have been following it for over a year now and the way they are going is awesome. Or if you just want an inexpensive MMO to kill the time but offer some challenge and lateral progression perhaps try FF14, I ALMOST bought that after spending several weekends in beta but in the end decided to wait on Wildstar, ESO(which will be like GW2 IMO) and the new WoW patch to kill my time.

    Good luck.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Voodoou View Post
    I was really looking forward to GW2.. but here is the jist of it. Think of GW2 and a single player game with a great story and some replay value that just happens to not be single player... is Skyrim worth the price? The story is great.. the combat is great but you get max gear VERY early and thats it. Most of their added content is quite temporary and buggy as hell or laggy as hell and you cannot get all you need to out of it before it is gone. The store is in no way pay to win but if you want to open your stack of 100 chests... guess what.. buy keys from that damned shop.

    The combat is very hard in your hard dungeons BUT not hard in a good way. Things just hit hard.. you can do everything right and die many times per dungeon... that ISNT fun! My advice.. if you want an MMO that will be like WOW used to be.. challenging. Keep an eye on Wildstar.. I cannot say for sure whether its good or not as I havent played it but I have been following it for over a year now and the way they are going is awesome. Or if you just want an inexpensive MMO to kill the time but offer some challenge and lateral progression perhaps try FF14, I ALMOST bought that after spending several weekends in beta but in the end decided to wait on Wildstar, ESO(which will be like GW2 IMO) and the new WoW patch to kill my time.

    Good luck.
    Yea i'm waiting for ESO as well with baited breath XD, as for wow yea i'm pretty done i played from the beta clean up till panda and had well i dont want to say exactly how much of my life i threw away, but lets just say if you add all the time up i spent in wow it was well over a year infront of a PC *shivers* so i really don't want another wow clone, Just something new to bide time till ESO seeing as my current bandaid world of tanks has burned me out on it, As for the chests thing it sounds a lot like STO so i'm once again not liking the sound of that, as for FF14 i played a bit of FF11 so i'm rather lerry of the MMORPG final fantasy's.

  6. #6
    1. One of the most popular MMOs at the current tme. And one of the highest selling MMOs of all time in the Western market.

    2. Gear has a power ceiling that is reached by everyone at level 80. There is no infinite vertical scaling of power based on gear. High end gear is mostly cosmetic.

    3. There is no endgame in Guild Wars 2. One does the same things at level 80 as they did at level 72, 58, 36 or level 10-- simply for the joy of the gameplay. None of the 5 Guild Wars games are bimodal.

    4. This question has no relevance in the context of GW2. There are no DPS meters, there are no class roles, there is no structured content that requires either.

    5. GW2 is not free to play, it is buy to play. There are no advantages that can be bought in the cash shop other than xp boosters. However, the point is moot due to the fact GW2 is largely horizontal in structure.
    Last edited by Fencers; 2013-09-28 at 11:23 AM.

  7. #7
    1. I'd say the population is stable. It's hard to tell if it is growing, but it doesn't appear to be shrinking.

    2. Skill + Build > Gear, but gear can be an extension of your build, to a minor extent. If you are doing structured PvP, then everybody is on a level playing field, and only your build and skill matter. In World PvP, gear can make a bit of a difference as can your level, since that also determines how many points you have in your build. Still, there are people that jump into WvW the moment they step out of the tutorial and never look back. There is a bit of gear creep for WvW, but it's not nearly as bad as in most other MMOs. The same gear creep exists in PvE, but isn't needed unless you start running higher level Fractals.

    3. There are no raids for one, at least not yet. The closest thing you have to raids are a few world bosses, of which one, Tequatl, is actually somewhat of a challenge (ie: requires actual teamwork and communication). Most dungeons are doable with a solid group, and Fractals can scratch the "progression" itch to an extent, but I wouldn't put them on par with other MMOs.

    4. I have not run across anyone requiring this, but that's not to say they don't exist. But I only play for a few weeks every few months, so my PoV on this could be skewed.

    5. The gem shop is mostly cosmetic items and account-based things like extra character slots and extra bag/bank slots. They do have boosters which can boost the amount of XP, Karma, Gold, etc that you get for a short duration, but due to how the game is structured, all they really do is save you a bit of time.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    1. Not sure, I still log in now and then to do some WvW or just run around exploring, doing puzzles etc. (Im at max level and got the best possible gear so I do it out of enjoyment). Despite being a 4-5 day a week raider on wow.

    2. Gear doesn't matter much at all, getting best gear for you takes nothing more than a few days of grinding if you craft it. I got 2 sets of the best gear, one for tanking+healing and 1 for max dps(no survivability). One set makes me into a melee necro and other one make me ranged. You play the way you want to play and noone really care how you play aslong as you adapt during different bosses and don't die.

    3. Major hardcore pve player, much like myself. There is no hard content at all, no progress and no raids. You won't really feel as connected to a group of people as you did in wow. You descide what your endgame is, wether it is to complete 100% of the map, or collect all the cosmetic gear(which takes grinding partysized dungeons over and over).

    4. You can do whatever you wan't with your skills and playstyle, noone gives a shit :P

    5. The game is not pay to win, you can buy stuff that increase leveling speed by a little, dropchance of rare items, cosmetic gear. But it is not gamebreaking at all. The gems you buy with real money can be purchased with ingame gold aswell, which means everything in the store is obtainable by getting gold from playing.


    It is a good game, but don't expect to have enough content if you want to play it 3-4 hours every day.

    As said earlier, I still play it now and then for the joy of it. The game is brilliant, the music is awesome and the whole athmosphere is good once you get used to it. Deffinatly the best mmorpg since Rift and before that Wow. The fact that its free to play after you pay for the initial game, makes it worth its money.

  9. #9
    Mechagnome Fernling306's Avatar
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    Aren't there strength and armor boosters in the cash shop?
    Just logged in, and there are only convenience items. Where the hell did I get these strength and armor boosters!?
    Last edited by Fernling306; 2013-09-28 at 08:13 PM.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by ArcticIceFox View Post
    1. is the game still growing/holding steady or is it on a steep downhill slide I.E dead servers no one ever on only able to get into a non social clan guild/clan ect ect if you already have top end stuff?
    I dunno about growing, but the game does feel "busy" to me. You'll almost always have people talking in "map" (general, basically). Getting into a guild seems to be easy enough since there's not really any reason to be exclusionary in GW2.

    Can't answer #2 really, not a PvPer and since there's no DPS meters or inspect function I can't tell if the people I PvE with are better than me or not, or what gear they have on. It seems that the stat jump from fresh 80 to maxed out 80 is quite small though, and you hit the power ceiling very quickly. There's no constant need to keep upgrading your gear like there is in WoW every few months.

    Quote Originally Posted by ArcticIceFox View Post
    3. i am a major hardcore PvE player (was in a top 100 clan with a small stint in a top 30 clan before it broke up in wow, Right up until i finally burned out and stopped playing a month before panda)
    There's no organised raiding like there is in WoW, so don't expect that. There is a LOT of stuff to do though, including mini-dungeons, normal dungeons and harder dungeons. Some of their limited time content can be rather challenging aswell and they can feel a bit like mini raids in terms of co-ordination.

    Quote Originally Posted by ArcticIceFox View Post
    4. Am i going to be forced into the tired old role of "set your skills EXACTLY like this" otherwise you will not be accepted because you do 5 dps less and we wont take you/you do less then half the dps of the other skillset?
    The only thing I've come across is some negativity towards people using only signets (personal boosts) over group skills like banners or Shadow Refuge. There's no way to tell how much DPS you're actually doing though, so you can most of the time use whatever you like and do fine.

    Quote Originally Posted by ArcticIceFox View Post
    5. i've heard mixed opinions on this one so i would like clarification, Basically due to the game being free to play the ingame store has options that turn the game pay to win I.E great gear/massive stat boosts/huge bundles of money to buy anything you want, and that you ether pay through the nose or you spend months grinding out enough tokens/money ect ect to buy ANYTHING where as buying a package you get it in hours/days, Is this true or is it more wow garbage thrown out as chaff to help scare off people like me who are on the fence or is it inbetween I.E you can spend 2 weeks hard core grinding tokens for X item or you can pay for something and just spend a week doing it with the same amount of effort?
    Whoever told you this is full of shit and has never actually played the game. The only things you can buy with money (which you can get with in-game gold anyway) are convenience boosts such as +XP from kills, or an infinite pickaxe vs buying one for some silver coins every 100 uses. The rest is entirely cosmetic and again, if you want you can use your in-game gold to get them.

  11. #11
    Pandaren Monk thewallofsleep's Avatar
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    I'm seeing some contradictory statements here. You mention that you don't want another WoW style game, and that playing another game in that style would result in tremendous amounts of anger, yet you mention being a "major hardcore PvE player" and worry about the structure of PvE and DPS and the like. If you're really interested in a game that isn't like WoW, these things shouldn't concern you. The idea of "endgame" is completely different in GW2. It's all "for the love of the game", not because you're chasing a carrot on a stick or something. Any sense of progression you may get is determined by you personally, not by the game itself, not "I have to do this and get this stuff so then I can do this and get the other, better stuff.".

  12. #12
    Hello and Welcome to the GW2 Community.

    1. The game is lively. While not everything about the game is good, I don't think I could ever claim the game is in a steep decline. The game is full of people and is probably the most successful MMO since WoW.

    2. Skill is mostly greater than gear. In WvWvW (one of the PvP modes) I kill unskilled players on a sub-maxlevel character. Granted, if I am fighting someone with enough of a gear advantage and a decent build, they'll likely win. So gear isn't negligible. However, it doesn't decide fights as automatically as it can in some MMOs.

    3. GW2 doesn't have traditional end-game. There isn't a different game at max level. Instead, the game is much more broad at max level than a traditional MMO. Since rewards don't drastically shrink when you go to lower level areas, you can still go to low level areas you haven't been to before and receive useful rewards. Max level play is about: Dungeons, Open World, Open World Bosses, Jumping Puzzles, Exploration and World Completion, Living Story Updates, PvP, WvWvW, and Achievement Hunting.

    There's plenty to do. It just isn't a singular vertical progression.

    4. I have never had this problem. I am a player that likes to play different builds and know my class inside and out. I have five different armor sets for my main character, and different builds for each. There are some sectors of the game and community that will ask you to run certain builds. You can avoid those sectors and still enjoy the game. I really feel that the only areas where builds are restrictive are top tier WvWvW guilds, Dungeon Speed Running, and high level sPVP.

    5. The gem shop is the game's money shop. It's completely inoffensive with no Pay to Win schemes. It is the best in-game shop in MMOs IMO. It's mostly cosmetic and convenience items. As well, you can convert gold to gems, so you can buy anything in the shop with in-game currency.

  13. #13
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    If you hate grinding for the best gear, then don't bother. ANet caved in to the grinders and the people who feel they need to "achieve" something in a virtual game and introduced the ascended tier of gear, and with it, power creep/vertical progression. Trinkets and weapons for now, and armor by the end of the year. The items and materials required to even level your chosen professions and craft your weapons are expensive, account bound, and time gated.

    Ascended weapons+trinkets already give you around a 15% increase in damage, and with full ascended armor, you can expect around 25% in damage. Have fun in dungeons and WvW without them!

    A clear deviation from their policy of the highest tier of gear being easy to get and how I wish the grinders and whiners just stuck with a game like WoW or Final Fantasy Online.

  14. #14
    The Lightbringer barackopala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arcanist View Post
    If you hate grinding for the best gear, then don't bother. ANet caved in to the grinders and the people who feel they need to "achieve" something in a virtual game and introduced the ascended tier of gear, and with it, power creep/vertical progression. Trinkets and weapons for now, and armor by the end of the year. The items and materials required to even level your chosen professions and craft your weapons are expensive, account bound, and time gated.

    Ascended weapons+trinkets already give you around a 15% increase in damage, and with full ascended armor, you can expect around 25% in damage. Have fun in dungeons and WvW without them!

    A clear deviation from their policy of the highest tier of gear being easy to get and how I wish the grinders and whiners just stuck with a game like WoW or Final Fantasy Online.
    15% increase in damage? where did you got those numbers from?

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by barackopala View Post
    15% increase in damage? where did you got those numbers from?
    There are a couple of forum threads over in the GW2 forums under General Discussion. I don't have the links on hand though so when I find them I'll post them.

  16. #16
    the trial weekend is still going on, try it

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by barackopala View Post
    15% increase in damage? where did you got those numbers from?
    Weapons alone are 5-7% depending on setup, class and so on.
    In most cases, I understand the other side's viewpoint and how they came to it, but cannot tolerate their stubbornness to not see mine (the right one).

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Meledelion View Post
    Weapons alone are 5-7% depending on setup, class and so on.
    I still would like to know what form of content requires that you have an extra 5% dmg to complete it? Hell even the new Teq people were still highly unoptimized, i know i was. You had classes in there that did nothing but provide defensive CDs' and did very minimal dmg during the fight and the boss still went down. The whole vert progression thing becomes a problem when content cant be completed without it. My warrior is walking around in full exotics and im not optimzed at all on him and did the new dungeon just fine.

    And i know ppl are gonna try and say WvW gear matters, but from what ive seen it doesnt matter unless ur doing GVG or your doing small skirmishes with very few players around supply camps and on the road and what not. Most players run in a zerg and thats too much dmg from opposing zergs to worry about a few %.
    Last edited by Zeek Daniels; 2013-10-05 at 03:37 PM.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    It's mostly a perception thing, Zeek. Hell, even in vertical MMOs you don't NEED the newest gear to do content, yet people will flip out over taking you to a Karazhan pug without Tier 6 gear for some reason. When I was doing progression in Cataclysm I was still in 5-man dungeon blues when we were halfway done with Tier 11 heroic modes. =O

    Same thing in GW2. For the most part the gear doesn't *matter*, but people will perceive it as something they MUST get, and therefore others MUST get it too or they're not good enough.
    the difference is your whole group wasnt in blues doing those heroics, fact is in gw2 you could do explore modes in all blue geared group, in WoW you cant do heroic raids in it.

  20. #20
    I am Murloc! Xuvial's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    It's mostly a perception thing, Zeek. Hell, even in vertical MMOs you don't NEED the newest gear to do content, yet people will flip out over taking you to a Karazhan pug without Tier 6 gear for some reason. When I was doing progression in Cataclysm I was still in 5-man dungeon blues when we were halfway done with Tier 11 heroic modes. =O

    Same thing in GW2. For the most part the gear doesn't *matter*, but people will perceive it as something they MUST get, and therefore others MUST get it too or they're not good enough.
    IMO the whole "gear requirement" thing is more or less non-existent in GW2, people fuss more over actual experience, builds (if they specifically need a bunker/support) and overall skill, I've never seen anyone asking about gear lol. Firstly there's no inspect option at all, secondly there's quite a few shared skins among the purchasable gear sets (or people transmute), then there's dyes making it even harder to tell what someone is wearing at a glance.
    I remember WoW during the GearScore addon days, people used to demand at least 4000 GS for basic pugs and 5000-5500+ for higher pugs/GDKP raids. Now THAT was obsession over gear requirements :P
    Last edited by Xuvial; 2013-10-13 at 11:35 PM.
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