So now that you've had time to gather your thoughts...

[Lane]

Not sure if serious, but I think most people in my guild have worked on or are working on loremaster achievment, I had it on my previous 2 accounts, lower level zones in GW2 are no different to WoW, you overpower everything and the rewards are not comparable to higher level zones so once you have 100% map completion who really goes back to lower level zones? I would suggest not many. The idea of downscaling is good, the execution is poor, leaving arah farming the only 'viable' option once you hit 100%. Unless thing shave changed in the last 2 months I quit :S

I see people in lower level zones all the time. The rewards actually scale fairly well now. Unfortunately, I don't have a screenshot for comparison, but I remember the rewards for doing Orr events vs. doing them anywhere else were negligible. I do know that they buffed lower level events to scale better with your level and that they've nerfed the Orrian events apparently several times now, which would probably explain why I usually get 0 drops from any of them. Personally, I have my farming character parked in a level 35-45 zone where there's a semi-reliable event chain. I take a small hit to EXP and karma, but in exchange I get to not have to deal with Orr and actually get drops off of most things I kill, so I feel it balances itself out.

Apparently farming champions in Queensdale in particular has become the 'thing to do'. Not really sure why, but there's a sizable group on my server that just keeps making the rounds between the champion events that spawn there, especially the troll.

I will say a lot of the mid-range zones do feel empty, especially if there's no sort of continuous event chain for people to follow.

As far as community, I can only speak for my server and my personal experiences there, but it's nothing like WoW. Most questions I see asked get answered appropriately, I rarely see any juvenile/troll chat (at least outside of Lion's Arch, which doesn't represent my server anyway since I'm always kicked into Overflow), most people will stop and res you, etc. GW2 easily has the best community I've experienced in an MMO.

[sacrypheyes]

sill running events on a daily basis in lvl 1-15 zones and getting lv80 rares there from reward chests. not as much as in orr events, that's a given, but not as boring either, and still decent karma too (they nerfed the gold rewards though).

[Alopex Major]

I wanted to like GW2, I really did. But I haven't logged in since November, and I don't see myself ever playing it again. My main issues:

After the initial leveling rush died down, my server (at least) is a ghost town. There just aren't enough warm bodies in the area to complete dynamic events. It'll be me, and maybe one other person if I'm lucky.

My character feels slow and sluggish, in combat and in general. I know this is probably my own fault for picking a Charr, but combat should feel responsive regardless of race.

I feel weak when fighting things solo. Maybe it's my class or general lack of experience with the game, but I cannot fight 2 or more mobs of my same level without coming close to dying. Two levels above? Forget it, I'm toast. Maybe this is part of the design too, I don't know, but I found it un-fun.

Everything is confusing. I have crafting materials but I can't craft anything with them. I don't have any recipes to make things with the stuff I have. What do any of these things do?

All that said, I know the issues I have with the game are mine. Plenty of other people love it, and I certainly think you should give it a try if you're at all curious about it. You might end up loving it.

[draykorinee]

Snip

This is a non loaded question, do you feel that downscaling offers you an appropriate challenge as a level 80 in level 35-45 zones, I know that even at level 20 I was blasting through level 1-10 stuff pulling packs of 3-4 mobs, although not quite the loloneshot of wow low level zones, for me the content was just as irrelevant because the exp gains and rewards were significantly different and the challenge faced had gone. I could get double the exp from harvesting a herb than doing events in the level 1-10 zones. Has it changed so much since i stopped playing? I remember the difference being something akin to getting 25% of the normal experience.
So yes, you go back to 35-40 zones, is that actually a challenge though or just easier rewards?

Ive also noticed a lot of people say the community is better, its not a refutable aspect, I have no proof either way. But a reason often cited is they say when they die people res them, well tbh that isnt a big deal, for a start there is a massive sign above your head saying res me, in other mmos the liklihood is when youre dead no one will notice you being dead. Secondly, generally in GW2 you play alongside people, thats not people being nicer, thats the game doing a better job of promoting team play and interaction, I'm sure if any other mmo was to stick a big sign over your corpse saying res me you would get just as many people ressing you especially if they made quests that promoted cooperation.
The anecdote that people respond better in map chat when a question is asked...well like ALL new mmos people expect a certain degree of noobness, most people in older mmos smirk at the naivety of newer players for some reason, I really dont think the belief of a freindier playerbase can be based off these 2 things, give it a little while longer and see if that ranger who keeps pulling mobs in your random group gets the same response as your general wow/rift/swtor player who messes up, then we can agree that people in GW2 are just nicer :S

[Deleted]

Well dray, I agree with you regarding the downscaling part it should be more um punishing you still feel op especially when you are lvl 80. Regarding the community you got a point with that example, also gw2 eliminates the loot drama that happen in other MMOs, you know eveyone hates ninjas. That said I've been said to stfu in other MMOs while trying to chat in grp in lfg.

Personally I think since WoW is the most succesful MMO, it attracts more bad apples than gw2, also I think that since gw2 is more casual oriented it attracts more mature people (mature as in 25+ year old players).

[Maarius]

I wanted to like GW2, I really did. But I haven't logged in since November, and I don't see myself ever playing it again. My main issues:

1.) After the initial leveling rush died down, my server (at least) is a ghost town. There just aren't enough warm bodies in the area to complete dynamic events. It'll be me, and maybe one other person if I'm lucky.

My character feels slow and sluggish, in combat and in general. I know this is probably my own fault for picking a Charr, but combat should feel responsive regardless of race.

3.) I feel weak when fighting things solo. Maybe it's my class or general lack of experience with the game, but I cannot fight 2 or more mobs of my same level without coming close to dying. Two levels above? Forget it, I'm toast. Maybe this is part of the design too, I don't know, but I found it un-fun.

4.) Everything is confusing. I have crafting materials but I can't craft anything with them. I don't have any recipes to make things with the stuff I have. What do any of these things do?

All that said, I know the issues I have with the game are mine. Plenty of other people love it, and I certainly think you should give it a try if you're at all curious about it. You might end up loving it.

1.) Hmm well you should at least be able to do 80% of the events (which aren't group-events) since events scale back down to one player. Never had any problem to complete a zone by soloing. No idea why you found yourself alone in a zone, I'm playing at night (22:00 - 3:00) and find at least 4 other people in the zone. Champions are pretty hard to solo on even level Have you tried playing with friends / a guild? There aren't many zergs roaming around in the zones after release, but imho thats a good thing, because more than 10 players isn't healthy for an event... since those don't scale to 11+ (except the meta-event chains)

3.) Which profession did you try? Do you use kiting + dodge? It's important that you don't just stand around, nearly every skill in this game can be done while moving around. Very low level mobs are pretty forgiving, so you can stand still and beat them up, but you'll have to learn it rather sooner than later.



Do you have level-appropriate gear? Crafting really gives you some decent gear which sets you on equal footing to you enemies

4.) I experienced this too at first, but this system is new and you have to learn it. There aren't a lot of recipes which you can buy out there, I'd say 95% of the recipes you have to "create" yourself by just experimentation.

this should help:

[Lane]

This is a non loaded question, do you feel that downscaling offers you an appropriate challenge as a level 80 in level 35-45 zones, I know that even at level 20 I was blasting through level 1-10 stuff pulling packs of 3-4 mobs, although not quite the loloneshot of wow low level zones, for me the content was just as irrelevant because the exp gains and rewards were significantly different and the challenge faced had gone.

Well, yes and no. The difference, from my perspective, is more in terms of creature abilities. Yeah, I can pull half a dozen mobs in a starter zone too, but that's because they don't have the same BS arsenal the mobs in, say, Orr do. I don't have to deal with each mob having at least two different forms of stuns and snares, along with top notch DPS, and usually at least one form of condition damage. It kind of has to be that way though, you don't want to throw too much at new players at once, so earlier creatures need to be more 'basic' and gradually develop more abilities for more difficult encounters as you level.

Having said that, I still consider Brisban Wildlands (15-25) one of the hardest pre-70 zones. The only other one would be Fireheart Rise (60-70). Besides Orrian zones, those are the two on my list of places I never really want to do a second time (but probably will). :P

I could get double the exp from harvesting a herb than doing events in the level 1-10 zones. Has it changed so much since i stopped playing? I remember the difference being something akin to getting 25% of the normal experience.
So yes, you go back to 35-40 zones, is that actually a challenge though or just easier rewards?

As a comparison, there's an event chain in Harathi Hinterlands I tend to run a lot, either for power-leveling or farming. Pre whichever-patch-it-was the experience I received from it capped out at 2500, even at level 80. Post patch I'm getting over 13k experience. (Sorry, I don't remember the karma values, the experience is the first and most obvious number I always see when I click on the medals.) The last time I did an event in Orr the experience gain was around 17k per event. So, yeah, there's still a discrepancy, but not like it was before, and as I said I'd sooner take the small hit to exp/karma gains than have to deal with Orr in any capacity. :P

Easier rewards? I suppose that's true, but that's also because (if you couldn't already tell) I absolutely loathe Orr, so I'd consider just about anything "easier". It's not like I can just not pay attention to what I'm doing elsewhere though. The champion troll in Queensdale is still going to one-shot me if I'm not careful, centaurs in Harathi Hinterlands are still going to trample me to death if I'm not careful, etc.

The anecdote that people respond better in map chat when a question is asked...well like ALL new mmos people expect a certain degree of noobness, most people in older mmos smirk at the naivety of newer players for some reason, I really dont think the belief of a freindier playerbase can be based off these 2 things, give it a little while longer and see if that ranger who keeps pulling mobs in your random group gets the same response as your general wow/rift/swtor player who messes up, then we can agree that people in GW2 are just nicer :S

I suppose that's true. Even I was jaded towards n00b questions in WoW after 6 years. Though, I swear, people asked some of the dumbest, most obvious stuff, especially when there was really no excuse for it given how blatantly WoW hand-holds you through the start of the game now. I actually felt like the tutorial insulted my intelligence. /mini-rant :P

Edit: My bf reminded me when we played Rift and Tera when they first released the trolling in both of those games (the latter especially) was rather bad. We haven't seen that same phenomenon on our server in GW2 yet, so I'm not sure GW2 being a newer MMO excludes it from bad player behavior, they're just more tolerant of n00b questions for now.

[Zilong]

I had some random person on map chat calling people all sorts of colourful names because no one would resurrect him during a world boss fight, anecdotes are great for demonising communities :S



In relation to previous discussions on wow, think it was dooze mentioned the puking earlier




Not sure if serious, but I think most people in my guild have worked on or are working on loremaster achievment, I had it on my previous 2 accounts, lower level zones in GW2 are no different to WoW, you overpower everything and the rewards are not comparable to higher level zones so once you have 100% map completion who really goes back to lower level zones? I would suggest not many. The idea of downscaling is good, the execution is poor, leaving arah farming the only 'viable' option once you hit 100%. Unless thing shave changed in the last 2 months I quit :S

Sorry dray. I didn't see your response XD. Yeah, as I said happens all around. And Ill check this point in a year or so from now to see the "difference". But I think that not only Gw2 comes already with a non-grief "design" but the way how info/builds/lack of addons and so on are in the game just make it a different experience altogether. I know this may sound...pure...speculation? Or personal experience? OR even "unfair" comparison but look at gw1. I played a bit when it came out and well it wasn't for me, but after many years I came back to play and it was nothing like wow, tera, rift experiences. I felt engaged with a nice community from the start and I didn't find any problems really. (But well gw1 wasn't really a "mmo").

---
Regardless I think loremaster achievement is way more about the achieve than to actually see what's out there. [/b]Probably[/b] huge part of your guildies went to the "!" and pressed accept and 1 shotted everything quickly, maybe with flying even too. I'm not diminishing the work of it, not at al not am I trying to really guess what your guild is doing. But I think there is credit for the design done on gw2 despite some tweaks needed (and many already done). The rewards in Gw2 lower levels have been adjusted (still need a lil tweak), the experience and karma gains good as well. The difficulty really depends on skill/build but it can be somewhat challenging (meaning not brain dead). My favorite place is the Norn Starting area, have been since beta and I still go there after completing it entirely just for fun, get some loots, karma, recruited a few for my guild and met/helped a few people along the way.

It's not a 100% experience, could still use a few more tweaks (I think the champions still need a fix on loot, Im not sure). But it's much more of an experience than probably any game out there.

[draykorinee]

Appreciate the responses, when I was active in here this was always one of those annoyances, Im glad they have adjusted the exp gains a bit, previously it felt completely worthless going to low level zones, I still feel the downscaling wasnt tough enough but I can understand the reason behind it. Low level zones in GW2 do have more impact and more usefulness that most MMO's out there I wont deny that.

[Zilong]

Appreciate the responses, when I was active in here this was always one of those annoyances, Im glad they have adjusted the exp gains a bit, previously it felt completely worthless going to low level zones, I still feel the downscaling wasnt tough enough but I can understand the reason behind it. Low level zones in GW2 do have more impact and more usefulness that most MMO's out there I wont deny that.

I would be lying to say that downscaling is something to be "OmG! for. It isn't, in fact I thought I wouldn't like it but I really really appreciated when helping a friend out to start the game and so on. I'm hmm "neutral" to downscaling and even "not happy" with the upscaling system on events (forgot the real name), I really expect that to improve over time. But suffice to say that overall (since I don't see any of those anywhere else) I'm happy with what I got lol.

[Highangel]

I'm trying to get more into the game, and i like it for what is is. The game looks and run great, but i'm still not a fan of certain races animations.

To be honest it sometimes feel like a single player rpg... it doesen't really matter if i join a group or not. I'm almost lvl 40 and just enjoy quests and exploring and so on.
I haven't tried any instances as i have no clue about where to go and why. I joined a guild but the talk in gchat is mostly Hi and bye It might just be that i need to make a better effort to meet and play with people. WvW is ok but still it's just a big Zerg, and as a newbie i just struggle to find any action and often end up running around confused

I want to like the game more, but think i'll run out of motivation to play when i reach cap or explore all areas.

[Deleted]

join the wvw ts of your server. makes more fun and you know whats happening. WvW is more then just a big zerg :3

[Zilong]

I'm trying to get more into the game, and i like it for what is is. The game looks and run great, but i'm still not a fan of certain races animations.

To be honest it sometimes feel like a single player rpg... it doesen't really matter if i join a group or not. I'm almost lvl 40 and just enjoy quests and exploring and so on.
I haven't tried any instances as i have no clue about where to go and why. I joined a guild but the talk in gchat is mostly Hi and bye It might just be that i need to make a better effort to meet and play with people. WvW is ok but still it's just a big Zerg, and as a newbie i just struggle to find any action and often end up running around confused

I want to like the game more, but think i'll run out of motivation to play when i reach cap or explore all areas.

Yeah, like Pion said. WvW can be a big zerg but if you can make it a small strike force but for that you would need a guild for it or a few friends, I've never went to TS on WvW but must be cool. Also as I said there are guild that probably run WvW in schedules, those tend to be fun and be epic depending on the lead.

I think the fact that the game can be played as a "single player" and a group is very good feature (Unlike for me SWTOR, who I would only play as Single). It is as social as you make it really, and the maturity level is generally very good. You should try instances tho, opinions vary, but I find it fun (I think they also told they will revamp bosses, which can be promising). First Dungeon is Ascalon Catacombs in the first map after Charr Starting Area and it's for lvl 30 (Easy to go there. Lions Arch > Charr Gate > Just go to your left). Inside there will be a story of it's own so don't worry about why for now (Altho reading abit of the GW lore would be good). And then at level 35 explorable modes open for the same dungeon which changes stuff a bit but its significantly harder. So it always runs in patterns..like Lvl 30 dungeon (then at 35 open 3 paths inside that dungeon), lvl 40 dungeon (then at 45 open 3 paths inside that dungeon) and so on, only above 70 there are more dungeon in the 70-80 tier.

Anyways. Enjoy the game

[Karizee]

WvW is ok but still it's just a big Zerg

Common misconception. I bring you Nisha the Medicat, Riding Solo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pfO5s9pi0c


There are so many wonderful little choke points throughout the map that a small strike force can control a zerg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-919R...ature=youtu.be

[draykorinee]

Na its a zerg for the most part, no misconception. those 4 people were communicating like crazy for the average joe its a big zerg.

[rhandric]

No, WvW is only a zerg if you make it a zerg, if you play strategically and communicate it can be (and is) much more. It's just that most people treat it as a zerg.

@Zilong: No, you go to your right after you're in the Charr starting area

[draykorinee]

No, WvW is only a zerg if you make it a zerg, if you play strategically and communicate it can be (and is) much more. It's just that most people treat it as a zerg.

@Zilong: No, you go to your right after you're in the Charr starting area

Which is why I said to the average joe its a zerg.

[Meledelion]

Which is why I said to the average joe its a zerg.

This is such a stupid point.
Yea you know driving a car is pretty hard if you don't know how to drive a car...

The guild my friends and I started focused on doing small scale stuff instead of fighting in zergs, sadly we lost a lot of members since all of them joined the big "zerg" guilds since they get more rewards...

[Drakhar]

NA T1 WvW is not zergmode at all.

Get your realms on our level.

Anyone who says otherwise is one of the clueless bandwagon baddies who belong on the crap servers from whence they came. Thanks for the months of free transfers ANet!

[draykorinee]

This is such a stupid point.
Yea you know driving a car is pretty hard if you don't know how to drive a car...

The guild my friends and I started focused on doing small scale stuff instead of fighting in zergs, sadly we lost a lot of members since all of them joined the big "zerg" guilds since they get more rewards...

Its a stupid point? the average joe doesnt mean clueless it means they dont have the time and or inclination to form a good team and get involved in communication, or that they dont havee the abilities to be able to pull off tactics as displayed in karizees video. to lump average joe in with the untrained or uniformed was mever my intention. analogies rarely ever get pulled off well, yours is a good example of it not working.