What to do?

[zilliman]

@bokiz333

Your main determining factor is PvP vs PvE. Many PvPers hate levelling up, hate quests, hate NPCs, hate everything pre-made. Almost just as you describe it. They only want human opponents, not some CPU AI whose behaviour they can eventually work out and be prepared for. I understand that fully and that is why there are PvP servers where you are on your own and can get ganked at any time almost the moment you step out of a safety zone. There are also numerous PvP games like COD4 (and derivatives), which also offer some progression and character skill set customisation.

I would also like to add here that even in PvP the skills of the opponents are known, the attacks and counter-attacks are predefined and the devs have gone through a lot of trouble to balance everything out. It is not free at all. There is nothing you can do individually to overcome the stops the developers have built in, and as soon as you find a weakness it gets removed in the next patch. It is a developer's world

But GW2 is very far from being a strict PvP game. I think I am not out of line asking what it has to offer to the PvE crowd.

[zilliman]

You also mentioned dungeons in your OP. I should have added, dungeons start at level 30 and then there's a new dungeon every ten levels until 80, when there are three dungeons. Not to mention the new Fractals of the Mists which are my favorite dungeons in the game.

The story mode dungeons unlock on the ten levels and the explorable mode dungeons unlock on the 5 levels, so you get the story mode of Ascalon Catacombs at level 30 and the explorable mode (all three of them) at level 35.

I still think the stages of the personal story though are a better way to judge your progress in the game and through your character than either leveling or unlocking dungeons.

Thanks again for that.

I have to say, dungeons are very important. You fullfill a role, and you try to see how well you perform. After all all the hard work you have put in your questing, all the preparation you have been making to progress your character, it is all for this moment, how well will you do in the dungeon where all eyes are on you? If you fail a quest, the NPC will not tell you off, but if you fail in the dungeon or raid, the other 4 (or how many) will surely have stern words with you.

But the review I read talks about trinity and such, I am confused now as to how dungeons work in GW2.

PS you seem to prefer play GW2 like a single player game? What is the point of the MMO if you do not participate in team events?

[zilliman]

Because I'm into the RPG end of the spectrum. I develop my character, which is very much an internal thing, and as a result, PVe becomes more interesting to me. Which of the three factions will this character pick and why. The game doesnt' really ask that. A lot of people just pick one cause they think it's fun, but my characters have reasons why they do things. It makes all the difference in the world.

So if you play a character, as one did in the old days of RPGs, then you can make your own goals/fun in PvE as well as anywhere else.

Just to understand that, you are saying that your "progress" is the actual questing path and questing choices you have made (assuming the game allows choices and paths), not really what level or how powerful your character is. From this I infer you'd be just as happy if the game had no levels, but a vast number of quests and "final endings" that you could arrive at. I also infer you'd be at home with SWTOR which is all about questing ?

[zilliman]

It sounds to me you're just looking for us to convince you that you like something you don't, or that you're trying to convince the people here that what you like is better. If you don't enjoy the game, don't play it.

I love GW2. I enjoy it much more than I ever enjoyed playing WoW. WoW always just felt like a dumbed down version of the MMOs that came before it. It never felt like there was any actual skill involved in the gameplay, though it's an MMO, 99.99999% of them don't require any actual skill whatsoever. I played to the level cap before BC and stopped playing consistently for a long time after that. Once in a while I'd get the itch to revisit my old character and would pick it up again off and on for a couple of months at a time. Then picked it up fresh with cataclysm and took a new character to the level cap in the week that followed and never played it again after.

I'm not going to give you a list of things you should and shouldn't like because it's all subjective. In my opinion GW2 is the better game, even without eight years of content behind it. So far the general community is shaping up to be much better than any experiences I've ever had with the wow populous. I don't think I've heard one overused Chuck Norris joke, caught a racist argument in map chat, or seen a single character named Tylenol Pénís Jones running around.

Have fun tickling pandas!

I am asking for a list of good things about GW2. I am not trying to convince anyone, I am looking for information and points of view that I may be missing. My knowledge of GW2 is very little.

I have not bought MOP and my sub is not active. No need for sarcasm.

[Vayne]

Just to understand that, you are saying that your "progress" is the actual questing path and questing choices you have made (assuming the game allows choices and paths), not really what level or how powerful your character is. From this I infer you'd be just as happy if the game had no levels, but a vast number of quests and "final endings" that you could arrive at. I also infer you'd be at home with SWTOR which is all about questing ?

Well, no, I wouldn't be at home in SWToR and I play with people all the time. They just play the way I do. We have close to 80 people in our guild, and over 20 of them are very active. We play together and understand each other.

We don't need preassigned roles to be useful. It's just not that kind of guild. It's handled completely differently from WoW or most MMOs. It's actually interesting because groups of people just gel.

It's more about reacting on the fly, and seeing what's needed and filling that role on a very free form basis. It's a completely different thing. So I play with people and I play different professions. I have 3 80s so far, and each of them are better at different things.

My engineer is great at support, particularly using an elixir gun, one of his skills. He can create a healing circle, a ground targeted spell, he can remove conditions, a must in dungeons, and also buff allies, while applying conditions like vulnerability to foes. That means not only does he do more damage, but so does everyone else in the side. But it's not something I'm locked into. When we're doing well, I can use grenades or bombs to do more damage, and not be so much support, except for some blindness. Or use pistol and shield, which gives me poison and vulnerability in my arsenal.

On my ranger, I'm generally more of a DPS role, but there are still ways to support, including spirits, though they die pretty easily. But my pets have skills and choosing pets judiciously gives me an extra skill I can use at will, from bleeding or chilling with one of my birds, to support skills with other pets.

But my favorite is the mesmer where I can buff allies and throw conditions on enemies at the same time. I particularly enjoy the confusion condition which does damage to an enemy every time he uses a skill. I try to keep confusion on my enemies and allow them to kill themselves. Anyone who doubts they effectiveness of this hasn't fought the princess dolls that came out during the holiday. People hate those guys.

Mesmers can also use portals and mass invisibility to support, or they can change creatures into either moas on land or tuna in the water.

As for water, Guild Wars 2 has tons of water combat, using different weapons, different skills and 3D combat to the limit. Some people don't like it that much but many do. I like it because it breaks up land combat, and gives me something else to master.

But the rigid I do this you do this, that doesn't exist in Guild Wars 2. The game requires you to react. Truthfully you can get around most stuff without even knowing what to do or how to play, simply by dying and running back to an encounter. But the better you get, the less you die, and the faster your opponents go down.

It's a different thought process. Ravious from Kill Ten Rats likened it more to Team Fortress 2 in team-play feel, rather than a typical MMO. If you haven't been part of that kind of team, you won't see the teamwork. It's hardest, I think, on pugs. When you get in a guild and you start seeing what's needed and speccing for it, it all starts to come together.

[Alycaea]

After reading through your op and your responses to the information offered I think I can say that GW2 is probably not the game you are looking for. There are not clearly measured goals and a parallel reward driven path as per WoW at this time. Dungeons outside of the fractals are pretty weak and raids are non-existant.

You were a fan of quests in WoW which have been replaced in GW2 with events and hearts, the dynamic is ultimately similar but the rewards offered are less tangible (events in particularly rewarding karma, experience, and some coin rather than a discrete item) than the ones in WoW in addition to being less overt. As such exploring in Guild Wars 2 is arguably more rewarding than exploring in WoW as you are more likely to happen upon discoveries in many cases providing a (sometimes meagre) reward versus WoW (for the most part) not rewarding you at all for exploring outside of quest chains/paths.

So to summarise guild wars offers undefined (in the sense that they are not static quest givers), achievable, unrewarding (in the sense that you generally don't receive discrete items but rather currency for future/optional items) goals for players to attain - which translates to the fact that players need to enjoy playing the core mechanic of the game in order to capitalise on this as if they are having fun with the essence of the game the goals become excuses to partake in more of said mechanic.

I believe you see mounts as a great achievement/goal/reward/collectible in WoW because they provide not only distinguishment through aesthetics but that they are coupled with functionality and usually have a clearly defined sequence of events that are required to obtain them. There is not really a parallel in guild wars outside of legendaries (which have a loosely defined sequence of events to obtain) but those tend to be longer term, with a more ambiguously defined path, and less functionally distinguishing. Once again this goes back to requiring an enjoyment of the basic foundation of the game (arguably combat) to benefit from.

Crafting in guild wars 2 is seen as unrewarding because it is incredibly accessible. As such there is nothing there to distinguish you from others resulting in an "unrewarding" experience as you will be unable to turn a noteworthy profit on a single transaction. That said I enjoy the discovery built into the crafting in GW2 but it's not for everyone.

I'm not even going to touch on PvP in any sense as you don't seem to be focused on it.

TLDR - In order for guild wars 2 to be rewarding and offering things to do you have to enjoy the core mechanics in the gameplay rather than in the meta wrapped around it. If what you enjoyed in WoW was a sense of accomplishment and the resulting distinguishment rewards associated with said accomplishments offered I'm afraid you will not be able to sate that here.

[hlindegar]

I can understand both sides of this, but there are a few things I want to say.

First and foremost (to the OP), you can't judge the game if you've only played up to level 14; you simply don't have enough data. You didn't even know there were dungeons.

I've quit WoW forever, and I absolutely love GW2. Regardless, WoW overall is just a better game. There's more story, there's more culture, there's a bigger world, there's the horde vs. alliance thing which really causes immersion... The problem though, is the nerf cycle. You work your ass off for the best gear and then 6 months later a patch comes out that allows any new chump to get the very same gear from 5-man facerolls. They slap those who work hard in the face. I got tired of putting up with it. Why bang your head against the wall for months to get rewards that some kid will get for nothing 6 months later? To me that is unacceptable.

Guild Wars doesn't have this problem. Instead they have powerful gear obtainable by many different methods, and they design a system where it's actually fun to grind for gear that doesn't even have better stats, but you do it because of the skin. I could do this for years!

The only way to understand the beauty of GW2 is to play it for a long time. Get to know the world. Keep in mind that your rewards that you earn will never be made obsolete.

[Fey]

Just to understand that, you are saying that your "progress" is the actual questing path and questing choices you have made (assuming the game allows choices and paths), not really what level or how powerful your character is. From this I infer you'd be just as happy if the game had no levels, but a vast number of quests and "final endings" that you could arrive at. I also infer you'd be at home with SWTOR which is all about questing ?

Yes and No. You can completely ignore the personal story if you choose. I didn't actually finish mine until after I hit max level.

[Oenanthe]

As another WoW and GW2 player, I find that much of what you count as an advantage in WoW I see as a disadvantage.

The direction and questing objectives are now so overpowering in WoW that you are railroaded in to completing all the quests in order to move on in an area. I like to be able to pick and chose what I take part in. Back in pre Cata it wasn't so bad, you could pick up all the quests at the hub and then chose which to do. Now you are spoon fed a couple of quests which you have to complete to get the next couple, and with the speed of leveling I either end up finishing the quests when they are either green or grey and skipping the next area, or missing the final section of the area I am in. In GW2 I enjoy that I can go out and just join in any event that is taking place if I want to.

You then mention mounts and travel methods. I agree that I like the mounts, and I have collected enough to get the Albino Drake, even before they went account wide, but all mounts give are an increased movement rate. I believe most classes get an option to increase their move rate in GW2 (at least 2 of the classes I have do, I think I have heard others mention that the rest have the option as well). The flying mounts are nice, but they do mean that you miss out on a lot of what the world is like as you are just flying over the tree tops a lot of the time. I believe that this is partly why Blizzard decided that flying would not be available in Pandaria until you reached level 90, they wanted the players to see the world they had created.

The gryphon/windrider points were very nice for the first few weeks of playing, then it gets tedious having to fly or wait for a ship just to get from A to B, particularly if you are having to fly the length of the continent. Blizzard seems to have made it that if you minimize the game and go and browse other sites you DC when you land, but before they implemented this you used to normally see 3 or 4 people AFK at each flight point as they were off doing something else during what had become a boring bit for them. I much prefer the instant travel of the Asura gates and the waypoints.

You mention that WoW rewards leveling more than GW2, again I disagree. Back in Vanilla and TBC you were rewarded when you leveled. Spells had a level and you had to return to your trainer to learn the next level of any spells you had and any new ones you could learn, and after level 11 you gained a talent point every level. Now, you gain any new spell automatically, this seems to be set at about 1 spell every 3-5 levels, you only gain a talent point every 15 levels and a couple of glyphs every 25 levels. I hardly notice leveling these days, there is nothing for me to chose, it is all handed to me on a platter.

I freely admit that I am not a keen dungeoneer or raider, so gaining access to dungeons is no reward as far as I am concerned.

As for crafting, GW2 has really made it worthwhile compared to WoW, I enjoy crafting, but in WoW it does seem to be a lesson in futility and frustration. The materials in GW2 I find are easy to obtain, if it moves - kill it, if it doesn't - gather it. Salvage anything you can't use, and then you will soon have your bags full of crafting materials, which best of all, you can send back to your bank without even leaving the area you are exploring. WoW crafting has become boring. Again back pre WotLK it was better, there were recipies that required unusual ingrediants, I remember hunting particular cats just to try and get Shadowhide leather, which doesn't even exist anymore, crafting got simplified and all the interesting and different stuff got removed. As for trading it, only the top end stuff is worth trading (I don't think GW2 is much different in this matter) but to get the recipies or materials for top end items you had to do the top end dungeons or raids, which for me made crafting pointless. I haven't got far in GW2 but I am hoping that this isn't the case, I would really like to be able to make myself a legendary item at some point, but dread that I am going to have to do a dungeon to get it.

As far as specialisations and roles go, WoW again has become to hidebound for me. i enjoy the hybrid classes, particularly when they can be played as a hybrid, now you are shoehorned into tank, healer, DPS, or PVP spec, there is no solo spec, no true hybrid that can dps or heal as and when needed without having to respec the talents and re equip all the gear. In GW2 I have to work out what role I am playing and how to fit it in to the group I have joined. At the moment it is very hit and miss, but I can already see that people are sorting themselves out, as to whether they are pure dps or more a support character.

All that said, I still play, and still enjoy WoW it is just a very different game to GW2 and i think at a very different point in its development. GW2 is new and fresh, the world has still to grow, kinks have still got to be worked out, but it makes you think for yourself, you have to decide what to do, what role you are going to take. WoW spoonfeeds it to you more, it wasn't always like that but over the last 8 years it has evolved (or maybe that should be devolved) into the game that is out there now.

You ask us 'What to do', we can't answer that, all I can suggest is go out there and see what you can find to do, if nothing else do the first part of you personal story until it starts to lead you away from the starting area and then don't use the way points to get there, go on foot, and if something is happening and catches your attention, take part, if you see someone having to fight for their lives, lend a hand, if there is a node with a mob by it, fight the mob and mine the node, remember there is no kill or node stealing, everyone can help everyone else, and that to me is what makes GW2 a far superior game to WoW, everyone co-operates and everyone wins.

[Fey]

OP: To simplify everything being said. GW2 really is what you make of it. It has story for you to discover. You can openly explore anywhere in relatively any direction while you level with the only barrier being higher leveled zones and monsters. You can PvP from the get go both in WvW and in SPvP. Dungeons will open themselves up as you reach the appropriate level (you will get in game mail for it), and you can craft and gather freely.

All of these things you can do or not do by your own discretion. No one is going to give you a definitive "goal" to complete. It's one of the games greatest strengths and at the same time, one of it's greatest weaknesses. You can do whatever you want but it's easy to get lost, which is good and bad.