Dipping A Toe Into the Game's First Raid (And Having It Bit Off) - Guild Wars 2 Column

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Dipping A Toe Into the Game's First Raid (And Having It Bit Off) - Guild Wars 2 Column

What's in a name? Well, when your name is “Gorseval the Multifarious,” chances are that you're not a kind and cuddly teddy bear. Instead, you're something of a cross between a mutated tree and bloodthirsty zombie, which makes you the perfect candidate for a major boss fight in the first wing of Guild Wars 2's first raid.

Read the full story here

Pala

I may try gw2 now, starting to sound like something i might want to play. Only if thats the only challenging content i ll probably quit way before that

eye_m

I look forward to trying out the raid tonight. I already prepped a toon for tank role and I hope that will give me enough time in the raid to come up with a utility spec for one of my other toons. Excited to see how it plays out

Oldirtbeard

What concerns me is that they should have an extremely toned down version for people that barely function in the expansion areas since it obviously continues the story. Exclusive rewards are one thing but when you hide the narrative behind a clique within your guild ( the one you're not in because you suck) I call that blatant fraud since every one paid for the narrative.

Octagon7711

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

Scalpless

All of this sounds really bad to me. Granted, I'm probably not in the expansion's target audience, but I've got to wonder if swapping audiences like this will be good for ANet or GW2 in the long term. I used to be a pretty big fan of GW2, but to even participate in this content I'd have to grind for Ascended stuff so much (looks like it requires multiple sets) I'd rather go play another game.

StoneRoses

Sadly raids and many guilds are requiring Ascended gear. Anyone can put the time into getting Ascend or a Legendary, but it's doesn't make them a better player. Gearcentric and Force Crafting, so disappointing.

StoneRoses

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

mmrv

StoneRoses said:

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

Oh the irony and sadness of your statement. GW2 in all of their effort to remove "loot progression" simply replaced it with a far less fun and rewarding mechanism known as "content progression". Oh and the irony of guild requiring ascended gear to do the raid dungeon which will drop nothing beyond cosmetic improvements....just more of the epic fail that this expansion is. They really should just remove levels, all gear and call GW2 an adventure game where you repeat the same boring events over and over ad nauseum just because.

AshfordThunder

mmrv said:

StoneRoses said:

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

Oh the irony and sadness of your statement. GW2 in all of their effort to remove "loot progression" simply replaced it with a far less fun and rewarding mechanism known as "content progression". Oh and the irony of guild requiring ascended gear to do the raid dungeon which will drop nothing beyond cosmetic improvements....just more of the epic fail that this expansion is. They really should just remove levels, all gear and call GW2 an adventure game where you repeat the same boring events over and over ad nauseum just because.

[mod edit] First ascended is not hard to get in the first place, any casual player could easily get it by playing the game regularly without even trying. [mod edit]

Dreamo84

Robokapp said:

mmrv said:

StoneRoses said:

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

Oh the irony and sadness of your statement. GW2 in all of their effort to remove "loot progression" simply replaced it with a far less fun and rewarding mechanism known as "content progression". Oh and the irony of guild requiring ascended gear to do the raid dungeon which will drop nothing beyond cosmetic improvements....just more of the epic fail that this expansion is. They really should just remove levels, all gear and call GW2 an adventure game where you repeat the same boring events over and over ad nauseum just because.

progression is the heart of MMOs.

True, but sadly most MMOs have distilled said progression down to something boring and meaningless.

dws6969

OMG, seriously, MORE whining.... First, I have been enduring the crying about the wvw map not being "acceptable" to the wvw "vets" after expansion... now I see all the crying on here about "raids are too hard".... *hands you all a tissue* go play WoW you pansies... I WANT a HARD MMO.... I'm so damned tired of playing a happy meal MMO like WoW that I could scream!!! Finding Guild Wars 2 was a breath of fresh air for me... is the new content a challenge? YES!!! And GOOD!!!!! That means you have to WORK to beat it, which means you didn't WASTE your money for some cheese game.... Like I said, if you just want to throw your money away, go play that crap game we have all grown to hate and that keeps stinking up the MMORPG world, WoW. It's such a sad world that that game has become the so called "standard" in which other games are compared.... it's OLD, outdated, a money pit, unbalanced, broken, the graphics SUCK, the content SUCKS, the NPC's and baddies are generic and world is so lack luster I feel like I'm looking at Wildstar when I look at WoW.... GW2 is none of those things.... Get over it.

Leon1e

lulz, pass the salt

Dr_Binks

I have played GW2 for 3 years and I have always enjoyed the feel of the game...... Don't ask me what that feel is because I can't explain it but it's there. BUT when I play this new content I lose that feel.... it's missing something, not sure what but it just does not feel like GW2. Yes there are a lot of mobs and it's full of good fights but after a short time they just become annoying. For example.. I glided to a spot that was just like a small island and there was something there that really hit hard I could not see it so I just jumped off to glided away then I got a target over my head and roots popped out of the air too 1 shot me..... That is annoying!!! Anyway what I really wanted to say is Anet has gone out of the way to please peeps that want really hard and consent fights and in doing so they have lost the feel that GW2 had. I really wonder if this is the way they really wanted to take this game or have they made changes to their vision to please the peeps that always say it's to easy? Anyway it's missing something but I just can't say what it is.

Octagon7711

StoneRoses said:

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

Their fundamental philosophy has changed with expansion but even their living story has been going in that direction which was fine with me as I only played and enjoyed two of their living stories. Before you could acquire what you wanted anywhere in the world from different locations. Now, you can only progress your character in the new maps.

dws6969

Octagon7711 said:

StoneRoses said:

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

Their fundamental philosophy has changed with expansion but even their living story has been going in that direction which was fine with me as I only played and enjoyed two of their living stories. Before you could acquire what you wanted anywhere in the world from different locations. Now, you can only progress your character in the new maps.

lol ya, that's called an expansion.... Get it or run into a brick wall. Do you even game, bro?

arakkune

i have to say ive been playing the rade for a good 10 hours and i think this is the most fun ive had since vanilla wow in a raid. The game has made it so when u kill the first boss it feels like the most rewarding thing u've ever done. Congrats to Anet for delivering challenging and interesting content to their playerbase

StoneRoses

mmrv said:

StoneRoses said:

Octagon7711 said:

Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.

You call it gating, I call it Progression.

Oh the irony and sadness of your statement. GW2 in all of their effort to remove "loot progression" simply replaced it with a far less fun and rewarding mechanism known as "content progression". Oh and the irony of guild requiring ascended gear to do the raid dungeon which will drop nothing beyond cosmetic improvements....just more of the epic fail that this expansion is. They really should just remove levels, all gear and call GW2 an adventure game where you repeat the same boring events over and over ad nauseum just because.

Ascend gear adds about 2%-5% dps boost. There are guilds who take this very seriously. I'm in one of those guilds that has made this a requirement, they want me to raid, but I'm not crafting shit. So I don't raid instead have 7 80s with there elites unlocked. Boring boring boring,... as you and someone of you call it us nothing more than subjective. I get it, it bores you.

sLY4J

This was always a problem IMO for GW2. If this game had PvE/Dungeon content in any standard MMORPGs, it would hands down be the best MMORPG out. It's got every aspect great though.

Muke

Octagon7711 said:
Lots of gating in this expansion which was never what they were known for.


Shame they are going down on their knees and are doing raids and gating.
Now more WoW players will come in and GW2 will be offering more of that content in the future instead of staying the unique game it was.

Wizardry

StoneRoses said:

Sadly raids and many guilds are requiring Ascended gear. Anyone can put the time into getting Ascend or a Legendary, but it's doesn't make them a better player. Gearcentric and Force Crafting, so disappointing.

I cannot stand gear centric gaming,it turned me away from my favorite franchise Final Fantasy.

I would never copy a single idea from any Blizzard game and why devs keep doing it is beyond me.I also cannot stand Raiding at all,i prefer 5-6 man grouping and non instanced.

Loke666

Pala said:

I may try gw2 now, starting to sound like something i might want to play. Only if thats the only challenging content i ll probably quit way before that

Well, fractals and the new zones are pretty chellenging even if they are generally easier than the raid. The open world however (the part from the main game and not the expansion) is as mind numbing easy as other MMOs. It wasn't in the first open beta week but then they nerfed things badly and the areas they still were hard like Orr have been nerfed more times since.

Dungeons have also been seriously nerfed even if there still is a few paths that can be challenging.

GeezerGamer

Wizardry said:

StoneRoses said:

Sadly raids and many guilds are requiring Ascended gear. Anyone can put the time into getting Ascend or a Legendary, but it's doesn't make them a better player. Gearcentric and Force Crafting, so disappointing.

I cannot stand gear centric gaming,it turned me away from my favorite franchise Final Fantasy.

I would never copy a single idea from any Blizzard game and why devs keep doing it is beyond me.I also cannot stand Raiding at all,i prefer 5-6 man grouping and non instanced.

Because it's the only thing developers can think of to keep players........"in the loop" and keep them logging back in.

"I just spent the last 20 game hours repeating the exact same thing I did in the previous 20 game hours. But look! I have a 1.9% increase in dps output against a non moving dummy! If I'm really good, I might be able to realize half of that in real game combat."

Loke666

Wizardry said:

StoneRoses said:

Sadly raids and many guilds are requiring Ascended gear. Anyone can put the time into getting Ascend or a Legendary, but it's doesn't make them a better player. Gearcentric and Force Crafting, so disappointing.

I cannot stand gear centric gaming,it turned me away from my favorite franchise Final Fantasy.

I would never copy a single idea from any Blizzard game and why devs keep doing it is beyond me.I also cannot stand Raiding at all,i prefer 5-6 man grouping and non instanced.

The difference between the easy to get orange gear and the red/purple is really not that much but then some guilds really don't care and demands all members must have top ranked gear anyways. Only times when it matters is in the higher level fractals and only because you needsome ascended runes on your gear to not get constant damage there.

Heck, my main still have an exotic helmet, shoulderpads and one earing... Never really bothered with filling out those because the difference is hardly noticeable. I will probably eventually but I usually have better use for my materials. As for getting the crafting level up I accidently put the Bifrost collection on the wrong character and had to level up the characters artificing from 0 to 450 (500 is max), took me less than 30 minutes but then did I have my mat storage pretty full.

They have actually changed the crafting of ascended gear so getting silk is far easier but you need more crafting mats to make them. I am not sure if the time to make them have gone up or down due to that, havn't bothered actually crafting any ascended armors or weapons since HOT came out.

GW2 is clearly more gear centric than the first game but it is still far less so than any other modern MMO I can think of.

kamien

Gw2 Before HoT solid 7.5/10
Gw2 with expansion so far its a good 8.5/10 to me.
They made it harder, and that's what I've been begging for for 3 years.

pingo

thankfully Raid rewards are cosmetic so it doesn't lock you out of having a powerful character. I like the way they are taking fractals. I feel raids is for hardcore players, while fractals is more for normal people. I also like that they are improving the ascended rewards so they are easier to get.

The new zones are really challenging. It will still take a few months before more people really get good at beating the zones and meta events like Tequatl.