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Hitting A Wall With Guild Wars 2
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Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
Hitting A Wall With Guild Wars 2
Robin's been playing Guild Wars 2 since it launched in 2012, but is noticing her drive to play, especially recently, has cratered. Robin explains why she feels this happened in her latest Guild Wars 2 blog.
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I want this legendary. Those skins. To gear multiple new alts. All at the same time.
It's my bad habit and my fault, but it is exhausting. Contrary to the sentiment that there is nothing to do, I find myself overwhelmed.
The point of the Icebrood Saga is the arrogance of the person who thought he could control an Elder Dragon, was just that, arrogance and misunderstanding and they paid for it (SPOILER ALERT). They wanted to show all the different aspects that each Elder Dragon has. - Modremoth was mind control, his mind superior to yours. Kralkatorrik was Anger and rage. Zhaitan was making everyone it's dead minions. Jormag is the little 'whisper' in your ear, and this one is the most insidious as you are not sure if you are making the decisions or is it the Dragon's influence.
I find the game fun. I do not have any Legendaries nor do I have the Skyscale or Gryphon nor do I need them. It is all choice, your choice. Not forced, but what YOU want.
People now are complaining they have too many choices. What will be next?
The problem is, the moment you start asking yourself what meaningful, non-repetitive thing can I next do in GW, the soap bubble bursts and you realize you are playing the wrong game.
Just my two cents.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Most games out there have tons of repetitive things. I played many and they all do the same. WoW, RIFT, TERA, LOTRO, etc. Can you name one that doesn't? So, throwing GW2 under the bus for repetitiveness, you throw them all under the bus
Just because a game is repetitive, doesn't mean that FUN game play isn't possible (i.e. tetris)
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
that dont even make sense anymore the biggest drive in pretty much any and all mmos are the cosmetics people would be bored as hell if they only had 2 or 3 visuals in a game now. even old text based games it was all about the flavor text always and always will be a thing.
This is a problem that will only get worse as the game almost only gets seasonal lore content. Expansions come out with a raid, a new major feature, a new probably-meta elite, but gear... doesn't really upgrade that much.
This really disconnects me from the "progression" side of things. Yes, I got slivers of a stat more from completing the raid, between my Exo and Ascended, but does it show? Sure if I compare the entire sets, but as you progress, you probably won't go from no Ascended to full Ascended so, it doesn't "really" show.
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For new players, I can definitely tell you, having done it recently: The story progression is a massive, steel wall for anyone wanting to get into the game. You'll finish Zhaitan at 80, because it's gated. If you wanna proceed with the expansion, for the glider and the much faster elite progression... Hold your horses, that's not the next step story-wise.
You gotta go through the living world seasons. Character building from the base game is almost completely useless, as the story continues with these new characters introduced in living world. The first season can't be played anymore, so you get a video. That's the equivalent of watching a playthrough on youtube... Not great if you intend to care, to put thousands of hours into the game.
Not only do these take a really long time and barely reward you, they also cost money before and after PoF! It's like ANet doesn't want you to play the story, but that's also the only content that comes out between expansions that are (now) 3+ years apart.
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For a new player, I guess the game's probably cool if you're gonna treat it like a lobby to do activities.
It's fucking amazing that folks still come out swing with the idea and argument on why a MMORPG is repetitive. Talk about the brilliance among us.
What makes any game not repetitive?
There is still a pattern doing the same fucking thing over and over again.
Some games add more or less steps to the execution.
It's no different than hangout at a bar every night, as it is always raid night looking for that legendary reward drop.
Note Changing the gear meta every few months is not exciting at all
PoF was much better with making me feel like my character was actually progressing.
I loved GW2, because I could play on my terms, I did not have set a schedule, or anything, I could just log in for a little bit, and not only have fun socializing, I could make some progress on whatever, or many no real direction, just make some arbitrary progress.
When raids got put in, the whole dynamic of the game changed for me, now, they were all about "Challenge" and putting in Raids, and having this whole Tier of content that unless I went back to scheduling my time, and building some raid team to run with, I was never going to get.
Truth be told, the largest appeal of GW2 was that I didn't have to do that.
So.. when they chose to do that, I went back to playing DDO, I mean, look, GW2 is a fun game and all that, but if I was gonna have to raid anyway, DDO's Dungeons and Raid are the best designed content ever, without question.
I did return to GW2 a few times, because, I really wanted to keep loving that game, so many parts were really great, like a 6 course meal of awesomeness, and in the middle of this buffet of a meal was this huge turd called Raids with legendary armor locked behind them.
To each their own I guess. But I understand where the writer is coming from, just that feeling of wanting to feel like you are making progress, but you know, you're dead ended right where you are.