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Playing GW2


Totemdancer

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Some thoughts on playing GW2 for the last two weeks

My partner, friends and guild have all left swtor over the last 6 months and I have to say my patience is about to break too. Not only do I feel the game boring now, but with all my play buddies gone too, it's not even social.

We'd played World of Warcraft for 9 years before swtor, I tried to go back a month ago and I just can't get into the child like, Saturday morning cartoon graphics. Even the game play is boring after playing swtor, especially the pvp.

 

Anyway, a friend of ours suggested we try GW2. After watching a few YouTube vids and some reviews, we decided to give it a go. All I can say after 2 weeks is WOW, this game is amazing. It's exactly what swtor could be with some effort. For too long Bioware have been cloning Warcraft, when they should have been cloning GW2.

The graphics are great and character detail is amazing and FPS hardly moves from when you setup your settings. There is little to minimal lag even playing at 250ms, you can hardly tell it's there. Unlike swtor, where 250ms feels like 500ms and you have constant lag spikes and FPS changes.

The mechanics of questing feel more adult and more advanced. Rarely do you need to go to an NPC to get a quests, Everything just seems to flow and RP is a breeze and feels organic, even for my partner who isn't really an RP sort of person. Area events are often activated by people and failing them or winning them can have real affects on the area.

Community is fanstastic. Cooperation from fellow players who aren't in your group doesn't affect your game because you all get the same reward for helping. That means that you can have random people or groups all working towards helping each other. I have yet to see anyone Rage at another person for any reason and I've not seen one troll.

So far I've been in battles with about 20 players against 30 or more respawning mobs and there has been zero lag or performance issues. (Swtor would break if you tried to do that)

The way they handle pvp is also amazing. Even if you are lvl one, you can jump into the lvl 80 pvp lobby and you get all of the abilities and gear of a lvl 80 player. This means you are all on a lvl playing field and it's only about skill. Then you also have World vs World pvp where you fight 2 other servers for 2 weeks. It's 20 vs 20 vs 20 at a time and people come and go, so you've always got 20 people on your team. The mechanics for it is amazing and you can jump into devices like cannons on towers to shoot enemies. People don't Rage at others, but actually help them and show them what to do.

Then you have gearing. Sure you gear up every few lvls to get better stats, but if you have a look that you love, you can get a skin to wear and it doesn't matter what gear you put on because it will look awesome. Not only that, but they have a much more advanced way to colour dye the gear (you also don't need to buy dyes) and you can make yourself look really different to someone else in the same gear.

With Weapons and abilities, I have to say this is one of my favourite thing about the game. Depending on what weapons or mix of weapons you use, determines your abilities. Say I have a two handed staff on a specific class and it gives you a lot of healing abilities, but I want to dps more, all I do is swap my weapons to say a sword or and axe and a sword or a gun and mace, etc. There are so many combinations and each weapon will give you different abilities, so it never gets boring. You can also swap out weapons in combat with a simple button push (when you get to a certain lvl). Most classes can also use some ranged, AOE or melee depending on weapons equiped. What is good is you only have 10 of these abilities in your task bar at a time and you don't have taskbar ability bloat. It makes keybinding and muscle memory much easier to get used to.

There are also no class role determined by your choice in profession (class) in the normal trinity sense, like tank, dps and heals. Just about any class (profession) has some ability to do all 3 depending on weapons and other choices, the only trinity is heavy armor, medium armor and light armor. Of course some do it better than others.

If you make friends or aquatinces and put them in your friends list, it goes under your account name and not each toon. That means you can chat to them even if they are on a different toon that before,

There are somethings that swtor has that GW2 doesn't, like a better GTN (auction house), account bank, personal storage and the ability to customise the GUI more. Swtor also has more voice actors and one on ones. But swtor choices often have zero affect or low reprecussions to choices, where as GW2 choices have more consequences on how you proceeed. SWTOR also has a better emote system.

I could keep going on and on about the game and comparing the two. What I will say is if Bioware were to spend sometime looking at all the good things about GW2 and incorporating them instead of cloning Warcraft all the time, then swtor would be the gold standard of MMOs. Having the Star Wars name and the best things about swtor combined with the best things of GW2 would be amazing.

 

GW2 uses a different model to to make money. They require you to buy the game, which isn't cheap if you buy the ultimate edition (there are cheaper versions), but you also don't pay a subscription each month. Over the course of the year I think players are better off. GW2 does have a store though, but its not RNG boxes/packs like swtor, you can actually buy most of what you want directly without the risk of wasting money. Even then, most of it is cosmetic and not something that is pay to win. They also have paid for expansions and seasons (major content patches) instead of just relying on people to sub. Of course you can play for free, but you are hampered more than swtor with what you can do (which is how it should be. You get what you pay for). I think this model stops them relying the store to make most of their money and having to worry about people unsubbing between content or if they aren't happy. This gives GW2 Devs the resources to make good quality expansions and content. So far I've not seen one bug (fingers crossed) and the game seems really polished as you would expect from a 5 year old game 🙄. This is definitely a model Bioware should use so they have the resources and don't rely on spamming reskinned items on the CM.

We played GW2 for about 3 days on F2P and fell in love with the game quality, mechanics and friendly community so much, that we both bought the ultimate version.

 

But don't think I don't like swtor anymore. It's been one of my favourite games of all time and I've played non stop since launch. I wouldn't have even gone looking for another game if Bioware hadn't destroyed the fun with 5.x and driven my friends and guildies away from the game. It has saddened me all year to see the game continue to decline even after Keith came onboard and promised changes to fix it, but all that's happened is it's gotten worse. My wish is they will fix the game and return it to some semblance of its former self and make it attractive enough for my friends and guildies to come back. Swtor will always have a special place in my heart. I'm still subscribed even though my partner is now pressuring me to stop since we've now bought GW2. She says it's a waste of money if I'm not playing swtor, so I've made a deal with her that I'll unsub if there aren't at least some meaningful and positive changes in the right direction by 5.5. I've also got to play it 8 hours a week or the deals off, so if I get too much into GW2 and stop playing swtor I'll be unsubscribing sooner.

If I had to rate swtor, Warcraft and GW2 out of 10 as they currently are, it would be like this.

swtor 4.5/10

wow 5/10

GW2 9/10 (so far as I've still got rose coloured glasses on)

I'd love for the Bioware guys to go check out GW2 and see what they could use to improve swtor 😉

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You'll get a certain amount of raging in dungeons, directed at people who are underperforming. And dungeons are *not* vet-mode FPs. They are closer to somewhere between Vet and Master, with a bit of Uprising added in.

 

Beware also of the large quantity of mechanics-driven boss fights in the various stages of the Personal Story. I mean, you think the Vaylin fight in Chapter IX of KotET is bad - the people who come on here and say it is impossible would be completely lost in a fairly ordinary GW2 boss fight.

 

And you won't be able to go there and escape from being the Outlander / Commander. The next expansion will be taking us to Elona. Our fellow Tyrians will continue to call us "Commander", while the Elonans will call us "Outlander". (OK, it's true that to them we are foreign, but it was still a little unexpected to hear that during the preview weekend.)

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I think its a matter of personal preference. I used to play GW2 a fair bit, then stopped, went back recently and in some ways ESO's action combat spoiled me, because I found GW2 version so clumsy and uncomfortable despite being VERY similar in nature.

 

quests... GW2 has quests that are started by npc's. you think hearts are a more advanced way of doing it. I think and wish there were more quest npc's in GW2 than the few you get for the personal story. at first filling in the hearts and joining events in progress felt novel. and then it because even more tedious than traditional quest npc quests.

 

I disagree that GTN is better then Lion's trading. Lion's trading is one of the best auction systems I have ever come across. you can list things from anywhere, you can participate in currency exchange but best part is... people can place orders and you can chose lower profit for 100% guaranteed immediate sale by filling the order. and listings as far as I know - don't expire.

 

you do kinda need to buy dyes if you want any colors beyond the basic set they give you. you could try to craft them, but honestly I have found that its easier and cheaper to just buy most colors from lion's trading for a few silver, then try to craft random dye packs and hope you get something good and not 5 repeats of the same common dye (naturally highly in demand rare colors cost obscene amounts of gold, but they have also been getting a little bit more affordable as they have started showing up in anniversary rewards last few years). but.. once they ARE unlocked - the system is brilliant I do agree. as is using outfit stamps to change the look of the gear. (at first amount of tokens can feel limiting, but eventually you end up with a LOT of them through game play so don't even need to buy them from cash shop)

 

that said... I'm not sure SWTOR should be copying GW2, per se. certain parts of it, like dye/outfit system - yeah, but gameplay in general? eh. and its kinda funny to me that you love GW2 graphics so much, while disparaging cartoonish graphics of WoW.. despite the fact that GW2 art style is pretty cartoonish. just different type of cartoon, more anime then disney. but they are still both cartoonish. (not saying GW2 is not pretty, its ridiculously pretty, its main reason why i still have it installed, every once in a while I log in and just travel around looking at all the pretty, its a very beautiful game)

 

anyways, enjoy :) its always nice to find the game you love playing :) (for me its been ESO lately, for some of my old guildies its finally fantasy, some moved on to secret world legends... and some stopped playing mmo's all together... congrats on all of you ending up in the same game! )

Edited by Jeweledleah
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  • 2 weeks later...

To each their own of course. I played GW2 for a few months and couldn't get into it.

 

I found the stories horrible, the cut-scenes bad and the voice acting atrocious. Swtor is the big winner there.

 

I hated the pvp. The battlegrounds became repetitive and boring. The world pvp was abymal. Admittedly I played when the game first released so it might be better now, but the fps fell through the floor. And the conditions and curses were both confusing and didn't seem to do anything. And it all felt pointless, like nothing I did ever mattered.

 

Plus having no trinity, no healer, made dungeons horrible.

 

Graphics wise I'd call it a draw.

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I have recently went back to GW2. What I like about them is that you can play free to play and not feel limited especially if you PVP. I also like that all you have to pay for is expansions and you do not have a monthly sub fee. I do a little of everything in there.

 

Everyone is different, but the stories are more challenging. They also have some of the same voice actors that we have in SWTOR.

 

I honestly like the PVP more in GW2. Most of the maps have a similar caping of nodes like SWTOR, but most have added objectives also. I like before we jump in we get to vote on the map we would like to do, but its still random. Even if one person voted on one map, there is still a chance that map will be the one picked as its still random. I have actually seen it happen. There is no difference between unranked and ranked pvp in there other than the rewards. In regards to nodes, people don't guard nodes like they do in SWTOR. Its more about rotating back and forth, but the nodes are usually not to far away.

 

WVW is actually fun. That is a mix of PVE and PVP. In order to be able to do WVW with the guild you are in, you need to be on the same world or linked with the same world. The linking happens every couple months or so I believe so the linked server are not aways the same. WVW matchups are reset every Friday.

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only thing i'd really want from GW2 in SWTOR is the WvW.. i mean i prefer PvP and would love to see some huge battles Star Wars style.

 

as for GW2 it's pretty cool except for story.. and the combat system while somewhat unique isn't that great(not a fan of the weapon swap and all the conditions).

Edited by hallucigenocide
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GW2 is a solid mmo but what turned me off about it was that after a certain point you just have to grind so you can progress further in the story, and I don't mean 1 or 2 levels, over 10+ levels the last I remember. It just got boring, however, it's been a while since I've played so that may have changed since then.
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GW2 is a solid mmo but what turned me off about it was that after a certain point you just have to grind so you can progress further in the story, and I don't mean 1 or 2 levels, over 10+ levels the last I remember. It just got boring, however, it's been a while since I've played so that may have changed since then.

Somewhere along the way they changed the personal story (equivalent, roughly, of the vanilla class story in SWTOR) from "whenever you are high enough level" to "each chapter unlocks at level 10-times-chapter-number", so you have to grind from 1 to 10 to unlock chapter 1, then wherever you finish that to 20 to unlock chapter 2, and so on. That may be what you're seeing.

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If I had to rate swtor, Warcraft and GW2 out of 10 as they currently are, it would be like this.

swtor 4.5/10

wow 5/10

GW2 9/10 (so far as I've still got rose coloured glasses on)

I'd love for the Bioware guys to go check out GW2 and see what they could use to improve swtor 😉

 

Lets see......... two older MMOs you are likely bored with get a low score and the new shiny thing (to you) gets a high score.

 

Human nature in action. :)

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well I was going to post this in a separate thread, but would anyone be interested in this achievement in GW1?

 

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Legendary_Survivor_of_Ascalon

 

also I plan to get all the HoM goodies...

 

PM me if so :)

Beware: it's a "personal interest" achievement and doesn't give access to any HoM points. And getting *all* the HoM goodies in the current state of the game will be really hard owing to the very, very low player base. Even the deadest SWTOR servers are more lively than GW1.

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Interesting. Does gw 2 has in its "store" anything that influence pve or pvp? Or it has only cosmetic things?

Some of the stuff in the Black Lion chests (killed foe drops) are helpful(1), and the keys for those are only available in quantity in the store.

 

(1) Especially when the BLCs are in the habit of dropping Globs of Ectoplasm, as these are necessary for crafting the toppest-tiers of gear. Right now they aren't dropping those, but are dropping vast quantities of crafting materials.

 

But mostly it's cosmetic, and the non-cosmetic things (e.g. unlimited gathering tools, especially the ones that gather Unbound Magic) tend to be craft-oriented rather than combat-oriented.

 

There are boosters for things like XP and Karma, and the Copper-fed Salvage-O-Matic (?name) is useful for harvesting "Luck" objects that will eventually raise your "Magic Find" percentage, giving you more non-money loot. Even then, it's a convenience feature rather than *necessary* - if you don't have it, you have to keep buying more salvage tools, and that gets ... old ... pretty quickly.

 

EDIT: Forgot: some of the older content (Living World Seasons 2 and 3)(2) require unlocks from the Gem Store.

 

(2) I call LWS3 "older", but it only recently finished. It isn't really required to be able to play the new expansion, although it does establish the backstory for it.

Edited by SteveTheCynic
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Beware: it's a "personal interest" achievement and doesn't give access to any HoM points. And getting *all* the HoM goodies in the current state of the game will be really hard owing to the very, very low player base. Even the deadest SWTOR servers are more lively than GW1.

 

you would be surprised, I see more people on America 1 map in GW1 pre searing even at late night hours, than I do on Tython. as for the HoM goodies regardless of the pre searing personal goals it just takes time and with it linked to GW2 and pay once to play with no subscription fees and extremely cheap store items it is a far better choice. seriously look at the store prices in GW1 compared to SWTOR. not only that as long as GW2 is thriving there will always be people in GW1... :)

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Some of the stuff in the Black Lion chests (killed foe drops) are helpful(1), and the keys for those are only available in quantity in the store.

 

(1) Especially when the BLCs are in the habit of dropping Globs of Ectoplasm, as these are necessary for crafting the toppest-tiers of gear. Right now they aren't dropping those, but are dropping vast quantities of crafting materials.

 

But mostly it's cosmetic, and the non-cosmetic things (e.g. unlimited gathering tools, especially the ones that gather Unbound Magic) tend to be craft-oriented rather than combat-oriented.

 

There are boosters for things like XP and Karma, and the Copper-fed Salvage-O-Matic (?name) is useful for harvesting "Luck" objects that will eventually raise your "Magic Find" percentage, giving you more non-money loot. Even then, it's a convenience feature rather than *necessary* - if you don't have it, you have to keep buying more salvage tools, and that gets ... old ... pretty quickly.

 

EDIT: Forgot: some of the older content (Living World Seasons 2 and 3)(2) require unlocks from the Gem Store.

 

(2) I call LWS3 "older", but it only recently finished. It isn't really required to be able to play the new expansion, although it does establish the backstory for it.

 

The best gear is obtainable by crafting?? And this store provides much for crafting it?? Meh, sounds BAD. I dont like crafting, esp when it requires real money to make it easier and faster

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The best gear is obtainable by crafting?? And this store provides much for crafting it?? Meh, sounds BAD. I dont like crafting, esp when it requires real money to make it easier and faster

 

The thing your missing though is at higher levels you can make gold to exchange for gems (store currency) so in fact it only costs you time playing the game. I have a friend who plays GW2 only real $$ she spent was on expansions. The base game is free now and expansion prices are very low for what you get compared to other games basically if you bought 7000 CC here you could of bought mid to top tier of GW2 expansions...

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I was a huge GW 1 player and done the Pre-order for GW2 but in those days when you hit 80 the game had nothing to offer so I gave up even though I don't play it I bought the HOT expansion and never really done anything but I heard the game does have good end game well kind of now :)
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The best gear is obtainable by crafting?? And this store provides much for crafting it?? Meh, sounds BAD. I dont like crafting, esp when it requires real money to make it easier and faster

It doesn't *require* the store. It just makes it less work. And crafting Ascended and Legendary gear mostly requires in-game time, not actual materials.

 

The Globs of Ectoplasm can be obtained by what amounts to RE-for-materials (called "Salvaging" in GW games) from "Exotic" gear using in-game resources.

 

And this gear isn't *just* by crafting. Well. Legendaries are "crafted" by putting the right items in the Mystic Forge (or you can pay the equivalent of tens of millions of credits, maybe more on the auction house, but that just means someone else crafted it), while Ascended gear is either crafted using more "crafting"-like methods OR by buying them from the right vendors for the right special currency. (If you don't want to use those vendors, you have to craft the gear yourself, because it is account-bound.)

 

"real money" in GW2 is no more and no less than a source of convenience (boosters, field-rez boxes, field-armour-repair cans, things that drop some materials, *reliable* salvage tools, everlasting gathering tools, etc.) and frillies (outfits, gear skins, dyes, glider skins(1), minipets, that sort of thing).

 

(1) When you learn gliding, you get a basic glider skin. If you don't like the look, you acquire one of the fancy-looking ones, but they don't work better as gliders. If you don't care what your glider looks like, don't bother getting a skin. The only way to glide better is to learn skills, and that requires you to *play* rather than spend money.

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yeah, the store is very optional. I actualy have those never ending harvesting tools and even when I was playing more, I barely used them, becasue I got so many scaling tools from just participating on holiday events that I literally couldn't run through them before next event would start. granted, I was always very casual, but the point is - its very much convenience and vanity sort of thing.

 

P.S. living world chapters are sold for people who weren't playing at the time they were originally released. all the future chapters, as long as you log in at some point while they are current - you get to keep forever, at no extra charge. last but not least - there is a gold to gems trading system in a game, so if you are good at gold making you can get pretty much everything from the cash shop without spending any money. on a flip side, if you would rather not farm gold and have disposable cash galore in RL - you can just buy gold with gems. similar to cartel market items selling on GTN, except the trading goes both ways and rather then trade items, you trade currency directly via portion of market interface.

Edited by Jeweledleah
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The thing your missing though is at higher levels you can make gold to exchange for gems (store currency) so in fact it only costs you time playing the game. I have a friend who plays GW2 only real $$ she spent was on expansions. The base game is free now and expansion prices are very low for what you get compared to other games basically if you bought 7000 CC here you could of bought mid to top tier of GW2 expansions...

 

Thats the issue. I NEVER bought any cc coins. In fact the only money i spend in swtor is only for subscription, i dont like when the game provides faster ways for gearing up, gaining money for real money. I never pay more than for subscription and new expansions. Mmo companies musnt take money for more.

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Thats the issue. I NEVER bought any cc coins. In fact the only money i spend in swtor is only for subscription, i dont like when the game provides faster ways for gearing up, gaining money for real money. I never pay more than for subscription and new expansions. Mmo companies musnt take money for more.

So you *work* in the game. If you want the frillies or the convenience features from the store, you pay in real money or in play-time, take your pick. (You can exchange in either direction between gold ("credits") and gems ("CCs"), but to buy gems with gold, you have to earn the gold by playing.)

 

Is it worth spending play-time to gain gold to buy gems compared to spending dollars or pounds or euros to buy gems directly? Only you can answer that question for you. But there are plenty of nice armour and weapon skins available in-game, ones that you can *only* gain by playing.

 

There is nothing in the gem store that will make your character move faster, do more damage, heal more damage, take less damage, or glide better. The best you'll get is that you can do those things sooner because you have e.g. an increased XP gain.

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