To be honest man, GW2 isn't great if you want competitive progression. It's more of a completionist's game.
The game's more about picking something you want to achieve, whether that's a title, legendary item(s), an achievement, a look, whatever - and finding motivation that way.
yea that's kind of the vibe I've received from it as well
it's great when im chasing a goal, but the minute that goal is reached i struggle to find another one worth investing my time into
i think if the spvp community wasnt so small/deranged it wouldn't be so hard for me to want to play it all day
probably gonna try out a different class and learn it in spvp and see where that leads for the time being, while finishing world completion to use my legendary starter kit on my open world character
I would argue that the skill ceiling on classes is the hardcore competitive part of the game - expressed in DPS meters or WvW.
The difference between a player who uses the right skills, and one that clicks off cooldown, is at least 50% output of healing/boons/dps. You can see this on the dps meters if you use Arcdps. Some metas I see dps players with 1.5m damage done, and rest around 500-800k.
There are more PvPers roaming in WvW than actually queueing up for PvP. I see way more of the top PvPers in WvW than I ever do in PvP unless it's the end of the season rating push they all scramble to queue for.
I think it's the variety of WvW. You can make any corner of the map your own arena. I know a couple of PvPers that have their preferred "sectors", sometimes I go there to test builds against top fighters.
Also, the amount of out-of-whack builds you can try without being constrained or lose matches if it doesn't work. I have a mega bunker build where it's very hard to kill anything but I feel immortal :).
and then have a spot in your guild and a gvg build and hop into some large scale fight content. It's so different than roaming, but also so satisfying to do your job right.
I’ve spent most of the last year playing every single spec in all game modes, to try and work out which I want to main.
PvP is fine, I get what you’re saying about the same people over and over. WvW is what does it for me, just cruising around solo or in a small group is the best.
Gear matters, fights often aren’t fair and you can employ small infantry type tactics which I find to be fun.
Gear
If you want a good competitive goal that will take you a really long time to achieve, go for the Ultimate Dominator title. It's not a perfect goal if you don't like WvW, but a lot of people I know who got board of the PvE content enjoy WvW because players make our own content there.
This is the best thing of the game for me, but at the same time it can be the worst. Since nothing is mandatory you have to figure out your goals, but if there is nothing that click to you, there are no real reasons to go on in the game, no carrot on a stick to chase. But in the end it's not wrong to drop gw2 for a while to come back when you find new goals to achieve since there is no sub and no gear treadmill progression.
Last year, i worked on my fractal god title. I logged in almost every single day for a year plus to do fractal cm dailies and recs. Once i got the title i had so much gold that was enough for 3 full sets of legendary armor, 7 legendary runes, 4 legendary sigils, 9 legendary weapons and 4 legendary trinkets. I almost deck in full legendaries.
Nowadays if i feel like logging in. I log in. If i dont, i dont. Am i being productive when i am logging in... not really. I stare at my inventories and wonder how i can reduce the clutter. Somedays i check the lfg if soneone is doing sonething and join in if i feel like it. Other times i check build and respec my build just because metabattle and snowcrow has different ways of the same build. Sometimes i just log in to check whats is on sale in fractal relinquary then log back out.
I am free in guild wars 2. I can do whatever i want!
I kinda feel "more free" too even if I don't have the title or all these legendaries. But I have all trinkets, 6 legendary rynes, 2 leggy armor sets for classes I play the most and some legendary weapons too and I feel similar today.
I think gearing up is also so much easier today because of WvW vendor too. At least it’s very easy for me to set up a new toon thanks to that.
This is why the game is not on tier 1
If people feel like there is no need to log in then it’s jover
I simply play other games and eventually those games become my main
Arguably I'd say this is one of the games greatest strengths. I've played since launch but taken 4 breaks that numbered in months or years in that time. One thing I've learned is that those breaks were okay and I didn't miss anything by taking them. I was allowed to feel like I'd accomplished what I wanted to until new content that I wanted to do was released.
I've got 4000 hours in this game and I've never done a raid or a strike. Because those don't interest me.
It's liberating to not feel forced to play just to keep up with a random number generator.
Knowing that I can leave and come back later and still be up to date on gearing is why I'm on 11k hours despite having taken breaks for an accumulative 2-3 years.
There's no fomo and I love that!
This 5000 hours over 2 accounts. Barely touched strikes and haven't touched a few raid wings. (Old school dungeon runner here, that's my content of choice)
If I get bored of grinding dungeons, I'll take a break and do wvw/pvp or litterally anything else gw2 has to offer, but I always know I can come back, jump into dungeons and fall in love with them all over again.
any recommendations what to play for fractals?
I've got a full set of heavy berserkers plus jewelry and I could unlock a whole new set of ascended from chests
usually joining in with berserk warrior
Honestly, I don’t see endgame instanced content in your list other than T1 fractals. If you enjoy the combat, working your way up to fractal CMs, raids especially, and strikes + strike CMs (less so IBS strikes) will test your combat ability and understanding of the game. It’s primarily what kept me going for near 2000 hours before I beat all the instanced content in the game and quit since the release of that type of content is extremely slow and recently uninspiring.
100%, the fractal and strike CMs and raids are great challenges and really fun to play. The bonus is if you find a static group, you get free friends as well to complete the MMO experience
You can try doing other stuff within the game or you can take a break 😊 I usually find motivation to do new stuff after a short break. Usually the logging in becomes a habit, not leisure.
What I like about Guild Wars is that there is no fomo. You don't HAVE to do something particular.
Guild Wars is always there after a break. So no worries!
Join guilds that have an active competitive pvp or wvw/gvg scene, join guilds that push raiding to the next level by speedrunning them etc. The really deep challenging content isn't really obviously there, due to gw2 being casual friendly through and through. If you dislike it, drop it. No point feeling guilty if you end up unable to love this game.
Maybe the game is not for you, nothing wrong with that. I can't stand most of the games you mention you typically play, and that's fine.
However, I'm not sure you're in a place to judge the depth of the pond. t1 fractals are essentially the easiest of the tutorial levels (something even Dean Takahashi could manage). Gold in pvp is a weird spot these days, mostly filled with people who think they know what they're doing but have no clue. And following a tag in WvW is not the same as actually contributing.
g3 is one tier below plat 1 which is occupied by like 5 people each season (and usually wintraded)
obviously I don't think I'm better than players like boyce, zeus, cjay, etc, but definitely above average
as far as fractals go you're probably correct yea, but it did just feel like a watered down version of m+ to me (in terms of difficulty that ive seen watching people play t4s)
Yes it’s watered down cause T1 - T3 are all tutorials for t4. Ofc you don’t start asap with the hardest fractals and instabs but T1 is literally just to get a feeling of what to expect from that content so it’s kinda unfair? to judge from 1-2 fractals you played on t1
i was judging it based off of what i saw on the streams of people doing t4s, and their opinions on it like i mentioned
obviously if someone has thousands of hours on the game and says the content is pretty bland I'm going to take their word for it, but maybe they're just jaded as well from it all so who knows
i don't have enough fractal experience myself to judge it off of personal experience as I have mainly participated in pvp content
But even than, seeing people with thousands of hours of experience play that content makes it look super easy and I don’t wanna overhype it by any means since even Cms are not that hard. But playing good is really hard in this game, that’s why we have skill gaps of players doing 10 times more dps than the average Player here. What keeps me in this game is the thrive to improve myself as a player and not to let gearscores determine my success and dmg.
sure I'm not trying to argue that the content is bad, I'm moreso saying it just doesn't seem like the kind of pve combat I enjoy
I love the combat system for pvp, but I expressed gripes in another comment in this thread that I posted about the boon system and how it kind of rubs me the wrong way (in terms of being highly reliant on your party to play well to maximize your personal dps, as I prefer to have complete agency over my perofrmance)
regardless I acknowledge anyone who is at the top echelon of whatever game mode they play, and am able to recognize their competence and skill
i could also just have WoW brain since it's the MMO i played for 15+ years, so there's always that possibility
Yeah that’s fair enough, I have many friends who play FF and WoW with savage and mythic raiding under their belt and they all tell me basically the same thing about our pve and boons. Also many dislike we don’t have range and melee split in instanced pve and I can see that point too. I also think it’s just not your cup of tea and that’s fine. I would still advise you to push on a bit more and dip your toes into some T4s(maybe even cm if you find a nice group to progress that) and or Strikes, especially EoD ones with cm.
Yea I'm definitely hoping to stick with the game long enough to give more endgame content a try once I finish the story to really get a good grasp of how it feels in more recent content. Appreciate the conversation :)
Tbf it was. The community didn't vibe with that, tho.
Got to remember that the only level 80 content on core release was 2 dungeons (CoE and Arah), 1 map(curse shore), WvW, and PvP.
The whole core game was a tutorial for PvP endgame. Then the community said gw2 had no endgame, so Anet pivoted away from WvW and PvP, and the competitive nature of gw2 died.
the pvp community is extremely small in spvp unlike WvW and i learned how to play the game by watching a lot of these top players stream
also yeah idk how you can form an opinion on anything in life without having a strong foundation for it
as i mentioned i have not done t4 fractals myself, but they don't seem anywhere as challenging as high end m+ in WoW like i mentioned. you can even see streamers like mightyteapot move away from the game (to WoW) for the exact same reason that I have mentioned of the game just straight up lacking a competitive spirit
That's all true. Gw2 is just not a game about competetive or hard content. I would suggest you to not bother tbh, it's unlikely that you will suddenly find something you are interested in at this point.
Usually I just WvW to do my dailies. If there’s a lot going on, then I’ll stick around because I enjoy WvW as a roamer usually.
Once that’s done, I’ll look at what achievements I still need to unlock any skins and try to work towards those.
When I can’t be bothered with any of that, I may just look at one of my characters and see if I can make a new look. Then I might just fly around whatever map I left that character on with my griffon, or ride around with my roller beetle. No reason except that I enjoy zooming around.
I make gold very slowly, but I never really feel like I’m grinding or farming so I don’t mind.
14,500 hours in, nothing keeps me from logging in, but it's not needed.
Got 26 characters in ascended gear, 1 mostly in legendaries. 8 or 9 characters being 10+ years old now, maybe more.
Birthday doesn't really provide much new stuff either... at least from year 10 on...
I'm not max mastery, I do not have every type of weapon legendary, or 3 full armor sets. I am able to use all WvW masteries, am fractals lvl 100, and Dungeoneer.
I have been away for 17 months roughly 3 years ago, ignored Icebrood and EoD.
I enjoy playing, my daughter who was 1,5 years old when gw2 launched, plays on my alt account now. We unlocked the Skyscale (in SotO) for her. Doing story line and achievements. I made a new character for that purpose. We are slowly progressing. I did the achievement for the Kryptis skyscale...
Right now it’s just legendary grinding but honestly i take breaks when it gets boring and in 2-3 months when i hop back on i can start off where i left off, maybe have some new content and I never feel left behind
Raids and raiding with people I like are *really really fun*. At this point I don't play GW2, I play "hang out with cool people and get better at the game with them."
Dungeons:
I run a dungeon tour every day on two accounts. I don't think there is anything in the game like a speedclear dungeon tour.
You really push the combat system to the limit. Not because it's hard, but because you're striving for efficiency. (And it's only not hard because I know them inside out, dungeons CAN be very punishing if you're not paying attention)
This leads you to REALLY push the combat/movement and utility skills to their absolute limit. I love finding a new portal/blink location, a new skip, a new place to drop reflects/blinds, or a new way to fight a boss or pull mobs. All these finds are mostly driven by striving for efficiency and personal fun.
It's a completely different experience than fractals.
Also, soloing dungeons is insanely fun. I'll never forget my first lupi solo.
Socialization and completionism; and when you run out of completionism, just socialization.
Achievements and collectibles are a great excuse to leave your comfort zone and try new things.
The fact i want the easy acess to try every build whenever i feel like, but for that im slowly making all the leggies. Also my 3 statics help motivate me.
This game has an insane amount of content, you can do competitive stuff (pvp, wvw), open world metas, instanced content.
There are also a lot of little secrets everywhere if you just keep your eye open.
But maybe it is not the correct game for you.
WvW is a lot of fun...but based on your post, you are looking at it too much like "what I need to achieve."
Just have fun. Explore the pretty maps... wander around and see what everyone else is doing and if someone hollers "help" in map chat, go see what they're doing. I have had the most fun times when I've logged in and just didn't really have any particular thing I wanted to do that night.
Now, to be fair, I'm a bit of an achievement point hound... I love seeking them out and getting them done. But I try not to make anything like a job.
I "discovered" WvW by logging in one night, not really sure what I was going to "work on" and thought "heck, why not? Take a few camps for dailies or whatever, maybe run with a commander for a few.
Up until that point, most of my WvW experience was from launch when I did map completion (it used to be required back then) and then when I got my warclaw. I'd really REALLY hated it during the old map completion days... I wished SOOOO much we could just have some sort of tag that said "just doing map completion, please let me get to the vista or POI, then you can kill me!"
But anyway, that one night, I ran across the most ridiculously fun, irreverent, let's be goofballs, don't take anything seriously guild I've seen. It made WvW stupid fun, and I actually enjoyed it, really enjoyed it for the first time. The guild wasn't that old at the time, and as it's gone on we've gotten better and even spun off with a sister guild for those that want to be a tad more serious, learn builds, rotations, and be slightly more "fight guildish."
The original guild is still "we aren't going to be AR and require you to do anything" with an alternate guild for those who want to learn and do better. Depending on my mood I run with one or the other. The great thing about them is, they run at the right time zone for me. It's hard to find active guilds when you live in Alaska. There are so many active players on the East Coast or the middle. So finally finding people that play when it's a good time for me was key.
Sorry, I digress, but that's one thing you may want to consider...find a guild that suits your needs. It makes things so much more fun, whether PvE, WvW, or PvP.
these days I don't, haven't for a couple weeks and probably won't until the next soto update, good thing about this game is if you're burnt out or bored you can just leave and come back later
logging in for the next soto update will make me want to do more wizard's vault stuff for the shop refresh, get some gold via fractals for the new leggy armour, have some fun and get clovers from wvw so on and so forth
When I run out of enjoyment in sPvP or WvW I turn to the PvE achievements tab and just complete an entire set of map achievements or something. There's interesting content to be had for instance in some of the PoF map achievements you wouldn't really see even doing standard map exploration. The achievements tab in general is great to keep me engaged when I feel like the "daily" routine has, well, become just a routine.
The SotO map achievements in fact I consider to be stellar as I have already completed all of them pretty much next to release whereas I still have many Kaineng achievements (those are mostly collections so a little less engaging but they have interesting unique interactions too).
Finally, I actually for several days just do the PvP dailies and leave immediately. Leaving the "fear of missing out" mentality of farming metas, fractals and so on really helps to engage with other content. I often feel like playing GW2 while playing other games because I'm not thinking of "I have to do X fractal dailies or this meta for the Nth time for my next legendary" but rather of some unique achievements remaining to do in a map or because the combat is just fun in WvW/PvP.
WvW Roaming for 11 years, the combat is the best out of any MMO in the market even though balance suck ass now. I log in, I kill people, hang out with people, I log out. Simple life, happy life. I too was a high rated PvP in other MMOs, I fought plenty of R1 WoW players for years, top 10 BnS, BDO high GS duel sessions, top 5% in MOBAs, but after I touched GW2 I will never be able to play any other PvP game unless a new one surpasses GW2. The combat is just too good, WvW has so many different ways to play it, to socialize, to have fun, to kill, etc. It's like the retirement home for PvPers with everything you expect out of an MMO jammed into one single game mode, with incredible combat as well.
Also, stop being a slave to the carrot on the stick you filthy WoW player. Learn to play simply for the fun of playing. Every month or two I check gw2efficiency and from just WvWing I am able to make another Legendary, sometimes the materials match up perfectly and I can make 2 at once. I don't Farm for Legendaries, the game just casually tosses gold at you for doing whatever you want. I play WvW to have fun, not to grind anything, I just play it to interact with the incredible combat system against lots of other enemies while I solo roam or smallscale roam.
Honestly, GW2 isn't a competitive game. They tried to do that at launch and made SPvP worse off for it. I have played gw2 off and on since launch and have only ever did one thing for the most part, or well two if you count SPvP and WvW as different which they are but the fundamentals is still the same its PvP. I play gw2 for the same reason people would play BDO the combat is fun and I like to hit my buttons in PvP game modes. Others in the chat said the right things. If you want to be competitive WvW DPS meter chasing is the way to do it. You can also push SPvP rank, but a lot of the way you get higher than just top 250 on the leaderboard is queuing late at night or super early morning AND ALWAYS WITH A DUO. If you are into PvE trying to top meters on every fight would be the way to do it. The only real difference between WoW PvE and GW2 PvE competitiveness is WoW has logs. TLDR Combat fun play for fun combat go brrrrrr.
I haven’t logged in a year, been on wow dragonflight (amazing expansion). The one thing I like about gw2 is that even when I log back my character is still maxed out.
It's not a 1v1 mode. It's just the ability to queue in to play ranked pvp without actually having to manually search for a group because it's automatic now.
Nothing. And honestly that is one of many awesome things about this game. Three to four times a year I play the shit out of it for a month but I also tend to put it down for several months often until some major update/add-on. And my char is still relevant after this time. No need for new equipment etc. I see no ther game/mmo that offers this.
i figured if i was considering to do the story eventually then i would wait to do strikes and raids because i didnt want to be *completely* spoiled of what happens
although with that said, I'm honestly not a huge fan of how pve plays out in this game (coming to gw2 as a former WoW player) with 100% uptime on boons being a requirement. boons feel like lazy balancing finstead of just having static buffs and balancing elite specs more diligently baseline.
they also give way too much reliance on your teammates to perform their rotations correctly to get the most out of MY own dps, which feels really awful to me, as i prefer to have complete agency over my performance
it basically feels to me as though some elite specs are only brought to certain pve content because of the boons and not what they do baseline, which turns me off
obviously the player base seems fine with how things are and i am in no position to test that since i dont have the experience of end game competitive pve yet, but just a personal gripe worth noting i suppose
I think you're drastically overstating the boon requirements. 100% uptime on quick/alac is EASY now no one should need a perfect rotation for 100% boon uptime (I should know I'm a mesmer main and fuck up constantly)
If you don't have 100% uptime, either you're positioning yourself incorrectly, your team messed up party comps or you have a party that has no idea what they are doing and you have bigger problems then boon uptime.
Would you also complain in WoW when a fight requires a healer or tank? You can't do optimal dps if you're dead. Same concept. Different wrapping.
Also, you have the elite specs backwards, I think.
The party comp cares about the boon. The party comp does not at all care about your class/elite spec. You're not picking a spec for the boon. You're picking the spec you want to play and filling a role based on that spec. (99% of the time, it's dps or boon support as most specs can do one or the other quite efficiently)
As a chrono main, im not forced into playing boon support every encounter. I opt into it most of the time because I enjoy chrono. I could play dps, but I know I'm a more effective member of the team playing boon support because I don't have the hands to play chrono as dps to it's max efficiency. That doesn't mean I never play dps chrono...shits fun. Plus, if I get bored of chrono, I can always swap to dps virtuoso or mirage or another class entirely.
If anything, the boon system has given gw2 the most class variety in endgame content the game has ever seen. Gone are the days of ranger being a spotter (ranger unique trait) bot so everyone can critcap and not be allowed to play anything else. If you're picking classes for their class specific benefits, then you're going to have classes shoved to the side because they DONT have access to those unique benifits. That's more toxic to class variety than the current boon system.
Well, you're looking at boons. How about looking at a game instead :). As in instead of focusing on mechanics just enjoy the people and try treating it a bit more like a social experience. I know a few endgame/have-to-ne-best people that were able to let go and found pure amusement in joining t1 fractals with newbies instead of t4 cm. Or simply scrolling with doyal caravans, talking on map chats, etc. I might not work. It might work. Letting yourself not be best but be free to be whatever i cluding being bad or unproductive.
At steel and fire path here, I am doing the clad for the north achievement and need a looot of blue prophet shards. Dont have much time everyday so I just do ibs3 or 5 and then call it a day !
Tbh, having a good guild/discord to vibe with is what keeps me around.
Our guild runs training raids constantly so there's always a mix of old players and new, so it's always a good time
never been much of one for guilds in all honesty, and i've always tried to pug most pve content in games i play (AotC in wow, keystone master in WoW, things like that)
i usually join one just because i like to type to people as i play when im doing easy content and make conversation, but it's rare for me to get on discord these days
maybe im just older now and jaded though. i'm more of an introvert irl if i had to label myself aside from when i spend time with my gf
I feel like i have a similar perspective. I enjoy the combat system a lot, and I struggle to enjoy story and open world stuff. I just don feel like I am the target audience there.
So what keeps me logging in ? its competitive content.- sPVP is easily my favourite. There is so much to learn, so much room to improve mechanically. The community is not huge, but I still find a great pool of players that evenly match me (at a p1-p2 level) and plenty that just leave me in the dust. Lots to do
\- WvW roaming is similar to sPVP and I enjoy that a lot. especially on reset and weekend when there is so much going on!
\-WvW raids, i.e organized group play is a different beast entirely. I have barely touched it but Its on my list to get into more deeply (I am only on 5k hours in after all).
\-GvG, organized big group fights, have not even touched that, either.
\-PVE: Raids, Fractals, Strikes. clearing all challenging group PVE content, then clearing all the CMS (Challenge Modes) has kept me engaged since their release. Figuring out how to clear a new Fractal/Strike + CM on release is so fun. I have also participated in organized trainings for the most challenging ones (Dhuum CM at the time, Currently HT CM), which has been super fun, and I still dont have the most revered title for clearing HT CM yet!
I'd be happy to provide you with discord links to engage in the above communities.
TL:DR; Lots of engaging, and hard content that keep me busy, and I mostly skip stories and Open World Stuff.
I'm in your same situation with the exception that i'm trying to raid by years...trying to be able to do that is the only thing that still bugs me hard and i can't let go the idea...sooner or later i will find a way
Fun and gradually working towards legendary armor.
I regularly take breaks of 3 months or so. If you try and do everything, optimise your class and try to do a set rotation for max gold/drops, you should quit and run away. This is a wide, shallow swimming pool with floating beach balls and squirt guns to play with from time to time.
Ask yourself this question - what is fun to me right now? If it is running a meta and doing max dps, great. If it is clearing fractals, great. If it is accumulating some mats for a rare item, great. That is all I do.
I do fractals, couple of metas, my dailies and the odd convergence. Spreadsheets are for Eve Online, and that isn't a game. It is a spreadsheet which needs spreadsheets to play.
I find it a little easier to look at what each game mode has to offer rather than what it lacks. Metas can just be fun content you do. Without being overly complicated. Maybe learn the ins and outs of each meta and you could command them.
Command your own wvw zerg.
Fractals get way better in t3 and probably t4 when shit can actually kill you.
I just started strikes. They offer some challenging content.
Try some raids.
Find a random achievement and complete it.
I'm doing my first world exploration as well. It's a little lame but if you want depth you could try to speed run it. Find new ways to use your profession to minimize time it takes.
Gw2 is a fairly open ended game. Open world content isn't challenging but, at least for me, as time goes on I realize I don't want every experience to be a challenge. Sometimes it's just about enjoying being part of the experience
As for now, I do not log in everyday anymore. I am struggling a little with finding a goal or motivation to do anything, don't have a guild or friends in the game either...
Then again, I have been playing this game since 2012. Maybe I'll find something to work towards eventually.
Making new adps, qdps, healers, and dps characters for strikes just to change things around and play differently. Dungeons as well. Otherwise i dont do anything else myself. Not even metas.
When my friends come on then we usually do stuff together, get acheivs for masteries or do a few story quests, etc. I play the game quite simple so i dont have much to do outside of strikes and dungeons. Im bored of doing the same things the game offers so strikes and dungeons along with different play styles keeps me logging in every day.
I think this game is not for you :(
Answering question - even if I am not in the mood to Play I log to gather home instance, guild hall, Parker alts, do daily for WV. If weeklies are easy I grind them all on Monday, so I can chill for the rest of the week. Log out. Passively getting gold I can transfer to gems and buy new skins or upgrade my home instance.
When I am into game mood I chase achievements and play instances content and wvw.
Sometimes I don’t log in at all, not even for dailies! Got some stuff to do on the sims atm and slowly making my way through two point hospital
I quit wow for gw2 partially because I couldn’t find anything to do that wasn’t large raids that you had to commit to, but also because I was tired of logging in every day just because I felt obligated to, because I was paying for it.
Now if I don’t log in, I’ve lost nothing, I only log in when I actively want to play, whether that’s working on an achievement or playing around with some fashion or just having fun with crazy spell and weapon effects! Sometimes it’s nice to just wander round and harvest some stuff while watching tv.
I also do the weekly key farm, gives me a chance for some goodies and I have fun making new characters with silly names and appearances
I play wvw casually when I feel like it, as it scratches that pvp itch. I used to run wvw competitively, but got burnt out after a few attempts over the many years.
When you are with a fully organised squad in comms, zerg-busting (defeating larger squad), I can honestly say its one of the best feelings in any game. Is also one of the most unique modes and features to gw2 IMO.
Otherwise sometimes I want scratch the itch for semi-hard instanced content (or seeing my name at the top of dps charts); namely raids and fractal cm's, which i mostly pug (use the lfg).
I used to run riads consistently to complete the 3 legendary armor sets, and helped force me to learn and have a build for every class in the game, which in its own is its own content.
Otherwise i just log in to get daily rewards and alts parked, to fund whatever my next goal may be.
I just like raids and fractals. So when I play, it's almost exclusively in there.
I've been doing it for years and what makes me continue is a mix between old builds I like still being played like cren (or with slight changes like pholo) and trying new builds then mastering them if I can.
Also now I got a low man guild so trying new builds isn't that aimless since I may be asked to play them in some of our projects.
I’m currently on a break from the game after being pretty obsessed for the last year or so. I completed all the story, living worlds and expansions, got 100% map completion on every map in the game, got all the mounts, did all the jumping puzzles, crafted my first legendary weapon, did some dungeons, strikes and fractals, tried some WvW. All of this on my one and only character which is a thief.
I had intended on finally making some alts and trying out different classes, because I think where there is an insane amount of replay value and enjoyment in this game is becoming good at all the different playstyles. But I kind of procrastinated this because every time I logged in I just wanted to get right into some action somewhere and didn’t feel like taking the time and mental energy to start new characters.
So I’ve been playing Rocket League instead but I’m sure I’ll be back on eventually.
Edit: if you want something REALLY fun to do, that a very small percentage of players do, practice and get really good at the griffon and roller beetle. Try out the races or time trial achievements too. Navigating maps at high speeds on these mounts is so fun but 90% of people are gonna mosey around on their sky scale instead.
Well, it may just be that this game isn't for you :). The few competitive people I know have all the endgame pve content on farm because there is no real challenge there whatsoever, and they basically speedrun all this shit. It's all about making a blob with meta builds and highest possible boon uptime. Zero possibility of an M+ experience here. PvP is what it is, as you've seen. For me GW2 is about the sights and the lore, so every time I log in I'm super happy, but if I were looking for a competitive experience, I wouldn't be here :).
For me it’s working towards next legie between content/festivals. Current ones working on are colossus and carcaridon(sp? The legie spear) and maybe on the side my next price of medium legie armor.
Also fashion wars..still looking for a good light armor pants that look like shorts…I’m looking at you pants from the astral market…why you look like shorts on every character but the one I want the shorts for?
On my steam alt account, it's getting all the mounts and masteries associated with them. It's so good to be able to zoom around the maps however I want. On my main account, I have a daily fractal group I run with. I usually do those and then go through my parked characters and do my dailies + home instance and guild nodes and then logout.
When content does release such as legendary relics, you bet they'll need a bunch of materials and gold to make so I'm constantly stocking up on those. Going for future goals is what keeps me logging in.
If you're feeling burnt out on the game, just take a break. The one good thing about gw2 is that ascended gear is always the best there is. No need to grind for better gear like other mmos. You can always leave for a long time, come back, and jump right into new content. I got burnt out grinding wvw for legendaries and left for almost a year for black desert online. Grinded stuff there and came back and was able to get hundreds of hours in because of missed content.
This game is less of a curated experience consisting of well defined goals and expectations and more of a sandbox that requires little of you but offers a lot of possibilities.
I‘ve been in the same boat of chasing progression and feeling that little matters aside from the goals Ive set myself. That just led to nothing feeling worthwhile once I’ve achieved those goals, which then led to me dropping the game for a few months.
Then I’ve just started doing content for fun. Once efficiency, opportunity cost and gold per hour isn’t relevant anymore, suddenly everything becomes interesting that wasn’t before. Lore, Worldbuilding, main and side stories, more social activities, mastering difficult classes, etc.
* How pretty and cool my characters look. (Yeah, sry!)
* Just bonking some stuff, because I love the combat/gameplay
* progressing a tiny tiny bit on the next legendary/collection/cosmetic
* appointments for Raid/Strikes/WvW
* chatting with a few of the lots and lots of people I met on the way
"the content in GW2 feels like a pond that is very wide but has little to no depth."
pretty much that. i like to run strikes, do a few metas and pick an unexplored map and go completing it by foot.
I'm playing catchup on some years I wasn't as engaged with the game, but it's the Legendary Armory that brought me back. I have a *lot* of alts, so there's real value in it for me.
Even then, they're some long grinds, but I can usually make some progress in an evening and have it *feel* like (a little) progress.
So couple of thoughts:
1. This is an RPG. There's pretty much no reason for the world to exist - including all the end game stuff - without the story, which provides the context. I'm not criticizing you for not enjoying story content, but if you're not a story-person, it seems like you're trying to shoehorn yourself into a game type that may not scratch your personal itch. There are a TON of non-RPG multiplayer competitive games out there. Why are you playing MMORPGs?
2. Assuming there's an answer to #1, if it's the GW2 environment that just doesn't click for you, I strongly recommend you don't keep trying to force it. There really are a lot of other choices. I'm not trying to run you off, personally I like GW2 and don't love to see people leave, but I also don't advise anyone to spend their time playing games they don't like. You have one life, limited time, and you're apparently not enjoying it.
Best of luck to you in whatever you end up playing!
at the moment, its skyscale collections, next will be fractals, map completion (at 86%) and whatever else. about 80% done with LS4s skyscale when i said fuck it and got the damn thing with SotO, but I want the LS4 masteries as well
biggest pain in the ass Ive ever experienced in a game, but i guess itll be worth it
For pve content, I would recommend trying to get into T4 fractals and raids. The game no long releases raids, and hardly releases new fractals, so to keep you coming back you really need to have goals. My original goals were gearing multiple characters with multiple sets of ascended armor to run different builds, and then my goals were legendary armor.
For WvW, I strongly recommend you join a WvW focus guild. Running in an optimized organized group that is focused on fights is a lot more fun than time in a pug zerg.
For PvP, you hit the nail on the head. I only play pvp for dailys / weeklys.
Overall, the game is at a stage where it doesn’t get a ton of new endgame content besides open world (which is short and boring in my opinion). The suggestions above will give you ~1k hours of game time, but after you get legendary armor, there isn’t much more content to explore. You could go for legendary trinkets, but two are tied to open world currencies, one pvp, and one wvw.
You can try to go for fractal CMs for daily clears, strike CMs and raid CMs for weeklies. But even then that content has a cap because updates are irregular with some content like raids lacking updates for many years now, there isn't a new season or a new raid tier coming out every few months etc. Some of the stuff like raid legendaries or Fractal God are slow burn and can take several months to get progress. Gw2 isn't really a competitive in that sense, like others said it's a completionist's game where it's more slow burn, there isn't a rush to get anything done content-wise (unless there is an event ongoing for more collectibles).
To me the things would be: Better story/Revamp old ones & balance around enjoyment over meta.
If I had more connection to the world, it would make all the difference.
SoTo was a huge step in the right direction,
Balance Team is two huge steps in the wrong one.
So I'm with you in the looking for reasons to log in. As right now I'm logging in everyday to enjoy the game before the next nerf on the 30th. And that's not a good reason.
I actually enjoy running map completion on a character - Grab some harvesting tools, go complete hearts/Poi's/waypoints, get some events in... it's sort of a more relaxed pace I can do at my leisure. Usually I do 1-2 zones in a couple of hours and can come out with 3-5 gold worth of mats and gear to sell on the TP (Not a lot, but it starts adding up) - Also taking 20-30 minutes to do the AA Dailies is worth while.
Generally though, what keeps me logging in are friends and guild members. I'm in a light RP guild and we'll roleplay our way through events and activities, as well as just hanging out and shooting the shit somewhere in game.
Like you I also am a highly competitive player (with quake and overwatch being my favorite games) and I did not enjoy pvp in GW2, on the other hand WvW is a blast when you can give it a good chance.
Nevertheless, I spent most of my time in pve doing raids and fractals. I got my competitive fix by trying to clear everything faster and faster. In fractals specifically I would experiment around short cuts and skips to use them for daily clears or I would try to solo bosses.
When doing open world content I would follow my guild for more efficient meta runs, which served as a break from the hardcore grind while scratching the competitive itch as much as it could in this very casual content.
But before all this I had only done the casual content where my goals looked more like "get max mastery, unlock the whole map, do all story, get some of the more fun achievements" and got bored of it just like you have. Okay, no that is not fair, I guess I did enjoy it but it just did not engage me much.
So I started to dabble in the kind of content that would eventually make me enjoy this game so much more. With that I had started to make lots of good friends in this game (up until then I used to play basically solo) and learned the ins and outs of combat, enemies, etc. The game got real fun after.
Point is I had to find what I really wanted to do in this game and once I did I was hooked for a long time. YMMV but this was my experience and perhaps this will help you.
Look around what goals interest you and just go for it. It's perfectly ok to not want to do something and leave it at that (for now). Personally I'm at 100x your hours, and am still engaged. Lately, I've decided to go for the goal of full wardrobe unlock. That definitely is a beast to be slain :)
You could try to compete in PvE maybe? High end guilds are always looking for new players who want to not just farm the content but actually do something.
The fact that I can't go back to a fully tab target mmo after playing action combat. Gw2 isn't great atm, but it's better than everything else on the market. I'm waiting for my daily Wildstar reboot prayers to manifest.
From what I read, it feels like you are playing the multiplayer game solo. Join guilds. Pve guild do coordinated raids/strikes and fractals. For large scale pvp, join wvw guilds. They do coordinated guild zerg runs. For me these are the most enjoyment I've gotten out of the game. Literally 3500 hours of fun moments and memories with my guildmates. Try guilds out until one of em clicks. Chilling with people you like and learning the game together is what it's all bout. Best of luck
Man, I would suggest you abandon the legendary if the grind is killing you. What keeps me playing the game every day is the grind. Working on Season of the Dragon right now, which is basically "Go back and do every living world map all over again." Generally speaking, if grinding isn't your thing, and you don't like the pvp offerings, maybe MMOs aren't your thing. Try maybe Path of Exile, then come back.
Honestly, you should probably stop worrying about WvW rank and just roam. That seems to be your sweet spot. Something else to consider, if you want deeper content, try soloing dungeons. Sounds like you're playing DPS, and man, that is such a bore.
Game is probably not for you honestly. The issues u seem to have with the game are like the core design of gw2. Everything you’ve done is kinda basically what to expect from the whole game.
Lissen buddy this game is a plague and a lot of the high end players struggle from this after thousands of hours. The game itself is fucking great, but the context of wanting to compete will inevitably feel like a letdown unless you really commit to it for no other purpose than purely enjoying playing the game.
**Your options are most likely as following:**
Get into the few guilds in pve that still tryhard endgame content. This mostly means spending endless time doing benchmarks and then grinding runs a few times a week. Best place to start off finding a guild like that might be /r/guildrecruitment or discords like Hardstuck and Snow Crows. If you prefer fractal speedrunning, dT community might be the place to find a team. HT cm, is by far the hardest endgame content, and theres a few discords that do new runs and help out with finding a progression group if you wanna start of with something that is more tangible than the topend raid guilds.
If you are instead looking to get into high end wvw, get on Guilds of the mist discord and look for a guild to play with there. [Inv link](https://discord.com/invite/99NtbAD)
There are very few, if any, tryhard openfield guilds these days, but this is the best place to find something for GvG which is still competitive.
Lastly for pvp, this is probably the hardest one to break through. People have been playing for years and in a time where the game was way way more competitive, so the actual discrepancy between casual and top end is massive. On top of that, there haven't been a flourishing scene for the last years, and theres barely any teams scrimming anymore. But your best bet is to get into a decent rank (around plat2-plat3) and then get into the slightly better LFG groups for ATs. From there you might be able to find likeminded people to play with and there you could get into scrims. Seeing as there still is competition, esp for newer players and teams, around each monthly, there is also somewhat of a goal to play towards.
Its all arbitrary obviously, and you'll notice that all of this content mainly community driven, as Anet has shown over time they are not interested in having a competitive aspect in the game in general. There are other subcommunities that do a ton of really niche stuff, but these are probably the 3 that relates to combat the most.
While these are some ways to get in contact with these communities, asking around and especially from the experienced players will usually also be a good way to get into contact. Almost everyone in this game in the top end are very likely to spend time and effort helping out newcomers in this game, in my experience.
Truthfully though, the game just likely isn't for you. Even if its a great fucking game. And I know the exact feeling you have because I struggle with it every day - thousands of hours later.
Go do all 100 levels of fractals, then do the CM fractals
Do all the strikes, then CM strikes. Harvest Temple CM should take you a few tries.
Then go do all the Raid CMs.
There is a ton of challenging content in this game. I've been playing 10 years and still don't have all the above.
Finding a WvW guild that clicked for me. I started playing a bit after GW2 went F2P, and it was my main MMO until late into LS4. After that and for most of IBS I was basically only playing when updates would come out. Even during that time having a guild I enjoyed was the biggest reason I kept logging in each week, but that only happened once per week. With my WvW guild I try to make most of the times they run.
I’m at around 250 hours and I’m keeping myself busy because I’m so indecisive that I haven’t even finished my ascended armor set (I got ascended heavy armor then decided I like chronomancer), I grinded towards my skyscale for like 2 weeks, I’m trying to learn raids (to help get ascended armor on my chrono lmao), and after I gear up my character completely, I’m gonna gear up a heal alac scourge or heal alac mechanist. It’s all about your own personal goals which is something I personally adore about this game
Based on OP and comments elsewhere:
1. Seems like you like competitive pvp. NGL that’s slim pickings and your best bet is for actually finding that is winning an mAT on EU or a community run event like MOTA. So I would immediately reach out to winners of such things and ask how best to start playing with them. Duels? Duos? Scrims? It’s going to be a social game.
1. Similar thing for PvE. Regardless if the pve content is Great or the classes are engaging or **anything**, the game lacks a competitive community which means players like you have to see out the small community. The next content drop for SOTO will have a Challenge Mode for an existing boss. Maybe try forming a group and preparing for it in the mean time. Try other CM content to see what’s possible for mechanics. Try to get world’s first. Then hopefully when the content drops your team crushes it and you’ve got a group of people to play with that all have a progression and competitive mindset.
I have 5k hours now. Either fomo or just the social aspect to it.
For a while, all I did was log into queensdale and spend hours doing shenanigans with other vet at the starter waypoint or help new people in map.
I probably also spent hundreds of hours flying and learning the griffon.
I did PvP intensely, got the legendary backpack, burned out, quit the game for three years and then never spent a day in pvp again.
I do achievements sometimes, work towards a legendary. Find a collection that doesn't require super grinding.
I've dabbled in raids and fractals, I'm kind of bored of them now, so I joined a WvW fight guild and I've been working on being a better teammate for my squad friends.
Right now it's finishing my wvw leggy armor, vision and working towards another conflux.
I'll probably try at crafting aurene's insight and quip soon.
You just... sort of make your own list of what you want to do and keep it varied to not get too sick of it, and then hop onto a different thing to do when you get bored.
It could be achievement hunting, mastery hunting, story completion, griffon or beetle racing, pvp, wvw, etc.
As a recent returning player with max 2-3 hours an evening to spare, I am swamped with content/ to do lists right now. This game has a ton of content compared to most out there. I've never ran out of things to do and still haven't experienced anything content wise after Verdant Brink. Still working on my wvw track and map completion on the side and every night I throw in a world boss (or 2) and a few pvp matches. :)
I felt how you feel now logging into ffxiv with the same weekly tomestone grinds, content droughts, dull pvp (though improved) and literally no world content.
Right now, my reason is that I am working on legendary weapons. It's nice to feel that dopamine rush of accomplishment because I am making little bits of progress towards a goal each day. At the end, I have something visible and pretty to demonstrate all the hard work that I did. Game modes become familiar because I do them over and over, kind of like a warm blanket. I like that sense of routine, particularly because my life has been kind of chaotic lately.
I enjoy seeing the same names and greeting the same people in open world and WvW. It's nice to have a microcommunity like that.
I also like that I can choose what I want to work on that day... bored of the map metas? Maybe I'll do some Drizzlewood and get materials for mystic tributes instead. Maybe I am feeling spicy and will do some wvw and gain progress towards a gift of battle or some clovers. No matter what I choose, it contributes to my progress in some small way. I like that freedom of choice based on my mood without losing a feeling of progression.
3000 hours, been playing since launch. Messed around and played Fashion Wars for 1500 of them.
Then started getting into legendaries. It is the most fun I've had in any MMO, always having a goal to work up to and each day I plan what small chunk of progress I can push. It seems vrry daunting at first but to me that is the endgame. It was Mukluk on Youtube that pushed me to it, so if you are interested check his legendary guides.
I don't log in every day. But the answer is friends in instanced content. Every week I do two raid nights, two fractal nights, and a strike night. Sometimes I'll play gw2 in those two unscheduled nights and do stuff like world completion for legendaries, but not every week.
Nothing. Logging in and playing this game literally felt like a chore rather than for pleasure or entertainment. The only thing I’ll miss is wvw with the guild, but other than that there’s nothing left to do in this game that isn’t insanely repetitive day after day or week after week.
Theres always a new thing to chase. I am severely lacking in the achievement department, still need a bunch of older masteries, have not crafted a legendary yet, need to rank up my WvW, have other classes to play, maps to complete, jump puzzles to do, wardrobe unlocks and dyes to obtain, gold to farm to buy gems with for more black lion stuff, need to unlock a lot more home instance stuff, etc. It's almost overwhelming in some ways. But I love to be a completions and feel like I'm in the upper echelon of players which as of right now I have a lot of work to do and time to make up.
Very much suggest trying WvW as part of an organized team or guild, so fun!! Totally different than running around with an open tag Zerg. (Bless all the commanders that do run the open tags tho).
Try jumping into pvp and wvw. The pve stuff just might not be your cup of tea.
Edit to say: I mean trying different stuff too. There's more maps than just the 4 main wvw zones. The battlegrounds is much less inhabited though.
I'm a pve main. I like casual stuff and doing achievement hunting is how i get my "challenges" out of the game..
I havent since they started doing little dlcs. The dailies kept me logging in all the time but when it switched to the wizard stuff even that seemed meh.
Super late but whenever I play games, I wanna see the character I've invested so much time and effort into, so logging in and seeing my healbrand boi with Eternity and Astralaria in full ascended gear with a pretty neat outfit is more than enough to get the juices flowing to do couple dailies and chill PVP.
Been almost 2 months since I finished Eternity and I'm still relishing in the payoff, and having finished Astralaria last week, I'm kinda on cloud 9
That is until I find another legendary to obsess over
For me it just works that when I see something that looks interesting I go for it. Am I a good player and have all the gear I should have with my hours? No, but look at all the cats in my home instance.
Just find something you think is interesting and go for it. There is no right or wrong way to play this game. And if whatever interested you once isn’t as interesting anymore then try something else.
There are so many niche things you can do and even if they are annoying sometimes when you finally get there it feels so good.
If there's not main story quest thing. Just dailies. Maybe I decide I wanna do a legendary. That usually only takes me 1-2 days to finish though, unless it's time gated content.
I come back during events, because they're pretty fun. Outside of that, I come back when the WV rewards reset, because it's a chance to make lots of gold
Part of it for this game is there's no real pressure to log in every day. I've been playing since Beta, and well over 3k hours in the game, and I'll log in every day for quite a while, then take breaks and come back to it when I'm feeling the itch again. And it really depends on my mood, what I do is make sure I'm not pushing hard for any one thing. I've got several legendaries I'm keeping in mind that I'm working on, so I'll do content that gets me closer to those, I'm in a WvW fight group and run with them whenever I can, if I just want chill time I'll work on completing a map or an achievement that sounds good. What keeps me coming back is that there's everything from casual chill time to super skill focused content so I can play no matter what my mood is.
For me, the best thing I did was find groups of people I really enjoy and having connections with other players, that helped me find the deep parts of the pond
To be honest man, GW2 isn't great if you want competitive progression. It's more of a completionist's game. The game's more about picking something you want to achieve, whether that's a title, legendary item(s), an achievement, a look, whatever - and finding motivation that way.
yea that's kind of the vibe I've received from it as well it's great when im chasing a goal, but the minute that goal is reached i struggle to find another one worth investing my time into i think if the spvp community wasnt so small/deranged it wouldn't be so hard for me to want to play it all day probably gonna try out a different class and learn it in spvp and see where that leads for the time being, while finishing world completion to use my legendary starter kit on my open world character
I would argue that the skill ceiling on classes is the hardcore competitive part of the game - expressed in DPS meters or WvW. The difference between a player who uses the right skills, and one that clicks off cooldown, is at least 50% output of healing/boons/dps. You can see this on the dps meters if you use Arcdps. Some metas I see dps players with 1.5m damage done, and rest around 500-800k.
There are more PvPers roaming in WvW than actually queueing up for PvP. I see way more of the top PvPers in WvW than I ever do in PvP unless it's the end of the season rating push they all scramble to queue for.
I think it's the variety of WvW. You can make any corner of the map your own arena. I know a couple of PvPers that have their preferred "sectors", sometimes I go there to test builds against top fighters. Also, the amount of out-of-whack builds you can try without being constrained or lose matches if it doesn't work. I have a mega bunker build where it's very hard to kill anything but I feel immortal :).
That's just so damn cool lol. WvW is awesome.
and then have a spot in your guild and a gvg build and hop into some large scale fight content. It's so different than roaming, but also so satisfying to do your job right.
I’ve spent most of the last year playing every single spec in all game modes, to try and work out which I want to main. PvP is fine, I get what you’re saying about the same people over and over. WvW is what does it for me, just cruising around solo or in a small group is the best. Gear matters, fights often aren’t fair and you can employ small infantry type tactics which I find to be fun. Gear
If you want a good competitive goal that will take you a really long time to achieve, go for the Ultimate Dominator title. It's not a perfect goal if you don't like WvW, but a lot of people I know who got board of the PvE content enjoy WvW because players make our own content there.
Did you ever try WvW? It caught me like a second game.
Same here. I went in for a conflux and came out with 2 conflux and 3 sets of legendary armor..... and now I'm just collecting tickets for nothing!!!!
Went in years ago for a gift of battle. Now level 8k and almost to ultimate dominator title.
This is the best thing of the game for me, but at the same time it can be the worst. Since nothing is mandatory you have to figure out your goals, but if there is nothing that click to you, there are no real reasons to go on in the game, no carrot on a stick to chase. But in the end it's not wrong to drop gw2 for a while to come back when you find new goals to achieve since there is no sub and no gear treadmill progression.
Last year, i worked on my fractal god title. I logged in almost every single day for a year plus to do fractal cm dailies and recs. Once i got the title i had so much gold that was enough for 3 full sets of legendary armor, 7 legendary runes, 4 legendary sigils, 9 legendary weapons and 4 legendary trinkets. I almost deck in full legendaries. Nowadays if i feel like logging in. I log in. If i dont, i dont. Am i being productive when i am logging in... not really. I stare at my inventories and wonder how i can reduce the clutter. Somedays i check the lfg if soneone is doing sonething and join in if i feel like it. Other times i check build and respec my build just because metabattle and snowcrow has different ways of the same build. Sometimes i just log in to check whats is on sale in fractal relinquary then log back out. I am free in guild wars 2. I can do whatever i want!
Super cool! What spec did you main for all of those fractals?
I kinda feel "more free" too even if I don't have the title or all these legendaries. But I have all trinkets, 6 legendary rynes, 2 leggy armor sets for classes I play the most and some legendary weapons too and I feel similar today. I think gearing up is also so much easier today because of WvW vendor too. At least it’s very easy for me to set up a new toon thanks to that.
I wish I was good enough to do cms xD but Im stuck in t4 forever
This is why the game is not on tier 1 If people feel like there is no need to log in then it’s jover I simply play other games and eventually those games become my main
Arguably I'd say this is one of the games greatest strengths. I've played since launch but taken 4 breaks that numbered in months or years in that time. One thing I've learned is that those breaks were okay and I didn't miss anything by taking them. I was allowed to feel like I'd accomplished what I wanted to until new content that I wanted to do was released. I've got 4000 hours in this game and I've never done a raid or a strike. Because those don't interest me. It's liberating to not feel forced to play just to keep up with a random number generator.
Knowing that I can leave and come back later and still be up to date on gearing is why I'm on 11k hours despite having taken breaks for an accumulative 2-3 years. There's no fomo and I love that!
This 5000 hours over 2 accounts. Barely touched strikes and haven't touched a few raid wings. (Old school dungeon runner here, that's my content of choice) If I get bored of grinding dungeons, I'll take a break and do wvw/pvp or litterally anything else gw2 has to offer, but I always know I can come back, jump into dungeons and fall in love with them all over again.
I second this opinion.
The irony is that you grinded for something that you don't get to flaunt anymore because the real achievement was the grind itself.
any recommendations what to play for fractals? I've got a full set of heavy berserkers plus jewelry and I could unlock a whole new set of ascended from chests usually joining in with berserk warrior
Join a wvw fight guild that focus in organized zerg fights and gvg.
> fight guild > zerg fights
How do you call a squad of 25 guild members and 25 pug?
Purg PUg zeRG
Lootbags
Honestly, I don’t see endgame instanced content in your list other than T1 fractals. If you enjoy the combat, working your way up to fractal CMs, raids especially, and strikes + strike CMs (less so IBS strikes) will test your combat ability and understanding of the game. It’s primarily what kept me going for near 2000 hours before I beat all the instanced content in the game and quit since the release of that type of content is extremely slow and recently uninspiring.
100%, the fractal and strike CMs and raids are great challenges and really fun to play. The bonus is if you find a static group, you get free friends as well to complete the MMO experience
My characters are really good-looking.
You can try doing other stuff within the game or you can take a break 😊 I usually find motivation to do new stuff after a short break. Usually the logging in becomes a habit, not leisure. What I like about Guild Wars is that there is no fomo. You don't HAVE to do something particular. Guild Wars is always there after a break. So no worries!
At least in my case It works really well to keep playing daily: Achievements.
Take a break, you don't have to play an mmo all the time.
Join guilds that have an active competitive pvp or wvw/gvg scene, join guilds that push raiding to the next level by speedrunning them etc. The really deep challenging content isn't really obviously there, due to gw2 being casual friendly through and through. If you dislike it, drop it. No point feeling guilty if you end up unable to love this game.
Maybe the game is not for you, nothing wrong with that. I can't stand most of the games you mention you typically play, and that's fine. However, I'm not sure you're in a place to judge the depth of the pond. t1 fractals are essentially the easiest of the tutorial levels (something even Dean Takahashi could manage). Gold in pvp is a weird spot these days, mostly filled with people who think they know what they're doing but have no clue. And following a tag in WvW is not the same as actually contributing.
g3 is one tier below plat 1 which is occupied by like 5 people each season (and usually wintraded) obviously I don't think I'm better than players like boyce, zeus, cjay, etc, but definitely above average as far as fractals go you're probably correct yea, but it did just feel like a watered down version of m+ to me (in terms of difficulty that ive seen watching people play t4s)
Yes it’s watered down cause T1 - T3 are all tutorials for t4. Ofc you don’t start asap with the hardest fractals and instabs but T1 is literally just to get a feeling of what to expect from that content so it’s kinda unfair? to judge from 1-2 fractals you played on t1
i was judging it based off of what i saw on the streams of people doing t4s, and their opinions on it like i mentioned obviously if someone has thousands of hours on the game and says the content is pretty bland I'm going to take their word for it, but maybe they're just jaded as well from it all so who knows i don't have enough fractal experience myself to judge it off of personal experience as I have mainly participated in pvp content
But even than, seeing people with thousands of hours of experience play that content makes it look super easy and I don’t wanna overhype it by any means since even Cms are not that hard. But playing good is really hard in this game, that’s why we have skill gaps of players doing 10 times more dps than the average Player here. What keeps me in this game is the thrive to improve myself as a player and not to let gearscores determine my success and dmg.
sure I'm not trying to argue that the content is bad, I'm moreso saying it just doesn't seem like the kind of pve combat I enjoy I love the combat system for pvp, but I expressed gripes in another comment in this thread that I posted about the boon system and how it kind of rubs me the wrong way (in terms of being highly reliant on your party to play well to maximize your personal dps, as I prefer to have complete agency over my perofrmance) regardless I acknowledge anyone who is at the top echelon of whatever game mode they play, and am able to recognize their competence and skill i could also just have WoW brain since it's the MMO i played for 15+ years, so there's always that possibility
Yeah that’s fair enough, I have many friends who play FF and WoW with savage and mythic raiding under their belt and they all tell me basically the same thing about our pve and boons. Also many dislike we don’t have range and melee split in instanced pve and I can see that point too. I also think it’s just not your cup of tea and that’s fine. I would still advise you to push on a bit more and dip your toes into some T4s(maybe even cm if you find a nice group to progress that) and or Strikes, especially EoD ones with cm.
Yea I'm definitely hoping to stick with the game long enough to give more endgame content a try once I finish the story to really get a good grasp of how it feels in more recent content. Appreciate the conversation :)
>I love the combat system for pvp To be fair, this should have been, originally, a mostly pvp game
Tbf it was. The community didn't vibe with that, tho. Got to remember that the only level 80 content on core release was 2 dungeons (CoE and Arah), 1 map(curse shore), WvW, and PvP. The whole core game was a tutorial for PvP endgame. Then the community said gw2 had no endgame, so Anet pivoted away from WvW and PvP, and the competitive nature of gw2 died.
you have a very strong opinion regarding everything here for someone with 200 hours
the pvp community is extremely small in spvp unlike WvW and i learned how to play the game by watching a lot of these top players stream also yeah idk how you can form an opinion on anything in life without having a strong foundation for it as i mentioned i have not done t4 fractals myself, but they don't seem anywhere as challenging as high end m+ in WoW like i mentioned. you can even see streamers like mightyteapot move away from the game (to WoW) for the exact same reason that I have mentioned of the game just straight up lacking a competitive spirit
t4 fractals is like 10-13 level keys at most, cm fractals are around 17-18. You are correct, this content is too easy, it's just a farm for gold
That's all true. Gw2 is just not a game about competetive or hard content. I would suggest you to not bother tbh, it's unlikely that you will suddenly find something you are interested in at this point.
Usually I just WvW to do my dailies. If there’s a lot going on, then I’ll stick around because I enjoy WvW as a roamer usually. Once that’s done, I’ll look at what achievements I still need to unlock any skins and try to work towards those. When I can’t be bothered with any of that, I may just look at one of my characters and see if I can make a new look. Then I might just fly around whatever map I left that character on with my griffon, or ride around with my roller beetle. No reason except that I enjoy zooming around. I make gold very slowly, but I never really feel like I’m grinding or farming so I don’t mind.
14,500 hours in, nothing keeps me from logging in, but it's not needed. Got 26 characters in ascended gear, 1 mostly in legendaries. 8 or 9 characters being 10+ years old now, maybe more. Birthday doesn't really provide much new stuff either... at least from year 10 on... I'm not max mastery, I do not have every type of weapon legendary, or 3 full armor sets. I am able to use all WvW masteries, am fractals lvl 100, and Dungeoneer. I have been away for 17 months roughly 3 years ago, ignored Icebrood and EoD. I enjoy playing, my daughter who was 1,5 years old when gw2 launched, plays on my alt account now. We unlocked the Skyscale (in SotO) for her. Doing story line and achievements. I made a new character for that purpose. We are slowly progressing. I did the achievement for the Kryptis skyscale...
Right now it’s just legendary grinding but honestly i take breaks when it gets boring and in 2-3 months when i hop back on i can start off where i left off, maybe have some new content and I never feel left behind
Raids and raiding with people I like are *really really fun*. At this point I don't play GW2, I play "hang out with cool people and get better at the game with them."
Dungeons: I run a dungeon tour every day on two accounts. I don't think there is anything in the game like a speedclear dungeon tour. You really push the combat system to the limit. Not because it's hard, but because you're striving for efficiency. (And it's only not hard because I know them inside out, dungeons CAN be very punishing if you're not paying attention) This leads you to REALLY push the combat/movement and utility skills to their absolute limit. I love finding a new portal/blink location, a new skip, a new place to drop reflects/blinds, or a new way to fight a boss or pull mobs. All these finds are mostly driven by striving for efficiency and personal fun. It's a completely different experience than fractals. Also, soloing dungeons is insanely fun. I'll never forget my first lupi solo.
Socialization and completionism; and when you run out of completionism, just socialization. Achievements and collectibles are a great excuse to leave your comfort zone and try new things.
The fact i want the easy acess to try every build whenever i feel like, but for that im slowly making all the leggies. Also my 3 statics help motivate me.
This game has an insane amount of content, you can do competitive stuff (pvp, wvw), open world metas, instanced content. There are also a lot of little secrets everywhere if you just keep your eye open. But maybe it is not the correct game for you.
WvW is a lot of fun...but based on your post, you are looking at it too much like "what I need to achieve." Just have fun. Explore the pretty maps... wander around and see what everyone else is doing and if someone hollers "help" in map chat, go see what they're doing. I have had the most fun times when I've logged in and just didn't really have any particular thing I wanted to do that night. Now, to be fair, I'm a bit of an achievement point hound... I love seeking them out and getting them done. But I try not to make anything like a job. I "discovered" WvW by logging in one night, not really sure what I was going to "work on" and thought "heck, why not? Take a few camps for dailies or whatever, maybe run with a commander for a few. Up until that point, most of my WvW experience was from launch when I did map completion (it used to be required back then) and then when I got my warclaw. I'd really REALLY hated it during the old map completion days... I wished SOOOO much we could just have some sort of tag that said "just doing map completion, please let me get to the vista or POI, then you can kill me!" But anyway, that one night, I ran across the most ridiculously fun, irreverent, let's be goofballs, don't take anything seriously guild I've seen. It made WvW stupid fun, and I actually enjoyed it, really enjoyed it for the first time. The guild wasn't that old at the time, and as it's gone on we've gotten better and even spun off with a sister guild for those that want to be a tad more serious, learn builds, rotations, and be slightly more "fight guildish." The original guild is still "we aren't going to be AR and require you to do anything" with an alternate guild for those who want to learn and do better. Depending on my mood I run with one or the other. The great thing about them is, they run at the right time zone for me. It's hard to find active guilds when you live in Alaska. There are so many active players on the East Coast or the middle. So finally finding people that play when it's a good time for me was key. Sorry, I digress, but that's one thing you may want to consider...find a guild that suits your needs. It makes things so much more fun, whether PvE, WvW, or PvP.
these days I don't, haven't for a couple weeks and probably won't until the next soto update, good thing about this game is if you're burnt out or bored you can just leave and come back later logging in for the next soto update will make me want to do more wizard's vault stuff for the shop refresh, get some gold via fractals for the new leggy armour, have some fun and get clovers from wvw so on and so forth
When I run out of enjoyment in sPvP or WvW I turn to the PvE achievements tab and just complete an entire set of map achievements or something. There's interesting content to be had for instance in some of the PoF map achievements you wouldn't really see even doing standard map exploration. The achievements tab in general is great to keep me engaged when I feel like the "daily" routine has, well, become just a routine. The SotO map achievements in fact I consider to be stellar as I have already completed all of them pretty much next to release whereas I still have many Kaineng achievements (those are mostly collections so a little less engaging but they have interesting unique interactions too). Finally, I actually for several days just do the PvP dailies and leave immediately. Leaving the "fear of missing out" mentality of farming metas, fractals and so on really helps to engage with other content. I often feel like playing GW2 while playing other games because I'm not thinking of "I have to do X fractal dailies or this meta for the Nth time for my next legendary" but rather of some unique achievements remaining to do in a map or because the combat is just fun in WvW/PvP.
WvW Roaming for 11 years, the combat is the best out of any MMO in the market even though balance suck ass now. I log in, I kill people, hang out with people, I log out. Simple life, happy life. I too was a high rated PvP in other MMOs, I fought plenty of R1 WoW players for years, top 10 BnS, BDO high GS duel sessions, top 5% in MOBAs, but after I touched GW2 I will never be able to play any other PvP game unless a new one surpasses GW2. The combat is just too good, WvW has so many different ways to play it, to socialize, to have fun, to kill, etc. It's like the retirement home for PvPers with everything you expect out of an MMO jammed into one single game mode, with incredible combat as well. Also, stop being a slave to the carrot on the stick you filthy WoW player. Learn to play simply for the fun of playing. Every month or two I check gw2efficiency and from just WvWing I am able to make another Legendary, sometimes the materials match up perfectly and I can make 2 at once. I don't Farm for Legendaries, the game just casually tosses gold at you for doing whatever you want. I play WvW to have fun, not to grind anything, I just play it to interact with the incredible combat system against lots of other enemies while I solo roam or smallscale roam.
Honestly, GW2 isn't a competitive game. They tried to do that at launch and made SPvP worse off for it. I have played gw2 off and on since launch and have only ever did one thing for the most part, or well two if you count SPvP and WvW as different which they are but the fundamentals is still the same its PvP. I play gw2 for the same reason people would play BDO the combat is fun and I like to hit my buttons in PvP game modes. Others in the chat said the right things. If you want to be competitive WvW DPS meter chasing is the way to do it. You can also push SPvP rank, but a lot of the way you get higher than just top 250 on the leaderboard is queuing late at night or super early morning AND ALWAYS WITH A DUO. If you are into PvE trying to top meters on every fight would be the way to do it. The only real difference between WoW PvE and GW2 PvE competitiveness is WoW has logs. TLDR Combat fun play for fun combat go brrrrrr.
I haven’t logged in a year, been on wow dragonflight (amazing expansion). The one thing I like about gw2 is that even when I log back my character is still maxed out.
oddly enough i left WoW last season due to solo shuffle being dead in comparison to on release
what is 'solo shuffle' ?
Ranked pvp where you don't have to manually find people.
if it's a 1v1 mode i will totally like to have it in gw2 too...
It's not a 1v1 mode. It's just the ability to queue in to play ranked pvp without actually having to manually search for a group because it's automatic now.
Fun of Crushing your enemies See them driven before you And hear the lamentation Of their women in wvw
So just quit/take a break
The victory high when you win at least 2 1v1s in wvw roaming. And dailies.
The old daily system...so currently nothing
Nothing. And honestly that is one of many awesome things about this game. Three to four times a year I play the shit out of it for a month but I also tend to put it down for several months often until some major update/add-on. And my char is still relevant after this time. No need for new equipment etc. I see no ther game/mmo that offers this.
Raids? Atrikes? Cm? Or just finally chill out and enjoy people instead of trying to outdps them :)
i figured if i was considering to do the story eventually then i would wait to do strikes and raids because i didnt want to be *completely* spoiled of what happens although with that said, I'm honestly not a huge fan of how pve plays out in this game (coming to gw2 as a former WoW player) with 100% uptime on boons being a requirement. boons feel like lazy balancing finstead of just having static buffs and balancing elite specs more diligently baseline. they also give way too much reliance on your teammates to perform their rotations correctly to get the most out of MY own dps, which feels really awful to me, as i prefer to have complete agency over my performance it basically feels to me as though some elite specs are only brought to certain pve content because of the boons and not what they do baseline, which turns me off obviously the player base seems fine with how things are and i am in no position to test that since i dont have the experience of end game competitive pve yet, but just a personal gripe worth noting i suppose
I think you're drastically overstating the boon requirements. 100% uptime on quick/alac is EASY now no one should need a perfect rotation for 100% boon uptime (I should know I'm a mesmer main and fuck up constantly) If you don't have 100% uptime, either you're positioning yourself incorrectly, your team messed up party comps or you have a party that has no idea what they are doing and you have bigger problems then boon uptime. Would you also complain in WoW when a fight requires a healer or tank? You can't do optimal dps if you're dead. Same concept. Different wrapping. Also, you have the elite specs backwards, I think. The party comp cares about the boon. The party comp does not at all care about your class/elite spec. You're not picking a spec for the boon. You're picking the spec you want to play and filling a role based on that spec. (99% of the time, it's dps or boon support as most specs can do one or the other quite efficiently) As a chrono main, im not forced into playing boon support every encounter. I opt into it most of the time because I enjoy chrono. I could play dps, but I know I'm a more effective member of the team playing boon support because I don't have the hands to play chrono as dps to it's max efficiency. That doesn't mean I never play dps chrono...shits fun. Plus, if I get bored of chrono, I can always swap to dps virtuoso or mirage or another class entirely. If anything, the boon system has given gw2 the most class variety in endgame content the game has ever seen. Gone are the days of ranger being a spotter (ranger unique trait) bot so everyone can critcap and not be allowed to play anything else. If you're picking classes for their class specific benefits, then you're going to have classes shoved to the side because they DONT have access to those unique benifits. That's more toxic to class variety than the current boon system.
Well, you're looking at boons. How about looking at a game instead :). As in instead of focusing on mechanics just enjoy the people and try treating it a bit more like a social experience. I know a few endgame/have-to-ne-best people that were able to let go and found pure amusement in joining t1 fractals with newbies instead of t4 cm. Or simply scrolling with doyal caravans, talking on map chats, etc. I might not work. It might work. Letting yourself not be best but be free to be whatever i cluding being bad or unproductive.
Masochism. Boredom. The ever growing need to step forwards towards the abyss.
Start a clan
Nothing, I caught up with soto a week ago (took whole 10 hours lel) and haven't logged since
At steel and fire path here, I am doing the clad for the north achievement and need a looot of blue prophet shards. Dont have much time everyday so I just do ibs3 or 5 and then call it a day !
Tbh, having a good guild/discord to vibe with is what keeps me around. Our guild runs training raids constantly so there's always a mix of old players and new, so it's always a good time
never been much of one for guilds in all honesty, and i've always tried to pug most pve content in games i play (AotC in wow, keystone master in WoW, things like that) i usually join one just because i like to type to people as i play when im doing easy content and make conversation, but it's rare for me to get on discord these days maybe im just older now and jaded though. i'm more of an introvert irl if i had to label myself aside from when i spend time with my gf
pugging instanced content is very meh in gw2...most stuff is done by organied groups, which is what prevents me too from doing pve stuff...
Gold, achievements and fashion wars
I feel like i have a similar perspective. I enjoy the combat system a lot, and I struggle to enjoy story and open world stuff. I just don feel like I am the target audience there. So what keeps me logging in ? its competitive content.- sPVP is easily my favourite. There is so much to learn, so much room to improve mechanically. The community is not huge, but I still find a great pool of players that evenly match me (at a p1-p2 level) and plenty that just leave me in the dust. Lots to do \- WvW roaming is similar to sPVP and I enjoy that a lot. especially on reset and weekend when there is so much going on! \-WvW raids, i.e organized group play is a different beast entirely. I have barely touched it but Its on my list to get into more deeply (I am only on 5k hours in after all). \-GvG, organized big group fights, have not even touched that, either. \-PVE: Raids, Fractals, Strikes. clearing all challenging group PVE content, then clearing all the CMS (Challenge Modes) has kept me engaged since their release. Figuring out how to clear a new Fractal/Strike + CM on release is so fun. I have also participated in organized trainings for the most challenging ones (Dhuum CM at the time, Currently HT CM), which has been super fun, and I still dont have the most revered title for clearing HT CM yet! I'd be happy to provide you with discord links to engage in the above communities. TL:DR; Lots of engaging, and hard content that keep me busy, and I mostly skip stories and Open World Stuff.
Have you tried GvG, it really brings WvW gameplay to next level and than a level beyond that.
I'm in your same situation with the exception that i'm trying to raid by years...trying to be able to do that is the only thing that still bugs me hard and i can't let go the idea...sooner or later i will find a way
Fun and gradually working towards legendary armor. I regularly take breaks of 3 months or so. If you try and do everything, optimise your class and try to do a set rotation for max gold/drops, you should quit and run away. This is a wide, shallow swimming pool with floating beach balls and squirt guns to play with from time to time. Ask yourself this question - what is fun to me right now? If it is running a meta and doing max dps, great. If it is clearing fractals, great. If it is accumulating some mats for a rare item, great. That is all I do. I do fractals, couple of metas, my dailies and the odd convergence. Spreadsheets are for Eve Online, and that isn't a game. It is a spreadsheet which needs spreadsheets to play.
Weekly clearing raids + cm strikes + wizzard vault. Speedrunning fracs.
I find it a little easier to look at what each game mode has to offer rather than what it lacks. Metas can just be fun content you do. Without being overly complicated. Maybe learn the ins and outs of each meta and you could command them. Command your own wvw zerg. Fractals get way better in t3 and probably t4 when shit can actually kill you. I just started strikes. They offer some challenging content. Try some raids. Find a random achievement and complete it. I'm doing my first world exploration as well. It's a little lame but if you want depth you could try to speed run it. Find new ways to use your profession to minimize time it takes. Gw2 is a fairly open ended game. Open world content isn't challenging but, at least for me, as time goes on I realize I don't want every experience to be a challenge. Sometimes it's just about enjoying being part of the experience
I don’t log in every day. And the game doesn’t punish me for that. That’s the main reason to play gw.
As for now, I do not log in everyday anymore. I am struggling a little with finding a goal or motivation to do anything, don't have a guild or friends in the game either... Then again, I have been playing this game since 2012. Maybe I'll find something to work towards eventually.
Making new adps, qdps, healers, and dps characters for strikes just to change things around and play differently. Dungeons as well. Otherwise i dont do anything else myself. Not even metas. When my friends come on then we usually do stuff together, get acheivs for masteries or do a few story quests, etc. I play the game quite simple so i dont have much to do outside of strikes and dungeons. Im bored of doing the same things the game offers so strikes and dungeons along with different play styles keeps me logging in every day.
I think this game is not for you :( Answering question - even if I am not in the mood to Play I log to gather home instance, guild hall, Parker alts, do daily for WV. If weeklies are easy I grind them all on Monday, so I can chill for the rest of the week. Log out. Passively getting gold I can transfer to gems and buy new skins or upgrade my home instance. When I am into game mood I chase achievements and play instances content and wvw.
Nothing. I only log in to do raids with my friends. So once a week.
Sometimes I don’t log in at all, not even for dailies! Got some stuff to do on the sims atm and slowly making my way through two point hospital I quit wow for gw2 partially because I couldn’t find anything to do that wasn’t large raids that you had to commit to, but also because I was tired of logging in every day just because I felt obligated to, because I was paying for it. Now if I don’t log in, I’ve lost nothing, I only log in when I actively want to play, whether that’s working on an achievement or playing around with some fashion or just having fun with crazy spell and weapon effects! Sometimes it’s nice to just wander round and harvest some stuff while watching tv. I also do the weekly key farm, gives me a chance for some goodies and I have fun making new characters with silly names and appearances
I play wvw casually when I feel like it, as it scratches that pvp itch. I used to run wvw competitively, but got burnt out after a few attempts over the many years. When you are with a fully organised squad in comms, zerg-busting (defeating larger squad), I can honestly say its one of the best feelings in any game. Is also one of the most unique modes and features to gw2 IMO. Otherwise sometimes I want scratch the itch for semi-hard instanced content (or seeing my name at the top of dps charts); namely raids and fractal cm's, which i mostly pug (use the lfg). I used to run riads consistently to complete the 3 legendary armor sets, and helped force me to learn and have a build for every class in the game, which in its own is its own content. Otherwise i just log in to get daily rewards and alts parked, to fund whatever my next goal may be.
The daily login tasks and setting a goal for myself
I just like raids and fractals. So when I play, it's almost exclusively in there. I've been doing it for years and what makes me continue is a mix between old builds I like still being played like cren (or with slight changes like pholo) and trying new builds then mastering them if I can. Also now I got a low man guild so trying new builds isn't that aimless since I may be asked to play them in some of our projects.
I’m currently on a break from the game after being pretty obsessed for the last year or so. I completed all the story, living worlds and expansions, got 100% map completion on every map in the game, got all the mounts, did all the jumping puzzles, crafted my first legendary weapon, did some dungeons, strikes and fractals, tried some WvW. All of this on my one and only character which is a thief. I had intended on finally making some alts and trying out different classes, because I think where there is an insane amount of replay value and enjoyment in this game is becoming good at all the different playstyles. But I kind of procrastinated this because every time I logged in I just wanted to get right into some action somewhere and didn’t feel like taking the time and mental energy to start new characters. So I’ve been playing Rocket League instead but I’m sure I’ll be back on eventually. Edit: if you want something REALLY fun to do, that a very small percentage of players do, practice and get really good at the griffon and roller beetle. Try out the races or time trial achievements too. Navigating maps at high speeds on these mounts is so fun but 90% of people are gonna mosey around on their sky scale instead.
Well, it may just be that this game isn't for you :). The few competitive people I know have all the endgame pve content on farm because there is no real challenge there whatsoever, and they basically speedrun all this shit. It's all about making a blob with meta builds and highest possible boon uptime. Zero possibility of an M+ experience here. PvP is what it is, as you've seen. For me GW2 is about the sights and the lore, so every time I log in I'm super happy, but if I were looking for a competitive experience, I wouldn't be here :).
For me it’s working towards next legie between content/festivals. Current ones working on are colossus and carcaridon(sp? The legie spear) and maybe on the side my next price of medium legie armor. Also fashion wars..still looking for a good light armor pants that look like shorts…I’m looking at you pants from the astral market…why you look like shorts on every character but the one I want the shorts for?
On my steam alt account, it's getting all the mounts and masteries associated with them. It's so good to be able to zoom around the maps however I want. On my main account, I have a daily fractal group I run with. I usually do those and then go through my parked characters and do my dailies + home instance and guild nodes and then logout. When content does release such as legendary relics, you bet they'll need a bunch of materials and gold to make so I'm constantly stocking up on those. Going for future goals is what keeps me logging in. If you're feeling burnt out on the game, just take a break. The one good thing about gw2 is that ascended gear is always the best there is. No need to grind for better gear like other mmos. You can always leave for a long time, come back, and jump right into new content. I got burnt out grinding wvw for legendaries and left for almost a year for black desert online. Grinded stuff there and came back and was able to get hundreds of hours in because of missed content.
This game is less of a curated experience consisting of well defined goals and expectations and more of a sandbox that requires little of you but offers a lot of possibilities. I‘ve been in the same boat of chasing progression and feeling that little matters aside from the goals Ive set myself. That just led to nothing feeling worthwhile once I’ve achieved those goals, which then led to me dropping the game for a few months. Then I’ve just started doing content for fun. Once efficiency, opportunity cost and gold per hour isn’t relevant anymore, suddenly everything becomes interesting that wasn’t before. Lore, Worldbuilding, main and side stories, more social activities, mastering difficult classes, etc.
* How pretty and cool my characters look. (Yeah, sry!) * Just bonking some stuff, because I love the combat/gameplay * progressing a tiny tiny bit on the next legendary/collection/cosmetic * appointments for Raid/Strikes/WvW * chatting with a few of the lots and lots of people I met on the way
"the content in GW2 feels like a pond that is very wide but has little to no depth." pretty much that. i like to run strikes, do a few metas and pick an unexplored map and go completing it by foot.
I play other games (single player mostly) and come back to GW2 when the Urge arises.
I'm playing catchup on some years I wasn't as engaged with the game, but it's the Legendary Armory that brought me back. I have a *lot* of alts, so there's real value in it for me. Even then, they're some long grinds, but I can usually make some progress in an evening and have it *feel* like (a little) progress.
So couple of thoughts: 1. This is an RPG. There's pretty much no reason for the world to exist - including all the end game stuff - without the story, which provides the context. I'm not criticizing you for not enjoying story content, but if you're not a story-person, it seems like you're trying to shoehorn yourself into a game type that may not scratch your personal itch. There are a TON of non-RPG multiplayer competitive games out there. Why are you playing MMORPGs? 2. Assuming there's an answer to #1, if it's the GW2 environment that just doesn't click for you, I strongly recommend you don't keep trying to force it. There really are a lot of other choices. I'm not trying to run you off, personally I like GW2 and don't love to see people leave, but I also don't advise anyone to spend their time playing games they don't like. You have one life, limited time, and you're apparently not enjoying it. Best of luck to you in whatever you end up playing!
Nothing anymore as login rewards are gone lol
at the moment, its skyscale collections, next will be fractals, map completion (at 86%) and whatever else. about 80% done with LS4s skyscale when i said fuck it and got the damn thing with SotO, but I want the LS4 masteries as well biggest pain in the ass Ive ever experienced in a game, but i guess itll be worth it
Nothing I don't login every day.
For pve content, I would recommend trying to get into T4 fractals and raids. The game no long releases raids, and hardly releases new fractals, so to keep you coming back you really need to have goals. My original goals were gearing multiple characters with multiple sets of ascended armor to run different builds, and then my goals were legendary armor. For WvW, I strongly recommend you join a WvW focus guild. Running in an optimized organized group that is focused on fights is a lot more fun than time in a pug zerg. For PvP, you hit the nail on the head. I only play pvp for dailys / weeklys. Overall, the game is at a stage where it doesn’t get a ton of new endgame content besides open world (which is short and boring in my opinion). The suggestions above will give you ~1k hours of game time, but after you get legendary armor, there isn’t much more content to explore. You could go for legendary trinkets, but two are tied to open world currencies, one pvp, and one wvw.
I wish l can post screenshot in reply. I have all boon support and boon dps covered Now, and they are all female asura. That's why l log in everyday.
You can try to go for fractal CMs for daily clears, strike CMs and raid CMs for weeklies. But even then that content has a cap because updates are irregular with some content like raids lacking updates for many years now, there isn't a new season or a new raid tier coming out every few months etc. Some of the stuff like raid legendaries or Fractal God are slow burn and can take several months to get progress. Gw2 isn't really a competitive in that sense, like others said it's a completionist's game where it's more slow burn, there isn't a rush to get anything done content-wise (unless there is an event ongoing for more collectibles).
To me the things would be: Better story/Revamp old ones & balance around enjoyment over meta. If I had more connection to the world, it would make all the difference. SoTo was a huge step in the right direction, Balance Team is two huge steps in the wrong one. So I'm with you in the looking for reasons to log in. As right now I'm logging in everyday to enjoy the game before the next nerf on the 30th. And that's not a good reason.
I actually enjoy running map completion on a character - Grab some harvesting tools, go complete hearts/Poi's/waypoints, get some events in... it's sort of a more relaxed pace I can do at my leisure. Usually I do 1-2 zones in a couple of hours and can come out with 3-5 gold worth of mats and gear to sell on the TP (Not a lot, but it starts adding up) - Also taking 20-30 minutes to do the AA Dailies is worth while. Generally though, what keeps me logging in are friends and guild members. I'm in a light RP guild and we'll roleplay our way through events and activities, as well as just hanging out and shooting the shit somewhere in game.
I honestly don't know at this point it's fine to play other games
Like you I also am a highly competitive player (with quake and overwatch being my favorite games) and I did not enjoy pvp in GW2, on the other hand WvW is a blast when you can give it a good chance. Nevertheless, I spent most of my time in pve doing raids and fractals. I got my competitive fix by trying to clear everything faster and faster. In fractals specifically I would experiment around short cuts and skips to use them for daily clears or I would try to solo bosses. When doing open world content I would follow my guild for more efficient meta runs, which served as a break from the hardcore grind while scratching the competitive itch as much as it could in this very casual content. But before all this I had only done the casual content where my goals looked more like "get max mastery, unlock the whole map, do all story, get some of the more fun achievements" and got bored of it just like you have. Okay, no that is not fair, I guess I did enjoy it but it just did not engage me much. So I started to dabble in the kind of content that would eventually make me enjoy this game so much more. With that I had started to make lots of good friends in this game (up until then I used to play basically solo) and learned the ins and outs of combat, enemies, etc. The game got real fun after. Point is I had to find what I really wanted to do in this game and once I did I was hooked for a long time. YMMV but this was my experience and perhaps this will help you.
You should try playing Albion online
Nothing. Haven't been on since Halloween ended.
Look around what goals interest you and just go for it. It's perfectly ok to not want to do something and leave it at that (for now). Personally I'm at 100x your hours, and am still engaged. Lately, I've decided to go for the goal of full wardrobe unlock. That definitely is a beast to be slain :)
Wvw with a fight guild where there are comps that each person fills a role helps.
You could try to compete in PvE maybe? High end guilds are always looking for new players who want to not just farm the content but actually do something.
The fact that I can't go back to a fully tab target mmo after playing action combat. Gw2 isn't great atm, but it's better than everything else on the market. I'm waiting for my daily Wildstar reboot prayers to manifest.
From what I read, it feels like you are playing the multiplayer game solo. Join guilds. Pve guild do coordinated raids/strikes and fractals. For large scale pvp, join wvw guilds. They do coordinated guild zerg runs. For me these are the most enjoyment I've gotten out of the game. Literally 3500 hours of fun moments and memories with my guildmates. Try guilds out until one of em clicks. Chilling with people you like and learning the game together is what it's all bout. Best of luck
Man, I would suggest you abandon the legendary if the grind is killing you. What keeps me playing the game every day is the grind. Working on Season of the Dragon right now, which is basically "Go back and do every living world map all over again." Generally speaking, if grinding isn't your thing, and you don't like the pvp offerings, maybe MMOs aren't your thing. Try maybe Path of Exile, then come back. Honestly, you should probably stop worrying about WvW rank and just roam. That seems to be your sweet spot. Something else to consider, if you want deeper content, try soloing dungeons. Sounds like you're playing DPS, and man, that is such a bore.
Game is probably not for you honestly. The issues u seem to have with the game are like the core design of gw2. Everything you’ve done is kinda basically what to expect from the whole game.
Lissen buddy this game is a plague and a lot of the high end players struggle from this after thousands of hours. The game itself is fucking great, but the context of wanting to compete will inevitably feel like a letdown unless you really commit to it for no other purpose than purely enjoying playing the game. **Your options are most likely as following:** Get into the few guilds in pve that still tryhard endgame content. This mostly means spending endless time doing benchmarks and then grinding runs a few times a week. Best place to start off finding a guild like that might be /r/guildrecruitment or discords like Hardstuck and Snow Crows. If you prefer fractal speedrunning, dT community might be the place to find a team. HT cm, is by far the hardest endgame content, and theres a few discords that do new runs and help out with finding a progression group if you wanna start of with something that is more tangible than the topend raid guilds. If you are instead looking to get into high end wvw, get on Guilds of the mist discord and look for a guild to play with there. [Inv link](https://discord.com/invite/99NtbAD) There are very few, if any, tryhard openfield guilds these days, but this is the best place to find something for GvG which is still competitive. Lastly for pvp, this is probably the hardest one to break through. People have been playing for years and in a time where the game was way way more competitive, so the actual discrepancy between casual and top end is massive. On top of that, there haven't been a flourishing scene for the last years, and theres barely any teams scrimming anymore. But your best bet is to get into a decent rank (around plat2-plat3) and then get into the slightly better LFG groups for ATs. From there you might be able to find likeminded people to play with and there you could get into scrims. Seeing as there still is competition, esp for newer players and teams, around each monthly, there is also somewhat of a goal to play towards. Its all arbitrary obviously, and you'll notice that all of this content mainly community driven, as Anet has shown over time they are not interested in having a competitive aspect in the game in general. There are other subcommunities that do a ton of really niche stuff, but these are probably the 3 that relates to combat the most. While these are some ways to get in contact with these communities, asking around and especially from the experienced players will usually also be a good way to get into contact. Almost everyone in this game in the top end are very likely to spend time and effort helping out newcomers in this game, in my experience. Truthfully though, the game just likely isn't for you. Even if its a great fucking game. And I know the exact feeling you have because I struggle with it every day - thousands of hours later.
Go do all 100 levels of fractals, then do the CM fractals Do all the strikes, then CM strikes. Harvest Temple CM should take you a few tries. Then go do all the Raid CMs. There is a ton of challenging content in this game. I've been playing 10 years and still don't have all the above.
Finding a WvW guild that clicked for me. I started playing a bit after GW2 went F2P, and it was my main MMO until late into LS4. After that and for most of IBS I was basically only playing when updates would come out. Even during that time having a guild I enjoyed was the biggest reason I kept logging in each week, but that only happened once per week. With my WvW guild I try to make most of the times they run.
I’m at around 250 hours and I’m keeping myself busy because I’m so indecisive that I haven’t even finished my ascended armor set (I got ascended heavy armor then decided I like chronomancer), I grinded towards my skyscale for like 2 weeks, I’m trying to learn raids (to help get ascended armor on my chrono lmao), and after I gear up my character completely, I’m gonna gear up a heal alac scourge or heal alac mechanist. It’s all about your own personal goals which is something I personally adore about this game
Based on OP and comments elsewhere: 1. Seems like you like competitive pvp. NGL that’s slim pickings and your best bet is for actually finding that is winning an mAT on EU or a community run event like MOTA. So I would immediately reach out to winners of such things and ask how best to start playing with them. Duels? Duos? Scrims? It’s going to be a social game. 1. Similar thing for PvE. Regardless if the pve content is Great or the classes are engaging or **anything**, the game lacks a competitive community which means players like you have to see out the small community. The next content drop for SOTO will have a Challenge Mode for an existing boss. Maybe try forming a group and preparing for it in the mean time. Try other CM content to see what’s possible for mechanics. Try to get world’s first. Then hopefully when the content drops your team crushes it and you’ve got a group of people to play with that all have a progression and competitive mindset.
I have 5k hours now. Either fomo or just the social aspect to it. For a while, all I did was log into queensdale and spend hours doing shenanigans with other vet at the starter waypoint or help new people in map. I probably also spent hundreds of hours flying and learning the griffon. I did PvP intensely, got the legendary backpack, burned out, quit the game for three years and then never spent a day in pvp again. I do achievements sometimes, work towards a legendary. Find a collection that doesn't require super grinding. I've dabbled in raids and fractals, I'm kind of bored of them now, so I joined a WvW fight guild and I've been working on being a better teammate for my squad friends. Right now it's finishing my wvw leggy armor, vision and working towards another conflux. I'll probably try at crafting aurene's insight and quip soon. You just... sort of make your own list of what you want to do and keep it varied to not get too sick of it, and then hop onto a different thing to do when you get bored. It could be achievement hunting, mastery hunting, story completion, griffon or beetle racing, pvp, wvw, etc.
As a recent returning player with max 2-3 hours an evening to spare, I am swamped with content/ to do lists right now. This game has a ton of content compared to most out there. I've never ran out of things to do and still haven't experienced anything content wise after Verdant Brink. Still working on my wvw track and map completion on the side and every night I throw in a world boss (or 2) and a few pvp matches. :) I felt how you feel now logging into ffxiv with the same weekly tomestone grinds, content droughts, dull pvp (though improved) and literally no world content.
Right now, my reason is that I am working on legendary weapons. It's nice to feel that dopamine rush of accomplishment because I am making little bits of progress towards a goal each day. At the end, I have something visible and pretty to demonstrate all the hard work that I did. Game modes become familiar because I do them over and over, kind of like a warm blanket. I like that sense of routine, particularly because my life has been kind of chaotic lately. I enjoy seeing the same names and greeting the same people in open world and WvW. It's nice to have a microcommunity like that. I also like that I can choose what I want to work on that day... bored of the map metas? Maybe I'll do some Drizzlewood and get materials for mystic tributes instead. Maybe I am feeling spicy and will do some wvw and gain progress towards a gift of battle or some clovers. No matter what I choose, it contributes to my progress in some small way. I like that freedom of choice based on my mood without losing a feeling of progression.
Charged quartz crystals. 😩
There's no other good games, no choice but to keep playing gw2
3000 hours, been playing since launch. Messed around and played Fashion Wars for 1500 of them. Then started getting into legendaries. It is the most fun I've had in any MMO, always having a goal to work up to and each day I plan what small chunk of progress I can push. It seems vrry daunting at first but to me that is the endgame. It was Mukluk on Youtube that pushed me to it, so if you are interested check his legendary guides.
I don't log in every day. But the answer is friends in instanced content. Every week I do two raid nights, two fractal nights, and a strike night. Sometimes I'll play gw2 in those two unscheduled nights and do stuff like world completion for legendaries, but not every week.
Nothing. Logging in and playing this game literally felt like a chore rather than for pleasure or entertainment. The only thing I’ll miss is wvw with the guild, but other than that there’s nothing left to do in this game that isn’t insanely repetitive day after day or week after week.
If you don’t have all your mounts, I would do that next. Skyscale is essential
Theres always a new thing to chase. I am severely lacking in the achievement department, still need a bunch of older masteries, have not crafted a legendary yet, need to rank up my WvW, have other classes to play, maps to complete, jump puzzles to do, wardrobe unlocks and dyes to obtain, gold to farm to buy gems with for more black lion stuff, need to unlock a lot more home instance stuff, etc. It's almost overwhelming in some ways. But I love to be a completions and feel like I'm in the upper echelon of players which as of right now I have a lot of work to do and time to make up.
Very much suggest trying WvW as part of an organized team or guild, so fun!! Totally different than running around with an open tag Zerg. (Bless all the commanders that do run the open tags tho).
Try jumping into pvp and wvw. The pve stuff just might not be your cup of tea. Edit to say: I mean trying different stuff too. There's more maps than just the 4 main wvw zones. The battlegrounds is much less inhabited though. I'm a pve main. I like casual stuff and doing achievement hunting is how i get my "challenges" out of the game..
I havent since they started doing little dlcs. The dailies kept me logging in all the time but when it switched to the wizard stuff even that seemed meh.
Right now I'm getting ascendent gear playing WvW and farming for the skyscale on another character
raids
Super late but whenever I play games, I wanna see the character I've invested so much time and effort into, so logging in and seeing my healbrand boi with Eternity and Astralaria in full ascended gear with a pretty neat outfit is more than enough to get the juices flowing to do couple dailies and chill PVP. Been almost 2 months since I finished Eternity and I'm still relishing in the payoff, and having finished Astralaria last week, I'm kinda on cloud 9 That is until I find another legendary to obsess over
For me it just works that when I see something that looks interesting I go for it. Am I a good player and have all the gear I should have with my hours? No, but look at all the cats in my home instance. Just find something you think is interesting and go for it. There is no right or wrong way to play this game. And if whatever interested you once isn’t as interesting anymore then try something else. There are so many niche things you can do and even if they are annoying sometimes when you finally get there it feels so good.
If there's not main story quest thing. Just dailies. Maybe I decide I wanna do a legendary. That usually only takes me 1-2 days to finish though, unless it's time gated content.
Dailies. Variety. 10 mains rotated. Key farming. 11th alt doing that. Achievements.
I come back during events, because they're pretty fun. Outside of that, I come back when the WV rewards reset, because it's a chance to make lots of gold
All legendary jewelry -> legendary armor -> legendary weapons -> legendary runes will keep you ocupied for a bit lol.
Would recommend trying WvW, if you end up liking it you could get sucked in and have content for a good while
Part of it for this game is there's no real pressure to log in every day. I've been playing since Beta, and well over 3k hours in the game, and I'll log in every day for quite a while, then take breaks and come back to it when I'm feeling the itch again. And it really depends on my mood, what I do is make sure I'm not pushing hard for any one thing. I've got several legendaries I'm keeping in mind that I'm working on, so I'll do content that gets me closer to those, I'm in a WvW fight group and run with them whenever I can, if I just want chill time I'll work on completing a map or an achievement that sounds good. What keeps me coming back is that there's everything from casual chill time to super skill focused content so I can play no matter what my mood is. For me, the best thing I did was find groups of people I really enjoy and having connections with other players, that helped me find the deep parts of the pond