In February, I was pretty burned out from World of Tanks (WoT) and decided to take a look at Guild Wars 2 (GW2), which I hadn’t meaningfully played since 2013. Most of my 2014 gaming time was spent on WildStar (WS) and WoT.
Why I stopped playing GW2 back in 2013
The following things collectively made GW2 unattractive to me:
- I believed Ascended gear was not aligned with pre-launch expectations from ArenaNet (AN) regarding progression
- To make matters worse, the acquisition of Ascended gear was extremely grindy. I despised the random daily quests – they were a tedious waste of 30 minutes of my valuable time – and each gear piece was for a particular stats mix for a particular character (soulbound). The Ascended gear system was a disincentive for me to commit time to alts, and alts are fun
- There were aspects of the UI that I found irritating, e.g. how small the boon and buff icons are
- The combat mechanics in WS looked much more attractive to me. I love aim-based action combat, because it’s engaging and requires skill
Upon picking up GW2 again in 2015, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of the things I disliked had been meaningfully addressed, and that other quality-of-life improvements had been implemented. It’s worth mentioning the value of the GW2’s B2P monetization system – it cost me nothing aside from disk space to patch up to the current version of GW2 and play again.
Improvement #1: Ascended and Legendary gear changed from soulbound to account bound
Account bound > Soulbound
This was outlined in the March 2014 news article on the GW2 site.
The implications of course are massive. E.g. instead of having to farm Berserker Ascended gear for each of your characters, you could farm 1 set of Berserker jewelry and share them across characters, and to the extent your characters share the same weapons and armor, they can share those too.
Soulbound systems create a context where you have to do the same amount of work for each character, and this makes playing alts less attractive, which in turn I believe makes a game less sticky. Players love their alts.
Also, players who have more characters have more protection from class-specific nerfs and changes to the meta, and they are therefore less likely to leave a game when a particular class is nerfed. So I believe that for high-end endgame gear, having that gear be account bound makes a game more sticky for players.
Improvement #2: Daily laurel quests changed to login quests
This was a brilliant move by AN and synergizes with the previous improvement. You just need to login each day to get your daily credit, and I think AN has realized that if you login you might actually play that day. It certainly worked on me.
I utterly despised the previous system of random and completely unchallenging daily quests to earn laurels. Some gamers have the mentality that you should just have to do your dailies and suck it up, but that’s so not-fun for someone like me and is a perspective of the older gaming crowd (I’m looking at you, hard-working Gen X’ers).
Improvement #3: Dyes and skins changed from soulbound to account bound
Some folks don’t care about cosmetics, but I enjoying dialing in the look of each character. E.g. here is my 80 Guardian, with skins that were unlocked from my Warrior:
My Guardian sporting a classic plate armor look, a la the movie Excalibur
Improvement #4: Megaserver
There’s nothing more depressing than playing in sparsely-populated zones. AN implemented megaserver technology, and the level 80 world zones consistently have the critical mass for events.
Events such as the Karka Queen draw mass participation
Improvement #5: Structured PVP contributes to progression
This one is self-explanatory. I actually stopped sPvP pretty much cold turkey after the first 6 weeks of launch, because I wasn’t leveling my characters to 80. Oddly, I haven’t gone back, but I think I got burned out by the PVP.
Improvement #6: New level 80 zones are fun
Dry Top and The Silverwastes provide popular farming zones. I like the design of The Silverwastes, which is a PVE version of WvW.
All these improvements aside, after two months of playing GW2, in which I geared my 80 Elementalist with some Celestial Exotic gear, leveled a Guardian to 80, and geared my Guardian with a mix of Exotic and Ascended Berserker gear, I’ve decided to put GW2 back on the shelf. I want a different combat experience than what GW2 offers – that is, issues #3 and #4 listed above are still issues. Beyond that, the game continues to be very pigeon-holed in terms of the meta. For multiple classes, Berserker is still the way to go, and that limits functional choice.
Nonetheless, I may come back to GW2 for the Heart of Thorns (HoT) paid expansion, given that once you pay, it’s free to play.
Beyond GW2, in the MMORPG landscape I’ve heard encouraging things about Camelot Unchained, and I look forward to trying it out.
In the meanwhile, I’ve picked WoT back up again and really enjoying it, and I just paid for early access for Armored Warfare, a game is a mashup of WoT’s tank-based combat and the smaller battles common in MOBAs.
What are you playing these days, and what do you think of the evolution of GW2?
EDIT (2015/05/14): I forgot to mention that I also gave SMITE a try in February. Many of you had recommended it to me as a MOBA that I might like, given that it has aim-based mechanics.
SMITE was more engaging than League of Legends (LoL), but I’ve come to realize that the whole meta of selecting heroes and upgrades as counterplay isn’t something that I’m particularly interested in, because in many cases there is a right upgrade path or two and a lot of suboptimal ones, in which case there effectively isn’t a choice to be made. I shelved SMITE after trying it for a couple nights and haven’t been sufficiently interested enough to play it again.
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
Haven’t been playing MMOs since WildStar. I’ve backed Crowfall on Kickstarter, but haven’t seen any present/near-future MMO that really hits home for me right now. That said, after playing Divinity: Original Sin, I went back & am playing Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition while I await for another MMO to get my attention…
After reading that you backed Crowfall, I read the Crowfall game summary:
http://crowfall.com/#/about-the-game
Sounds VERY interesting to me. No grind, PVP-centric on a large scale.
Very curious to see how the political system works out. Offhand I’ve never played a game where there was such a system, or that meaningfully added to the game experience.
Yep, I liked Crowfall’s concept enough to back it on KS (after giving up on Wildstar’s sagging population). Their initial combat proof looked very similar to Wildstar’s. The devs have since commented that they’re big fans of Tera’s combat system, so it might look more like that when the first combat alpha test hits this summer.
I’m interested in the creative “campaigns” that they’re coming up with. I grew tired of GW2’s WvW because it started to feel too repetitive–the worlds were pretty static, and it became a cycle of alternating POIs week after week; wasn’t very rewarding.
I pretty much went through the same thing as you, Taugrim. Picked GW2 up again a few months ago, liked the changes but ended up not logging in after a bit because of the same reasons you mentioned. we will see how the expansions like whenever it hits.
Lately I’ve been playing Marvel Heroes 2015. Ya, I know, it’s even a suprise to me. Played it out of whim and am extremely glad I did. Was a bit overwhelming at first. Had to learn how the mechanics of the game were like as there’s a lot thrown at you at first with minimal hand holding. But because of that, I think, is the reason why I’m still playing it.
Happy gaming!
How would you rate the combat?
The combat experience and the game mechanics are the two things I typically look at first.
Hey Taugrim! I’ve been following you since Knight Online and then SWTOR. I currently main GW2 and would love to play with you! I’m on Storm Bluff Isle…what server are you in?
I’m on Blackgate. Our guild has been there since launch.
GW2 has had minimal changes, but hopefully the expansion, with its new build system and additional weapons, would breathe new life into this two year old game.
PvP is becoming Cele and counter-cele (zerk) and it’s been like that for a while.
WvW is where everyone started to go once the other two modes become stale. Three way battles are completely insane and also fun, but it may be the only selling point of the game now. It has to breakthrough.
Camelot Unchained will be another one of those Mark Jacobs proof-of-concept projects and I really hope it doesn’t whiff. Warhammer Online was a wonderful world.
If you like aim combat, I’ve been playing Blade and Soul, and though it’s monstrously grindy, the gameplay is steeped in the skill department, and worth a try. Maybe when it finally comes to NA?
Yep, I’ve been wondering when AN would add more weapons to each class.
More variety in playstyles is good.
Granted, there is a lot of balancing work, especially so that new weapons don’t simply supercede the older ones.
WAR was so innovative for its time. Achievements and public quests have since become standard features in many MMORPGs.
I especially love the RVR combat, it was truly epic.
I’m hoping MJ really learned from the WAR experience and that he and his team keep a very tight focus. WAR tried to do too much: PVE zones, RVR zones, PVP battlegrounds, dungeons, and 20 classes at launch. Way too much content to deliver and polish.
Anything seriously grindy in an MMORPG is a no-go if it creates a context where fresh max-level characters get wrecked by players who have already grinded out endgame gear.
One could argue that WoT is grindy, but at least you’re facing tanks around your tier.
Nice to hear you from Taugrim, you were quite for a long time.
The things you mentioned are main reasons I like todays B2P/F2P, you burned from one game, live it at the shell little bit, play something else, comeback and enjoy it again,.
By the you should look to the SWTOR again Vanguards rocks again :)
Games that use tab-target combat don’t really interest me any more – the combat experience isn’t sufficiently engaging.
So for that reason I don’t see myself picking up WoW, LOTRO, nor SWTOR again.
I tried Orcs Must Die Unchained closed beta it’s really good for a 3D moba. Better than Smite(maybe). But as a fan of the single player original, it didn’t keep the core game play up to standard. It felt dumbed down to compensate for 5v5 moba gameplay.
Currently I am trying World of Warships. I’m not blown away, but it feels like a good game. Strategy is more important than tactics. Setting up your optimal engagement in a ship takes minutes of preparation. Launching planes in the correct direction takes even more time. That said torpedo launching destroyers keep the game in the realm of split second decisions. I’ve had some rather frustrating games, and I don’t have a feel for the meta yet. So no verdicts on the game yet.
One thing I do like about Warships is that it is lag and ping friendly. Ping+lag ended my Wildstar adventures early.
This became extremely apparent the other day playing tier IX,X in my AMX 30. I got bawled out, shot and rammed by a unicum from my own team for failing to shoot a Obj140 with the front edge of his track exposed around a corner (it was a bad loss). I knew where the 140 was, I pre-aimed for him, but by the time his tank rendered it was too late to shoot him and I only saw him long enough for his track to disappear behind hard cover. You can’t explain this to an angry teammate who had everything render immediately.
After that I started taking real note of engagements with unicum or near unicum players while playing against other tier IX & X mediums. Across the board, they were firing and moving before I could render their vehicles & return the favor. It happens with heavy tanks and TDs but it is far more pronounced in medium vs medium game play.
I threw that story in there Ed, cuz when we last platooned together, it was on the east coast server. You started to complain about your ping, it got me to wonder if my own ping could be holding me back. Obviously I don’t know, but now I avoid certain engagements specifically for this reason and get better results for it.
That sounds fun, but I wonder if WoWS has the same adrenaline rush you get in clutch games in WoT.
That allied Unicum was a jerk. I’ll criticize people for camping and not helping, but if someone is firing on an enemy tank, I’ll take that any day.
How much ping are you getting?
When I’m on US-West it’s about 20ms, US-East is about 120ms. The 120ms latency is quite playable, but I do notice a bit of sluggishness at times.
WoWS is such a different style of gameplay to any game I’ve ever played, I can’t begin to say whether a person would like it or not. It seems pretty slow, but at the same time the ships never stop moving which adds a large amount of urgency to everything.
My ping is 120ms US-east and 150 US-west with a +/-20ms fluctuation.
After his initial angry PM from that unicum was a bit more reasonable. I gave him a complimentary “fuck you” and then I tried to learn what I could from him, cuz well he’s the better player.
I’ve picked up SWTOR to play with my gf, and funny enough we’ve tried a bit of GW2 as well (me not having played since launch, and she being new).
Other than that, GTA Online and Destiny are fun (though Destiny could use MUCH improvement).
And last but not least, I play lots of Heroes of the Storm! It is such a great game, and redefines MOBA in an excellent way. I think you would like Heroes.
Why do you think it would be a fit for me?
I tried SMITE based on a lot of recommendations, and it’s a good game, but not so compelling that I wanted to log in after the first 2 days of playing.
I dunno. Maybe MOBAs just aren’t a good fit for me. I like the opposite ends of the spectrum – the large persistent end with World PVP in MMORPGs or the really short matches of World of Tanks. The MOBA 30-60 min battle thing just isn’t my cup of tea.
I’ve been playing a lot of HoTS and I’ve never liked MOBA’s. Been having a blast.
HoTS has quite a few things that set it apart from other games in the genre.
20 minute games. Sometimes you might get a 30-35 minute game but mostly they end quickly.
Shared XP generation and a focus on team play. HoTS is more about team fighting and team work than other MoBA’s I’ve played. It’s all about positioning and working well with your team.
-Good hero balance. Sure there are stronger picks than others but most of the heroes in the game can be played effectively. I’ve only played one character (Sonya) that I couldn’t make work.
-No hopeless games. Comebacks happen often in HoTS. Just the other day someone posted a game on reddit where his team won a game with no kill. He went 22/0 on deaths but his team managed to excel on objectives and win the game. I’ve rarely had a game in hots where my team was so far behind that I felt like I couldn’t win.
-Build diversity! Building your character throughout the match is very fluid. I pick talents suited for what I need that game. You’re not pigeon holed into one optimal build for every character. That being said, there are a few characters (like Illidan) who do only have one valid build, Blizzard said they were working on that though.
-All the class Archetypes are fun. The game has 4 basic Archetypes at the moment. Warriors, who are tanky and good at CC/Displacement. Assassins, who excel at dealing damage. Supports, who provide excellent utility from healing, debuffing, and CCing. And Specialists who excel at seige damage/utility.
It’s been a ton of fun. It’s free so I’d recommend you give it a go. You have nothing to loose but hard drive space.
Thanks for the review. I tried to get into LoL and Dota 2 last year, but they didn’t hold my interest because the upgrade paths were static and the games were often long and hopeless. I’ll have to give HoTS a try!
Hey Taugrim, I agree with the post in every way. I haven’t been back to GW2 in a while. I did get to try out the changes and i like them a great deal. I go back when I get the MMO itch. I too liked the combat of wildstar better and might give that another try when it goes freemium later this year http://massivelyop.com/2015/05/13/rumor-wildstar-is-coming-to-steam-and-might-be-going-f2p/
I have mostly been playing Diablo 3 seasons for PvE and Heroes of the Storm for PvP. Heroes is a great game and I don’t have to grind for gear. Blizzard really nailed it this time with the MOBA genre. The shop is somewhat expensive but the weekly sale is helpful if I want to get new heroes.
I wish you all the best
That’s huge news about WildStar.
Not unexpected – pretty much every subscription-based MMORPG has had to move to move of a freemium / F2P model. That’s where the market is.
It’s a shame, I think the arrogance of launching with a sub-based model contributed to the rapid decline in the WildStar population.
OK thanks, that’s good info.
Does HotS allow you to pick from pre-set upgrade paths during a battle? In SMITE I found it annoying to have to make the same upgrade choices during a battle. I know it’s a part of the battle counterplay, but I found it disengaging.
Oh I touched on this a bit in a post above but I’ll elaborate here. Sorry.
At levels 1,4,7, 13, 16, and 20 you get the option of picking one of four talents. At level 10 you can pick one of two ultimate ability’s. To my knowledge there is only one character in the game, Illidan, that only has one viable build. Every other character I’ve played has several viable builds.
For example one of my favorite characters is Tyrande. She’s a support character that has a small single target heal, a long range skillshot that grants vision, an excellent stun, and a received damage debuff. Most importantly I can build her in many different ways.
-If I’m the only support on the team I can spec her to focus on heals to help my team sustain themselves.
-If we have another healer I can increase the power of her stuns and debuffs to punish enemy players who are out of position.
If we’re warrior heavy I can spec her to deal lots of damage.
-I can spec her for Owl’s which are long range snipes/vision control.
There is definitely the element of meta counterplay but it isn’t everything. HoTS is very fluid and flexible.
I am also going to get back into GW2. Need something to play while I wait for Camelot Unchained.
Namaste (Warhammer-Witchhunter)
We gotta keep in touch regarding CU – would love to do World PVP with you again.
By the way, I’ve become an absolute nutty MMA fan, in part thanks to you.
Hope we get the DAOC days back. I am even a paid backer of the game. I really want this game to thrive and get in the alpha testing.
Very glad to hear you are following MMA. We all need other hobbies outside of gaming.
I have been back to GW2 for a couple weeks now. I am actually enjoying it again.
Ed, you should jump into PlanetSide 2 with me and some of the other Maven-ites. We’ve been going at it semi-regularly for the past few weeks :)
Do you guys think you’ll be around for a while?
Our guildees have gamer A.D.D. – they play a game for a couple months then move on to something else. I like investing in games that I think are worth it.
I forgot to mention that I also gave SMITE a try in February, given that many of you had recommended it to me as a MOBA that I might like, given that it has aim-based mechanics.
SMITE was more engaging than League of Legends (LoL), but I’ve come to realize that the whole meta of selecting heroes and upgrades as counterplay isn’t something that I’m particularly interested in, because in many cases there is a right upgrade path or two and a lot of suboptimal ones, in which case there effectively isn’t a choice to be made. I shelved SMITE after trying it for a couple nights and haven’t been sufficiently interested enough to play it again.EDIT (2015/05/14): I forgot to mention that I also gave SMITE a try in February, given that many of you had recommended it to me as a MOBA that I might like, given that it has aim-based mechanics.
SMITE was more engaging than League of Legends (LoL), but I’ve come to realize that the whole meta of selecting heroes and upgrades as counterplay isn’t something that I’m particularly interested in, because in many cases there is a right upgrade path or two and a lot of suboptimal ones, in which case there effectively isn’t a choice to be made. I shelved SMITE after trying it for a couple nights and haven’t been sufficiently interested enough to play it again.
Hey Taugrim, welcome back! That was quite a hiatus.
I agree with just about everything you said about GW2. I too haven’t logged in for ages and whenni do it’s a short stint indeed.
Personally, after playing and liking wildstar I shelved it due to low population. I decided to give ESO a go and haven’t looked back. Like you, I like to blaze my own path and find/create builds based on synergy and obscure abilities that have the needed punch but are survive able or can support others though healing etc.
In short, I love it. Now that it’s dropped the subscription fee I think you should give it a look. The options are endless between armor types, skills, attributes and different gear sets (I just use crafted at the moment and buy jewellery).
I currently have a Templar that with one build can flick between pure dps, heals or tank and a few hybrids aswell for different gameplay types.
Yes, the declining population, and therefore long PVP queues, and the hideous RNG and grind for gear combined to kill my interest in the game.
While I would love for WildStar to make a meaningful comeback and grow, Carbine has a long road ahead of them.
I think the build system would appeal to me, but the combat experience / controls were just ugh. My 1st hour of ESO back in Beta was the least fun I’ve had in a new MMORPG, well maybe aside from Age of Wushu.
Since you’ve returned to WoT, are you planning on releasing any more “Road to Unicum” videos?
He has two new ones uploaded on youtube.
Yay!
I actually much prefer GW2’s combat to Wildstar’s combat. Yes, Wildstar has aim, but it doesn’t have vertical aiming and still does hit check dicerolls. It plays out one a flat 2d plane like a MOBA does, and too much overlap in class feel. (Point builders for everyone.)
GW2’s combat has a flow and rhythm to it that other MMOs haven’t given me. The classes all have a different play feel from each other as well. High ground matters, terrain use matters, movement really matters and timing is important.
I do agree that the boon and condy system is still a pain to read. I rely more on player habits to determine what boons I’m facing than trying to read the boons. There are at least some visual tells that help, but not enough.
I am curious if you have looked at the new traits, new trait system and new elite specializations for GW2 yet? I like some of it, but do not like the removal of choices.
The removal of choice have to do with a change to the trait system itself. Before, you could pick 1-3 adept traits (tier 1), 1-2 Master traits (tier 2) and only 1 Grand Master trait (tier 3) per line. You had three slots to assign traits and a multiple traits to choose from. Some builds took multiple adept traits, some took multiple master traits.
The new system only allows one adept trait, one master trait and one Grand Master trait. There are three choices at each tier. Existing trait options have been rolled into one trait. (All Warrior shouts trait are one single Grandmaster trait.)
To me, this means that builds will become pretty standardized, even more so than now. You can’t really tweak with this setup. And I don’t feel this is an illusion of choice question, as Illusion of Choice doesn’t exist in good horizontal progression. Illusion of Choice is mostly a vertical progression problem, or a poorly set up Horizontal Progression problem. (Which this change is more liable to create.)
However, some of the new traits look really good, and the elite specializations look great. Chronomancer and Reaper open up new playstyles and some crazy options.
Also, I played the Stronghold beta and I like it far more than Conquest mode. However, they currently plan to throw Stronghold in the same queue as their Conquest maps and I feel this is a bad choice. The builds do not translate across the two modes, nor will the type of players.
WvWvW remains the strongest part of the game, despite the terrible Stability change.
Hey Taugrim,
Thanks for the update and post. I’ve followed you since your Vanguard guidance in SWTOR and played Wildstar, WoT, and GW2 since. Interesting to see you are moving on from WoT. Why are you burnt out? I am still improving in the game so I find it very enjoyable.
I also went back and played Tera for a bit, and it’s a lot better than I gave it credit for when I tried it in beta. It’s got aiming like Wildstar, it’s got many pvp forms (open world pk, BG at level 30, arenas, and GvG). Plus the combat is amazingly engaging…much more than Wildstar and more reminiscent of AoC. Downsides are that some people are turned off by the art style and it is gear based which I know you’ve expressed annoyance with.
I’m really looking forward to Camelot Unchained and bought a KS for it.
Thanks again for the post,
Matt
I took a 2-month break from WoT, during which time I played GW2, but I’m playing WoT again.
The reason I took a break is because I had 10 consecutive days of playing “on tilt” – I was losing a lot of battles, getting frustrated, and making increasingly poor decisions. It wasn’t enjoyable.
Since coming back I’ve been playing at a win rate north of 59% and WN8 over 2800. Currently working up the E5 line. On paper, the E5 might be a great fit for my preferred style of play. TBD.
I don’t mind some gear progression, as long as it’s not overly tedious/pay-to-win/too vertical.
The reason I never played TERA after Beta is its design was inherently grindy. It had grindy Korean MMORPG written all over it. The leveling was incredibly bland.
Me too!
CU looks promising.
I also like Heroes because it’s a pvEvp experience. Blizzard is simply not going after LoL/Dota2 I believe.
If the team don’t play for the PvE objectives that pops (and are completely different depending of the map) it’s over quickly. The PvP team fights around those PvE objectives are very memorable :)
I also like how sleek the interface and the ping communication system is. It took me some time to appreciate/learn the game though (learning maps then Heroes strengh/weakness) but I’m hooked now.
In a strange way buying new Heroes with gold feels like an Horizontal progression to me. The more I play the more I unlock new way to play the game.
I’m surprised as I didn’t get into mobas and I’m not in love with Blizzard nowadays.
Thanks for sharing that positive feedback on Heroes :)
Maybe I’ll check it out.