A lot of the time, I feel like the only reason I keep playing GW2 is the lack of good alternatives in that specific genre. I don't want to grind my life away in BDO, New World seems to have crashed on take off,... It's sad, though, been playing GW2 since the pre-launch betas and the game has a place in my heart forever, but it just keeps on disappointing.
I have the same feeling with world of warcraft. I got burnt out a lot, and I can't see wow anymore. Retail (the newest expansion) is just bland. They have a seasonal model and every season is the same. Yes you get new zone (sometimes) and a new raid. But every season feels the same. You grind the raid, grind dungeons that have scaling and get a rating for doing them, you grind pvp for gear and ranks. It's the same over and over. The classic (old school wow) releases have a bad botting problem, and blizzard is doing almost nothing about it. Bots can mass report you, and your account gets banned (automatic system). I love the warcraft universe to death, but I had to delete the game. Now I'm relaxing with final fantasy 14 (that I'm playing on and off), and single player games.
@@FGazi-qf1hp Exactly the same as you. I hate that retail wow is a seasonal game now. I'd rather chill at my own pace. FF14 is very rigid with gameplay, and GW2 is much more dynamic so I'm jumping between the 2
thats how i feel at the moment, honestly if you want some fun mmo games check out phantasy star universe clementine private server, city of heroes homecoming private server. Thats what I play now, good communities and a lot of fun. A lot of modern games / mmos have become so corporatized that there is just not much natural fun and everything is a grind
@xenogear88 I don't have the time to play 2 mmorpgs. I love GW2, but at some moments, it's really confusing to me. I am a higher level, but I still die to low-level mobs. Idk. I have to start from the beginning and really get into it.
Give an MMO that this does not apply for. The biggest trump card of all of the four MMO:s with the exception of ESO is that they fulfill a gameplay niché or two that no other MMO game can compete with. In ESO:s case we are talking about a setting/world niché but the end result is the same.
as someone who started playing in late 2022, got through HoT, PoF, Icebrood Saga and LWS, i can tell you for sure, that Soto and Janthir feel really bad in comparison, a lot of recycled content, pretty low value content too and a lot more power creep, not good impressions at all tbh.
One of my oddly specific disappointments was how short and easy the boss fight are at the end of each story section of Soto and Janthir. Those fights used to be tough! Have interesting lead ups and long stories that got us involved with side characters. All of that was just … glossed over into something completed in 20 minutes 😢
GW2 nowadays is just a minimum viable product , the game had potential years ago . And you're correct , GW2 is just their piggybank that fund rando asshat projects . The game is a good looking ( subjective ofc ) nothing burger .
I personally always have GW2 as my secondary MMO while rotating between many of the Triple A Vertical Progression MMOs. I feel GW2 is a great place to relax and play the game at your own pace. I play for the experiences that I have with other players. I feel as I have gotten older, the concept of GW2 is becoming more and more appealing as the years go by and having more commitments out of the game leads to certain games where your gear and stats are constantly improved upon every patch becomes more of a chore than enjoyment. I prefer Horizontal Progression a-lot now, especially since I have branched out to many other Genres of gaming, I love the pick up and play formulae that most new games tend to focus on. Love it or hate it, GW2 is here to stay, especially for people who love the MMO concept, but rather than chasing a number every patch, we play for the experiences. In comparison to your typical vertical progression MMOs, every new patch you are focused on one thing, quickly acquiring the highest Item Level gear. Every quest, dungeon, raid, world quest you do, you are thinking of the gear, you are tunnel visioned on that one goal, while you are completely ignoring the new content in-front of you. Even though GW2 has no gear progression, the ability to customize your build is quite amazing, sure if you want to maximize your DPS, there's only a handful of choices. You can choose to do harder content or stick with the more casual content. The beauty of GW2 is that you are rewarded for doing either. Now that the PvE Open World Legendary armor is released, players of all skill levels have access to the best gear in-game. Unlike in your typical Vertical Progression MMO where the best gear is locked behind difficult raids or pvp. Sure you can make counter arguments for each of these points, however what I'm trying to say is that GW2 gives all players an even playing field in terms of 'Power', the difference lies in your skill and dedication to the game, not some arbitrary number that is artificially increased every patch which leads players to be blinded to what's in-front of them.
Good video, was waiting for it to be released to the public. I'll push back on Anet needing crunch to compete with other games. IMO they wouldn't need to crunch if they had a larger dedicated team for GW2 development, and they don't have those team resources because their business model doesn't allow for it. GW2 has never made enough monthly income for a SaaS model and that really comes down to a sub fee. Agree with the conclusion too, so much of GW2 is wasted potential. Potential that was obvious in 2012 and still obvious to this day. But the ship to fix GW2 has long since sailed, it is what it is.
I mostly play WvW, the past few years have just been a mess-balance, gameplay, WR, etc. It’s frustrating because I feel like the current team isn’t even able to identify the problems, let alone fix them. Which leads to: I’m genuinely worried about how poorly a new game from current ArenaNet might be received by the broader gaming audience, particularly given the current state of gaming/gaming discourse.
I've only been playing this game "seriously" for 2 years now (played a couple times before too, leveled up to like Lv40 and then quit), so I'm still having that sense of wonder and discovery about many facets of the game (just finished my first set of leggy armor actually), but, yea ngl I'm also already seeing some of the cracks, some of the decisions the devs/publisher make that I don't agree with. But I still love the game enough that I wanna play it everyday. Having a welcoming guild and friends to play with helps a lot with it.
You hit the nail on the head as to why I stopped playing. Constant issues, nothing to aim for, all achievements can be bypassed by buying gold and carries from other players, cash shop has better fashion than the in-game rewards, LFG sucks AND the community hates leading/starting their own groups.
Best video regarding GW2 I have seen in a LONG TIME, and you have not even scratch the surface of how bad this game has become, it is and will always be wasted potential.
I kinda disagree with the premise that software developers have to crunch, crunching in the gaming imdustry is often not paid and you get nothing from it even if the game makes a big hit developers will get nothing and that game money will go towards new expirements that will likely fail rather than compensating their developers. I also don't think that new software devs are doing the bare minimum they are micromanaged and the code they have to work with is 10+ years old.
True, however if the company which is in major decline and its crew are not willing to put extra effort to save themselves, nobody else will. Chances for their issues to just "work themselves out", with their current way of doing things, are miniscule at best.
@@UphillHook ANet has been in decline for a long time, it's legit why we're getting these half-expansions. Just how BRAINDEAD do you have to be to NOT notice this?
Here's a few of my rebuttals/adding to some points: Balance is really hard with so many moving parts, but one part that feel the most is complexity vs. Reward: as boondps chrono, I am sweating bullets to keep quickness around 70% uptime, while herald just...pulses it permanently.weaver and holosmith post negligible results better than classes 400% easier to play. I know it's intentional, but an absolute lack of role Trinity really kneecaps the game's design space. Obviously perma alacrity and quickness was a mistake. The gw2 community has a big problem with assuming optimization. Snow Crows is arguably the biggest resource we have when it comes to build guides, which is crazy to me bc they are a SPEEDRUNNING guild. (No shade towards SC, their content is phenomenal; but that's like asking an any%er tips on your magic build in skyrim) A hybrid note between community and balance is running raids and strikes with a properly experienced group it just turns into a walking simulator. My main criticism for your approach is that you come off as someone with MMO syndrome, where you play a game since launch, dump thousands of thousands of hours into a game (and not an insignificant amount of money either) and expect the game to be just as fulfilling since level your first character. Games lose their novelty over time. Gw2 has a ludicrous amount of accessible content that respects your time to get into (yes lfg is trash). 8 raids, 16 strikes (7 have CM) 23 fractals (5 have CM) and 30 dungeon paths without ever touching the open world. Yes, not all of these are bangers (looking at you cold war and swampland) and LFGing outside experienced is a fools errand not to mention a the walking simulator problem with experienced/optomized players, but the sheer amount of stuff you can actually do is insane even compared to its MMO peers My main point here is this: yes, gw2 has plenty of flaws (outside matters of taste), but also farming content for a game you've been grinding since launch is obviously going to look different to you than anyone else; and the dooming/fear mongering of "game is dead or on life support ect. Does nothing but harm the game bc potential new players will quit before even trying. I am all about expression (hence this fucking novel of a comment) but I really hope you use your platform for better things than "after 1,000,000 hours there's nothing to do"
I very much agree with you except the part about LFG outside "experienced". The non-challenge mode fractals (yes even the new ones and on Tier 4), some of the strike missions (Icebrood Construct, the Voice and the Claw, and Fraenir in particular), and most of the dungeons (besides most of Arah and some of the Citadel of Flame explorable paths) can be done even when posting "chill group" or "all welcome" with minimal or no explanations and without wipes. I may have a different opinion as I play a Tempest healer build and can keep people on their feet while they are learning the mechanics, but using LFG outside of looking for other experienced people is not "a fool's errand".
@iridradiant I could have been clearer: que times in the lfg outside of experienced take considerably longer for ppl to join. I personally live running training for OLC bc it's just so cool when mechanics "click" with ppl
2025 is the year to go from Doomer to Bloomer. Play more other games and return to GW2 when new content drops that’s how it works now. I understand how it feels to be emotionally linked to what it coulda been, and be passionate about the game to constantly want to make it better but it is more healthy to just let it go 😊 I think it’s interesting and important to see criticism and suggestions from creators but it will be simply better to just focus on something else and branch out, because we don’t really matter to them. Long live to Guild Wars 2!
I actually think that I’m going to try to play GW2 more in 2025. I’ve been a follower for years and now I’m ready to take on the role of a leader to replace one of the many players who have been leading, but are now taking a break, or have left the game. Everyone will be welcome, but I’ll focus mostly on helping new players.
@@traveling.down.the.road56 I did the same, back in the day. I take breaks here and there now, and love seeing people I taught now taking the roles of mentors themselves. Not just the mentor tag! ;D
I personally always have GW2 as my secondary MMO while rotating between many of the Triple A Vertical Progression MMOs. I feel GW2 is a great place to relax and play the game at your own pace. I play for the experiences that I have with other players. I feel as I have gotten older, the concept of GW2 is becoming more and more appealing as the years go by and having more commitments out of the game leads to certain games where your gear and stats are constantly improved upon every patch becomes more of a chore than enjoyment. I prefer Horizontal Progression a-lot now, especially since I have branched out to many other Genres of gaming, I love the pick up and play formulae that most new games tend to focus on. Love it or hate it, GW2 is here to stay, especially for people who love the MMO concept, but rather than chasing a number every patch, we play for the experiences. In comparison to your typical vertical progression MMOs, every new patch you are focused on one thing, quickly acquiring the highest Item Level gear. Every quest, dungeon, raid, world quest you do, you are thinking of the gear, you are tunnel visioned on that one goal, while you are completely ignoring the new content in-front of you. Even though GW2 has no gear progression, the ability to customize your build is quite amazing, sure if you want to maximize your DPS, there's only a handful of choices. You can choose to do harder content or stick with the more casual content. The beauty of GW2 is that you are rewarded for doing either. Now that the PvE Open World Legendary armor is released, players of all skill levels have access to the best gear in-game. Unlike in your typical Vertical Progression MMO where the best gear is locked behind difficult raids or pvp. Sure you can make counter arguments for each of these points, however what I'm trying to say is that GW2 gives all players an even playing field in terms of 'Power', the difference lies in your skill and dedication to the game, not some arbitrary number that is artificially increased every patch which leads players to be blinded to what's in-front of them.
Check out Josh Strife Hayes video (The Ultimate MMO Tier List (Backed by SCIENCE) (sort of), where he collects objective and factual data from as many sources as possible and compiles a ranking / points system which he thoroughly explains in detail. These are the top 10 from his list. 1st: World of Warcraft / Final Fantasy 14 (Tied) - 493 Points 2nd: Guild Wars 2 - 475 Points 3rd: Elder Scrolls Online - 358 Points 4th: Black Desert Online - 326 Points 5th: Lost Ark - 287 Points 6th: Star Wars: The Old Republic - 254 Points 7th: Old School Runescape - 247 Points 8th: Eve Online - 224 Points 9th: Albion Online - 214 Points 10h: New World - 153 Points Look how close GW2 scored to the top 2 titans of the MMORPG genre. The difference between WoW/FF14 and GW2 was only 18 points, where-as the next best ESO was over 117 points behind GW2. Remember this isn't a subjective list like 99% of the content creators have made, Josh lists all the sources he used and compiled the most accurate ranking and points based list he could to make the list an objectively factual as possible. The notion that GW2 is dying is all but subjective views by players who never got into the game or those who tried very hard to do so, haven't found the appeal of GW2 and resort to making such claims. All these claims have finally been put to rest. Josh is no shill for Guild Wars 2, he would gain nothing from artificially making GW2 2nd on his list and only shy of 18 points to that. The game is just that good, those who deny, just have to live with the fact that the game isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
GW2 is getting long in the tooth, I'll agree, but they have been listening to the playerbase, just not always the most vocal ones. People had wanted player housing in the game for a long time before Janthir, people wanted fishing (though the same casual folks that requested it didn't like the interactivity Anet put in there to combat botting, so there wasn't another winterberry farm issue), people had requested using masteries from other expansions (like jumping mushrooms from HoT) in newer maps; I was pleasantly surprised to see the gliding skills from Bloodstone Fen in a few of the newer zones. I'm sure adding warclaws to JW not only answered some lore questions about why they were in the Mists for WvW, but also gave it more of an out-of-WvW usage - and I recall when it couldn't be summoned *outside* WvW until people asked for that too. Mounts in general were pointed out by even Angry Joe in his initial review of the core game as something missing, so even though there were people who said they weren't necessary due to the frequency of waypoints (myself included), Anet still put them in the game as a response to players who thought the game as an MMO was incomplete without them and they are one of the best things about the game now. Secrets of the Obscure responded to two long running player requests - going to the Wizard's Tower and picking up what happened with Zojja after HoT. Land spears were also a player driven request. There are other lore requests that we've seen implemented too - I'm not that deep into GW1 (yet), but the Eye of Janthir and some of that side story stuff with the Shining Blade come to mind. Even jumping directly into Elona and Cantha (instead of waiting to get there as the map spiraled outwards) for the expansions were player requests. They can't please everyone, but they are *not* ignoring the playerbase as a whole. I'm wondering if they haven't touched the UI much because it is part of that same spaghetti code reasoning that they used to say why they refuse to fix dungeons and bring them up to modern standards. I remember a blurb put out by a dev mentioning how much effort it took to (re?)learn the storage system code to add new stuff to the materials storage. I would love to see the LFG and the Achievements panels get pulled out for their own main menu button respectively - and better integration between the wizard vault and other short term (weekly) achievements, so I know there can be improvements. As a programmer myself, I give them the benefit of the doubt if they don't want to touch mysterious but working code. As far as pulling money/dev time away from GW2 to make GW3, I have no real problem with it. They are still releasing something to do on GW2 (even if I really detest achievement hunting to make my relic fully legendary yet again - legendary is supposed to be more than just stat selectable dang it! and I'm still hunting mastery points) to make it worth paying the expansion money, which is more than I can say about subscription MMOs with content droughts... or those sports games that just do minor roster updates but charge full price for a 'new' game. If we get another leap like Anet did from GW1 to GW2, it will be well worth it.
If you know Planetside2 you know there were same situation when developers were dragged away into project Planeside Arena. They even sold lifetime subscriptions to fund that new project. Well that arena thing flopped so hard that there was a little earthquake on Mars. And you know what? Money was spent and IP went on market where it has changed a few owners and developers since. I dont say its the definitive way of GW2 but the similarities are frightening. Anyway good video and thanks for speaking out.
I was watching that live when i was still associated with a lot of very good PS2 players. Absolutely bizarre situation. I do have more faith in ANet to produce a better game that RPG did.
You bring up some relevant points, but I don't think it's as bad as you're painting it to be (maybe except for the PvP problem, that's BAD bad). From what I gather, the situation is much worse on the American servers? I've never encountered any problem with dead maps (at least not completely), LFG or lack of commanders (and if there's nobody for a specific content I'd like to do, I just turn on the tag myself) here on the European ones. 🤔 And your take on crunch... is definitely a take that was taken in the history of takes.
Thanks for being honest. I’m still a regular player, and I’ve been playing since 2016. The content in Janthir Wilds is hella repetitive, and people glorify it still to this day. Made all types of alts w/ different classes and race, played WvW, strikes, raids, fractals, etc. it just aint clickin with me anymore. I’m already burnt out from the game as it is so I’m taking a break and going to back to my survival crafter games.. at least I can feel some progression and not some useless endgame grind for cosmetics. I think the horizontal progression just isn’t for me as I thought. Until then I will be holding off until Anet drops some new content, plus I’m waiting for that new Monster Hunter to release so that’ll be my filler comfort game. If anyone is butthurt by your opinion then that’s on them lol
My feelings are that Arena net is in a semi maintenance mode of GW2. All the talent and energy is at whatever it is they are planning on releasing. They are slowly & gently winding this game down. Once you stop hoping for any big drastic changes or HoTs size expacs and view it as a time filler it’s not as disappointing. Hop in when you feel nostalgic and hop right back out again, there’s still alot of fun to be had if you accept this is likely all we will be getting until whatever is next.
Exactly, they are clearly sunsetting the game albeit over the course of a few years while they work on this new MMO. We've seen what to expect by now and anyone holding out hope for drastic change is just setting themselves up for disappointment.
It's been clear that they're doing this the moment they announced SOTO as a "shorter expansion" and, despite being much smaller, it was FAR more disappointing. They're working on other stuff like the confirmed GW3 and this one has an increasingly smaller and smaller team, similar to what they did with GW1.
Great video.I had already started taken a break from this game and I wasn’t even that hardcore of a player but when I bought SOTO and JW I honestly felt guilt of spending money on those expacs. One just felt like it was barren and the other just not fun. So pretty fast I had just gone back to doing the same things.
Oh also I had a friend play this game with me but after a while he pointed out and asked how do people have fun doing the same things over and over again for years
They are now stuck into their own greedy philosophy: to favorize rewards over content (to farm the same small maps events 50 times instead of exploring and be amaze by new stuff).... and people won't follow if they'll switch back. In GW1 we was talking hours about thrilling new stuff discovered and mysteries... meanwhile in GW2 we talk about statistics, dps, gold/hr, fashion war. If not being of my guildies (TINY), I'd play something else. Anet's new game being around the corner (maybe a soon-to-be-botched GW3), I real hesitate to invest/loose more time and money on GW2. Anet lost my trust.
oh Sil, Sil... you have no idea how much you push me to make a rambling video about the game and a few of its topics :D At this point they just became opinions, because there is 0% chance to cause any changes with anyone saying anything anymore. Game has its ups and downs, I love the game and always will, but it sure has a lot of frustrating problems around it. Maybe I will step over that boundary finally to speak my mind... maybe. Good thoughtful video, keep it up!
SotO was shit, JW is low to mid. all the other expansions were more hype and more engaging by far. I'd rather wait 2 years to get another EoD size expansion than 2 SotO's
I feel it is rather a problem that content is strechted out so much. They can do one xpac a year to get more money but than maybe do the full xpac. Wait a year. Do another one. Instead of the quartely patches.
I really liked the additional context. I think the biggest issue is just there isn’t really a way to make the game better and be worth the investment. This is especially true if it came from higher up where profit/ROI takes precedence. I’m personally not high on NCSoft as a company. I 100% feel with you that what hurts the most is having an improvable product be abandoned (relatively at least) because the gains from fixing it isn’t worth the effort for the people in charge.
Thanks for watching until the end, I definitely feel like they are trying to work on a replacement in the background, hopefully some actual news gets dropped to build some hype and get people excited.
I agree that the game is dying, but that's not a bad thing, and the game certainly doesn't suck. Guild Wars 1 has no new content coming out (other than some new weapon skins for the 15th anniversary) and still has a dedicated player-base. GW2 at least has expansions coming out every year and while it's mostly asset-reuse, it's still enjoyable for what it is. I don't like the idea that a game must be getting frequent content updates in order to be seen as relevant. By that logic, every single-player game is dead and left to rot. Which is just not true. I always call GW1 and GW2 "single-player mmo's" and that is with admiration and relief. I will say, however, that if GW3 does become a thing, Arenanet HAS to have learned from their past mistakes, and there have been more than a few. Their next game will be held to this regard. To show everyone that they took all those lessons and feedback to heart. I am both confident and weary, and I say this as a life-long Guild Wars fan, just like you. Thank you for making this video, Sil.
@Ape_Hawk you're welcome. The title was hyperbole and a play off the good in GW2 Video. You make good points, I actually finished GWAMM right before EoD came out and GW1 was still very alive.
The problem for me is that my guild and i were more end game focused but we got to the point where we had done every raid gotten multiple sets of legendary armor all the trinkets... Then they stopped releasing endgame content so we had nothing to really focus on. One raid in like 8 years is sad.
Neglecting the bad? Nah not really I just recognize the game isn't the be all end all of my existence. Every single game in existence has limits and pros and cons. It's all about your goals and interests and if they don't align anymore that's fine...move on. But to lambast this game for 30 min is kinda...extra lol. All games sunset and who said GW2 is immune to this?
The more you invest in to GW2, the less you get back out of it. That's the lesson I learned after watching it stumble around for years and never really improve. I was gonna post a ranty comment about my own experiences with the game and content creation but I just binned it because frankly, my opinion doesn't really matter over all that stuff. I did wanna add that I got sick of the monetization of QoL things in GW2 though; and how it's often designed inconveniently so you'll be inclined to pay for better functionality. See bag space, see equipment templates, build slots, infinite fishing lures, teleport to friends, there's loads more but I don't wanna list everything. Some of these are more impactful than others, but it doesn't make the things feel any less crappy. And grinding for gold doesn't make them any more friendly either. And now these mini-expacs have shown me that there just isn't that much value added with them and they do feel like minimum viable products, and I don't like feeling a part of that. So yeah, I last logged in just before SoTO launched and haven't felt like I've missed out.
Love seeing this take on the QoL stuff. Honestly it's made the game so much worse than it could be, but people still put Gw2's gemstore on a pedestal compared to other MMOs. I've put over 2k hours into Gw2 and I genuinely believe it's Gemstore has some of the worst pay for convenience in modern live-service games. Being able to swipe for gold means rewards literally DON'T matter. I would rather play warframe or Destiny just because there isn't anywhere near this much pay for convenience. The character-bound stuff is especially egregious.
@@hayingman4638 I never used to be bothered by the gemstore QoL stuff because I too, figured I could just farm gold in-game so it wasn't so bad. I could make a significant amount through daily CMs and meta trains, so that was never an issue. But in the end, I just got tired of seeing design for systems be gutted and the fun aspects of them being monetized because they could, not because they should, and I eventually changed my opinion.
You didn't even mention how the new player experience (and free to play) is actually terrible. If you ever want to see how bad it is just read how to make a rune, sigil and relic from scratch without the Trading Post, there is no explanation or straight forward ways to gear up without LW3.
I'm already prepping for the inevitable sequel which will hopefully release by 2030, as i fall like it's either that or a pivot to mobile development, as the game seems to be haemorrhaging players, even though i still play the game almost daily.
The balancing PvE fights for ranged vs melee things is actually rlly interesting. I remember an old ANet dev describing old Rev SB 7-shot where it way supposed to "only be more effective at range" in order to leave some design space for melee weapons to be good and that's why you had to line up your triangle reticle perfectly. Now you just push a button and all 7 hits auto-track the target. My, how times have changed.
I appreciate your commenting on the developers, particularly the lack of talent. There's no nice way to say this, and the devs don't deserve harassment, but the modern devs are just *bad*. The writing is still just as bad or sometimes worse than launch (though also sometimes better). The maps are all these collections of pre-made assets that make me feel like I'm walking around someone's Sims environment. I struggle sometimes to see NEW assets in these maps beyond a handful of architechture. All the development goes into the gem store. They struggle sometimes to release updated icon art for items, gamebreaking bugs are still in the game, etc. etc. I'm someone who has been here since HoT and it's depressing to see the game just linger like this. I had hope for the new format, but they clearly haven't done enough to make it work. As a final product, it's fine. As a content release pattern, it's boring and feels cheap. Like you said, we'll get a trickle of Greer in Convergences, we'll get "CMs" that will likely just be Stats+. I wish the game would have just sunset after LS4 like it clearly was supposed to. Or EoD like it clearly was supposed to. For me, I don't see this game as you do as a family member not living up to their potential. For me, it's like watching a once-proud and strong family member after a stroke, lingering. Living just to live. Suffering pain and sorrow and indignity for however long it takes until the other shoe drops and the words on everyone's lips are "it was a mercy" "at least they're finally at peace". It is morbid. It is grotesque.
I used to play at least once every few weeks or months and always enjoyed my time, but nowadays I log in maybe once every six months and quit after just a few minutes. It doesn’t help that I’d have to buy new, lackluster content just to 'really' get back into it. The content itself often isn’t very enjoyable; it feels more like a chore than something new and exciting. Back then, you could just hop on, have stupid, brainless fun, and that was enough. Now, the content feels like something you have to do rather than something you want to do. The bloat is part of the problem, but it’s mostly because the gameplay isn’t engaging. The reward systems are poorly designed, and in my opinion, the game’s major issues have only gotten worse over time. Ever think about running old story missions on all your alts? I certainly don’t anymore, especially with the new content. The fact that conversations are now hardcoded so you have to stand there, wait, and listen-without being able to skip them-completely ruins any excitement I might have had for replaying them, whether for rewards, achievements, or anything else. It just sucks now. So many new pieces of content are time-gated on release because they are scared people will find out that their new content isnt a lot in the first place, and even after they eventually change it, they keep the stupid time-gating just reduced a little, often even just not time-gating but locking certain content behind tedious collect achievements where you have to constnatly jump around the same area with specific annoying restrictions to waste your time.
Before even watching the video, here are my points: - Balance is fucked, every single ranged DPS class needs their numbers cut by at least 30% - The LFG is turbo cancer, rework deperately needed - 2h "story" aka cutscenes interlaced with green bars isn't content, especially every 3 months. The new metas are subpar at best - Commander Tag is way to expensive and gatekeepy. Bake the core functionality into Squads and especially 5-man groups (also bonus meme: people rely too much on trainers and commanders in the first place) - Difficulty scaling is basically non-existant. Everything is either Shiverpeaks or Cerus LCM, the true 'middle class' content just isn't really there except for a few good CM fights - New fractals are not fractals, AR needs a functionality change to be account bound and in general we either need T5 or Infinite Scaling But I don't think the game is dying, it has found it's target audience and most people reading Guides, watching YT and checking Snowcrows just aren't it.
@@AzureRoxeLmao. This is a LOT of MMOs that go on for years and years, maintenance mode be in part a curse eventually to befall them but one that scarcely kills it.
Great video. I fully agree. The problems with the game are core systems which I don't expect will be fixed for the very reasons you mentioned. Another of the big problems with the studio was its core "manifesto" mentality which held it down even from launch. ANET as a studio had an attitude of weird Iconoclasm which has held them back on almost everything they released. Let's take the initial raid launch, for example, which you shared a clip from the Heart of Thorns event. At the time, people may not have been here to know this, but Mike O'Brien wanted the Raids not to be in LFG because he thought they would be trivialized too fast. Fast forward to 2024 and no one raids. At the time of GW2 raid launching with Heart of Thorns, other MMOs such as WOW long had scalable difficulty raids to include LFG easy mode, normal mode, and heroic mode. Each of these acts like a funnel ushering new players into raiding. It is astounding that there remains no introductory mode for Raid style content in GW2, no strikes are not that content, and no Wing 4 is an ad hoc community-driven innovation. What makes it doubly astounding is that Fractals exhibit a near-perfect system for creating new CM Fractal Players. Agony requirements, mechanics, and fractal level go up, until eventually you get the curious few who say, "Okay, I'll try CMs" and new fractal CM players are born. There is nothing like this for Raid. It's all on the community to correct for the disastrous raid launch in which a lot of money was spent for no one to play that content, to this day. We inevitably hear people say "You can't compare Guild Wars 2 to other MMOs for reasons X, Y, and Z." That is built on a logical fallacy of goal post-shifting. As this is my third MMO, and I'm a 12-year player, you absolutely can compare MMOs. Moreover, as you showed in this video, it's not just about MMOs. Plenty of people leave MMOs to play other non-MMOs, including streamers and UA-camrs. In the end, every gamer has 24 hours in a day, and only so much time to game. Every game that you want to play competes for your time. I still love Guild Wars 2. But once upon a time, a rogue dev developed Action Combat Mode just for funsies. Those days are far behind us. Essay comment over. See y'all in game.
Trying to get ahead of the video upload curve so all you guys will have a new video by Monday (i hope to get it up this weekend for members) so that way you guys get a good amount of early access.
I was so hyped for this game when it came out, as I was looking for a World of Warcraft killer, but the heavy focus on story, the weird rampup in diffculty (mobs taking ages to go down and 2 shotting me) the lackluster dungeons and gear progression, and alot more things left me wanting
It's such a great feeling, isn't it? When the developers are basically part of the fandom and it feels like you're working together to make something special. Yeah you won't get that from Anet anymore, that part of them died with GW1. I'm glad you've touched on the cultural problems at Anet a bit, because everyone's avoiding that topic. Every problem the game and the community has stems from that, but most people in the community don't even know how bad it is. They still cling to an image of them that's 15 years outdated. Or worse, some do know but will gaslight others to cover for Anet, because Anet's a cult and they're in it. The problem isn't that they don't crunch though, the real problem is a total lack of passion for the game, be it the content side or the lore. I genuinely believe most people at Anet don't even want to make a game. Sure there are exceptions, but there's a reason why you always see the same 4-5 devs interact with the community from a company of 360+, and even that's in a very controlled environment like 4 times a year. Call me abysspilled but I think GW3 will doom this company if they're dumb enough to release it. They're culturally incompatible with 90%+ of the gaming audience and it'll be pushed into the spotlight on every level from gameplay to writing. The wider audience won't be as lenient as the GW2 community, and Anet's method of censorship + ignoring everyone who isn't praising them will only make them look worse. Of course I hope that I'm wrong, who knows, maybe Colin has a masterplan for saving this company. For the record he's the only person at Anet that I still trust, but even if he knows what the problems are I doubt that he can fix them all alone.
@okbuddykormir i don't get the faith in Colin. He was part of the problem during LWS1 days and then he boned out and came back and now he's the savior? BIG DOUBT
@@SilhouetteGaming1 That's okay, massive Colin glazing incoming Most people put the blame on Colin and praise Mike O'Brien for "saving" the game, but how do we know it's not the opposite? To know for certain who's to blame for early GW2 mistakes we'd first need to figure out who decided on the LS business model, and my money's on the Studio Director (MO), not the Game Director (Colin). Maybe it's cope but even from interviews it seemed to me that MO is the out of touch one, and Colin tried to do his best within the boundaries set by MO. Granted Colin made mistakes too, but ultimately it was MO who ran the company into the ground by 2019, causing the layoffs. Now Colin might be back with greater control (Studio Director), but he still has to work with the broken Anet he inherited from MO, and NCSoft is calling the shots now (once again thanks to MO fumbling). HoT was the Colin expansion, PoF's the MO expansion, HoT > PoF. This is subjective and bit of a tangent but bear with me. I've always got the impression from MO that once the other two founders were gone, he wanted to make GW2 entirely for himself. It was his IP from then on, his vision. That's why GW2 is nothing like GW1, MO simply didn't care about the game or the playerbase and wanted to replace both. For example Jeff Strain (another founder) was still talking about GvG in GW2 around 2008, once he was gone MO scrapped it. Of all the old higherups, Colin seemed to be the only one left who at least cared a little bit about GW1's legacy and not dumping the playerbase. A year or two ago on stream he was talking about how Anet really should've kept GW1 development going along with GW2, because these are two completely different games. This makes me feel kinda vindicated. Colin was our guy. He is HIM. Rest of Anet wanted to ditch us back then and MO would've done it again had NCSoft not stepped in at 2019.
I clicked this video out of morbid curiosity. I started this game way back in 2012 and was around during the 3 open beta phases before the launch. If I'm being honest, anet fumbled the ball way back in 2012 already when they clearly had no idea what they were going to do regarding the endgame and everyone was mindlessly singing it's praises because they were all still in the honeymoon phase. If people thought pof was the height (or any other expansion period) of the game they had NO idea what an actual height was. In 2012 every city and even maps like Queensdale had multiple instances with zergs so large players got culled from view. I think you've probably heard of the "fixing signposts" debacle in LS1 when many people, myself included, finally stopped huffing the copium and realised anet legitimately had no clue what they were going to do moving forward. A LOT of people dropped the game back then. FF14 ARR was the one that made me jump ship. In the time since, they've never ever managed to go back to that high. They've had their ups and downs, but after POF - their last high - it mostly just seemed to trend downward to a flat line. I myself have played and quit this game several times - first was LS1, and then HoT drew me back, lost me somewhere just before siren's landing, pof got me back but lost me again somewhere during dragonsfall, I skipped the entirely of IBS but came back during EoD. Then the first mini xpack came. When they announced this, I was thinking "isn't this just a paid living word season?" but I decided to give them a shot. SoTo disappointed me. I can't say I was surprised - but somehow it ended up being even less interesting than I thought it was going to be. I didn't get janthir wilds and likely won't unless it goes on discount. This is the first expansion - if you even want to call the last 2 that - that I decided "you know what, I'll sit this one out, I'm not getting it on launch". And I don't regret that. I think elite specs were a mistake, in all honesty. Yes, they sounded great during the HoT reveal, they sounded quite hype - and it was. But it isn't sustainable for the company. This amounted to designing an equivalent of NINE new classes every expansion. NO OTHER MMO is insane enough to do this, not even WoW, and they have way more money than anet. But they let the cat out of the bag, and with PoF elite specs being as good as they were - mostly (we don't talk about mirage) - people had this expectation of new elite specs for expansions. SoTo announcing that there won't be any is going to end up being a sore spot for people, no matter how much they shove the word "mini" into our faces. Out of curiosity after having not played for a year, I logged on today - one of the perks of having no sub fee. I was struck by how few people were around DR, LA, arborstone and the wizard's tower. I went and did the Ley-Line Anomaly for the lulz as it happened to spawn, and this was the usual time I did it before I quit - and it was the first time (EU servers) in years I've seen it survive at this time slot and run off to the next spot because there weren't enough people to kill it in however many seconds it used to die. I didn't say anything - but quietly I was thinking in my mind "damn, there's this few people left". In the past when I had more copium to huff, I would just brush it off as people being in the new xpack zones. But even back then people zerged the Ley-Line Anomaly down when the xpack was fresh. I walked around various maps, looked at my usual rich mining node spawns (where there were usually people - alt accounts usually, but still) swapping character at those nodes. No one. For possibly the first time in this game I'm struck but how *few* people were around. Do I think the game is dead? Hell no. There are MMOs that survive with a skeleton crew for a dev team and a playerbase just as thin. Do I think it's reaching the tipping point where it'll be in maintenance mode like gw1? It is very slowly getting there from the looks of it. This has been a comment that's way too long and rambled on too much , but I'll just end by saying I enjoyed your video.
@Somebody374-bv8cd i read the entire comment and yes, I remember the repairing signs update, and the Queensdale champion farm. The game is alive but there is little left to look forward to. I'm curious to see what GW3 comes out with. If they had axed elite specs after HOT and devoted those resources to something else it could have been an entirely different world.
@@SilhouetteGaming1 I am curious about gw3, but I going to keep my expectations somewhat moderate. The OG devs are no longer there, so it's hard to say what the game will be like.
It's not the equivalent of 9 classes when all they need to do is figure out what weapon to give them, make 3 trait lines, whatever their skills, ult and heal ability will be and that's literally it. Idk where this gaslight of "the specs are the equivalent of an entire class!!!!" came from. It's like saying the specs in WoW have always been entirely new classes.
@@AzureRoxe Because for 1 example a scourge is completely different from a reaper, which is completely different from a harb and all of them are completely unlike a core necro and their shroud is totally different. and they play nothing alike. In WoW, a ret pally remains ret - dps, a rholy remains holy - heal and a prot remains prot - tank , which has been the same the entire time since WoW released in 2004. Not to mention when Blizzard's first xpack, BC launched, all they did was swap pally to horde and shaman to alliance and people still paid $15 a month + the BC cost. Gaslighting is also an overused word on the internet. Everything is gas-lit nowadays. No wonder LA caught fire.
Another issue I see with people saying the game is getting bad, or getting aged. Is that you're asking too much to an old game. The game is so good that it still survived all this year with these called issues, where are the other games released the same year? DEAD People overplayed the game for so many years and blames the company for not having more "content" I have been playing since November 2024 and I have 2111 hours of gameplay right now, now imagine people that started at launch or even 5 years ago, of course you will feel a lack of content if you over-do anything in life. Play Path of Exile for 5 hours a day for 5 years and let me know if you feel it exciting by then. Even WoW died to reborn in the "Classic" version because people knew they lost a "good game" people right now would be saying gw2 is dying to then realize how good the game actually was and beg to get it back when is gone
For real. It happens with almost every game-as-service title. Some folks try to turn it into a single solitary source of entertainment and make demands that the game will never keep up with.
You are right. There really has been a decline in the quality and amount of content in the game lately. Tbh, I think it is deceiving calling SOTO and JW as expansions. Do you think it has something to do with the Devs being underpaid or just a matter of the Devs being lazier compared to the Devs who have left the company before?
If I were you I will still keep making these videos man. Dont let be this the last. Nevermind the haters. We as GW2 fans are customers and we demand a better product from Arenanet developers.
I don't mind haters lol. The point was to drive discussion more than anything which it seems it has. I will likely make more critical videos in the future but it's not something I want to be my general content. I'm not on a crusade against GW2 or Anet, it's just I feel their leadership isn't making the right decisions.
@@SilhouetteGaming1If the game is now on a sunset might as well we do a crusade to save the franchise at least we tried. We are the customers and we demand a better product.
Honestly? Whether I even bother buying any “expansions” going forward solely rides on how JW concludes. Since soto, the pattern has been to start strong and finish INCREDIBLY weak. Once again, JW had a strong start but hasn’t done all that much since then. Don’t get me wrong, JW is still WAY better than soto (pretty low bar), but I sincerely doubt they’ll stick the landing, and I especially doubt they’ll learn from their mistakes. And if the rumors are true that GW2 is solely being run by a skeleton crew and that everyone else is working on GW3, I’m probably just gonna drop the franchise all together.
[I especially doubt they’ll learn from their mistakes.] I keep hoping, and they keep disappointing. It's like they take standards established by decades of game design and just... don't use them? And that's something that sits on their weird, revolving door leadership that can't seem to get it together.
Blaming devs that they don't crunch more and not even mentioning lacking of investement and how the company's leadership is wringing all they can from the developers after cutting the staff in half even, is wild. I agree on all your points but I don't think you understand how companies work
After seeing that I have spend over 4k hours into the game I was shocked to realize how little fun this time has been. At least half of the time I continued just hoping things would get better. Maybe the devs will invest time into WvW. Maybe they will fix the horrible dmg/cc/invulnerability meta. But no. Nothing for WvW. The meta just gets worse in a different way. There will never be a good content update. Also the fact that they are funding side projects from their GW2 income is nothing new. They admitted that 6 years ago already when they mentioned a scrapped Anet project. GW2 never got much love after it's initial release.
I genuinely hope next xpac they dont try to make some "new mayor feature" with JW it's so noticeable they poured their heart out with the first map, and then the rest of the crunch went to making the hpusing system... everything else of that xpac is low mid to shit sadly
Not to mention the absurd number of coin types for everything, as the most common thing of all... The damned gold, which is hard to obtain. Mind you, if you don't pay real money for that and gems.
I have 1k hours in GW2. But most of them where played at start while learning a lot of stuff, but now I came after 2 year hiatus played for 2h and left it again cuz the zergs are boring. I loved fractals, but after doing them and understanding they don't develop anything new in fractals or dungeons, I just quit again.
Happy new year bro. We'll see how it does when it's public on Monday. Had to recook it a little bit (my computer was struggling compiling all the clips) but I'm glad you enjoyed it.
@@SilhouetteGaming1 of course, glad to see I made the intro lol. I liked the changes you made to it, definitely sharper. I'm expecting an even split with support and salt but you spoke your mind and that's all that matters.
Check out Josh Strife Hayes video (The Ultimate MMO Tier List (Backed by SCIENCE) (sort of), where he collects objective and factual data from as many sources as possible and compiles a ranking / points system which he thoroughly explains in detail. These are the top 10 from his list. 1st: World of Warcraft / Final Fantasy 14 (Tied) - 493 Points 2nd: Guild Wars 2 - 475 Points 3rd: Elder Scrolls Online - 358 Points 4th: Black Desert Online - 326 Points 5th: Lost Ark - 287 Points 6th: Star Wars: The Old Republic - 254 Points 7th: Old School Runescape - 247 Points 8th: Eve Online - 224 Points 9th: Albion Online - 214 Points 10h: New World - 153 Points Look how close GW2 scored to the top 2 titans of the MMORPG genre. The difference between WoW/FF14 and GW2 was only 18 points, where-as the next best ESO was over 117 points behind GW2. Remember this isn't a subjective list like 99% of the content creators have made, Josh lists all the sources he used and compiled the most accurate ranking and points based list he could to make the list an objectively factual as possible. The notion that GW2 is dying is all but subjective views by players who never got into the game or those who tried very hard to do so, haven't found the appeal of GW2 and resort to making such claims. All these claims have finally been put to rest. Josh is no shill for Guild Wars 2, he would gain nothing from artificially making GW2 2nd on his list and only shy of 18 points to that. The game is just that good, those who deny, just have to live with the fact that the game isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
I've only played a few hundred hours so far, but I've already noticed a lot of glaring issues with the game. None of them are particularly deal-breaking for me, as I started the game with the sole-intention of using it as my casual long-term game. The horizontal progression and relevance of older content makes it easy for me to pick up and put down over the next few years and helps alleviate how painful a lot of the systems can be. I love the game, but ANet's greedy behavior and unwillingness to improve some basic systems of the game do put me off a bit. I have everything up through SotO (haven't played it yet) and I've enjoyed everything so far. Even though I've spent more than I intended, I have plenty to do for years.
Been playing since GW1, GW2 was great tp play at the beginning and once they settled down. Has its highs and lows. But, has been a HUGE disappointment since the new folks took over. These ‘expansions’ (EOD & SOTO are a joke compared to the real expacs from the past. I no longer recommend the game to anyone to get into now. Just not fun and grinding for crap. Sorry, GW2 you are no longer worth it!
What do you guy do when you play a mmo a lot, have a very strong or rich account, do you just let it fall asleep forever or do you manage to sell it? I'm thinking about stopping, I have 10 legy weapons, all legy armor, 40+k AP. Seems like a waste to just let it die in a corner.
I personally still play, and RMT is against the rules IE selling accounts and stuff so be careful if you decide to go down that route. I will never sell my account tbh
Personally I don't think it's smart to sell an account, especially one you grew up with, in a sense. Even if you manage to snag a couple hundred dollars for it, maybe even a thousand (I have no idea how much accounts sell for, just throwing random numbers), you won't get back even a portion of the value you spent on it (money and time both). I think it's fine to let them "die in a corner", because if you ever get that nostalgia about the game again, maybe in a couple years, if the game's still alive, you can fire it up and jump back in, to see where things progressed, or just walk around or whatever. I have 2 genshin accounts I spent probably thousands of hours on, had to stop because of extreme burnout and frustration with the developers/publishers, but i wouldn't even think about selling them, one day I wanna go back and welcome all those characters I collected gems for and raised from Lv1 babies. I'd hate to go "Oh, right, that account's in someone else's hands now..." Sorry for the long-winded rambling, just my two cents.
I quit when they started adding trash Fractals. Stop making things take longer just to make them take longer. I dont have all day to do jumping puzzles in my "endgame" pve content.
I'm sorry but are you really criticizing the devs for a healthy work life balance that avoids crunch? Should they also start harassing women like Blizzard did to be a successful developer or include other shitty practices? This point immediately killed all my will to criticize the other points you're wrong on. Should have kept this video in your little echochamber...
The game slowly dying Releasing new weapon proficiency and make it useless, balance is not actually existing Devs have favoritism like guardian and virt Wvw stands for willbender vs willbender
"Other creators found parts problematic" AKA "ANet-paid shills didn't like daddy ArenaNet getting criticism" The shills are already hard at work in the comments attacking the guy and swearing everything is perfectly fine. That's why ANet lost a ton of devs in 2024 and CANNOT make full expansions anymore, right? Cause it's all fine?
There was definitely a criticism embargo for a long time, it seems like since Soto people have been more brave to say "wait a minute this isn't good". There are a few creators who have been consistent with their opinions. Teapot for example has spoken out for years, Nike for years, and so on. It's not good for business to be negative, I have lost subs just in the two hours this video has been public. But my opinion is my opinion, it is what it is.
Expansions and patches getting ridiculously smaller... as even GW2 crew are also part time working on these secret side projects. Butchering GW2 as they do don't let us believe that the fate of these new games will be any different. Pretty sure that GW2 was Anet's last "true" mmo... GW3 will be an Asian'like open world soloable game, no pvp, no wvw, no fractals, no dungeons (as these been ignored/avoided during the last decade in GW2).
btw, I'm Phandrel's guild scribe, and his guild is dead... there's still people who donate mats but despite having like 20 officers (with ALL powers), none took the lead when Phandrel left. Second time I spent 6k+ golds (+ tons of map currencies) in a guild who die not long after (usually scribes pay for decos, banners and all wvw stuff... despite these ment to be covered by the guild). Guild halls had a great potential, but like many things, Anet never made these any relevant (no GvG).
Sorry to hear that. That is the main reason I am not building a community. I may end up building a variety gaming one at some point but having a singular guild based around an individual is bound to collapse once people move on.
I have played Guild Wars 2 for most of its lifespan and have seen some decline, but I'm not seeing the full extent of the damage simply because the areas that are hurting the most are those I don't partake in. I'm utter shit at PvP; I'm okay at WvW because I thrive on chaos, but what I have noticed in WvW (aside from pretty severe server imbalances.) are some of the cracks in the overall design i.e. that one fucking wall and some people just like to woosh into areas they aren't supposed to woosh into. Speaking from a PvE perspective, I have noticed the decline in story quality, that's not to say it's just a complete and utter shit sandwich, but when you look back at other expansions like, say, PoF, and look at SoTO the narrative is like night and day in my opinion. I didn't HATE SoTO, I didn't like it, either; to me, it was just a weak link leading into another expansion which is, in my opinion, TONS better than its predecessor. However, I don't fully agree that the game is dying. ( I realize you were being a bit cheeky in the title, but even in the video you were seemingly implying that the end is nigh) I have played games that have been going on since, I believe, 2009 that people INSISTED were dying and yet somehow are not only still standing, but are kind of thriving. Stagnation is not always a death sentence if there are steps to stir the deep. I approach each expansion with tempered expectations and don't follow the hype train. I'm a lot happier that way, a lot happier knowing that although this game is not what it used to be, it has the potential to come into its own, again. I've never cared much for comparisons or what could have been, what we have is what it is. Could it be improved? Yes. Will it be improved? Perhaps, if A-Net stops pulling its team to work on projects that may very well fail. Is it in a death spiral? From where I'm standing? No, not at all. It is a 12-year-old game that still has a relatively healthy player base. TL:DR: I agree with some of your points: PvP is bad, the latest expansions have been mediocre, and the writing style is all over the fucking place. However, I do not agree that the game is dead angle, nor do I agree that there is no coming back from this; it is not a death spiral, it is decline, and there's a difference. Death spirals imply that there's no way to pull up and recover, decline is the gradual slide that can very easily be rectified by some timely pulls. That's just my 2 coppers for your thoughts. Or something.
Yea it feels like all the same problems are pointed out times and times again... And about the same conclusion to solve it. Anet have to make changes about a scale of making a new game and they just cant sale it 2nd time to old players or attract same amount of new players to not go bankrot after it... New game is only solution gamedev sims told us there is exist...
Balance commentary is always hard to get behind because live service games always have some state of weird balance. I played League from 2010 to 2017, and believe me, I've seen some stupid shit. Tea time spent a lot of time talking about balance because there was a few content droughts throughout PoF and IBS. So naturally, when you spend a lot of time thinking about a game with nothing new happening it, you start to think about the details. I say all that mostly to acknowledge that balance is ALWAYS going to be a conversation piece for any live service game. I'm not trying to discredit the state of current balance either, I'm not touching PvP til SA Thief and Willbender basically get deleted from the game. Virt needs either a range or damage adjustment, hell, the whole game could use reworks across the board. Fuck it, remove Alacrity and Quickness entirely, see what happens.
@SilhouetteGaming1 I would agree, I think if they pushed out small changes every few weeks, you could see pretty decent changes between content releases. One hurdle that Anet will have to overcome is community response. Nerfing, anything comes with the risk of pissing people off, and I specifically remember Mesmer/Virt changes irking some of the player base back in SoTO (I think this was before Cerus LCM, but I'm maybe off on my timeline). The transfusion nerf also didn't go over well initially, but over time, I think that one aged better when they gave Scourge some Boons in exchange. The biggest issue would be the scale of changes needed to be made. Do we maintain the current level of power creep? If so, do we just hopefully adjust old content to match the current state of the game? Or do you go the opposite direction, nerf everything down to late EoD benchmarks, and nerf the latest content to match it? How will PvE changes affect PvP, cause they always do whether intentionally or not. I don't know if Anet has someone there making those long-term choices, or they are, but it really is a resources battle, so they're looking for some small/safe changes for now, and maybe a massive update later on. I don't know I'm just yapping at this point Good video, love Guild Wars 2. I'm currently playing other games while between legendaries, so it's alright for now
your advocation of crunch immediately makes me discredit your opinions on this. crunch causes actual hospitilization in extreme cases. it isn't just "job is hard, do your job". do your research.
I dont need to see full video, knew that you into lies of P where its action combat that can customize the blade edge and having to tell white lie to make P's heart more human, to see you are a decent Samaritan
It's time for a GW3 tbh, everything learned from GW2 mistakes, but even if GW3 launches, i really doubt that ANet is going to ever abandon GW2 (at least as long as it still gives em money)
I fall in love with gw2... But everything said here its right.. I am most of the time mad on PVP matchmaking and generaly system, that force u to play PVP.. I have like 2k ranked games and I enjoyed 1/3 of that.. U are plat rank, and u have most of the time silver or no ranked teammates.. Or u are 4v5 cuz somebody didnt connect.. Everything about it make me crazy.. Or U play with ppl who goes afk after first dead.. And u see how arenanet giving shit about their players.. PVE content seems good for me, cuz i dont play many of that and I have that felling like I still have a lot of achievments to do. But PVP and WvW are 2 modes, that interest me most and are 2 worst they can do.
Look, I am as casual as they come. I play solo because I don't want to commit to a group. I don't play raids, I don't have legendarys, not a collections guy. I just do meta events on the maps and the campaign. The Campaign in Soto and Janthir Wilds is so boring. I really dislike these "expansions". Who are these characters ? Why should I care about them? Why are they giving me orders? Why is Isgaren a prick? Who is this blue Woman? And then this kumbaja were friends now ending in Soto. Then Janthir, who are these bears? Why are they important? Why do we need them? Dafuq, is a Titan? Then you do the same fight, what was it 3 times? It feels like the Commander has lost all agency over themselves and are just running errands. Nah, I am done with Guild Wars 2. They had 2 "expensions" to set up a good story, but they didn't. I do like the Maps, only because I unlocked my Sky scale in Soto. If I had to walk everywhere or use the ground mounts, I wouldn't have finished the new "expansion". The performance is ass in some maps. I have a good pc that can run everything 60 fps ultra, but this game sometimes crashes to the 30ties. I can't complain or critique on your level. You have more knowledge. It’s just I as a casual player notice that something's wrong with the game. On the bright side of things, I am currently having a lot of fun with PoE 2.
Been playing GW 1 on and off since 2006 and GW 2 on and off since HoT 2015 release date. I've been a part of the groups that struggled to clear Dragon's End and I have to say that was the last time I felt i was actually gaming. Left the game after that because of IRL priorities and came back on 2024 Holidays, boucght SotO and JW and started my catch-up journey. I only did Gyala Delve story and meta once and i will never touch that map ever again. Now, about SotO, I feel very much just like you did. I am The Commander, I have battled all the dragons, world-destroying entities, I have fought a God, an undead army and a Lich King and so on. After all that you have the audacity to tell me that I have anxiety and mental health problems? You're telling me that Isgarren and the Astral Ward didn't intervene because the dragon problem wasn't much of a problem? I have to listen to Frode, Lyhr and a bunch of new NPCs that I've never heard of in my life and prove myself to them? YOu're telling me that a bunch of weak ass demons with Stockholm Syndrome is that awesome new enemy that I should be afraid of? Why do I have to be sympathetic to a bunch of rebellious demons? Who TF is Peitha and why do I have to listen to her? Why do i have to fight that surfer mob again that I couldn't stand back in PoF? I'm almost done with SotO story, but i haven't touched GW 2 in 2025 yet and I don't believe I will do it any time soon. I think I'll just wait for JW to be done and then decide if I invest anymore time. SotO is really the lowest point GW 2 has ever been. I can't find any redeeming qualities besides the fact that the frist 2 maps look kinda ok, but then again...the world of Tyria is so frickin large, why did they ahve to make 3 maps up in the sky instead of unlocking more terrain on the actual continent?
You seem to operate under the delusional assumption that video games are supposed to provide infinite entertainment regardless of how much time you've invested in them. Hardcore gamers all seem to share this characteristic, they spend ungodly amounts of hours into a game, turn it into their main hobby because it provides them with the most fun, and when they inevitably run out of new and fresh things to enjoy because of how much they squeezed it, they get bitter and angry about not having the same level of fun as they used to. Literally anything you've said in this video can be applied to every other game out there. I mean that *literally*. If you rely on studios and game developers to provide you with incentives to play, every single game comes down to this. Never enough dev time, never enough content, never fast enough. If you rely on extrinsic motivation you will always end up at the point where you run out of things to do. If you want something that provides infinite entertainment, you need to find intrinsic motivation in other hobbies, it's quite literally all about touching grass. Find other hobbies to occupy you, instead of trying to squeeze what little juice a single game can give you. Your entire segment on arenanet being "lazy" and "not willing to crunch" just made me genuinely laugh out loud, the studio in charge of one of the most successful MMOs on the market, and I quote "will never compete with any other company"... So fucking naive lmao Take a breather from GW2, play other games and connect with other people. That's the best way to not feel bad about not enjoying the game as much anymore, it's nothing to do with content cadence, or the UI, or the studio.
@@leubzo1436 yeah this guy has played this game for 10k plus hours and still want more, while the entire nice thing about GW2 you can take a break whitout being punished. Also wanting developers to Crunch is just disgusting.
That is on purpose. MMO's were promoted as 'forever games' that was one of core appeals for genre. In 'forever game' you expect entertainment to keep up years on end. It's a fallacy but it's one that was core appeal of genre since forever.
We reached a point were people are coping by saying mmos are fine by not releasing new expansions... just admit it bro, this game is on life support and slowing fading away and that is fine, no need to cope and deny that
I really can't think of a single game that this video would not apply too. Especially older games running on limited engines. You made a point of a game that added stuff on the fly that wasn't released yet, well yes of course they can do that as they are still in development and are running on a newer engine. I really have no skin in the game either way but, as I do play many MMO's including GW2, I simply can't think of one that wouldn't fit into this video.
So on the one hand, "content drought" means Go Play Another Game or Touch Grass. BUT, I do get the point that the content grinds do make gameplay feel stale. GW2 has a real effort-to-reward ratio problem, mostly done to continue fueling the in-game economy. Sigh, balance is borked in every mode. It's an entire video in the making. Attribute values, boon operation, and player demands are all guilty of influencing balance. Sadly, an LFG revamp would never work in GW2. Community issue. The problem with the community? They're terrified of failure. My gods, so many GW2 players are so high on their own supply that they can't accept NOT succeeding and NOT getting their shiny loot. In the meantime, why don't YOU crunch and make more and better videos? Post-work edit: lol, focusing on a hater like Teapot is peak sniffing your own farts and calling it roses. But Angeels is spot on. If players aren't interested in the rewards, and the rewards don't come soon enough with the effort invested, they're going to stop playing. Sadly, GW2 tried to chase the monolithic bosses instead of working within the system they made. And all done for a demanding, gate-keeping community. Whee. Dang, Phandrel hitting me hard with "I don't want to stand around waiting". I feel that way all the time while trying to hunt achievements for masteries and rewards. So many things are on a timer, it's ridiculous. Though, content creators getting burned out is NOT a GW2 issue. C'mon now. Yall're sick of it because you chose to over-play it.
@deeps6979 for your last point I do strive to increase quality and cadence however I do videos for fun not profit. If this were my job and I could devote 40+ hours a week to it you would see content you wouldn't believe. Additionally I am catering to the members who support the channel, a single 1 dollar member is worth over 700 monthly views in ad revenue conversion. So catering to an audience who supports personally is a much better investment since I can also get quality feedback and tailor it to a known audience. It's my goal to flush out a members only catalog of game videos while also entertaining the public. But yeah I touch plenty of grass lol
Lack of content is good thing. I have played game +16k hours ultra casually. I do wizard vault dailys and weekly, try get some skins that i missing, maybe craft some lege. Rarely abuse elite specs. No any interest sweat in raids where people just abuse elite specs and mechanics because eveything need to be easy as possible. Then they whine that game is too easy. :D
Videos like this are a double-edged sword. Criticism is great for feedback but it should be in a contained space within the community. If it's on an open platform like YT it will only repel potential new players from playing the game.
I appreciate your opinion but totally disagree. You sound like you have ulterior motives. Gamers like you are never happy. I wish you the best and suggest that you go play WOW. Happy New Year.
Yeah this expac is fun, and also he is complaining about people going back to older content even to that is why GW2 is so good. It's not like wow where you only play the expansion because the rest is completely useless
People say this game is dying for years. Common, those are pure bullshits. See player population or actually play the game to see it is filled with people. It would use more players playing strikes and raids but there are another faults. The game doing worse than it was in its prime, I also think that bcs the new expansions reuse a lot of the models. Like until now the only bosses I get in the last expansions are Greer and decima. You meet them in story, in raid, in open world, in convergences. It is just too much. Also mechanics are pretty similar. Raids point used to be to be sparated stories, but now it is just another recycle content like they did with strikes. Late content is disappointing? It is, but this does not mean the game sucks. And I love the game but I can’t be like those fanboys in the game that see everything colorful and nice and they get angry that you critique the game. User interface is really undated, but hopefully they will fix that. About balance, let’s be honest, compared with other mmos where you have to work again months to be meta after a shit balance patch, this game is fine. It has its issues and there is much to speak about it, but still a good choice if you compare it with the competition. About people that don’t want to take the initiative, this is a thing in every game. Even if you don’t tag, it happens for people to be helpful towards the group and not rare at all. As a conclusion, the game is amazing, but yes late expansions have bad story, a lot of reused content, a little of inovation. They should change something in many aspects, but this don’t make the game being bad. Just hope the bad content will not continue so to surpass what is good. I still think the artstyle, the combat and the monetization are the best in mmos
GW2 is not bad at all, is the best MMORPG for long time. The issue is that it needs an aspect that other MMORPGS always had, open world pvp towards some wealth objetives. Some massive guild vs guild pvp, not that stupid shit boonblob we see in WvW where you earn nothing after beating everybody.
Its only the best mmo to the one game andys that don't play anything else. Their standard is gw2. They know nothing else, and is the reason why you will hear "gw2 has the best raids" or "gw2 has the best combat system", etc. Those who actually plays what's out there, would never say anything related to gw2 as the best offering there is. Its a niche game made for a very niche demographic. Anet is as close to an indie studio as you will find, and indie don't have the resources to push in the gaming industry, and offer "the best" of anything.
@@Atrialpwnz So let me get this straight, you compare it to a 20 years old mtx store (WoW), a game developed by a dev that uses animations from Worrowind still to this day in Starfield (ESO) and an ICD simulator (FF14), and i am supposed to praise GW2 for being better? This is not how a customer looks at a video game. Do you genuinely believe that someone who is looking to play a game, will only compare GW2 to an mmo? No. An mmo Andy will, yes, but your general gamer, they will be comparing it to what came out in the last couple of years. Be it Elden Ring, Wukong, Stellar Blade, PoE2, MH Wilds, etc, etc. When you take this into consideration, your GW2 looks and feels pathetically outdated, and so ancient, its not even worth considering. Those who stick to nothing but mmos don't understand this, but this is the reality of gaming nowadays. Yes, a casual gamer might, and most likely will choose to play Genshin Impact or Wuthering Waves over GW2 because these two games aren't forgotten by everyone, combat system has far more spectacle and these games have a future.
@@SILKYSMOOTH30FPS xddddddddd so why you dont compare gw2 to maybe Fortnite or Call of Duty in that case? How did you come to this point of comparing several different genres?:D Btw combat in soulslike is bad. Awful camera control and constant rolling on the flor is baaaaad. I want to play MMORPG. I HAVE TO look at some titans in this genre - wow combat with cast while standing and tons of addons, which bring ui-chaos is awful, ff14 combat totally cringe, eso viving awful, new world combat has only 3 skills on weapon = cringe, BDO combat could be good, but you cannot even reallocate hotkeys, and cos of engine your fps is your animation speed, so this is cringe too, OSRS combat... no comments. The only +|- good action combat in Lost Ark, but this isometric-noWASDmovement game is trully not for everyone .
@@SILKYSMOOTH30FPS You do realize that ESO is developed not by Bethesda but Zenimax Online ? As well as ESO engine is pretty much some sort of mixation of Hero Engine - same as SWTOR's one. What type of person will get a GW 2 a game that is already several years old and compare it to Wukong ? If you grab an MMO you know it's not singleplayer. Now you could try to play it as singleplayer .. but it's not the same. Not in the slightest. Genshin Impact whill scare off some people. Gacha are more notorious for being predatory. I believe average Andy will be weary of lootboxes and such, so hearing about gacha and it's many scandals will sent them packing. Not to mention for both gacha and MMO it's wise to have an income, so that further pushes away these who don't have steady ones out.
Anet will fumble the GW3 development, the project will be transferred to a Korean studio, and most devs at anet will be fired by the end of 2026. Calling it now. Anet is no better than ubisoft, and having a lill peek at Ubi's stock should tell you everything you need to know.
A lot of the time, I feel like the only reason I keep playing GW2 is the lack of good alternatives in that specific genre. I don't want to grind my life away in BDO, New World seems to have crashed on take off,... It's sad, though, been playing GW2 since the pre-launch betas and the game has a place in my heart forever, but it just keeps on disappointing.
I have the same feeling with world of warcraft. I got burnt out a lot, and I can't see wow anymore. Retail (the newest expansion) is just bland. They have a seasonal model and every season is the same. Yes you get new zone (sometimes) and a new raid. But every season feels the same. You grind the raid, grind dungeons that have scaling and get a rating for doing them, you grind pvp for gear and ranks. It's the same over and over. The classic (old school wow) releases have a bad botting problem, and blizzard is doing almost nothing about it. Bots can mass report you, and your account gets banned (automatic system). I love the warcraft universe to death, but I had to delete the game. Now I'm relaxing with final fantasy 14 (that I'm playing on and off), and single player games.
@@FGazi-qf1hp Exactly the same as you. I hate that retail wow is a seasonal game now. I'd rather chill at my own pace. FF14 is very rigid with gameplay, and GW2 is much more dynamic so I'm jumping between the 2
thats how i feel at the moment, honestly if you want some fun mmo games check out phantasy star universe clementine private server, city of heroes homecoming private server. Thats what I play now, good communities and a lot of fun.
A lot of modern games / mmos have become so corporatized that there is just not much natural fun and everything is a grind
@xenogear88 I don't have the time to play 2 mmorpgs. I love GW2, but at some moments, it's really confusing to me. I am a higher level, but I still die to low-level mobs. Idk. I have to start from the beginning and really get into it.
Give an MMO that this does not apply for. The biggest trump card of all of the four MMO:s with the exception of ESO is that they fulfill a gameplay niché or two that no other MMO game can compete with. In ESO:s case we are talking about a setting/world niché but the end result is the same.
as someone who started playing in late 2022, got through HoT, PoF, Icebrood Saga and LWS, i can tell you for sure, that Soto and Janthir feel really bad in comparison, a lot of recycled content, pretty low value content too and a lot more power creep, not good impressions at all tbh.
One of my oddly specific disappointments was how short and easy the boss fight are at the end of each story section of Soto and Janthir. Those fights used to be tough! Have interesting lead ups and long stories that got us involved with side characters. All of that was just … glossed over into something completed in 20 minutes 😢
JW was a step up though.
GW2 nowadays is just a minimum viable product , the game had potential years ago . And you're correct , GW2 is just their piggybank that fund rando asshat projects . The game is a good looking ( subjective ofc ) nothing burger .
This is the most unique "Should you play" GW2 video I've ever seen! Right on time too for the current year.
@procticdice this made me laugh lol I made a similar joke when it was members only
I personally always have GW2 as my secondary MMO while rotating between many of the Triple A Vertical Progression MMOs.
I feel GW2 is a great place to relax and play the game at your own pace. I play for the experiences that I have with other players.
I feel as I have gotten older, the concept of GW2 is becoming more and more appealing as the years go by and having more commitments out of the game leads to certain games where your gear and stats are constantly improved upon every patch becomes more of a chore than enjoyment. I prefer Horizontal Progression a-lot now, especially since I have branched out to many other Genres of gaming, I love the pick up and play formulae that most new games tend to focus on. Love it or hate it, GW2 is here to stay, especially for people who love the MMO concept, but rather than chasing a number every patch, we play for the experiences. In comparison to your typical vertical progression MMOs, every new patch you are focused on one thing, quickly acquiring the highest Item Level gear. Every quest, dungeon, raid, world quest you do, you are thinking of the gear, you are tunnel visioned on that one goal, while you are completely ignoring the new content in-front of you.
Even though GW2 has no gear progression, the ability to customize your build is quite amazing, sure if you want to maximize your DPS, there's only a handful of choices. You can choose to do harder content or stick with the more casual content. The beauty of GW2 is that you are rewarded for doing either. Now that the PvE Open World Legendary armor is released, players of all skill levels have access to the best gear in-game. Unlike in your typical Vertical Progression MMO where the best gear is locked behind difficult raids or pvp. Sure you can make counter arguments for each of these points, however what I'm trying to say is that GW2 gives all players an even playing field in terms of 'Power', the difference lies in your skill and dedication to the game, not some arbitrary number that is artificially increased every patch which leads players to be blinded to what's in-front of them.
Good video, was waiting for it to be released to the public. I'll push back on Anet needing crunch to compete with other games. IMO they wouldn't need to crunch if they had a larger dedicated team for GW2 development, and they don't have those team resources because their business model doesn't allow for it. GW2 has never made enough monthly income for a SaaS model and that really comes down to a sub fee. Agree with the conclusion too, so much of GW2 is wasted potential. Potential that was obvious in 2012 and still obvious to this day. But the ship to fix GW2 has long since sailed, it is what it is.
I mostly play WvW, the past few years have just been a mess-balance, gameplay, WR, etc. It’s frustrating because I feel like the current team isn’t even able to identify the problems, let alone fix them.
Which leads to: I’m genuinely worried about how poorly a new game from current ArenaNet might be received by the broader gaming audience, particularly given the current state of gaming/gaming discourse.
I've only been playing this game "seriously" for 2 years now (played a couple times before too, leveled up to like Lv40 and then quit), so I'm still having that sense of wonder and discovery about many facets of the game (just finished my first set of leggy armor actually), but, yea ngl I'm also already seeing some of the cracks, some of the decisions the devs/publisher make that I don't agree with. But I still love the game enough that I wanna play it everyday. Having a welcoming guild and friends to play with helps a lot with it.
You hit the nail on the head as to why I stopped playing. Constant issues, nothing to aim for, all achievements can be bypassed by buying gold and carries from other players, cash shop has better fashion than the in-game rewards, LFG sucks AND the community hates leading/starting their own groups.
Best video regarding GW2 I have seen in a LONG TIME, and you have not even scratch the surface of how bad this game has become, it is and will always be wasted potential.
I kinda disagree with the premise that software developers have to crunch, crunching in the gaming imdustry is often not paid and you get nothing from it even if the game makes a big hit developers will get nothing and that game money will go towards new expirements that will likely fail rather than compensating their developers. I also don't think that new software devs are doing the bare minimum they are micromanaged and the code they have to work with is 10+ years old.
True, however if the company which is in major decline and its crew are not willing to put extra effort to save themselves, nobody else will. Chances for their issues to just "work themselves out", with their current way of doing things, are miniscule at best.
@@Nobody32990 "major decline" what ? You have no evidence to back this up at all? Arena net is making allot of money how is that decline?
@@Nobody32990 I see where you're coming from, but a company in decline has to promise its crew compensations which is not the case often
@@Nobody32990 they are not even in decline what are you on about
@@UphillHook ANet has been in decline for a long time, it's legit why we're getting these half-expansions.
Just how BRAINDEAD do you have to be to NOT notice this?
Here's a few of my rebuttals/adding to some points:
Balance is really hard with so many moving parts, but one part that feel the most is complexity vs. Reward: as boondps chrono, I am sweating bullets to keep quickness around 70% uptime, while herald just...pulses it permanently.weaver and holosmith post negligible results better than classes 400% easier to play.
I know it's intentional, but an absolute lack of role Trinity really kneecaps the game's design space.
Obviously perma alacrity and quickness was a mistake.
The gw2 community has a big problem with assuming optimization. Snow Crows is arguably the biggest resource we have when it comes to build guides, which is crazy to me bc they are a SPEEDRUNNING guild. (No shade towards SC, their content is phenomenal; but that's like asking an any%er tips on your magic build in skyrim)
A hybrid note between community and balance is running raids and strikes with a properly experienced group it just turns into a walking simulator.
My main criticism for your approach is that you come off as someone with MMO syndrome, where you play a game since launch, dump thousands of thousands of hours into a game (and not an insignificant amount of money either) and expect the game to be just as fulfilling since level your first character. Games lose their novelty over time. Gw2 has a ludicrous amount of accessible content that respects your time to get into (yes lfg is trash). 8 raids, 16 strikes (7 have CM) 23 fractals (5 have CM) and 30 dungeon paths without ever touching the open world.
Yes, not all of these are bangers (looking at you cold war and swampland) and LFGing outside experienced is a fools errand not to mention a the walking simulator problem with experienced/optomized players, but the sheer amount of stuff you can actually do is insane even compared to its MMO peers
My main point here is this: yes, gw2 has plenty of flaws (outside matters of taste), but also farming content for a game you've been grinding since launch is obviously going to look different to you than anyone else; and the dooming/fear mongering of "game is dead or on life support ect. Does nothing but harm the game bc potential new players will quit before even trying. I am all about expression (hence this fucking novel of a comment) but I really hope you use your platform for better things than "after 1,000,000 hours there's nothing to do"
I very much agree with you except the part about LFG outside "experienced". The non-challenge mode fractals (yes even the new ones and on Tier 4), some of the strike missions (Icebrood Construct, the Voice and the Claw, and Fraenir in particular), and most of the dungeons (besides most of Arah and some of the Citadel of Flame explorable paths) can be done even when posting "chill group" or "all welcome" with minimal or no explanations and without wipes. I may have a different opinion as I play a Tempest healer build and can keep people on their feet while they are learning the mechanics, but using LFG outside of looking for other experienced people is not "a fool's errand".
@iridradiant I could have been clearer: que times in the lfg outside of experienced take considerably longer for ppl to join. I personally live running training for OLC bc it's just so cool when mechanics "click" with ppl
2025 is the year to go from Doomer to Bloomer. Play more other games and return to GW2 when new content drops that’s how it works now.
I understand how it feels to be emotionally linked to what it coulda been, and be passionate about the game to constantly want to make it better but it is more healthy to just let it go 😊
I think it’s interesting and important to see criticism and suggestions from creators but it will be simply better to just focus on something else and branch out, because we don’t really matter to them.
Long live to Guild Wars 2!
It has ALWAYS worked like that.
I actually think that I’m going to try to play GW2 more in 2025. I’ve been a follower for years and now I’m ready to take on the role of a leader to replace one of the many players who have been leading, but are now taking a break, or have left the game. Everyone will be welcome, but I’ll focus mostly on helping new players.
@@traveling.down.the.road56 I did the same, back in the day. I take breaks here and there now, and love seeing people I taught now taking the roles of mentors themselves. Not just the mentor tag! ;D
I personally always have GW2 as my secondary MMO while rotating between many of the Triple A Vertical Progression MMOs.
I feel GW2 is a great place to relax and play the game at your own pace. I play for the experiences that I have with other players.
I feel as I have gotten older, the concept of GW2 is becoming more and more appealing as the years go by and having more commitments out of the game leads to certain games where your gear and stats are constantly improved upon every patch becomes more of a chore than enjoyment. I prefer Horizontal Progression a-lot now, especially since I have branched out to many other Genres of gaming, I love the pick up and play formulae that most new games tend to focus on. Love it or hate it, GW2 is here to stay, especially for people who love the MMO concept, but rather than chasing a number every patch, we play for the experiences. In comparison to your typical vertical progression MMOs, every new patch you are focused on one thing, quickly acquiring the highest Item Level gear. Every quest, dungeon, raid, world quest you do, you are thinking of the gear, you are tunnel visioned on that one goal, while you are completely ignoring the new content in-front of you.
Even though GW2 has no gear progression, the ability to customize your build is quite amazing, sure if you want to maximize your DPS, there's only a handful of choices. You can choose to do harder content or stick with the more casual content. The beauty of GW2 is that you are rewarded for doing either. Now that the PvE Open World Legendary armor is released, players of all skill levels have access to the best gear in-game. Unlike in your typical Vertical Progression MMO where the best gear is locked behind difficult raids or pvp. Sure you can make counter arguments for each of these points, however what I'm trying to say is that GW2 gives all players an even playing field in terms of 'Power', the difference lies in your skill and dedication to the game, not some arbitrary number that is artificially increased every patch which leads players to be blinded to what's in-front of them.
Check out Josh Strife Hayes video (The Ultimate MMO Tier List (Backed by SCIENCE) (sort of), where he collects objective and factual data from as many sources as possible and compiles a ranking / points system which he thoroughly explains in detail. These are the top 10 from his list.
1st: World of Warcraft / Final Fantasy 14 (Tied) - 493 Points
2nd: Guild Wars 2 - 475 Points
3rd: Elder Scrolls Online - 358 Points
4th: Black Desert Online - 326 Points
5th: Lost Ark - 287 Points
6th: Star Wars: The Old Republic - 254 Points
7th: Old School Runescape - 247 Points
8th: Eve Online - 224 Points
9th: Albion Online - 214 Points
10h: New World - 153 Points
Look how close GW2 scored to the top 2 titans of the MMORPG genre.
The difference between WoW/FF14 and GW2 was only 18 points, where-as the next best ESO was over 117 points behind GW2. Remember this isn't a subjective list like 99% of the content creators have made, Josh lists all the sources he used and compiled the most accurate ranking and points based list he could to make the list an objectively factual as possible.
The notion that GW2 is dying is all but subjective views by players who never got into the game or those who tried very hard to do so, haven't found the appeal of GW2 and resort to making such claims. All these claims have finally been put to rest. Josh is no shill for Guild Wars 2, he would gain nothing from artificially making GW2 2nd on his list and only shy of 18 points to that. The game is just that good, those who deny, just have to live with the fact that the game isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
GW2 is getting long in the tooth, I'll agree, but they have been listening to the playerbase, just not always the most vocal ones. People had wanted player housing in the game for a long time before Janthir, people wanted fishing (though the same casual folks that requested it didn't like the interactivity Anet put in there to combat botting, so there wasn't another winterberry farm issue), people had requested using masteries from other expansions (like jumping mushrooms from HoT) in newer maps; I was pleasantly surprised to see the gliding skills from Bloodstone Fen in a few of the newer zones. I'm sure adding warclaws to JW not only answered some lore questions about why they were in the Mists for WvW, but also gave it more of an out-of-WvW usage - and I recall when it couldn't be summoned *outside* WvW until people asked for that too. Mounts in general were pointed out by even Angry Joe in his initial review of the core game as something missing, so even though there were people who said they weren't necessary due to the frequency of waypoints (myself included), Anet still put them in the game as a response to players who thought the game as an MMO was incomplete without them and they are one of the best things about the game now. Secrets of the Obscure responded to two long running player requests - going to the Wizard's Tower and picking up what happened with Zojja after HoT. Land spears were also a player driven request. There are other lore requests that we've seen implemented too - I'm not that deep into GW1 (yet), but the Eye of Janthir and some of that side story stuff with the Shining Blade come to mind. Even jumping directly into Elona and Cantha (instead of waiting to get there as the map spiraled outwards) for the expansions were player requests. They can't please everyone, but they are *not* ignoring the playerbase as a whole.
I'm wondering if they haven't touched the UI much because it is part of that same spaghetti code reasoning that they used to say why they refuse to fix dungeons and bring them up to modern standards. I remember a blurb put out by a dev mentioning how much effort it took to (re?)learn the storage system code to add new stuff to the materials storage. I would love to see the LFG and the Achievements panels get pulled out for their own main menu button respectively - and better integration between the wizard vault and other short term (weekly) achievements, so I know there can be improvements. As a programmer myself, I give them the benefit of the doubt if they don't want to touch mysterious but working code.
As far as pulling money/dev time away from GW2 to make GW3, I have no real problem with it. They are still releasing something to do on GW2 (even if I really detest achievement hunting to make my relic fully legendary yet again - legendary is supposed to be more than just stat selectable dang it! and I'm still hunting mastery points) to make it worth paying the expansion money, which is more than I can say about subscription MMOs with content droughts... or those sports games that just do minor roster updates but charge full price for a 'new' game. If we get another leap like Anet did from GW1 to GW2, it will be well worth it.
This dude just said that "ANet is listening" when they're INFAMOUS for not listening on time.
If you know Planetside2 you know there were same situation when developers were dragged away into project Planeside Arena. They even sold lifetime subscriptions to fund that new project. Well that arena thing flopped so hard that there was a little earthquake on Mars. And you know what? Money was spent and IP went on market where it has changed a few owners and developers since.
I dont say its the definitive way of GW2 but the similarities are frightening.
Anyway good video and thanks for speaking out.
I was watching that live when i was still associated with a lot of very good PS2 players. Absolutely bizarre situation. I do have more faith in ANet to produce a better game that RPG did.
You bring up some relevant points, but I don't think it's as bad as you're painting it to be (maybe except for the PvP problem, that's BAD bad). From what I gather, the situation is much worse on the American servers? I've never encountered any problem with dead maps (at least not completely), LFG or lack of commanders (and if there's nobody for a specific content I'd like to do, I just turn on the tag myself) here on the European ones. 🤔
And your take on crunch... is definitely a take that was taken in the history of takes.
Thanks for being honest. I’m still a regular player, and I’ve been playing since 2016. The content in Janthir Wilds is hella repetitive, and people glorify it still to this day. Made all types of alts w/ different classes and race, played WvW, strikes, raids, fractals, etc. it just aint clickin with me anymore.
I’m already burnt out from the game as it is so I’m taking a break and going to back to my survival crafter games.. at least I can feel some progression and not some useless endgame grind for cosmetics. I think the horizontal progression just isn’t for me as I thought.
Until then I will be holding off until Anet drops some new content, plus I’m waiting for that new Monster Hunter to release so that’ll be my filler comfort game. If anyone is butthurt by your opinion then that’s on them lol
Monster hunter wilds looks pretty sick. It's on my to do list for sure.
My feelings are that Arena net is in a semi maintenance mode of GW2. All the talent and energy is at whatever it is they are planning on releasing. They are slowly & gently winding this game down. Once you stop hoping for any big drastic changes or HoTs size expacs and view it as a time filler it’s not as disappointing. Hop in when you feel nostalgic and hop right back out again, there’s still alot of fun to be had if you accept this is likely all we will be getting until whatever is next.
Exactly, they are clearly sunsetting the game albeit over the course of a few years while they work on this new MMO. We've seen what to expect by now and anyone holding out hope for drastic change is just setting themselves up for disappointment.
It's been clear that they're doing this the moment they announced SOTO as a "shorter expansion" and, despite being much smaller, it was FAR more disappointing.
They're working on other stuff like the confirmed GW3 and this one has an increasingly smaller and smaller team, similar to what they did with GW1.
Great video.I had already started taken a break from this game and I wasn’t even that hardcore of a player but when I bought SOTO and JW I honestly felt guilt of spending money on those expacs. One just felt like it was barren and the other just not fun. So pretty fast I had just gone back to doing the same things.
Oh also I had a friend play this game with me but after a while he pointed out and asked how do people have fun doing the same things over and over again for years
They are now stuck into their own greedy philosophy: to favorize rewards over content (to farm the same small maps events 50 times instead of exploring and be amaze by new stuff).... and people won't follow if they'll switch back. In GW1 we was talking hours about thrilling new stuff discovered and mysteries... meanwhile in GW2 we talk about statistics, dps, gold/hr, fashion war. If not being of my guildies (TINY), I'd play something else. Anet's new game being around the corner (maybe a soon-to-be-botched GW3), I real hesitate to invest/loose more time and money on GW2. Anet lost my trust.
oh Sil, Sil... you have no idea how much you push me to make a rambling video about the game and a few of its topics :D At this point they just became opinions, because there is 0% chance to cause any changes with anyone saying anything anymore. Game has its ups and downs, I love the game and always will, but it sure has a lot of frustrating problems around it. Maybe I will step over that boundary finally to speak my mind... maybe. Good thoughtful video, keep it up!
You should! I will still make more videos that are equally thought and discussion provoking.
SotO was shit, JW is low to mid. all the other expansions were more hype and more engaging by far. I'd rather wait 2 years to get another EoD size expansion than 2 SotO's
I feel it is rather a problem that content is strechted out so much. They can do one xpac a year to get more money but than maybe do the full xpac. Wait a year. Do another one. Instead of the quartely patches.
I really liked the additional context. I think the biggest issue is just there isn’t really a way to make the game better and be worth the investment. This is especially true if it came from higher up where profit/ROI takes precedence. I’m personally not high on NCSoft as a company.
I 100% feel with you that what hurts the most is having an improvable product be abandoned (relatively at least) because the gains from fixing it isn’t worth the effort for the people in charge.
Thanks for watching until the end, I definitely feel like they are trying to work on a replacement in the background, hopefully some actual news gets dropped to build some hype and get people excited.
I agree that the game is dying, but that's not a bad thing, and the game certainly doesn't suck. Guild Wars 1 has no new content coming out (other than some new weapon skins for the 15th anniversary) and still has a dedicated player-base. GW2 at least has expansions coming out every year and while it's mostly asset-reuse, it's still enjoyable for what it is. I don't like the idea that a game must be getting frequent content updates in order to be seen as relevant. By that logic, every single-player game is dead and left to rot. Which is just not true. I always call GW1 and GW2 "single-player mmo's" and that is with admiration and relief.
I will say, however, that if GW3 does become a thing, Arenanet HAS to have learned from their past mistakes, and there have been more than a few. Their next game will be held to this regard. To show everyone that they took all those lessons and feedback to heart. I am both confident and weary, and I say this as a life-long Guild Wars fan, just like you.
Thank you for making this video, Sil.
@Ape_Hawk you're welcome. The title was hyperbole and a play off the good in GW2 Video. You make good points, I actually finished GWAMM right before EoD came out and GW1 was still very alive.
The problem for me is that my guild and i were more end game focused but we got to the point where we had done every raid gotten multiple sets of legendary armor all the trinkets... Then they stopped releasing endgame content so we had nothing to really focus on. One raid in like 8 years is sad.
really well put together video.
Neglecting the bad? Nah not really I just recognize the game isn't the be all end all of my existence. Every single game in existence has limits and pros and cons. It's all about your goals and interests and if they don't align anymore that's fine...move on. But to lambast this game for 30 min is kinda...extra lol. All games sunset and who said GW2 is immune to this?
The more you invest in to GW2, the less you get back out of it. That's the lesson I learned after watching it stumble around for years and never really improve.
I was gonna post a ranty comment about my own experiences with the game and content creation but I just binned it because frankly, my opinion doesn't really matter over all that stuff.
I did wanna add that I got sick of the monetization of QoL things in GW2 though; and how it's often designed inconveniently so you'll be inclined to pay for better functionality. See bag space, see equipment templates, build slots, infinite fishing lures, teleport to friends, there's loads more but I don't wanna list everything. Some of these are more impactful than others, but it doesn't make the things feel any less crappy. And grinding for gold doesn't make them any more friendly either.
And now these mini-expacs have shown me that there just isn't that much value added with them and they do feel like minimum viable products, and I don't like feeling a part of that. So yeah, I last logged in just before SoTO launched and haven't felt like I've missed out.
Love seeing this take on the QoL stuff. Honestly it's made the game so much worse than it could be, but people still put Gw2's gemstore on a pedestal compared to other MMOs. I've put over 2k hours into Gw2 and I genuinely believe it's Gemstore has some of the worst pay for convenience in modern live-service games. Being able to swipe for gold means rewards literally DON'T matter. I would rather play warframe or Destiny just because there isn't anywhere near this much pay for convenience. The character-bound stuff is especially egregious.
@@hayingman4638 I never used to be bothered by the gemstore QoL stuff because I too, figured I could just farm gold in-game so it wasn't so bad. I could make a significant amount through daily CMs and meta trains, so that was never an issue. But in the end, I just got tired of seeing design for systems be gutted and the fun aspects of them being monetized because they could, not because they should, and I eventually changed my opinion.
I hate the new system of expansions. The feast/famine feed of content is really jarring.
You didn't even mention how the new player experience (and free to play) is actually terrible. If you ever want to see how bad it is just read how to make a rune, sigil and relic from scratch without the Trading Post, there is no explanation or straight forward ways to gear up without LW3.
I'm already prepping for the inevitable sequel which will hopefully release by 2030, as i fall like it's either that or a pivot to mobile development, as the game seems to be haemorrhaging players, even though i still play the game almost daily.
It would actually be better if they sold their IP.
Funny enough, twice they had some sort of mobile project and twice they stopped it to focus more on GW2.
The balancing PvE fights for ranged vs melee things is actually rlly interesting.
I remember an old ANet dev describing old Rev SB 7-shot where it way supposed to "only be more effective at range" in order to leave some design space for melee weapons to be good and that's why you had to line up your triangle reticle perfectly.
Now you just push a button and all 7 hits auto-track the target. My, how times have changed.
I appreciate your commenting on the developers, particularly the lack of talent. There's no nice way to say this, and the devs don't deserve harassment, but the modern devs are just *bad*. The writing is still just as bad or sometimes worse than launch (though also sometimes better). The maps are all these collections of pre-made assets that make me feel like I'm walking around someone's Sims environment. I struggle sometimes to see NEW assets in these maps beyond a handful of architechture. All the development goes into the gem store. They struggle sometimes to release updated icon art for items, gamebreaking bugs are still in the game, etc. etc.
I'm someone who has been here since HoT and it's depressing to see the game just linger like this. I had hope for the new format, but they clearly haven't done enough to make it work. As a final product, it's fine. As a content release pattern, it's boring and feels cheap. Like you said, we'll get a trickle of Greer in Convergences, we'll get "CMs" that will likely just be Stats+. I wish the game would have just sunset after LS4 like it clearly was supposed to. Or EoD like it clearly was supposed to.
For me, I don't see this game as you do as a family member not living up to their potential. For me, it's like watching a once-proud and strong family member after a stroke, lingering. Living just to live. Suffering pain and sorrow and indignity for however long it takes until the other shoe drops and the words on everyone's lips are "it was a mercy" "at least they're finally at peace". It is morbid. It is grotesque.
I used to play at least once every few weeks or months and always enjoyed my time, but nowadays I log in maybe once every six months and quit after just a few minutes. It doesn’t help that I’d have to buy new, lackluster content just to 'really' get back into it.
The content itself often isn’t very enjoyable; it feels more like a chore than something new and exciting. Back then, you could just hop on, have stupid, brainless fun, and that was enough. Now, the content feels like something you have to do rather than something you want to do. The bloat is part of the problem, but it’s mostly because the gameplay isn’t engaging. The reward systems are poorly designed, and in my opinion, the game’s major issues have only gotten worse over time. Ever think about running old story missions on all your alts? I certainly don’t anymore, especially with the new content. The fact that conversations are now hardcoded so you have to stand there, wait, and listen-without being able to skip them-completely ruins any excitement I might have had for replaying them, whether for rewards, achievements, or anything else. It just sucks now.
So many new pieces of content are time-gated on release because they are scared people will find out that their new content isnt a lot in the first place, and even after they eventually change it, they keep the stupid time-gating just reduced a little, often even just not time-gating but locking certain content behind tedious collect achievements where you have to constnatly jump around the same area with specific annoying restrictions to waste your time.
Before even watching the video, here are my points:
- Balance is fucked, every single ranged DPS class needs their numbers cut by at least 30%
- The LFG is turbo cancer, rework deperately needed
- 2h "story" aka cutscenes interlaced with green bars isn't content, especially every 3 months. The new metas are subpar at best
- Commander Tag is way to expensive and gatekeepy. Bake the core functionality into Squads and especially 5-man groups (also bonus meme: people rely too much on trainers and commanders in the first place)
- Difficulty scaling is basically non-existant. Everything is either Shiverpeaks or Cerus LCM, the true 'middle class' content just isn't really there except for a few good CM fights
- New fractals are not fractals, AR needs a functionality change to be account bound and in general we either need T5 or Infinite Scaling
But I don't think the game is dying, it has found it's target audience and most people reading Guides, watching YT and checking Snowcrows just aren't it.
"Game isn't dying guys!! It's why the devs cannot make a full expansion anymore, cause it's not dying and the devs are fine!!"
@@AzureRoxe game dying is a very relative thing depending on what you look at.
@@AzureRoxeLmao. This is a LOT of MMOs that go on for years and years, maintenance mode be in part a curse eventually to befall them but one that scarcely kills it.
Great video. I fully agree. The problems with the game are core systems which I don't expect will be fixed for the very reasons you mentioned. Another of the big problems with the studio was its core "manifesto" mentality which held it down even from launch. ANET as a studio had an attitude of weird Iconoclasm which has held them back on almost everything they released.
Let's take the initial raid launch, for example, which you shared a clip from the Heart of Thorns event. At the time, people may not have been here to know this, but Mike O'Brien wanted the Raids not to be in LFG because he thought they would be trivialized too fast. Fast forward to 2024 and no one raids. At the time of GW2 raid launching with Heart of Thorns, other MMOs such as WOW long had scalable difficulty raids to include LFG easy mode, normal mode, and heroic mode. Each of these acts like a funnel ushering new players into raiding. It is astounding that there remains no introductory mode for Raid style content in GW2, no strikes are not that content, and no Wing 4 is an ad hoc community-driven innovation. What makes it doubly astounding is that Fractals exhibit a near-perfect system for creating new CM Fractal Players. Agony requirements, mechanics, and fractal level go up, until eventually you get the curious few who say, "Okay, I'll try CMs" and new fractal CM players are born. There is nothing like this for Raid. It's all on the community to correct for the disastrous raid launch in which a lot of money was spent for no one to play that content, to this day.
We inevitably hear people say "You can't compare Guild Wars 2 to other MMOs for reasons X, Y, and Z." That is built on a logical fallacy of goal post-shifting. As this is my third MMO, and I'm a 12-year player, you absolutely can compare MMOs. Moreover, as you showed in this video, it's not just about MMOs. Plenty of people leave MMOs to play other non-MMOs, including streamers and UA-camrs. In the end, every gamer has 24 hours in a day, and only so much time to game. Every game that you want to play competes for your time. I still love Guild Wars 2. But once upon a time, a rogue dev developed Action Combat Mode just for funsies. Those days are far behind us. Essay comment over. See y'all in game.
Happy that you released it. Also the changes are giving it a nice fleshed out feeling. Keep up the good work.
Trying to get ahead of the video upload curve so all you guys will have a new video by Monday (i hope to get it up this weekend for members) so that way you guys get a good amount of early access.
I was so hyped for this game when it came out, as I was looking for a World of Warcraft killer, but the heavy focus on story, the weird rampup in diffculty (mobs taking ages to go down and 2 shotting me) the lackluster dungeons and gear progression, and alot more things left me wanting
It's such a great feeling, isn't it? When the developers are basically part of the fandom and it feels like you're working together to make something special. Yeah you won't get that from Anet anymore, that part of them died with GW1.
I'm glad you've touched on the cultural problems at Anet a bit, because everyone's avoiding that topic. Every problem the game and the community has stems from that, but most people in the community don't even know how bad it is. They still cling to an image of them that's 15 years outdated. Or worse, some do know but will gaslight others to cover for Anet, because Anet's a cult and they're in it.
The problem isn't that they don't crunch though, the real problem is a total lack of passion for the game, be it the content side or the lore. I genuinely believe most people at Anet don't even want to make a game. Sure there are exceptions, but there's a reason why you always see the same 4-5 devs interact with the community from a company of 360+, and even that's in a very controlled environment like 4 times a year.
Call me abysspilled but I think GW3 will doom this company if they're dumb enough to release it. They're culturally incompatible with 90%+ of the gaming audience and it'll be pushed into the spotlight on every level from gameplay to writing. The wider audience won't be as lenient as the GW2 community, and Anet's method of censorship + ignoring everyone who isn't praising them will only make them look worse.
Of course I hope that I'm wrong, who knows, maybe Colin has a masterplan for saving this company. For the record he's the only person at Anet that I still trust, but even if he knows what the problems are I doubt that he can fix them all alone.
@okbuddykormir i don't get the faith in Colin. He was part of the problem during LWS1 days and then he boned out and came back and now he's the savior? BIG DOUBT
Idk why you have faith in Colin when the guy left/got fired/whatever, came back years later and has delivered the worse content the game has ever had.
@@SilhouetteGaming1 That's okay, massive Colin glazing incoming
Most people put the blame on Colin and praise Mike O'Brien for "saving" the game, but how do we know it's not the opposite? To know for certain who's to blame for early GW2 mistakes we'd first need to figure out who decided on the LS business model, and my money's on the Studio Director (MO), not the Game Director (Colin). Maybe it's cope but even from interviews it seemed to me that MO is the out of touch one, and Colin tried to do his best within the boundaries set by MO.
Granted Colin made mistakes too, but ultimately it was MO who ran the company into the ground by 2019, causing the layoffs. Now Colin might be back with greater control (Studio Director), but he still has to work with the broken Anet he inherited from MO, and NCSoft is calling the shots now (once again thanks to MO fumbling). HoT was the Colin expansion, PoF's the MO expansion, HoT > PoF.
This is subjective and bit of a tangent but bear with me. I've always got the impression from MO that once the other two founders were gone, he wanted to make GW2 entirely for himself. It was his IP from then on, his vision. That's why GW2 is nothing like GW1, MO simply didn't care about the game or the playerbase and wanted to replace both. For example Jeff Strain (another founder) was still talking about GvG in GW2 around 2008, once he was gone MO scrapped it. Of all the old higherups, Colin seemed to be the only one left who at least cared a little bit about GW1's legacy and not dumping the playerbase.
A year or two ago on stream he was talking about how Anet really should've kept GW1 development going along with GW2, because these are two completely different games. This makes me feel kinda vindicated. Colin was our guy. He is HIM. Rest of Anet wanted to ditch us back then and MO would've done it again had NCSoft not stepped in at 2019.
@@AzureRoxe Colin's not in charge of GW2, Grouch is. And we don't know who's responsible for sidelining GW2 this time, could be NCSoft.
I clicked this video out of morbid curiosity. I started this game way back in 2012 and was around during the 3 open beta phases before the launch. If I'm being honest, anet fumbled the ball way back in 2012 already when they clearly had no idea what they were going to do regarding the endgame and everyone was mindlessly singing it's praises because they were all still in the honeymoon phase. If people thought pof was the height (or any other expansion period) of the game they had NO idea what an actual height was. In 2012 every city and even maps like Queensdale had multiple instances with zergs so large players got culled from view. I think you've probably heard of the "fixing signposts" debacle in LS1 when many people, myself included, finally stopped huffing the copium and realised anet legitimately had no clue what they were going to do moving forward. A LOT of people dropped the game back then. FF14 ARR was the one that made me jump ship. In the time since, they've never ever managed to go back to that high. They've had their ups and downs, but after POF - their last high - it mostly just seemed to trend downward to a flat line.
I myself have played and quit this game several times - first was LS1, and then HoT drew me back, lost me somewhere just before siren's landing, pof got me back but lost me again somewhere during dragonsfall, I skipped the entirely of IBS but came back during EoD. Then the first mini xpack came. When they announced this, I was thinking "isn't this just a paid living word season?" but I decided to give them a shot. SoTo disappointed me. I can't say I was surprised - but somehow it ended up being even less interesting than I thought it was going to be. I didn't get janthir wilds and likely won't unless it goes on discount. This is the first expansion - if you even want to call the last 2 that - that I decided "you know what, I'll sit this one out, I'm not getting it on launch". And I don't regret that.
I think elite specs were a mistake, in all honesty. Yes, they sounded great during the HoT reveal, they sounded quite hype - and it was. But it isn't sustainable for the company. This amounted to designing an equivalent of NINE new classes every expansion. NO OTHER MMO is insane enough to do this, not even WoW, and they have way more money than anet. But they let the cat out of the bag, and with PoF elite specs being as good as they were - mostly (we don't talk about mirage) - people had this expectation of new elite specs for expansions. SoTo announcing that there won't be any is going to end up being a sore spot for people, no matter how much they shove the word "mini" into our faces.
Out of curiosity after having not played for a year, I logged on today - one of the perks of having no sub fee. I was struck by how few people were around DR, LA, arborstone and the wizard's tower. I went and did the Ley-Line Anomaly for the lulz as it happened to spawn, and this was the usual time I did it before I quit - and it was the first time (EU servers) in years I've seen it survive at this time slot and run off to the next spot because there weren't enough people to kill it in however many seconds it used to die. I didn't say anything - but quietly I was thinking in my mind "damn, there's this few people left". In the past when I had more copium to huff, I would just brush it off as people being in the new xpack zones. But even back then people zerged the Ley-Line Anomaly down when the xpack was fresh. I walked around various maps, looked at my usual rich mining node spawns (where there were usually people - alt accounts usually, but still) swapping character at those nodes. No one. For possibly the first time in this game I'm struck but how *few* people were around. Do I think the game is dead? Hell no. There are MMOs that survive with a skeleton crew for a dev team and a playerbase just as thin. Do I think it's reaching the tipping point where it'll be in maintenance mode like gw1? It is very slowly getting there from the looks of it.
This has been a comment that's way too long and rambled on too much , but I'll just end by saying I enjoyed your video.
@Somebody374-bv8cd i read the entire comment and yes, I remember the repairing signs update, and the Queensdale champion farm. The game is alive but there is little left to look forward to. I'm curious to see what GW3 comes out with. If they had axed elite specs after HOT and devoted those resources to something else it could have been an entirely different world.
@@SilhouetteGaming1 I am curious about gw3, but I going to keep my expectations somewhat moderate. The OG devs are no longer there, so it's hard to say what the game will be like.
It's not the equivalent of 9 classes when all they need to do is figure out what weapon to give them, make 3 trait lines, whatever their skills, ult and heal ability will be and that's literally it.
Idk where this gaslight of "the specs are the equivalent of an entire class!!!!" came from. It's like saying the specs in WoW have always been entirely new classes.
@@AzureRoxe Because for 1 example a scourge is completely different from a reaper, which is completely different from a harb and all of them are completely unlike a core necro and their shroud is totally different. and they play nothing alike. In WoW, a ret pally remains ret - dps, a rholy remains holy - heal and a prot remains prot - tank , which has been the same the entire time since WoW released in 2004.
Not to mention when Blizzard's first xpack, BC launched, all they did was swap pally to horde and shaman to alliance and people still paid $15 a month + the BC cost.
Gaslighting is also an overused word on the internet. Everything is gas-lit nowadays. No wonder LA caught fire.
Another issue I see with people saying the game is getting bad, or getting aged. Is that you're asking too much to an old game. The game is so good that it still survived all this year with these called issues, where are the other games released the same year? DEAD
People overplayed the game for so many years and blames the company for not having more "content" I have been playing since November 2024 and I have 2111 hours of gameplay right now, now imagine people that started at launch or even 5 years ago, of course you will feel a lack of content if you over-do anything in life. Play Path of Exile for 5 hours a day for 5 years and let me know if you feel it exciting by then.
Even WoW died to reborn in the "Classic" version because people knew they lost a "good game" people right now would be saying gw2 is dying to then realize how good the game actually was and beg to get it back when is gone
For real. It happens with almost every game-as-service title. Some folks try to turn it into a single solitary source of entertainment and make demands that the game will never keep up with.
Using Path of Exile 2 as a shining star for responding to player feedback has me rolling on the floor laughing.
You are right. There really has been a decline in the quality and amount of content in the game lately. Tbh, I think it is deceiving calling SOTO and JW as expansions. Do you think it has something to do with the Devs being underpaid or just a matter of the Devs being lazier compared to the Devs who have left the company before?
If I were you I will still keep making these videos man. Dont let be this the last. Nevermind the haters. We as GW2 fans are customers and we demand a better product from Arenanet developers.
I don't mind haters lol. The point was to drive discussion more than anything which it seems it has. I will likely make more critical videos in the future but it's not something I want to be my general content. I'm not on a crusade against GW2 or Anet, it's just I feel their leadership isn't making the right decisions.
@@SilhouetteGaming1If the game is now on a sunset might as well we do a crusade to save the franchise at least we tried. We are the customers and we demand a better product.
Honestly? Whether I even bother buying any “expansions” going forward solely rides on how JW concludes. Since soto, the pattern has been to start strong and finish INCREDIBLY weak. Once again, JW had a strong start but hasn’t done all that much since then. Don’t get me wrong, JW is still WAY better than soto (pretty low bar), but I sincerely doubt they’ll stick the landing, and I especially doubt they’ll learn from their mistakes. And if the rumors are true that GW2 is solely being run by a skeleton crew and that everyone else is working on GW3, I’m probably just gonna drop the franchise all together.
[I especially doubt they’ll learn from their mistakes.]
I keep hoping, and they keep disappointing. It's like they take standards established by decades of game design and just... don't use them? And that's something that sits on their weird, revolving door leadership that can't seem to get it together.
No offense to them, but ArenaNet is VERY well known to not learn from their mistakes and repeat them constantly.
Blaming devs that they don't crunch more and not even mentioning lacking of investement and how the company's leadership is wringing all they can from the developers after cutting the staff in half even, is wild. I agree on all your points but I don't think you understand how companies work
After seeing that I have spend over 4k hours into the game I was shocked to realize how little fun this time has been.
At least half of the time I continued just hoping things would get better.
Maybe the devs will invest time into WvW. Maybe they will fix the horrible dmg/cc/invulnerability meta.
But no. Nothing for WvW. The meta just gets worse in a different way. There will never be a good content update.
Also the fact that they are funding side projects from their GW2 income is nothing new. They admitted that 6 years ago already when they mentioned a scrapped Anet project.
GW2 never got much love after it's initial release.
I mean I've had fun, and it's still fun but I don't know how much more there is left for me to do. But we will see what January brings.
I genuinely hope next xpac they dont try to make some "new mayor feature" with JW it's so noticeable they poured their heart out with the first map, and then the rest of the crunch went to making the hpusing system... everything else of that xpac is low mid to shit sadly
Not to mention the absurd number of coin types for everything, as the most common thing of all... The damned gold, which is hard to obtain. Mind you, if you don't pay real money for that and gems.
I'm surprised you didn't cover how the WvW restructuring was simply to shut down servers that weren't in use.
@@nd6886 was it? I mean it makes sense tbh
Thanks a lot for making it free to see for the poor :D
Its thanks to the members! They released it!
I have 1k hours in GW2. But most of them where played at start while learning a lot of stuff, but now I came after 2 year hiatus played for 2h and left it again cuz the zergs are boring. I loved fractals, but after doing them and understanding they don't develop anything new in fractals or dungeons, I just quit again.
This game does NOT suck, it's just withering like a pretty flower once lush.
Happy new year! Banger video
Happy new year bro. We'll see how it does when it's public on Monday. Had to recook it a little bit (my computer was struggling compiling all the clips) but I'm glad you enjoyed it.
@@SilhouetteGaming1 of course, glad to see I made the intro lol. I liked the changes you made to it, definitely sharper. I'm expecting an even split with support and salt but you spoke your mind and that's all that matters.
I left GW2 a few days ago, it's so weird the feeling I had, like I had nothing to do. Your video explains it well, this game is simply dying lol
Check out Josh Strife Hayes video (The Ultimate MMO Tier List (Backed by SCIENCE) (sort of), where he collects objective and factual data from as many sources as possible and compiles a ranking / points system which he thoroughly explains in detail. These are the top 10 from his list.
1st: World of Warcraft / Final Fantasy 14 (Tied) - 493 Points
2nd: Guild Wars 2 - 475 Points
3rd: Elder Scrolls Online - 358 Points
4th: Black Desert Online - 326 Points
5th: Lost Ark - 287 Points
6th: Star Wars: The Old Republic - 254 Points
7th: Old School Runescape - 247 Points
8th: Eve Online - 224 Points
9th: Albion Online - 214 Points
10h: New World - 153 Points
Look how close GW2 scored to the top 2 titans of the MMORPG genre.
The difference between WoW/FF14 and GW2 was only 18 points, where-as the next best ESO was over 117 points behind GW2. Remember this isn't a subjective list like 99% of the content creators have made, Josh lists all the sources he used and compiled the most accurate ranking and points based list he could to make the list an objectively factual as possible.
The notion that GW2 is dying is all but subjective views by players who never got into the game or those who tried very hard to do so, haven't found the appeal of GW2 and resort to making such claims. All these claims have finally been put to rest. Josh is no shill for Guild Wars 2, he would gain nothing from artificially making GW2 2nd on his list and only shy of 18 points to that. The game is just that good, those who deny, just have to live with the fact that the game isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
I've only played a few hundred hours so far, but I've already noticed a lot of glaring issues with the game. None of them are particularly deal-breaking for me, as I started the game with the sole-intention of using it as my casual long-term game. The horizontal progression and relevance of older content makes it easy for me to pick up and put down over the next few years and helps alleviate how painful a lot of the systems can be.
I love the game, but ANet's greedy behavior and unwillingness to improve some basic systems of the game do put me off a bit. I have everything up through SotO (haven't played it yet) and I've enjoyed everything so far. Even though I've spent more than I intended, I have plenty to do for years.
may we enjoy whatever we choose to do on our free time
Indeed. Thankfully there are other games with an actual player base and not bots.
@nd6886 hey! i mostly grind mindlessly out there and i ain't no bot!
Been playing since GW1, GW2 was great tp play at the beginning and once they settled down. Has its highs and lows. But, has been a HUGE disappointment since the new folks took over. These ‘expansions’ (EOD & SOTO are a joke compared to the real expacs from the past. I no longer recommend the game to anyone to get into now. Just not fun and grinding for crap. Sorry, GW2 you are no longer worth it!
What do you guy do when you play a mmo a lot, have a very strong or rich account, do you just let it fall asleep forever or do you manage to sell it? I'm thinking about stopping, I have 10 legy weapons, all legy armor, 40+k AP. Seems like a waste to just let it die in a corner.
I personally still play, and RMT is against the rules IE selling accounts and stuff so be careful if you decide to go down that route. I will never sell my account tbh
Personally I don't think it's smart to sell an account, especially one you grew up with, in a sense. Even if you manage to snag a couple hundred dollars for it, maybe even a thousand (I have no idea how much accounts sell for, just throwing random numbers), you won't get back even a portion of the value you spent on it (money and time both). I think it's fine to let them "die in a corner", because if you ever get that nostalgia about the game again, maybe in a couple years, if the game's still alive, you can fire it up and jump back in, to see where things progressed, or just walk around or whatever. I have 2 genshin accounts I spent probably thousands of hours on, had to stop because of extreme burnout and frustration with the developers/publishers, but i wouldn't even think about selling them, one day I wanna go back and welcome all those characters I collected gems for and raised from Lv1 babies. I'd hate to go "Oh, right, that account's in someone else's hands now..."
Sorry for the long-winded rambling, just my two cents.
I quit when they started adding trash Fractals. Stop making things take longer just to make them take longer. I dont have all day to do jumping puzzles in my "endgame" pve content.
I'm sorry but are you really criticizing the devs for a healthy work life balance that avoids crunch? Should they also start harassing women like Blizzard did to be a successful developer or include other shitty practices?
This point immediately killed all my will to criticize the other points you're wrong on. Should have kept this video in your little echochamber...
Imagine clicking on a video to get someone's opinion then actually getting their opinion.
@@SilhouetteGaming1 you opinion sucks then...
@@SilhouetteGaming1 ? man u r the kind of content creator the ruins the game for theirsel;f lol
You fanboys know all about echochambers since you ban and harass anyone who criticizes ANet or GW2.
@ lol.
The game slowly dying
Releasing new weapon proficiency and make it useless, balance is not actually existing
Devs have favoritism like guardian and virt
Wvw stands for willbender vs willbender
"Other creators found parts problematic" AKA "ANet-paid shills didn't like daddy ArenaNet getting criticism"
The shills are already hard at work in the comments attacking the guy and swearing everything is perfectly fine. That's why ANet lost a ton of devs in 2024 and CANNOT make full expansions anymore, right? Cause it's all fine?
There was definitely a criticism embargo for a long time, it seems like since Soto people have been more brave to say "wait a minute this isn't good". There are a few creators who have been consistent with their opinions. Teapot for example has spoken out for years, Nike for years, and so on. It's not good for business to be negative, I have lost subs just in the two hours this video has been public. But my opinion is my opinion, it is what it is.
Expansions and patches getting ridiculously smaller... as even GW2 crew are also part time working on these secret side projects. Butchering GW2 as they do don't let us believe that the fate of these new games will be any different. Pretty sure that GW2 was Anet's last "true" mmo... GW3 will be an Asian'like open world soloable game, no pvp, no wvw, no fractals, no dungeons (as these been ignored/avoided during the last decade in GW2).
btw, I'm Phandrel's guild scribe, and his guild is dead... there's still people who donate mats but despite having like 20 officers (with ALL powers), none took the lead when Phandrel left. Second time I spent 6k+ golds (+ tons of map currencies) in a guild who die not long after (usually scribes pay for decos, banners and all wvw stuff... despite these ment to be covered by the guild). Guild halls had a great potential, but like many things, Anet never made these any relevant (no GvG).
Sorry to hear that. That is the main reason I am not building a community. I may end up building a variety gaming one at some point but having a singular guild based around an individual is bound to collapse once people move on.
I have played Guild Wars 2 for most of its lifespan and have seen some decline, but I'm not seeing the full extent of the damage simply because the areas that are hurting the most are those I don't partake in. I'm utter shit at PvP; I'm okay at WvW because I thrive on chaos, but what I have noticed in WvW (aside from pretty severe server imbalances.) are some of the cracks in the overall design i.e. that one fucking wall and some people just like to woosh into areas they aren't supposed to woosh into. Speaking from a PvE perspective, I have noticed the decline in story quality, that's not to say it's just a complete and utter shit sandwich, but when you look back at other expansions like, say, PoF, and look at SoTO the narrative is like night and day in my opinion. I didn't HATE SoTO, I didn't like it, either; to me, it was just a weak link leading into another expansion which is, in my opinion, TONS better than its predecessor.
However, I don't fully agree that the game is dying. ( I realize you were being a bit cheeky in the title, but even in the video you were seemingly implying that the end is nigh) I have played games that have been going on since, I believe, 2009 that people INSISTED were dying and yet somehow are not only still standing, but are kind of thriving. Stagnation is not always a death sentence if there are steps to stir the deep. I approach each expansion with tempered expectations and don't follow the hype train. I'm a lot happier that way, a lot happier knowing that although this game is not what it used to be, it has the potential to come into its own, again. I've never cared much for comparisons or what could have been, what we have is what it is. Could it be improved? Yes. Will it be improved? Perhaps, if A-Net stops pulling its team to work on projects that may very well fail. Is it in a death spiral? From where I'm standing? No, not at all. It is a 12-year-old game that still has a relatively healthy player base.
TL:DR: I agree with some of your points: PvP is bad, the latest expansions have been mediocre, and the writing style is all over the fucking place. However, I do not agree that the game is dead angle, nor do I agree that there is no coming back from this; it is not a death spiral, it is decline, and there's a difference. Death spirals imply that there's no way to pull up and recover, decline is the gradual slide that can very easily be rectified by some timely pulls. That's just my 2 coppers for your thoughts. Or something.
@DarthCalliope well written and i agree, I hope the game does recover but we will see.
Yea it feels like all the same problems are pointed out times and times again... And about the same conclusion to solve it. Anet have to make changes about a scale of making a new game and they just cant sale it 2nd time to old players or attract same amount of new players to not go bankrot after it... New game is only solution gamedev sims told us there is exist...
bro i was literally just trying to convince some real life friends to come over from dying runescape to get a guild going.
I mean it's great but only for like 2k hours. Depending on your play cadence that can be years or it can be months
Do it! This game is amazing! Don’t let Debbie Downer making this video stop you.
@@ron1465 And here they are, the shills.
@@AzureRoxeSomeone liking something more than another person, especially when that thing is a video game, doesn’t make them a shill.
@AzureRoxe spoken from the mouth of a shill for this UA-cam channel.
Balance commentary is always hard to get behind because live service games always have some state of weird balance. I played League from 2010 to 2017, and believe me, I've seen some stupid shit.
Tea time spent a lot of time talking about balance because there was a few content droughts throughout PoF and IBS. So naturally, when you spend a lot of time thinking about a game with nothing new happening it, you start to think about the details.
I say all that mostly to acknowledge that balance is ALWAYS going to be a conversation piece for any live service game. I'm not trying to discredit the state of current balance either, I'm not touching PvP til SA Thief and Willbender basically get deleted from the game. Virt needs either a range or damage adjustment, hell, the whole game could use reworks across the board. Fuck it, remove Alacrity and Quickness entirely, see what happens.
Very true, and I played league during that same timeline. I feel that chaotic balance can be more impactful than safe or ineffective balance.
@SilhouetteGaming1 I would agree, I think if they pushed out small changes every few weeks, you could see pretty decent changes between content releases.
One hurdle that Anet will have to overcome is community response. Nerfing, anything comes with the risk of pissing people off, and I specifically remember Mesmer/Virt changes irking some of the player base back in SoTO (I think this was before Cerus LCM, but I'm maybe off on my timeline). The transfusion nerf also didn't go over well initially, but over time, I think that one aged better when they gave Scourge some Boons in exchange.
The biggest issue would be the scale of changes needed to be made. Do we maintain the current level of power creep? If so, do we just hopefully adjust old content to match the current state of the game? Or do you go the opposite direction, nerf everything down to late EoD benchmarks, and nerf the latest content to match it?
How will PvE changes affect PvP, cause they always do whether intentionally or not.
I don't know if Anet has someone there making those long-term choices, or they are, but it really is a resources battle, so they're looking for some small/safe changes for now, and maybe a massive update later on. I don't know I'm just yapping at this point
Good video, love Guild Wars 2. I'm currently playing other games while between legendaries, so it's alright for now
your advocation of crunch immediately makes me discredit your opinions on this. crunch causes actual hospitilization in extreme cases. it isn't just "job is hard, do your job". do your research.
Bro they are based out of Bellevue Washington where there are labor laws. Crunch does not circumvent federal labor laws. This isn't north korea.
I dont need to see full video, knew that you into lies of P where its action combat that can customize the blade edge and having to tell white lie to make P's heart more human, to see you are a decent Samaritan
Lies of P is an incredible game. I'm super hype for the DLC and sequel
It's time for a GW3 tbh, everything learned from GW2 mistakes, but even if GW3 launches, i really doubt that ANet is going to ever abandon GW2 (at least as long as it still gives em money)
I fall in love with gw2... But everything said here its right.. I am most of the time mad on PVP matchmaking and generaly system, that force u to play PVP.. I have like 2k ranked games and I enjoyed 1/3 of that.. U are plat rank, and u have most of the time silver or no ranked teammates.. Or u are 4v5 cuz somebody didnt connect.. Everything about it make me crazy.. Or U play with ppl who goes afk after first dead.. And u see how arenanet giving shit about their players.. PVE content seems good for me, cuz i dont play many of that and I have that felling like I still have a lot of achievments to do. But PVP and WvW are 2 modes, that interest me most and are 2 worst they can do.
Look, I am as casual as they come. I play solo because I don't want to commit to a group. I don't play raids, I don't have legendarys, not a collections guy. I just do meta events on the maps and the campaign. The Campaign in Soto and Janthir Wilds is so boring. I really dislike these "expansions". Who are these characters ? Why should I care about them? Why are they giving me orders? Why is Isgaren a prick? Who is this blue Woman? And then this kumbaja were friends now ending in Soto. Then Janthir, who are these bears? Why are they important? Why do we need them? Dafuq, is a Titan? Then you do the same fight, what was it 3 times? It feels like the Commander has lost all agency over themselves and are just running errands. Nah, I am done with Guild Wars 2. They had 2 "expensions" to set up a good story, but they didn't. I do like the Maps, only because I unlocked my Sky scale in Soto. If I had to walk everywhere or use the ground mounts, I wouldn't have finished the new "expansion". The performance is ass in some maps. I have a good pc that can run everything 60 fps ultra, but this game sometimes crashes to the 30ties. I can't complain or critique on your level. You have more knowledge. It’s just I as a casual player notice that something's wrong with the game.
On the bright side of things, I am currently having a lot of fun with PoE 2.
Been playing GW 1 on and off since 2006 and GW 2 on and off since HoT 2015 release date. I've been a part of the groups that struggled to clear Dragon's End and I have to say that was the last time I felt i was actually gaming. Left the game after that because of IRL priorities and came back on 2024 Holidays, boucght SotO and JW and started my catch-up journey. I only did Gyala Delve story and meta once and i will never touch that map ever again. Now, about SotO, I feel very much just like you did. I am The Commander, I have battled all the dragons, world-destroying entities, I have fought a God, an undead army and a Lich King and so on. After all that you have the audacity to tell me that I have anxiety and mental health problems? You're telling me that Isgarren and the Astral Ward didn't intervene because the dragon problem wasn't much of a problem? I have to listen to Frode, Lyhr and a bunch of new NPCs that I've never heard of in my life and prove myself to them? YOu're telling me that a bunch of weak ass demons with Stockholm Syndrome is that awesome new enemy that I should be afraid of? Why do I have to be sympathetic to a bunch of rebellious demons? Who TF is Peitha and why do I have to listen to her? Why do i have to fight that surfer mob again that I couldn't stand back in PoF? I'm almost done with SotO story, but i haven't touched GW 2 in 2025 yet and I don't believe I will do it any time soon. I think I'll just wait for JW to be done and then decide if I invest anymore time. SotO is really the lowest point GW 2 has ever been. I can't find any redeeming qualities besides the fact that the frist 2 maps look kinda ok, but then again...the world of Tyria is so frickin large, why did they ahve to make 3 maps up in the sky instead of unlocking more terrain on the actual continent?
You seem to operate under the delusional assumption that video games are supposed to provide infinite entertainment regardless of how much time you've invested in them. Hardcore gamers all seem to share this characteristic, they spend ungodly amounts of hours into a game, turn it into their main hobby because it provides them with the most fun, and when they inevitably run out of new and fresh things to enjoy because of how much they squeezed it, they get bitter and angry about not having the same level of fun as they used to.
Literally anything you've said in this video can be applied to every other game out there. I mean that *literally*. If you rely on studios and game developers to provide you with incentives to play, every single game comes down to this. Never enough dev time, never enough content, never fast enough. If you rely on extrinsic motivation you will always end up at the point where you run out of things to do. If you want something that provides infinite entertainment, you need to find intrinsic motivation in other hobbies, it's quite literally all about touching grass. Find other hobbies to occupy you, instead of trying to squeeze what little juice a single game can give you.
Your entire segment on arenanet being "lazy" and "not willing to crunch" just made me genuinely laugh out loud, the studio in charge of one of the most successful MMOs on the market, and I quote "will never compete with any other company"... So fucking naive lmao
Take a breather from GW2, play other games and connect with other people. That's the best way to not feel bad about not enjoying the game as much anymore, it's nothing to do with content cadence, or the UI, or the studio.
@@leubzo1436 yeah this guy has played this game for 10k plus hours and still want more, while the entire nice thing about GW2 you can take a break whitout being punished. Also wanting developers to Crunch is just disgusting.
That is on purpose. MMO's were promoted as 'forever games' that was one of core appeals for genre. In 'forever game' you expect entertainment to keep up years on end. It's a fallacy but it's one that was core appeal of genre since forever.
We reached a point were people are coping by saying mmos are fine by not releasing new expansions... just admit it bro, this game is on life support and slowing fading away and that is fine, no need to cope and deny that
@theOneAndOnlyLordArthur sure yearly expansion is life support
@ soto and janthir are not even worth classifying as expansions
I really can't think of a single game that this video would not apply too. Especially older games running on limited engines. You made a point of a game that added stuff on the fly that wasn't released yet, well yes of course they can do that as they are still in development and are running on a newer engine. I really have no skin in the game either way but, as I do play many MMO's including GW2, I simply can't think of one that wouldn't fit into this video.
So on the one hand, "content drought" means Go Play Another Game or Touch Grass. BUT, I do get the point that the content grinds do make gameplay feel stale. GW2 has a real effort-to-reward ratio problem, mostly done to continue fueling the in-game economy.
Sigh, balance is borked in every mode. It's an entire video in the making. Attribute values, boon operation, and player demands are all guilty of influencing balance.
Sadly, an LFG revamp would never work in GW2. Community issue.
The problem with the community? They're terrified of failure. My gods, so many GW2 players are so high on their own supply that they can't accept NOT succeeding and NOT getting their shiny loot.
In the meantime, why don't YOU crunch and make more and better videos?
Post-work edit:
lol, focusing on a hater like Teapot is peak sniffing your own farts and calling it roses. But Angeels is spot on. If players aren't interested in the rewards, and the rewards don't come soon enough with the effort invested, they're going to stop playing.
Sadly, GW2 tried to chase the monolithic bosses instead of working within the system they made. And all done for a demanding, gate-keeping community. Whee.
Dang, Phandrel hitting me hard with "I don't want to stand around waiting". I feel that way all the time while trying to hunt achievements for masteries and rewards. So many things are on a timer, it's ridiculous.
Though, content creators getting burned out is NOT a GW2 issue. C'mon now. Yall're sick of it because you chose to over-play it.
@deeps6979 for your last point I do strive to increase quality and cadence however I do videos for fun not profit. If this were my job and I could devote 40+ hours a week to it you would see content you wouldn't believe. Additionally I am catering to the members who support the channel, a single 1 dollar member is worth over 700 monthly views in ad revenue conversion. So catering to an audience who supports personally is a much better investment since I can also get quality feedback and tailor it to a known audience. It's my goal to flush out a members only catalog of game videos while also entertaining the public. But yeah I touch plenty of grass lol
Good video brother, I subbed
All glory to the YT DRAMA gods.
Let there be react content.
Lack of content is good thing. I have played game +16k hours ultra casually. I do wizard vault dailys and weekly, try get some skins that i missing, maybe craft some lege. Rarely abuse elite specs. No any interest sweat in raids where people just abuse elite specs and mechanics because eveything need to be easy as possible. Then they whine that game is too easy. :D
Videos like this are a double-edged sword. Criticism is great for feedback but it should be in a contained space within the community. If it's on an open platform like YT it will only repel potential new players from playing the game.
nah , it doesn't suck that much ... just a few adjustments, and the game is perfect
compare to any Action combat MMO this game is the top one 😉
I appreciate your opinion but totally disagree. You sound like you have ulterior motives. Gamers like you are never happy. I wish you the best and suggest that you go play WOW. Happy New Year.
Yeah this expac is fun, and also he is complaining about people going back to older content even to that is why GW2 is so good. It's not like wow where you only play the expansion because the rest is completely useless
"ulterior motives"
What in the flying fq you are even on about??
@@Nobody32990 UA-cam clicks
why do you disagree? a lot of his points have very strong arguments to them
@@UphillHook How dumb are you that you think HE, of all GW2 creators, gives a damn about clicks?
Hate from Australia
Hell yeah.
People say this game is dying for years. Common, those are pure bullshits. See player population or actually play the game to see it is filled with people. It would use more players playing strikes and raids but there are another faults.
The game doing worse than it was in its prime, I also think that bcs the new expansions reuse a lot of the models. Like until now the only bosses I get in the last expansions are Greer and decima. You meet them in story, in raid, in open world, in convergences. It is just too much. Also mechanics are pretty similar. Raids point used to be to be sparated stories, but now it is just another recycle content like they did with strikes. Late content is disappointing? It is, but this does not mean the game sucks. And I love the game but I can’t be like those fanboys in the game that see everything colorful and nice and they get angry that you critique the game. User interface is really undated, but hopefully they will fix that. About balance, let’s be honest, compared with other mmos where you have to work again months to be meta after a shit balance patch, this game is fine. It has its issues and there is much to speak about it, but still a good choice if you compare it with the competition.
About people that don’t want to take the initiative, this is a thing in every game. Even if you don’t tag, it happens for people to be helpful towards the group and not rare at all.
As a conclusion, the game is amazing, but yes late expansions have bad story, a lot of reused content, a little of inovation. They should change something in many aspects, but this don’t make the game being bad. Just hope the bad content will not continue so to surpass what is good. I still think the artstyle, the combat and the monetization are the best in mmos
Just stop playing if the game sucks. Why make a yt video to bitch about the game? People will always play gw2 since its by far the best mmorpg.
So we shouldn't criticize anything ever, got it.
GW2 is not bad at all, is the best MMORPG for long time. The issue is that it needs an aspect that other MMORPGS always had, open world pvp towards some wealth objetives. Some massive guild vs guild pvp, not that stupid shit boonblob we see in WvW where you earn nothing after beating everybody.
Its only the best mmo to the one game andys that don't play anything else. Their standard is gw2. They know nothing else, and is the reason why you will hear "gw2 has the best raids" or "gw2 has the best combat system", etc. Those who actually plays what's out there, would never say anything related to gw2 as the best offering there is. Its a niche game made for a very niche demographic. Anet is as close to an indie studio as you will find, and indie don't have the resources to push in the gaming industry, and offer "the best" of anything.
@@SILKYSMOOTH30FPS but gw2 combat really is far more superior then eso (1800 hours in it), ff14 (1000 hours) or wow (dont know how much)
@@Atrialpwnz So let me get this straight, you compare it to a 20 years old mtx store (WoW), a game developed by a dev that uses animations from Worrowind still to this day in Starfield (ESO) and an ICD simulator (FF14), and i am supposed to praise GW2 for being better? This is not how a customer looks at a video game. Do you genuinely believe that someone who is looking to play a game, will only compare GW2 to an mmo? No. An mmo Andy will, yes, but your general gamer, they will be comparing it to what came out in the last couple of years. Be it Elden Ring, Wukong, Stellar Blade, PoE2, MH Wilds, etc, etc. When you take this into consideration, your GW2 looks and feels pathetically outdated, and so ancient, its not even worth considering. Those who stick to nothing but mmos don't understand this, but this is the reality of gaming nowadays. Yes, a casual gamer might, and most likely will choose to play Genshin Impact or Wuthering Waves over GW2 because these two games aren't forgotten by everyone, combat system has far more spectacle and these games have a future.
@@SILKYSMOOTH30FPS xddddddddd so why you dont compare gw2 to maybe Fortnite or Call of Duty in that case? How did you come to this point of comparing several different genres?:D
Btw combat in soulslike is bad. Awful camera control and constant rolling on the flor is baaaaad.
I want to play MMORPG. I HAVE TO look at some titans in this genre - wow combat with cast while standing and tons of addons, which bring ui-chaos is awful, ff14 combat totally cringe, eso viving awful, new world combat has only 3 skills on weapon = cringe, BDO combat could be good, but you cannot even reallocate hotkeys, and cos of engine your fps is your animation speed, so this is cringe too, OSRS combat... no comments. The only +|- good action combat in Lost Ark, but this isometric-noWASDmovement game is trully not for everyone .
@@SILKYSMOOTH30FPS You do realize that ESO is developed not by Bethesda but Zenimax Online ? As well as ESO engine is pretty much some sort of mixation of Hero Engine - same as SWTOR's one. What type of person will get a GW 2 a game that is already several years old and compare it to Wukong ? If you grab an MMO you know it's not singleplayer. Now you could try to play it as singleplayer .. but it's not the same. Not in the slightest.
Genshin Impact whill scare off some people. Gacha are more notorious for being predatory. I believe average Andy will be weary of lootboxes and such, so hearing about gacha and it's many scandals will sent them packing. Not to mention for both gacha and MMO it's wise to have an income, so that further pushes away these who don't have steady ones out.
Anet will fumble the GW3 development, the project will be transferred to a Korean studio, and most devs at anet will be fired by the end of 2026. Calling it now.
Anet is no better than ubisoft, and having a lill peek at Ubi's stock should tell you everything you need to know.