What's your best Guild Wars 2 memory from last year, and how optimistic are you about the game's future? Thanks for continuing to watch and support the channel over the last year - here's to a fantastic 2023!
End of dragons, but if we could go few years earlier it would be Shadow in the ice. I'm optimistic about the game's future, I just hope anet doesn't put focus on political messaging instead of story. We've seen some signs in EoD. But we'll see then :)
I started playing again just before EoD launch. Joined a guild, started raiding and become a raid leader in said guild. One of my favourite years of gaming definetly and we are still raiding today. Even though there's not much new raids and the strike cms are only fun to complete once maybe. But because balance is getting more varied, there is still new ways to play the content. Around EoD was when i started watching Teapot aswell. Truly amazing how they turned the game around since i stopped playing after PoF. Sry for the long comment, was feeling nostalgic.
I've been looking for an active guild to get back into GW2 with, but there's a lot of them advertising as active and you come to find out there's 2 guys active the rest haven't logged in days! Any recommendations for actual active guilds?
@@itsthePeepsPeeps Make sure they have a content type you like and they do every week. Don't be afraid to leave the guild if you don't think it's a good fit and keep looking. And above all remember a guild is the people in it, make sure if you want to hang out with them basically.
how is the game dead lol im pretty new and i see TONS of players where ever i go literally everywhere and i checked and the game has daily active players ranging from over 300k to 400k thats far beyond from dead
I bought this game in 2012. Went to army for 5 years. Made a career. Then got married. Made some kids :) After seeing EoD trailer decided to install and see what is going on. Now I have a full set of legendary armor and alimony...........
EoD brought me in for real. I'd been bouncing in and out of the game since the beta, few months here, few there, but since EoD I've been playing GW2 as my main game. Cantha's design just really resonated with me. The expansion isn't perfect, sure, but it got me back in. Then, the "Return To" achievements got me to go back and play all the story I never finished before. Now I'm in love with the game and have a bunch of longer term goals I'm going after. 2022 wasn't perfect, but it's definitely been the most important year of GW2 for me personally.
Indeed. I joined this year, after the steam launch and I really like the game. However I never felt it was 'a gem that I was sleeping on' , but rather a game that worked itself to actually really good state. It's a shame it took them so much time to do so, but I'm glad they finally did it :)
I used to play back in 2016 but quit after a few hundred hours because I had no money to buy expansions. Fast forward to 2022 and I had to hold myself back after finding out it released on Steam and the memories of just roaming around doing map completion settled. Recently I just no lifed the game for 2 months with all expansions and LW and man I felt little pressure to rush the game. It’s a great journey so far.
This warms my heart, I left the game in 2019 partially because I was very busy with RL but also because the state of the game was really depressing me. And now to come back and see how positive and hopeful the community is, how much good content has been added. I haven't been this excited about playing again in a very long time.
Been a good year for me personally too. I've been wanting to raid for years, but I've been letting nerves get the better of me. The past few months I've pushed myself out of my shell a little, now I'm quite comfortable on w1-w4, and am feeling confident that in 2023 I'll complete my first set of leggy armour, and hopefully get serious work done on a second.
ibs had the most interesting story by far imo, with the bangar and ryland plot and the charr civil war. its a shame that the last episodes were not that good.
I felt all this part was really stupid, making Charrs even more stupid than they already are. I would like to see more variations of Charrs, not only these guys saying "uhhhhh attac, dragons, bad dragons kill kill kill, uh let's save the god of war it's a good idea".
The icebrood saga had some of the best content for gw2. Story wise and content wise. Please, bear with me for a moment. Story wise: at the beginning everything started strong with grothmar valley. A good introduction to the saga with nuanced characters. Then we had whisper in the dark, which shorter than expected, still delivered (almorra's death was a bit controversial, but it pretty much was fixed with visions of the past, ill talk about it later) with the devs not afraid to venture into really dark stuff (jormag puppeteering corpses, boneskinners being cannibal kodan, aesgir's secrets being revealed, mass genocide and spirits of the fallen being taken by jormag under ox's magic). The story of Shadow in the ice this time told us that we could find hope to end the nightmare of the whispers, pretty much everything was good here, especially the ending where we get shot by bangar and wake up under a redesigned elder dragon Aurene. Visions of the past was there to give devs a little bit more time and to fix the death of almorra by giving her a worthy death by going in a literal blaze of glory. No quarter. Pretty good, with them showing the worst what war is. Only flaw is Smodur's characterization which was off for him. There was also the pandemic which hit pretty hard but anet recovered pretty well from it, adding voicelines back to ep 3 and 4 when they released champions. Jormag rising is no quarter 2: frosty boogaloo. Same with no quarter. Only flaw is smodur's death is rushed. Champions... . Ok hear me out. Apart from the absolutely disasterous and rushed Primordus vs Jormag part, story was fine, pretty good even. "Outrageous!" I know, I understand. Again, hear me out. Rytlock killing his son with the very blade he sought instead of his family but gaining the son he never had in braham, Ryland seeking to prove himself and eventually seeking purpose in jormag's power, only to lose everything in the end beacuse he was consumed by his desires and rage, contrasted with braham, who lost his mother, his bow, his guildmates, his honor, but still willing to sacrifice everything to save his friends, and being rewarded with life and a legend worthy of being sung for centuries. These are all nuanced and well written character arcs. Too bad it was tainted with the disaster that was the destruction of Primordus' buildup for over 15 years Content: Grothmar concert, effigy, Bjora drakkar, boneskinner and the massive rework of the map wide meta event by drizzle wood coast, rewarding you for your time spent (which is more than what can be said about Dragon's End). Need more? Pass, Fraenir, Kodan, Boneskinner, Cold War strikes. Hate yourself? Play Forging steel. Need to do something quickly cause you don't have enough time to log in every day? Hop on the Dragonstorm train. What do we get with end of dragons? It begins well and continues to do so (friendly reminder. political messaging is here. And it's pretty blunt. Say what you want ibs at least tried to make its characthers nuanced. Take for example Bangar, who was progressive by bringing the new and reformed flame legion back in the ranks of the legions, but for his own gains and while being paranoid about the other races) with the arc that mai trin goes trough. We go on to be introduced to the void which, while a creative concept, messes with what we've been thaught about magic in tyria, in both good ways and bad ways. Ankka is a badass villain at least. Then we go on to try convince Li to get us to joon. But he tries to arrest us cause he's a big mean trumpist. Buuut there's a problem here. We need to go to trial to prove our innocence. For all Li knows (he is biased though, but hear me out.) we're a possible criminal that possibly almost killed millions of people and that is trying to get a goverment official to hide him from authorities and get him to the founder of the biggest invention since the wheel. Yeah... I think Li is pretty justified here. We go on to break into said inventor's home, to get her to build extractors for us to save the world. Then we go to Dragon's end, get rekt by void, TURN INTO A DEMIGOD (very good way to give the story stakes again guys), kill the dragons and save the world. And after all that, Aurene is still with us which means that we can turn into a demigod, that can destory armies of monsters at a whim. We're about to get hundreds of new bangars as we are or are in control of the most powerful entity in the cosmos. The map metas were very lackluster. At least the specs and the strikes are good though. Icebrood saga for me was better than end of dragons and this is the hill i'm willing to die on.
I only started in May and it was hearing that you guys had an expansion that caught my interest. And then being a weeby ff player seeing the theme of it go me more interested. But it released not long after Endwalker launch so I took a while to get around to giving the game a proper go. Really glad I did, 680 hours later and I just finished the whole story from start to finish :D
the forums to this day is a cesspit of dogshit and gaslighting. you couldnt provide feedback because it would somehow conflict with the forums overreaching and outdated community guidelines to the point where people just stopped providing feedback. you literally couldn't talk about certain game mechanics or balances because you would straight up get banned. the cleansing of the the devs and community moderators and managers during the staff firing end up being a godsend in hindsight also Gaile Gray was and still is trash
This x100 x100. If you go on the WvW forum and complain about Mag spawn camping ANet deletes the post and bans you. The forums are heavily censored. It's disgusting. The devs are at war with their own community. It's been awful to watch
@@slytherben and you couldnt say mag spawn camps. you cant even discuss if thats an issue, because you mentioned mag, and thats an ban from the mods issues like this could never be truly discussed to understand if it was an issue. because you would breach the community guidelines by doing so
I waited so long for GW2 release on Steam to start playing it; i have currently 300 hours in less than 1 month, I've been playing around 10 hours a day since I was pretty free in December and I'm having a blast and I even made a friend buy the 100€ pack on Steam. This game is awesome and full of depth and things to do. I've also always been an hardcore gamer, and I've always grinded games, mechanically in FPS and gear-wise in RPGs, and I've always liked vertical progression and RNG. I actually have more than 9000 hours on Black Desert Online and I played pretty much every old school mmorpg and fps. Guild Wars 2 is exactly the breath of fresh air I've been looking for years, and clearly an overlooked gem. This game is really enjoyable even as a grown up hardcore player, and it will nevel invalidate your progress, even if you quit or if you can't play because you have also a job and maybe a life. I would argue though that getting ascended gear, trinkets in particular, doesn't feel like an accomplishment and it's relatively easy for an hardcore player, you can get one power and one condition dps set in just few weeks if you know what you are doing. I love too many aspects about this game that I can't list them all, so I'm just going to say what I think held back Guild Wars 2: bad marketing, wrong marketing as f2p game, gear/build slots and storage cash grab, PvE endgame's rewards not really worth the effort of getting into it or just keep doing it once you got your ascended gear and your achievements, giving new players the tools to actually earn as much gold per hour as a veteran (really, you just need to download markers and farm braindead pearls and other materials and rich nodes). I also want to give tips to possible new hardcore players because I saw many bad advices for gamers like us (we are much different than the average GW2 playerbase and we are definitely in the minority) and I'm sure something will be helpful for new casual players as well: Don't listen to people who will tell you to not use your level 80 boost and to waste your valuable time to enjoy "the real gw2 experience". Chore game, especially if you are f2p (you can't use the market and storage is very limited) is not particularly enjoyable, in fact it is quite boring, slow, rather limited, and doesn't actually teach you anything that you can't learn by watching guides and rotations about your elite specialization. Try the game, if you like it buy the expansions, choose a power build to start since berserker gear is easy to get (you can buy named berserker exotic gear for very cheap on trading post, the lv80 boost set is completely fine until then), join a guild, do a Hero Point train to fully unlock your elite specialization and meanwhile get Mastery Points as well, unlock Path of Fire and get Springer and Skimmer mounts, unlock Living World season 3 to farm for viper ascended trinkets, get berserker ascended rings from fractals, berserker ascended accessories from guild missions, craft berserker ascended back piece, buy ascended berserker amulet with laurels and congrats, you have a power and condition build and everything you need in few weeks of playing the game.
I would disagree about having a new player do a level 80 boost on their first character. Alot of my friends joined after eod and I took the through the base game. The problem with boosting on a new account is when the player isn't experienced with MMOs. For a person that plays a bunch of different MMOs it's a little different because you have that baseline knowledge on mmo mechanics in general. I feel it's a good intro for new players and tbh it only takes a few hours (around 10-12) to go through base game
@@sporedudeandsloaiza I literally talked for hardcore players, because I'm not casual, and honestly I would have quitted the game after 3 hours if I had to play the chore game. There is also literally no difficulty in doing what I suggested for pretty much every type of player. Base game is straight up boring and a waste of time. It took me 2 hours since I joined a guild to fully unlock my elite spec, have a good base of mastery points and mounts.
@@sporedudeandsloaiza Even if you don't play MMOs, the game is laughably easy through the story. Anybody at least familiar with games will blast through it and find no difficulty anywhere. Which makes it very boring, if it's just about story just read a book or watch a show. And the thing is, the story of the first few years is not exactly stellar, it's pretty bleh and most people would agree on that. So you're essentially just playing to grind through it.
Fantastic review and commentary. A group of us left GW2 for ESO about the same time you did. We were there for 2 yrs after feeling that the game had gotten stale. Came back just before EoD and I really enjoy playing it again. Really fun and I have goals again in the game. Thank you ANet for this revitalization that was 2022.
I hope they improve old textures, specifically weapon and armor skins. I want to roleplay a common pleb soldier fighting with basic infantry arms and armor.
i think season of the dragons, and the amulet specifically was a genius move, also becouse of the fact that if u consider new players, that have to buy the lw seasons, well now u get a legendary on top, that usually cost around the same amount of gold to craft, that ull have to pay for gems if u choose this route of unlocking the episodes. u get tons of content, for the price of a legendary, and u still get the legendary if that makes sense.
I have a 7 years account and hated GW2 with all my heart after playing GW1 since 2007 till today. But in 2022 i have found the game GW2 completely changed and actually enjoying playing it. I support the game trough the gemstore because i feel like it worth my attention. It is simple like that. Anet want our attention? Deliver! We gonna swipe to show our support!
I've been playing GW2 for about a year and beleive me, those 10 years of content really is attractive for someone like me, what I love about this game is that I can play hours and hour of content, then take a break of few weeks and I go back, I can do it all at my pace and I've been having so much fun, I only have 3 mounts , I wish I could fly but I know with time I will get there, meanwhile I have the 3 basic mount, working on the story to get the 4th which I think is Jackal, anyways, I can see the world is big, a lot to do, a lot of people around the world which makes it feel alive, always something to do, so really I love this game and all that content, not like the old game I used to play which I know everyone knows , but I hated how everything was focused on the latest expansion, you had to get to top level to play last expansion, and all the previous content was trash, alm the zones empty, sucked really bad, but in GW2 I really love how any zone I go I see people and groups I join arounf the world ,I really love this game and I don't know when I will finish all the content, but so far I've had nonstop fun in the year I've been playing, and the best thing is that I don't feel like being left behind, not like the other game which I quit because I was falling behind and I fell so far behind I never went back haha, I see this doesn't happen in GW2
I have to ask; was the point between IBS and EoD really that much worse than LWS1 and HoT, when we went at least a good 6 months of Radio Silence before we had HoT even announced while they fired half the writing team?
Never played Guild Wars when it first launched - got grabbed by WoW at launch, and by Eve Online. By the time I'd stopped playing those, I wasn't in a position to play any other MMO. Then WoW effectively destroyed itself, and I got myself a nerd girlfriend who prefers fantasy to science fiction... so I started shopping around for something that we could both play. Tried Elder Scrolls Online, discovered that it was so painfully easy, so stupidly afkable, even my gf - who had never played anything except Mario Kart - found it too easy. Then people started talking about Guild Wars. Josh Strife Hayes did his video about GW1. And I thought, screw it, let's take a look. We both now have 300+ hours on Guild Wars 1 and full completion of its campaigns, and recently hit level 80 on our first characters in Guild Wars 2. Glad to see it finally getting attention, because the thing that really struck us both? Every good idea other MMOs have had for a while, was stolen from GW2, and GW2 did them better. The mounts, the UI, the mini-games, the dialogue, the combat... everyone else has been copying GW2's homework, but getting it wrong.
Had a great year with EoD, even took time to unlock the siege turtle and the gryph mounts, which is something I never thought I would achieve. Now, I'm aiming for that Drake, it looks badass! ^^
I've played since a few weeks before HoT release, and it never really stuck, but I've returned a month before EoD, and it's been a phenomenal experience all around
GW2 got better because they wanted to put it on steam. This motivated them to clear up some long standing issues. It's good to see it so successful. Also, they quit worrying about the side stuff and concentrated on their main product. I thought IBS was great until the dragon strikes started. Then it sucked.
Kind of weird to mention Season 1 in the same breath as Seasons of the Dragons since they were separated by a whole year, and Season 1 wasn't even announced until after EOD. It was in IBS that they started to bring back Season 1 but that was before the expansion development started since those instances came with Visions of the Past before Drizzlewood released.
I stopped playing fulltime when HoT got released. Stopped for about 7 years. Came back after EoD got released not even realising I had already purchased PoF and never played it so I had a bulk of content to go through. Been playing daily and enjoying myself with various things. Started doing my Season of the Dragon meta run of which I had remarkably much completed already. Looking forward to what comes next
honestly, im about to go against 90% of the comments here. I've played for years and quit when EoD came out. I'm not going to go into every reason why, but in short, I personally felt that the game had lost any semblance of it's charm and character that was so strong in s2, HoT, and s3. s4 was okay, PoF was hit or miss but icebrood and especially EoD were just dog shit. awful writing, awful stories, trash new elite specs, just a bad time. however, i feel slightly better seeing nearly all of teapot's chat go "gw2 should have ended here" when he was recapping over the end of season 4 xD it's a shame how so so so many new players have joined but they have no idea how much better this game was back in the day. they're playing gw2 lite, massive shame.
Your comment will be probably get deleted. The ANet community does not permit critique or dissent. Smile and be happy or get banned. Want evidence? Just post on the forums. Your post will get deleted and you'll be served a temp ban right away. It's awful
I had a raid earlier that was new to me and I really didnt know what to do. Good thing the first boss was just one go but I kept laughing the whole time because my teammate had to broadcast what I was supposed to do and not to mention the previous all caps squad chats saying: SOHNNY MOVE BACK xD
So funny story, my friend bought a GW2 multipack promo type thing back when it came out in 2012. I think it was part of a Deluxe edition. He gave me one of the copies and I played a bit, and dropped off. Then in the pandemic I figure I would return to an MMO, and remember GW2. I have been having a blast! I have such a backlog of content that I have nearly a limitless list of things to do. Now I just need to get over my Raid/Fractal fear and I will be all set.
i played gw2 at launch and then never touched it again. just got back two days ago on steam with a fresh account and i just hit lvl 40. having a blast so far honestly.
In 2022, WvW was gutted, decimated, whole guilds are gone. Whole metas canceled. 24/7 endless spawn camping. ANet heavily moderates the WvW forum and any mention of Mag spawn camping is a) deleted b) user is temp banned from forums. It's censorship in the highest degree. An entire community is begging ANet for help and ANet is silencing them. After my guild mates starting quitting I finally gave up and quit too. And I played for one of the biggest guild in the game
Like your energy haha. Also decided to "fully" get into Guild Wars 2 and buy the expansions :) . I've messed with it here and there, but never dug into it proper.
I can't tell you my favorite moment without spoiling the EXCELLENT story!!! That said, the story hooked me, and the gameplay has kept me coming back. I rarely left a session frustrated (and usually only because I couldn't keep playing). I finally played through all of the Living World seasons, and I can't believe this isn't pushed harder. Honestly, this is such a great game that is easily overlooked. The biggest drawback it has is the new-player experience. Thanks to your videos, I have learned things that I should have known from year one, except they are poorly explained (if at all) in the game!!! I wish devs would keep in mind that most players are not going to leave a game to learn about the fundamentals of a game. They're on the right path, but they have a long way to go. For every friend that I have still playing GW2, I have 3 friends that tried it again this year and dumped after a session or two because they felt overwhelmed with systems and were afraid they'd never "catch up".
doing raids is like going to work every week and doing the same shit over and over again it was fun for 6 months when i started new to raids learn everything and try to be top dps but after 500li i was like nah this shit aint fun anymore
Guild Wars 2 is the perfect MMO. I've played on and off since launch day, but ever since July of 2022 I've seriously gotten back into it. I'm currently working on getting my ascended gear, doing strikes, enjoying PvP, and loving doing my daily strikes.
You aren't lying but definitely not telling the whole truth either. Anet did a good job of bringing new players and returnees into the game, but when it comes to new endgame content it still looks very bleak, especially in PvP and WvW. CMC and Roy are doing what they can, but they are 2 dudes working on a massive game and probably would need 5-10x the ressources they have for a good balance cadence alone, and that doesn't even include any content. In WvW Alliances have been in beta for god knows how long (and even that wouldn't be content, just matchmaking) and in PvP we got the last map in 2018 (and a shit one it was aswell). Beside two very meh legy trinkets in 2020 these gamemodes basically did not get any content in years. Hardcore PvErs at least got a bit more with their strike CMs. Eventually even you decided to simply replay all the old content from scratch up with a new account to have something to show to your audience, because you know otherwise there isn't much to do. As a PvP main I can only say the state of that gamemode has gotten alarmingly bad at the high end in the recent months, contrary to the general trend.
I know it’s been past practice but I don’t think we need new expansions to wait for new weapon sets for classes. Throw in a quest line or whatever but allowing classes to mix match new weapon sets and skills would be really interesting
This may sound dumb, but one of the coolest aspects of the turn in direction for me, were the live stream updates. As awkward and not at all smooth as they were, it was cool to put faces to the people scrambling to make GW2 work. Granted they wouldn't have meant anything if anet didn't deliver steps in the right direction, but for me they were very outward symptoms OF that right direction. I hope they keep them up. Also. Water bottle memes.
this sounds like pretty much like a random ass comment, and maybe it is but to everyone who might see this: later this year, GW2 will get a huge hype and boost in popularity the upcoming player numbers will completely overshadow all the numbers they ever had in player count but if this is good or bad, we will probably have to wait and see
I would say that the best thing that could have ever happened to the game was ending the Dragon Cycle. The EDs have always been narrative black holes. Even as side characters their gravitational pull was so great that the moment they were put in any story the story became about them. - LW s3, started out strong as an internal division within the White Mantle. Then Balthazar is revealed to be after Primodius and then the story becomes about Primordiuus and the White Mantle is completely written out. - PoF, started out strong with being about hunting the rogue god Balthazar and then the story took a dive near the end when everything was actually about Kralkkatorrik despite Kralkarottik only being a glorified McGuffin. - LW s4, started out immensely strong with a focus on Palawa Joko and his machinations. Then a bit over halfway through the LW, he's written out and it all becomes about Kralkatorrik. Kralkatorrik stole the spotlight despite Joko being what's most remembered. - IBS, started out incredibly strong with a view of what's essentially a "villain at rest" moment and then only picked up the pace by focusing mostly on an old Charr feeling that he needs to get his own ED to remain relevant, a chilling analogy of the mentality behind the real-world arms race. Then at the end of ep. 5, Jormag becomes the central character and the story becomes about them. Even if IBS had been expanded the result would still have been the same due to Jormag's presence. - EoD starts out strong with the focus being on a villain who's descended into a nihilistic worldview, essentially a parallel of Owlman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Only for her to be written out and the last third fully focusing on Soo-Won. The scene of the Speakers and the Brotherhood after the Battle of the Jade Sea where one says perfectly encapsulates what made the Dragon Cycle fail on a narrative level, "we only worked together because the world was at stake, once we exit that door we're back to being enemies." PÅlot is driven the best by interpersonal conflicts and the lower the stakes are the more we can get emotionally invested in them. With the Dragon Cycle, the stakes were so immeasurably high that they lost all meaning as victory was guaranteed, or else the franchise would end. It also made any interaction strife seem stupid and pointless, what meaning is there in fighting when the entire world can vanish tomorrow because of the infighting, and then the fighting would have been essentially useless? I heard that ANet got new writers for their stories and they were tied of being hampered by the legacy of the original writers and their focus on the Dragon Cycle and if true it's objectively a good thing that they ended it.
Josh being the new director and Cal being in charge of balance is honestly what the game needed to revive itself. They may not be perfect but the way they listen to the playerbase is what really sets them apart from the previous devs.
I don’t mind playing, I have played since the original GW, but the story went downhill pretty fast. I had absolutely no interest in EOD and just got through it and will not be replaying.
I have played MANY MMOs over the years. I do like ESO and WOW had its glory days but GW2 is by far the best I have played for so many reasons. I actually started in GW1 and played the first year GW2 came out and then took a few years hiatus off and on but I've gotten back into it this year and it's still just as great- if not better- than it was many years ago.
Wutttt, sorry but far from that, for veteran players the content has been abscent for a long time, if you are a new player the game is amazing but they lose a lot of momentum by releasing S1 after an expansion.
Good recap of things past and the glimpse of future. Unlike other creators who I will not name here, its quite accurate. However I would still disagree with Harvest Temple Challenge Mode opinion. In reality it is kinda Schrödinger's encounter. Sure I can agree on the fact that existence of encounter is net positive for Guild Wars 2 community, however I would not actually agree with calling the encounter's design decent. Issue comes from the long-term fact that ArenaNet are what would I call "artists first, fun second" type of company. Encounter itself really suffered from the "theme" it had to succeed (every dragon from story) and as thus encounter felt artificially made longer. Most of encounter was really boring with really cheap mechanics (green stuff, spreading). Ocassionaly you got a fun phase like Soo-won or Mordremoth but other parts were boring as hell. Most of encounter did not value the player's time. As for difficulty that is being praised, its not that hot either. Difficulty came from technical difficulties first (map terribly optimized even on decent PC, disconnects, map memory leaks, etc.) and then from difficulty of the game combat second. Mechanical difficulty almost did not exist or was easily beat by composition (which I consider as difficulty of game's combat, not the encounter). Interest of gamers from other communities was unequivocal, the more I explained encounter to someone (quite hardcore in other games) outside GW2 community, the less were people interested in and some even called the encounter and I quote "The boring fight for most of time on top of shrinking toilet paper roll". Despite all I mentioned (which is in my opinion the accurate description of HT CM encounter) I must say it was still worth it to beat it although the "worth" value did not come from fun we were supposed to get on the way. If you are still considering beating HT CM, go for it, just be aware it has all the issues I described and isn't perfect in any way and most of creators will not tell you.
You guys make too many excuses for anet all the time, 300 people is not a skeleton crew, they have a very complacent culture at a net that was the problem, NC soft did right by coming in there and trimming the fat, getting rid of the dead weight.
As far as WvW is concerned, Alliances isn't going to solve the issues that plague WvW today afaic. On the forums people report entirely different experiences. Some think it was great and some hated it because it was so unbalanced. Kinda like how it is now. Also no skill balancing is going to fix the issue of boonballs unless they address how much of a difference boons make. It's interesting how you're so positive about last year. I think some good things happened, but the levels that you assign to it seem a bit too high. Now, I don't think that GW2 is doomed or anything like that, but I think that 2023 will be more important for the game with the next LW season coming out. The financial reports (that are public) paint a picture that is positive, but it doesn't match your positivity. Also since there wasn't a real peak because of EoD coming out. So Q4 of 2022 and 2023 in its entirety will show whether GW2 has gained some staying power in sales.
PvE game meta has never been better I agree, but WvW could use more balancing imo. Top tier zerg classes didn't change at all really with EoD, Herald actually got even stronger for example, further increasing the gap between its classes for zerg play.
tbh teapot I felt the same and left mid way through 2018, now returning to the game after 4.5 years away, now to not feel completely lost after so long away lol.
I returned to play in April 2022 after years of slumber (since late 2014 basically with a few festival breaks). Got into raiding, did finish HoT story, PoF, all LWS, half EoD. Got into WvW, started commanding meta events and WvW. Not leaving any time soon, damn GW2 is good.
I guess all of the awards that GW2 got this year have pissed off lots of hater’s who aren’t having fun playing their own favorite game, so they have to try trolling here to help them feel better about themselves.
@@roninCeacross I don't let it bother me and just laugh at the hater's, or feel sorry for them, because their lives must be pretty bad if they feel that posting that kind of comment is going to make them feel better. Since GW2's core game is free to play, comments like theirs shouldn't stop others from at least trying out the game for themselves, and making their own decision if the game is good for them.
If GW2 can (if not already has) balance the builds and better guide the players to ones they'd prefer (I'd kill to know what class/elite spec is best for support players that prefer the action half of the hybrid combat), then this game would be even better! Also, controller support would be so good...
History of Guild Wars 2 has proven to me they really dont know what they doing. Ive invested alot of time and money in it but once they move away from it, im done with Anet.
Season of Dragons achieved something that the Icebrood Saga failed entirely - It kept me playing. Season of Dragons was the BEST thing that happened since S4E6 War Eternal.
The best recovery the game made was in these nov/dec patches bringing the game back up after solar destroyed it midyear with that braindead and biased patch... XD
I started playing again after a 8-9 year break. I've put 700hrs+ this year and I only started in june! I'm having a blast and it makes me sad this game has 0 marketing budget. The only reason I rediscovered it is everyone compared Dragonflight to this
Honestly, when you look at the numbers, Steam did fuck all to bolster GW2's reputation. In fact, I think it's doing more harm than good when it comes to the game's image... you'll have those "player count andys" thinking the game is DAED judging by the steam numbers which is hilarious. Also, lots of people can't take GW2 seriously because it lacks vertical progression which is kinda a goal that usually players work towards achieving in other MMOs.
Unless ANet do another free-to-claim period, no. You'll get Season 1 for free since it's free for everybody, but Season 2 onwards need to be bought if you didn't claim them during a free-to-claim period.
What's your best Guild Wars 2 memory from last year, and how optimistic are you about the game's future? Thanks for continuing to watch and support the channel over the last year - here's to a fantastic 2023!
EoD for sure!
Starting to play again. Thanks for making the start as smooth as possible.
Maybe the most optimistic I've ever been in the history of the game. I actually feel like I can trust the leadership at the studio now.
Playing again after a 7 year break , mainly due to watching one of your videos which I happened to stumble across while browsing youtube, so thanks!
End of dragons, but if we could go few years earlier it would be Shadow in the ice. I'm optimistic about the game's future, I just hope anet doesn't put focus on political messaging instead of story. We've seen some signs in EoD. But we'll see then :)
I started playing again just before EoD launch. Joined a guild, started raiding and become a raid leader in said guild. One of my favourite years of gaming definetly and we are still raiding today. Even though there's not much new raids and the strike cms are only fun to complete once maybe. But because balance is getting more varied, there is still new ways to play the content. Around EoD was when i started watching Teapot aswell. Truly amazing how they turned the game around since i stopped playing after PoF. Sry for the long comment, was feeling nostalgic.
I've been looking for an active guild to get back into GW2 with, but there's a lot of them advertising as active and you come to find out there's 2 guys active the rest haven't logged in days! Any recommendations for actual active guilds?
@@itsthePeepsPeeps Make sure they have a content type you like and they do every week. Don't be afraid to leave the guild if you don't think it's a good fit and keep looking. And above all remember a guild is the people in it, make sure if you want to hang out with them basically.
Too little too late the game is so dead
how is the game dead lol
im pretty new and i see TONS of players where ever i go
literally everywhere
and i checked and the game has daily active players ranging from over 300k to 400k
thats far beyond from dead
I bought this game in 2012.
Went to army for 5 years.
Made a career.
Then got married.
Made some kids :)
After seeing EoD trailer decided to install and see what is going on.
Now I have a full set of legendary armor and alimony...........
I see your mistake! Getting married in the modern world😆
Isnt she a strong independent woman?
GW2 is probably my favourite MMO of all time, 150 hours and I started not even a month ago.
Dont forget to play gw1 as well!
EoD brought me in for real. I'd been bouncing in and out of the game since the beta, few months here, few there, but since EoD I've been playing GW2 as my main game. Cantha's design just really resonated with me. The expansion isn't perfect, sure, but it got me back in. Then, the "Return To" achievements got me to go back and play all the story I never finished before. Now I'm in love with the game and have a bunch of longer term goals I'm going after.
2022 wasn't perfect, but it's definitely been the most important year of GW2 for me personally.
Indeed. I joined this year, after the steam launch and I really like the game. However I never felt it was 'a gem that I was sleeping on' , but rather a game that worked itself to actually really good state. It's a shame it took them so much time to do so, but I'm glad they finally did it :)
I used to play back in 2016 but quit after a few hundred hours because I had no money to buy expansions. Fast forward to 2022 and I had to hold myself back after finding out it released on Steam and the memories of just roaming around doing map completion settled. Recently I just no lifed the game for 2 months with all expansions and LW and man I felt little pressure to rush the game. It’s a great journey so far.
This warms my heart, I left the game in 2019 partially because I was very busy with RL but also because the state of the game was really depressing me. And now to come back and see how positive and hopeful the community is, how much good content has been added. I haven't been this excited about playing again in a very long time.
Been a good year for me personally too. I've been wanting to raid for years, but I've been letting nerves get the better of me. The past few months I've pushed myself out of my shell a little, now I'm quite comfortable on w1-w4, and am feeling confident that in 2023 I'll complete my first set of leggy armour, and hopefully get serious work done on a second.
ibs had the most interesting story by far imo, with the bangar and ryland plot and the charr civil war. its a shame that the last episodes were not that good.
Drizzlewood shocked me as a returning player, since I always wanted a Charr based warzone map. I still find it amazing despite the grind
IBS’ front half probs the best writing in GW2
I felt all this part was really stupid, making Charrs even more stupid than they already are. I would like to see more variations of Charrs, not only these guys saying "uhhhhh attac, dragons, bad dragons kill kill kill, uh let's save the god of war it's a good idea".
I personally feel like Whisper in the Dark was the absolute GOAT for IBS. The vibes were immaculate.
The icebrood saga had some of the best content for gw2. Story wise and content wise. Please, bear with me for a moment.
Story wise: at the beginning everything started strong with grothmar valley. A good introduction to the saga with nuanced characters.
Then we had whisper in the dark, which shorter than expected, still delivered (almorra's death was a bit controversial, but it pretty much was fixed with visions of the past, ill talk about it later) with the devs not afraid to venture into really dark stuff (jormag puppeteering corpses, boneskinners being cannibal kodan, aesgir's secrets being revealed, mass genocide and spirits of the fallen being taken by jormag under ox's magic).
The story of Shadow in the ice this time told us that we could find hope to end the nightmare of the whispers, pretty much everything was good here, especially the ending where we get shot by bangar and wake up under a redesigned elder dragon Aurene.
Visions of the past was there to give devs a little bit more time and to fix the death of almorra by giving her a worthy death by going in a literal blaze of glory.
No quarter. Pretty good, with them showing the worst what war is. Only flaw is Smodur's characterization which was off for him. There was also the pandemic which hit pretty hard but anet recovered pretty well from it, adding voicelines back to ep 3 and 4 when they released champions.
Jormag rising is no quarter 2: frosty boogaloo. Same with no quarter. Only flaw is smodur's death is rushed.
Champions... . Ok hear me out. Apart from the absolutely disasterous and rushed Primordus vs Jormag part, story was fine, pretty good even. "Outrageous!" I know, I understand. Again, hear me out. Rytlock killing his son with the very blade he sought instead of his family but gaining the son he never had in braham, Ryland seeking to prove himself and eventually seeking purpose in jormag's power, only to lose everything in the end beacuse he was consumed by his desires and rage, contrasted with braham, who lost his mother, his bow, his guildmates, his honor, but still willing to sacrifice everything to save his friends, and being rewarded with life and a legend worthy of being sung for centuries. These are all nuanced and well written character arcs. Too bad it was tainted with the disaster that was the destruction of Primordus' buildup for over 15 years
Content: Grothmar concert, effigy, Bjora drakkar, boneskinner and the massive rework of the map wide meta event by drizzle wood coast, rewarding you for your time spent (which is more than what can be said about Dragon's End). Need more? Pass, Fraenir, Kodan, Boneskinner, Cold War strikes. Hate yourself? Play Forging steel. Need to do something quickly cause you don't have enough time to log in every day? Hop on the Dragonstorm train.
What do we get with end of dragons? It begins well and continues to do so (friendly reminder. political messaging is here. And it's pretty blunt. Say what you want ibs at least tried to make its characthers nuanced. Take for example Bangar, who was progressive by bringing the new and reformed flame legion back in the ranks of the legions, but for his own gains and while being paranoid about the other races) with the arc that mai trin goes trough. We go on to be introduced to the void which, while a creative concept, messes with what we've been thaught about magic in tyria, in both good ways and bad ways. Ankka is a badass villain at least. Then we go on to try convince Li to get us to joon. But he tries to arrest us cause he's a big mean trumpist. Buuut there's a problem here. We need to go to trial to prove our innocence. For all Li knows (he is biased though, but hear me out.) we're a possible criminal that possibly almost killed millions of people and that is trying to get a goverment official to hide him from authorities and get him to the founder of the biggest invention since the wheel. Yeah... I think Li is pretty justified here. We go on to break into said inventor's home, to get her to build extractors for us to save the world. Then we go to Dragon's end, get rekt by void, TURN INTO A DEMIGOD (very good way to give the story stakes again guys), kill the dragons and save the world. And after all that, Aurene is still with us which means that we can turn into a demigod, that can destory armies of monsters at a whim. We're about to get hundreds of new bangars as we are or are in control of the most powerful entity in the cosmos.
The map metas were very lackluster. At least the specs and the strikes are good though.
Icebrood saga for me was better than end of dragons and this is the hill i'm willing to die on.
Lmao, the only good thing about ibs are pretty winter maps and strike missions.
Walked away for a second and came back at 21:05 like “Who the hell is standing behind Teapot like a serial killer?”.
reminds me of that meme
"dont trust anyone not even yourself"
I only started in May and it was hearing that you guys had an expansion that caught my interest. And then being a weeby ff player seeing the theme of it go me more interested. But it released not long after Endwalker launch so I took a while to get around to giving the game a proper go. Really glad I did, 680 hours later and I just finished the whole story from start to finish :D
the forums to this day is a cesspit of dogshit and gaslighting. you couldnt provide feedback because it would somehow conflict with the forums overreaching and outdated community guidelines to the point where people just stopped providing feedback. you literally couldn't talk about certain game mechanics or balances because you would straight up get banned.
the cleansing of the the devs and community moderators and managers during the staff firing end up being a godsend in hindsight
also Gaile Gray was and still is trash
This x100 x100. If you go on the WvW forum and complain about Mag spawn camping ANet deletes the post and bans you. The forums are heavily censored. It's disgusting. The devs are at war with their own community. It's been awful to watch
@@slytherben and you couldnt say mag spawn camps. you cant even discuss if thats an issue, because you mentioned mag, and thats an ban from the mods
issues like this could never be truly discussed to understand if it was an issue. because you would breach the community guidelines by doing so
I waited so long for GW2 release on Steam to start playing it; i have currently 300 hours in less than 1 month, I've been playing around 10 hours a day since I was pretty free in December and I'm having a blast and I even made a friend buy the 100€ pack on Steam. This game is awesome and full of depth and things to do.
I've also always been an hardcore gamer, and I've always grinded games, mechanically in FPS and gear-wise in RPGs, and I've always liked vertical progression and RNG. I actually have more than 9000 hours on Black Desert Online and I played pretty much every old school mmorpg and fps. Guild Wars 2 is exactly the breath of fresh air I've been looking for years, and clearly an overlooked gem.
This game is really enjoyable even as a grown up hardcore player, and it will nevel invalidate your progress, even if you quit or if you can't play because you have also a job and maybe a life. I would argue though that getting ascended gear, trinkets in particular, doesn't feel like an accomplishment and it's relatively easy for an hardcore player, you can get one power and one condition dps set in just few weeks if you know what you are doing.
I love too many aspects about this game that I can't list them all, so I'm just going to say what I think held back Guild Wars 2:
bad marketing, wrong marketing as f2p game, gear/build slots and storage cash grab, PvE endgame's rewards not really worth the effort of getting into it or just keep doing it once you got your ascended gear and your achievements, giving new players the tools to actually earn as much gold per hour as a veteran (really, you just need to download markers and farm braindead pearls and other materials and rich nodes).
I also want to give tips to possible new hardcore players because I saw many bad advices for gamers like us (we are much different than the average GW2 playerbase and we are definitely in the minority) and I'm sure something will be helpful for new casual players as well:
Don't listen to people who will tell you to not use your level 80 boost and to waste your valuable time to enjoy "the real gw2 experience". Chore game, especially if you are f2p (you can't use the market and storage is very limited) is not particularly enjoyable, in fact it is quite boring, slow, rather limited, and doesn't actually teach you anything that you can't learn by watching guides and rotations about your elite specialization. Try the game, if you like it buy the expansions, choose a power build to start since berserker gear is easy to get (you can buy named berserker exotic gear for very cheap on trading post, the lv80 boost set is completely fine until then), join a guild, do a Hero Point train to fully unlock your elite specialization and meanwhile get Mastery Points as well, unlock Path of Fire and get Springer and Skimmer mounts, unlock Living World season 3 to farm for viper ascended trinkets, get berserker ascended rings from fractals, berserker ascended accessories from guild missions, craft berserker ascended back piece, buy ascended berserker amulet with laurels and congrats, you have a power and condition build and everything you need in few weeks of playing the game.
I would disagree about having a new player do a level 80 boost on their first character. Alot of my friends joined after eod and I took the through the base game. The problem with boosting on a new account is when the player isn't experienced with MMOs. For a person that plays a bunch of different MMOs it's a little different because you have that baseline knowledge on mmo mechanics in general. I feel it's a good intro for new players and tbh it only takes a few hours (around 10-12) to go through base game
@@sporedudeandsloaiza I literally talked for hardcore players, because I'm not casual, and honestly I would have quitted the game after 3 hours if I had to play the chore game. There is also literally no difficulty in doing what I suggested for pretty much every type of player. Base game is straight up boring and a waste of time. It took me 2 hours since I joined a guild to fully unlock my elite spec, have a good base of mastery points and mounts.
@@sporedudeandsloaiza Besides I'm not even interested in story nor playing it in chronological order.
@@sporedudeandsloaiza Even if you don't play MMOs, the game is laughably easy through the story. Anybody at least familiar with games will blast through it and find no difficulty anywhere. Which makes it very boring, if it's just about story just read a book or watch a show. And the thing is, the story of the first few years is not exactly stellar, it's pretty bleh and most people would agree on that. So you're essentially just playing to grind through it.
Fantastic review and commentary. A group of us left GW2 for ESO about the same time you did. We were there for 2 yrs after feeling that the game had gotten stale. Came back just before EoD and I really enjoy playing it again. Really fun and I have goals again in the game. Thank you ANet for this revitalization that was 2022.
I hope they improve old textures, specifically weapon and armor skins. I want to roleplay a common pleb soldier fighting with basic infantry arms and armor.
2022 may be behind us, but i have a feeling that those tabs will stay with us into the new year
i think season of the dragons, and the amulet specifically was a genius move, also becouse of the fact that if u consider new players, that have to buy the lw seasons, well now u get a legendary on top, that usually cost around the same amount of gold to craft, that ull have to pay for gems if u choose this route of unlocking the episodes. u get tons of content, for the price of a legendary, and u still get the legendary if that makes sense.
I have a 7 years account and hated GW2 with all my heart after playing GW1 since 2007 till today. But in 2022 i have found the game GW2 completely changed and actually enjoying playing it. I support the game trough the gemstore because i feel like it worth my attention. It is simple like that. Anet want our attention? Deliver! We gonna swipe to show our support!
I've been playing GW2 for about a year and beleive me, those 10 years of content really is attractive for someone like me, what I love about this game is that I can play hours and hour of content, then take a break of few weeks and I go back, I can do it all at my pace and I've been having so much fun, I only have 3 mounts , I wish I could fly but I know with time I will get there, meanwhile I have the 3 basic mount, working on the story to get the 4th which I think is Jackal, anyways, I can see the world is big, a lot to do, a lot of people around the world which makes it feel alive, always something to do, so really I love this game and all that content, not like the old game I used to play which I know everyone knows , but I hated how everything was focused on the latest expansion, you had to get to top level to play last expansion, and all the previous content was trash, alm the zones empty, sucked really bad, but in GW2 I really love how any zone I go I see people and groups I join arounf the world ,I really love this game and I don't know when I will finish all the content, but so far I've had nonstop fun in the year I've been playing, and the best thing is that I don't feel like being left behind, not like the other game which I quit because I was falling behind and I fell so far behind I never went back haha, I see this doesn't happen in GW2
Started at launch. It has always been my fallback MMO. It feels like coming home everytime I come back ❤
I have to ask; was the point between IBS and EoD really that much worse than LWS1 and HoT, when we went at least a good 6 months of Radio Silence before we had HoT even announced while they fired half the writing team?
Never played Guild Wars when it first launched - got grabbed by WoW at launch, and by Eve Online. By the time I'd stopped playing those, I wasn't in a position to play any other MMO.
Then WoW effectively destroyed itself, and I got myself a nerd girlfriend who prefers fantasy to science fiction... so I started shopping around for something that we could both play.
Tried Elder Scrolls Online, discovered that it was so painfully easy, so stupidly afkable, even my gf - who had never played anything except Mario Kart - found it too easy.
Then people started talking about Guild Wars. Josh Strife Hayes did his video about GW1. And I thought, screw it, let's take a look.
We both now have 300+ hours on Guild Wars 1 and full completion of its campaigns, and recently hit level 80 on our first characters in Guild Wars 2. Glad to see it finally getting attention, because the thing that really struck us both? Every good idea other MMOs have had for a while, was stolen from GW2, and GW2 did them better. The mounts, the UI, the mini-games, the dialogue, the combat... everyone else has been copying GW2's homework, but getting it wrong.
Had a great year with EoD, even took time to unlock the siege turtle and the gryph mounts, which is something I never thought I would achieve. Now, I'm aiming for that Drake, it looks badass! ^^
I've played since a few weeks before HoT release, and it never really stuck, but I've returned a month before EoD, and it's been a phenomenal experience all around
GW2 got better because they wanted to put it on steam. This motivated them to clear up some long standing issues. It's good to see it so successful. Also, they quit worrying about the side stuff and concentrated on their main product. I thought IBS was great until the dragon strikes started. Then it sucked.
Make strike missions about all old major story bosses fights (rework zaithan, mordremorth, Balthazar, ecc) Anet PLEASE!
Kind of weird to mention Season 1 in the same breath as Seasons of the Dragons since they were separated by a whole year, and Season 1 wasn't even announced until after EOD. It was in IBS that they started to bring back Season 1 but that was before the expansion development started since those instances came with Visions of the Past before Drizzlewood released.
I stopped playing fulltime when HoT got released. Stopped for about 7 years. Came back after EoD got released not even realising I had already purchased PoF and never played it so I had a bulk of content to go through. Been playing daily and enjoying myself with various things. Started doing my Season of the Dragon meta run of which I had remarkably much completed already. Looking forward to what comes next
honestly, im about to go against 90% of the comments here. I've played for years and quit when EoD came out. I'm not going to go into every reason why, but in short, I personally felt that the game had lost any semblance of it's charm and character that was so strong in s2, HoT, and s3. s4 was okay, PoF was hit or miss but icebrood and especially EoD were just dog shit. awful writing, awful stories, trash new elite specs, just a bad time. however, i feel slightly better seeing nearly all of teapot's chat go "gw2 should have ended here" when he was recapping over the end of season 4 xD it's a shame how so so so many new players have joined but they have no idea how much better this game was back in the day. they're playing gw2 lite, massive shame.
Your comment will be probably get deleted. The ANet community does not permit critique or dissent. Smile and be happy or get banned. Want evidence? Just post on the forums. Your post will get deleted and you'll be served a temp ban right away. It's awful
When ANET balanced WvW loot drops so it's equal for both support and dps players....
Wait, they did that? When?
I had a raid earlier that was new to me and I really didnt know what to do. Good thing the first boss was just one go but I kept laughing the whole time because my teammate had to broadcast what I was supposed to do and not to mention the previous all caps squad chats saying: SOHNNY MOVE BACK xD
The first year of Guild Wars 2 Pog
So funny story, my friend bought a GW2 multipack promo type thing back when it came out in 2012. I think it was part of a Deluxe edition. He gave me one of the copies and I played a bit, and dropped off. Then in the pandemic I figure I would return to an MMO, and remember GW2. I have been having a blast! I have such a backlog of content that I have nearly a limitless list of things to do. Now I just need to get over my Raid/Fractal fear and I will be all set.
i played gw2 at launch and then never touched it again.
just got back two days ago on steam with a fresh account and i just hit lvl 40. having a blast so far honestly.
In 2022, WvW was gutted, decimated, whole guilds are gone. Whole metas canceled. 24/7 endless spawn camping. ANet heavily moderates the WvW forum and any mention of Mag spawn camping is a) deleted b) user is temp banned from forums. It's censorship in the highest degree. An entire community is begging ANet for help and ANet is silencing them. After my guild mates starting quitting I finally gave up and quit too. And I played for one of the biggest guild in the game
Excellent summary and animated delivery as always. Love your work !
you got me back into gw2 - thanks :)
I'm new and I love it. Join Garden of Dawn! We're a sylvari main guild! Come kick it
Like your energy haha. Also decided to "fully" get into Guild Wars 2 and buy the expansions :) . I've messed with it here and there, but never dug into it proper.
I got the game on launch, didn't play it for two years, stopped in 2015, and now am playing again. It's pretty good.
I can't tell you my favorite moment without spoiling the EXCELLENT story!!! That said, the story hooked me, and the gameplay has kept me coming back. I rarely left a session frustrated (and usually only because I couldn't keep playing). I finally played through all of the Living World seasons, and I can't believe this isn't pushed harder. Honestly, this is such a great game that is easily overlooked. The biggest drawback it has is the new-player experience. Thanks to your videos, I have learned things that I should have known from year one, except they are poorly explained (if at all) in the game!!! I wish devs would keep in mind that most players are not going to leave a game to learn about the fundamentals of a game. They're on the right path, but they have a long way to go. For every friend that I have still playing GW2, I have 3 friends that tried it again this year and dumped after a session or two because they felt overwhelmed with systems and were afraid they'd never "catch up".
I like guild wars 2
i really love the game now
doing raids is like going to work every week and doing the same shit over and over again
it was fun for 6 months when i started new to raids learn everything and try to be top dps but after 500li i was like nah this shit aint fun anymore
Guild Wars 2 is the perfect MMO. I've played on and off since launch day, but ever since July of 2022 I've seriously gotten back into it.
I'm currently working on getting my ascended gear, doing strikes, enjoying PvP, and loving doing my daily strikes.
I remember the pre-mount days, when you actually had to try to get a vista for 30 minutes. Now with the Skyscale it feels a bit like cheating.
You aren't lying but definitely not telling the whole truth either. Anet did a good job of bringing new players and returnees into the game, but when it comes to new endgame content it still looks very bleak, especially in PvP and WvW. CMC and Roy are doing what they can, but they are 2 dudes working on a massive game and probably would need 5-10x the ressources they have for a good balance cadence alone, and that doesn't even include any content. In WvW Alliances have been in beta for god knows how long (and even that wouldn't be content, just matchmaking) and in PvP we got the last map in 2018 (and a shit one it was aswell). Beside two very meh legy trinkets in 2020 these gamemodes basically did not get any content in years. Hardcore PvErs at least got a bit more with their strike CMs. Eventually even you decided to simply replay all the old content from scratch up with a new account to have something to show to your audience, because you know otherwise there isn't much to do. As a PvP main I can only say the state of that gamemode has gotten alarmingly bad at the high end in the recent months, contrary to the general trend.
Yeah WvW was gutted this year. All the nerfs really emboldened Mag and it's just 24/7 spawn camping. They killed WvW
I know it’s been past practice but I don’t think we need new expansions to wait for new weapon sets for classes. Throw in a quest line or whatever but allowing classes to mix match new weapon sets and skills would be really interesting
Glad to hear the game is doing well. Been on a break since before EoD release but I'll surely be back to my favorite MMO in the future.
This may sound dumb, but one of the coolest aspects of the turn in direction for me, were the live stream updates.
As awkward and not at all smooth as they were, it was cool to put faces to the people scrambling to make GW2 work. Granted they wouldn't have meant anything if anet didn't deliver steps in the right direction, but for me they were very outward symptoms OF that right direction. I hope they keep them up.
Also. Water bottle memes.
this sounds like pretty much like a random ass comment, and maybe it is
but to everyone who might see this:
later this year, GW2 will get a huge hype and boost in popularity
the upcoming player numbers will completely overshadow all the numbers they ever had in player count
but if this is good or bad, we will probably have to wait and see
I would say that the best thing that could have ever happened to the game was ending the Dragon Cycle. The EDs have always been narrative black holes. Even as side characters their gravitational pull was so great that the moment they were put in any story the story became about them.
- LW s3, started out strong as an internal division within the White Mantle. Then Balthazar is revealed to be after Primodius and then the story becomes about Primordiuus and the White Mantle is completely written out.
- PoF, started out strong with being about hunting the rogue god Balthazar and then the story took a dive near the end when everything was actually about Kralkkatorrik despite Kralkarottik only being a glorified McGuffin.
- LW s4, started out immensely strong with a focus on Palawa Joko and his machinations. Then a bit over halfway through the LW, he's written out and it all becomes about Kralkatorrik. Kralkatorrik stole the spotlight despite Joko being what's most remembered.
- IBS, started out incredibly strong with a view of what's essentially a "villain at rest" moment and then only picked up the pace by focusing mostly on an old Charr feeling that he needs to get his own ED to remain relevant, a chilling analogy of the mentality behind the real-world arms race. Then at the end of ep. 5, Jormag becomes the central character and the story becomes about them. Even if IBS had been expanded the result would still have been the same due to Jormag's presence.
- EoD starts out strong with the focus being on a villain who's descended into a nihilistic worldview, essentially a parallel of Owlman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Only for her to be written out and the last third fully focusing on Soo-Won.
The scene of the Speakers and the Brotherhood after the Battle of the Jade Sea where one says perfectly encapsulates what made the Dragon Cycle fail on a narrative level, "we only worked together because the world was at stake, once we exit that door we're back to being enemies."
PÅlot is driven the best by interpersonal conflicts and the lower the stakes are the more we can get emotionally invested in them. With the Dragon Cycle, the stakes were so immeasurably high that they lost all meaning as victory was guaranteed, or else the franchise would end. It also made any interaction strife seem stupid and pointless, what meaning is there in fighting when the entire world can vanish tomorrow because of the infighting, and then the fighting would have been essentially useless?
I heard that ANet got new writers for their stories and they were tied of being hampered by the legacy of the original writers and their focus on the Dragon Cycle and if true it's objectively a good thing that they ended it.
Ahhh so thats what Seasons of the Dragons is. That is what I wanted ingame. YOU PLAY to get a free Legendary :D.
Loved that part of the game !.
Josh being the new director and Cal being in charge of balance is honestly what the game needed to revive itself.
They may not be perfect but the way they listen to the playerbase is what really sets them apart from the previous devs.
We need to talk about moonchairs #gamechanger
Keep doing these videos, loved them! ~IzzyOwnz
You told that really well and off the cuff too man has rizz
Always had faith in this game. LFG!!!!
I don’t mind playing, I have played since the original GW, but the story went downhill pretty fast. I had absolutely no interest in EOD and just got through it and will not be replaying.
I have played MANY MMOs over the years. I do like ESO and WOW had its glory days but GW2 is by far the best I have played for so many reasons. I actually started in GW1 and played the first year GW2 came out and then took a few years hiatus off and on but I've gotten back into it this year and it's still just as great- if not better- than it was many years ago.
GW2 needs a complete WVW and PVP rework.
From the game of the year to life support back again.
I've played mmorpgs for years, always thought GW2 was some niche game. I eventually tried it once it game to steam, now it's my most played mmorpg.
Wutttt, sorry but far from that, for veteran players the content has been abscent for a long time, if you are a new player the game is amazing but they lose a lot of momentum by releasing S1 after an expansion.
Good recap of things past and the glimpse of future. Unlike other creators who I will not name here, its quite accurate.
However I would still disagree with Harvest Temple Challenge Mode opinion. In reality it is kinda Schrödinger's encounter. Sure I can agree on the fact that existence of encounter is net positive for Guild Wars 2 community, however I would not actually agree with calling the encounter's design decent. Issue comes from the long-term fact that ArenaNet are what would I call "artists first, fun second" type of company. Encounter itself really suffered from the "theme" it had to succeed (every dragon from story) and as thus encounter felt artificially made longer. Most of encounter was really boring with really cheap mechanics (green stuff, spreading). Ocassionaly you got a fun phase like Soo-won or Mordremoth but other parts were boring as hell. Most of encounter did not value the player's time. As for difficulty that is being praised, its not that hot either. Difficulty came from technical difficulties first (map terribly optimized even on decent PC, disconnects, map memory leaks, etc.) and then from difficulty of the game combat second. Mechanical difficulty almost did not exist or was easily beat by composition (which I consider as difficulty of game's combat, not the encounter). Interest of gamers from other communities was unequivocal, the more I explained encounter to someone (quite hardcore in other games) outside GW2 community, the less were people interested in and some even called the encounter and I quote "The boring fight for most of time on top of shrinking toilet paper roll".
Despite all I mentioned (which is in my opinion the accurate description of HT CM encounter) I must say it was still worth it to beat it although the "worth" value did not come from fun we were supposed to get on the way. If you are still considering beating HT CM, go for it, just be aware it has all the issues I described and isn't perfect in any way and most of creators will not tell you.
Anet, can we get a nightmare mode for all strikes?
You guys make too many excuses for anet all the time, 300 people is not a skeleton crew, they have a very complacent culture at a net that was the problem, NC soft did right by coming in there and trimming the fat, getting rid of the dead weight.
I'm glad I started the game basically when the new team slapped its pp on the table
Can confirm, it lured me back in after 2 years.
As far as WvW is concerned, Alliances isn't going to solve the issues that plague WvW today afaic. On the forums people report entirely different experiences. Some think it was great and some hated it because it was so unbalanced. Kinda like how it is now. Also no skill balancing is going to fix the issue of boonballs unless they address how much of a difference boons make.
It's interesting how you're so positive about last year. I think some good things happened, but the levels that you assign to it seem a bit too high. Now, I don't think that GW2 is doomed or anything like that, but I think that 2023 will be more important for the game with the next LW season coming out. The financial reports (that are public) paint a picture that is positive, but it doesn't match your positivity. Also since there wasn't a real peak because of EoD coming out. So Q4 of 2022 and 2023 in its entirety will show whether GW2 has gained some staying power in sales.
PvE game meta has never been better I agree, but WvW could use more balancing imo. Top tier zerg classes didn't change at all really with EoD, Herald actually got even stronger for example, further increasing the gap between its classes for zerg play.
Stopped playing 7 years ago because of life.
Guess I came back at a good time.
tbh teapot I felt the same and left mid way through 2018, now returning to the game after 4.5 years away, now to not feel completely lost after so long away lol.
I returned to play in April 2022 after years of slumber (since late 2014 basically with a few festival breaks). Got into raiding, did finish HoT story, PoF, all LWS, half EoD. Got into WvW, started commanding meta events and WvW. Not leaving any time soon, damn GW2 is good.
Its no copium, its ... aurilium?
Its still 4 years ago they said they were doing wvw rework. Your podcast might have been about changes in 4 years, who knows?
I guess all of the awards that GW2 got this year have pissed off lots of hater’s who aren’t having fun playing their own favorite game, so they have to try trolling here to help them feel better about themselves.
Man it drives me nuts! Like why bring everyone’s excitement down with them. Ugh.
@@roninCeacross I don't let it bother me and just laugh at the hater's, or feel sorry for them, because their lives must be pretty bad if they feel that posting that kind of comment is going to make them feel better. Since GW2's core game is free to play, comments like theirs shouldn't stop others from at least trying out the game for themselves, and making their own decision if the game is good for them.
They spam steam forums with negative comments every day😂
honestly im just ready for gw3....
the best thing for the game was the update to the new player experience
Don't forget the body blow of dumping all the Mac users just before the M1 revolution and then the pandemic
If GW2 can (if not already has) balance the builds and better guide the players to ones they'd prefer (I'd kill to know what class/elite spec is best for support players that prefer the action half of the hybrid combat), then this game would be even better!
Also, controller support would be so good...
History of Guild Wars 2 has proven to me they really dont know what they doing. Ive invested alot of time and money in it but once they move away from it, im done with Anet.
Personally I've never seen the point of most PvE without great progression. Just feels like you don't achieve anything
a cinderella story on the level of caddyshack
My man had 100 Google Pages while having lots of YT videos playing at like 720p and GW2 open... Poor PC
Season of Dragons achieved something that the Icebrood Saga failed entirely - It kept me playing.
Season of Dragons was the BEST thing that happened since S4E6 War Eternal.
The best recovery the game made was in these nov/dec patches bringing the game back up after solar destroyed it midyear with that braindead and biased patch... XD
I started playing again after a 8-9 year break. I've put 700hrs+ this year and I only started in june! I'm having a blast and it makes me sad this game has 0 marketing budget. The only reason I rediscovered it is everyone compared Dragonflight to this
I think anet should try integrating Blish Hud into the game, a free QoL update.
The community deserves more credit for this turnaround than the studio.
So Teapot. Was 2022 the year of Guild Wars 2?
Honestly, when you look at the numbers, Steam did fuck all to bolster GW2's reputation. In fact, I think it's doing more harm than good when it comes to the game's image... you'll have those "player count andys" thinking the game is DAED judging by the steam numbers which is hilarious.
Also, lots of people can't take GW2 seriously because it lacks vertical progression which is kinda a goal that usually players work towards achieving in other MMOs.
Launching on steam was the worst thing. Now the game is 80% south americans.
gw1 is far superior than gw2
Irrelevant game OMEGALUL
Gw1 >gw2
If I come back to GW2, will I get all these content unlocked even now?
Unless ANet do another free-to-claim period, no. You'll get Season 1 for free since it's free for everybody, but Season 2 onwards need to be bought if you didn't claim them during a free-to-claim period.
Imo, GW2 even at its worst has been better than all mmos out there for every player type except the hardcore ones, change my mind.
Mmo of the year 😂😂