There is no class fantasy left. Just like WoW, eventually all classes have to play more or less the same. Sure, you have class "gimmicks", but in the end every class has to have support, heal and dps roles providing the same boons. WoW at least tries to give each class different lore, quests, unique challenges. GW2 has none of that. What counts is your Account, not your Characters.
That's one of the biggest positive developments in the game. After that was done, finally, you could play whichever class you want. I am so fucking sick of the whole
I've read and followed some build guides and it honestly just seems like you vaguely choose a buff and pursue it. "Oh this build has haste" or whatever; so you spam all your buttons and get some buffs you barely notice and that's it. I was so fucking hype for ritualist returning to gw2 only to see that it's, as per necromancer norms, a transformation-based burst spec. Necromancer, a fucking slow caster. You spam 3 spirits that do vague things and proceed as usual with necromancer. The fact necro/warlock is among the least played classes in all games, yet the most played in gw2, should make it obvious that it's not remotely distinct.
You can avoid the mmo trifecta and still have some sense of identity. I wouldn't use ESO as an example because they literally just reskin shit and call it a new class. Necromancer! Cast a fireba- I mean skeleton bolt! Big fire aoe? But this time it's a skeleton that slams the ground! Some gw2 specs do focus entirely on buffing others but when even the most hardcore dps specs do the same, why bother? WoW had evoker added which instead of doing its own dmg, buffs other people. It's either OP as shit or misunderstood and kicked for performing poorly on meters.
I do like how mesmer turns a 2h sword into a laser beam and shit. They've had some great ideas for things other games would just sort of go "nah that ain't a thing". I'd fucking love mesmer if not the fact all your illusions disappear the second the target dies. Not having them stay around and retarget is a change you'd expect between expansion 2 or 3. Nah we just keep it going til the end of time.
I'll always maintain despite the lolcow infested company that I do think it's a game worth your money/time (though that evaluation goes down with every skeleton crew expansion they release in the last 3 years). I'm just too deeply dissapointed in the direction the game is going to keep playing. But it's a solid MMO you can get 100-1000 hours out of, it just won't ever be your main MMO because anet is too retarded and they've cultivated one of the most casual participation award playerbases in existence that prevent anet from doing anything remotely cool.
Anet is the reason the game had such a toxic positivity problem for almost it's entire lifespan image below was from a feedback thread created by anet about ascended armor. Negative feeedback not welcome, you are only allowed to say positive things about the game, if you dislike game additions you WILL be banned for your opinion.
Wait, first game is still active and everything?? I think I still have a sealed DVD copy and everything
, I think even more people would stick around.
Never-even-mind F2P, but the fact that grinding shit is lateral and account-based vs char-based, and having active, action combat instead of either click-based or having a song-sheet of various abilities and that WoW bullshit also makes it stand out to-date. I seriously need to dip back in at some point.
Yep game has been thriving since 2018 when a developer added some new skills to the game in his free time caused a huge resurgence in playerbase, about 4 years ago according to the game director the game hit a new concurrency record seeing triple as many people log in, since then the number of people has continued to grow. Last november anet announced GW reforged, which for the first time in 15 years the game now has an active developer team working on the game again creating new content. They are currently working on a mobile device version for GW1.
Just for context, I started playing well before EoD released, lost a lot of interest with the last SOTO release and stopped playing completely with the last JW release.
SWTOR is another one I keep fantasizing about playing again. Making troopers capable of healing etc made for some cool dynamics. "Oh but it's a singleplayer mmo-" what fucking isn't now that Discord is dominant? Rather that than shit like WoW trying to keep it social, knowing it's a lost cause. I also love having real thought-out companions and how every swtor class is a mish-mash of existing WoW specs. The double-saber sith assassin playing like a stealthed ret paladin is kino as hell. Yet, amidst all this, I just can't help but shake the feeling that they all play like shit and nothing will ever beat the 1.5 gcd pacing and solid 120 fps of WoW.
"Welcome to the flying mount expansion!.. oh you didn't unlock it? Well you get a lite version, but it'll never be as good as the one you need to grind for 20 days in a row in a previous expansion. And even then, its flying becomes a weird limited flapping thing. Hope you timed it well for the 'Return to-' even so you can get the currency in only 7 days!". Again, yeah you only need to do it once and it's no biggie if you're really into GW2, but fucking hell. What a way to force people to do old content.
GW1 really appeals to my party-based game preference, knowing only old Bioware made any such good non-ttrpg games, but GW1 is also so far from a traditional mmorpg that I just can't get back into it, despite also fitting that completionist mindset with simple visual clarity and iconic art direction. I'm just too old. No amount of recoating old games can or should move it past the gameplay and all its dated faults. I find myself losing interest in Diablo 2 and then someone goes "Duh, it's 30 years old and the arpg genre is already niche".
All of the ones that made the distinctive styles have gone elsewhere.
