All of my opinions on it are based on the version slightly after PoF came out. Maybe they actually fixed the game since then, but I really doubt it.
On its own, I guess it's an okay sort of game. The world looks nice and is cool to explore, and the public events (particularly in HoT) are fun to do for a couple of times. But it's just really hard to recommend it now, in a world where games like FFXIV exist. Sure, it doesn't have a monthly fee, but someone who hasn't played Guild Wars 2 before will still have to put down a decent amount of money to buy the expansion and all of the living story episodes. Not to mention the QoL stuff locked behind a cash shop.
That's as long as you just want to play it casually, because the moment you start taking it even slightly seriously it all falls apart. The biggest issue I had with it was simply that it was terribly balanced. Pretty much all content was just incredibly easy, to the point that a decently geared team could clear it in a matter of seconds. Even something like fractal 40, a mid tier endgame activity that takes hours of grinding to get to, takes about 3 minutes to steamroll through and offers no challenge whatsoever. The only actual difficulty comes from the fact that 90% of the population has no idea how to play the game. And while the community likes to blame those players for being bad, most of the fault lies in the game not only not teaching you anything, but in it actively discouraging you from playing the game optimally. How many times have I seen people say stuff like "gear doesn't matter, just get some exotics from a merchant" like that was even remotely true.
Maybe raids are actually hard, but hell if I have the time to run around gathering bushes for 40 hours just to get geared up for them. But the rest of the group content is absolutely terrible. The combat is also pretty crap. They tried to make it like WoW with DPS rotations and stuff, but you can't really make an interesting rotation with such a limited amount of skills. And the lack of real support or tanking systems also really hurts it. And no, dropping down a banner every 2 minutes as a Warrior does not make for fun support gameplay. Not that you even need supports when 99% of the game's content is so easy anyway.
But as a sequel to Guild Wars, the game is absolutely terrible. Guild Wars was basically almost a perfect MMO to me. It had everything I wanted from a game like this:
At the end of the day, the only thing GW2 really did that had an impact on the genre were the open world events, which you can now find pretty much everywhere. But I'm not really sure that's even a good thing TBH. And even here, GW2 went from having great ones in HoT to basically removing them in PoF.
On its own, I guess it's an okay sort of game. The world looks nice and is cool to explore, and the public events (particularly in HoT) are fun to do for a couple of times. But it's just really hard to recommend it now, in a world where games like FFXIV exist. Sure, it doesn't have a monthly fee, but someone who hasn't played Guild Wars 2 before will still have to put down a decent amount of money to buy the expansion and all of the living story episodes. Not to mention the QoL stuff locked behind a cash shop.
That's as long as you just want to play it casually, because the moment you start taking it even slightly seriously it all falls apart. The biggest issue I had with it was simply that it was terribly balanced. Pretty much all content was just incredibly easy, to the point that a decently geared team could clear it in a matter of seconds. Even something like fractal 40, a mid tier endgame activity that takes hours of grinding to get to, takes about 3 minutes to steamroll through and offers no challenge whatsoever. The only actual difficulty comes from the fact that 90% of the population has no idea how to play the game. And while the community likes to blame those players for being bad, most of the fault lies in the game not only not teaching you anything, but in it actively discouraging you from playing the game optimally. How many times have I seen people say stuff like "gear doesn't matter, just get some exotics from a merchant" like that was even remotely true.
Maybe raids are actually hard, but hell if I have the time to run around gathering bushes for 40 hours just to get geared up for them. But the rest of the group content is absolutely terrible. The combat is also pretty crap. They tried to make it like WoW with DPS rotations and stuff, but you can't really make an interesting rotation with such a limited amount of skills. And the lack of real support or tanking systems also really hurts it. And no, dropping down a banner every 2 minutes as a Warrior does not make for fun support gameplay. Not that you even need supports when 99% of the game's content is so easy anyway.
But as a sequel to Guild Wars, the game is absolutely terrible. Guild Wars was basically almost a perfect MMO to me. It had everything I wanted from a game like this:
- A focus on instanced group content
- Absolutely zero grinding
- Incredible character customization options
- Great PvP
- The best support gameplay in any game I've played
- A pretty friendly community, all things considered
At the end of the day, the only thing GW2 really did that had an impact on the genre were the open world events, which you can now find pretty much everywhere. But I'm not really sure that's even a good thing TBH. And even here, GW2 went from having great ones in HoT to basically removing them in PoF.