When I reviewed this game back towards the end of March, I had just finished my first level 80 character and was looking to explore the game a bit further, and learn some more about what makes it tick and how most players really spend their days. I've had some time to do that, and the fruits of my labor turned up some interesting bits of information I'd like to share with you all. As a brief reminder, Guild Wars 2 is an MMO game published by NCSoft, developed by ArenaNet. It's a completely free to play MMO, save for the initial purchase of the game itself. With a built-in store that allows you to use real money or in game gold to purchase add-ons, account upgrades and other various fun or silly items. First I'll catch you up to speed a little bit in reference to where I was vs. where I am now.

Initially, I had completed a level 80 Warrior, playing a PVE combination of story line, open world questing, and some grinding of high level bosses for experience. Starting at level 65, I used an experience 'Birthday Booster' I got on the anniversary of my Warriors 1st birthday (365 days from the time he rolled off the character creation screen). This was also to be the case for all other characters I created. And that was good news for me. It saved me a few days worth of grinding and allowed me to get to where I wanted to be faster. I do encourage people to take their time leveling, but most players will tell you that level 80 is where the game really begins.



"Level 80 is where the game really begins."


Upon reaching 80, I used the gold I had saved over the course of my leveling to purchase some level 80 armor, with an 'exotic' rating. There are several ratings for items throughout the game, a system which has been traditionally used in nearly all major MMOs for years now. They are based on color and title.

They are:

-Junk (White)
-Basic (Black)
-Fine (Blue)
-Masterwork (Green)
-Rare (Yellow)
-Exotic (Orange/Gold)
-Ascended (Pink)
-Legendary (Purple)

These categories and colors blanket virtually every item in the game with a couple of exceptions which I'll outline here, along with a couple of unique traits. Exotic items are considered "perfect". They have the highest standardized stats you can get from any vendor, or drop from a dungeon boss or world boss. Exotic items can include nearly everything from salvage kits, to runes, to weapons, to armor. Ascended items are something a bit more special. You will not see ascended tools. Only crafting materials and actual wearable items. There's a reason for this though. Ascended items are specifically for a certain area of the game, more dangerous than any other area, but most definitely the most rewarding when completed successfully.



FRACTALS OF THE MIST

Fractals of The Mist is the be-all end-all dungeon in Guild Wars 2. But it's more than just a dungeon. It's an ongoing adventure that has levels, much like your character does. The first 10, and possibly even 20 levels can be done as a normal level 80 player if you have a good team with you. But it gets increasingly tougher. You'll do less damage to enemies and you'll get hurt much easier as the levels go on. And this is due to a phenomenon with Ascended gear called 'infusion'. There are slots in the gear that allow you to more or less get your old damage and protection back. Ascended armor has to be crafted yourself, and it's made out of the rarest materials to ensure that it will not be an overnight task. When you get these crafting materials, they are bound to your account. You cannot farm them and then sell them. That being said, the difficulty of Fractals of The Mist does not stop increasing even with an Ascended armor set, but at least with it  you'll have a chance against the games AI.

I will be clear that Ascended gear has no real benefits over Exotic armor and weapons for PVP purposes. Nor do the Legendary items, with the exception of slightly higher damage per second. Legendary items actually lose ground in a way because you give up the ability to use sigils to add unique weapon effects to it such as condition damage to opponents or other bonuses for yourself. Legendary weapons are purely for show, and nothing more. Legendary items can be crafted and sold, but because they are so incredibly hard and expensive to make, you don't see too many of them for sale, and the ones that are available are usually upwards of 3000 gold. For a Legendary weapon to be made, not only do you need rare crafting materials but you also need to have other certain requirements met, such as a certain number of unspent skill points as an example. You also need to make a pre-cursor weapon, also made of expensive crafting materials, and throw it into the Mystic Forge (or Mystic Toilet as many players call it) along with the required crafting materials to see if you get a Legendary weapon out of it.



Yes, Legendary weapons really do look that ridiculous and give off weird effects like those. But they're a status symbol.


Before getting into all of those long term commitments however, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity of other classes, so I decided to build another level 80 character. Then another. And another...

 

There were a few reasons behind me not sticking to just one character, and I like to think they are all good ones.

1.) I get to experience more of the game, and gain perspective on how everything works together.

2.) I'm more useful to guild mates or fellow players who are running difficult events who need a character for a specific purpose. Elementalists (Mages) for dealing large area of effect damage, Mesmers for using various utility skills to teleport past obstacles in dungeons or jumping puzzles, Necromancers for spreading conditions in PVP to make the other team miserable.

3.) I get to have fun in different ways. Variety is the spice of life, as I said in my official review.


Having ran multiple dungeons several times on my Warrior, I was able to get enough gold together to gear all of my other 80's and start expanding on what I was currently doing. Now that I got the character leveling out of my system, I decided to get into PVP and work on harder PVE dungeons. PVP works in a couple of basic ways. You have two core ways of facing off against other players (besides requesting a duel). There is World vs. World, and Arena PVP. World vs. World pits different server populations against each other either throughout the entire map (meaning its an Open PVP free for all) or in a very large map with multiple forts to take control of for karma points, rare drops and experience gains. Arena PVP features tournaments of either randomly put together teams, or self-made ones of your friends or guild mates. They also give rewards of rare items and are playable by everyone, not just level 80 characters. They have two different ranking systems (unfortunately) but can both be addictive and fun. They also require a different mind-set as to how you spec your character. In Arena PVP, you should be focused more on single target damage, where as in World vs. World, in some cases Area of Effect damage would help mow down hoards of enemies who are bunching together for melee fights.

While I leveled my Warrior over a long period of time, I discovered faster methods as time went on. This included attacking Champion level bosses in the open world, competing in World vs. World games, completing Dungeons with lower minimum level requirements and crafting. If you are not the PVP type, dungeon farming is the easiest, albeit the most mind numbing method, and only truly 100% reliable if you already have an existing level 80. World vs. World can work if you can keep up with the rest of the pack. Traveling in a large group, you aren't as likely to be singled out and killed, but its dangerous nevertheless. Champion boss farming used to work pretty well and get you rare gear as well, however it has since been nerfed in the human starter area of Queensdale. ArenaNet let it go on for almost two years, and they decided that they didn't want to give newcomers the wrong impression about the game. That being said, if you simply want to farm Champion bosses for rare items, or have the testicular fortitude to run a low level character to the level 80 area of Frostgorge, you can participate in the level 80 Champion boss "train". But this is not the method I'd recommend. My personal favorite is to do a mixture of completing your personal 'story' quests, dungeons once you hit level 35 (if you can get a group) and map completion which gives you XP simply for exploring.



Ascalon Catacombs

Dungeons themselves are a touchy subject. Although all but four can be accessed before level 80 (Honor of The Waves, Fractals of The Mist, Crucible of Eternity and Arah), many people do not allow low level players into their groups, or if they do, they will check to see how many experience points you have for your account, to see if you know what you are doing. This is because fast runs can quickly become agonizingly slow or even botched completely. Earlier tonight, I took along a new level 35 friend with me for his first run in Ascalon Catacombs with me. We selected the third path in the dungeon, and under ideal circumstances we'd only spend about 15 minutes there, he'd get 3/4 of a level worth of experience, and we'd all get some gold and rare loot to boot. However, I titled the group as 'All Welcome', and my friend was soon shown why that can be a bad idea for people with little patience. The group wiped multiple times, and the low level players did not take instruction well. This is true of all MMO dungeon runs, not just Guild Wars 2, but because many dungeons can be accessed prior to level 80, there may be a lot more of it than some people are used to. We eventually completed the run, but it took close to an hours worth of people getting lost, killed in traps, wiped out by bosses, and other forms or screwing around.

The main way around this issue for brand new players is to join up with a guild who can walk and talk you through a dungeon instance. Luckily there are no shortage of them and if you maintain standards for yourself, you'll get folks who actually help you out. Guilds are split between different focuses. Most guilds advertise themselves as "hybrids" that do both PVP and PVE. This is usually not the case. Depending on the leadership, they are usually focused on one or the other. I had a very hard time finding a guild to do regular dungeon runs with, but once I did, I was taken through them to the point where I can now lead groups of random players from the 'LFG' window through them myself.

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This is all I really have the energy to write this evening. I'll expand a bit further on this tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Edited June 23, 201411 yr by unr3al

Continuing from where I left off,

Beyond the loot you get from dungeons, they do indeed have a story arc that parallels the core story of any Guild Wars 2 player. All players at one point or another encounter a group of "Legendary" dragon fighters who split apart after the death of a fellow fighter. Each dungeon sees a step towards their reunification in story mode. Explorable mode however has side stories that help to flesh out the game a little more. That being said, I've never been in a group that let me watch every cut scene. Most people like to blow through it. So if you're a lore junkie, or want to try and enjoy the story, bring a few friends along so you don't get pushed into hitting the 'Skip' button.

 

As far as RPG's go, I do indeed like to read the story. For me it makes the game a bit more meaningful other than just being "gear porn".

The dungeons are beautiful places visually. While you may find places like them throughout the world, nothing comes quite close to the real thing, though after several visits the charm wears off and you start to take it for granted a bit. As far as loot rewards go though, there are other ways of getting new "shinys". One exciting way is a world event. World events can come in many forms. Legendary bosses that require several scores of players to take down are triggered by guild events or certain activity within a region of the map, Champion bosses that need to be fought with a larger group of people are on a respawn timer and can be farmed in some cases, and Veteran level NPCs that can be taken out by a small group or even all by yourself if you have the right build for it. The Legendary boss drops are especially rewarding, but can only be taken advantage of once every 24 hours in order to make sure the in-game economy isn't ruined. The sheer number of players you see on screen breaks the sense monotony you may get if you play alone all the time or on a low population server.



The Legendary Karka guild event requires scores of people in order to complete. Not just because the boss hits extremely hard and she has a high health pool, but also because you have to 'kill her twice'. Her health spikes back up to full after you down her once. Think of it as breaking the shell of a crab before you can actually kill it. I never was a fan of shell fish.



The loot from events can be very lucrative or beneficial to your character. Even if you just get some salvageable stuff you can't use, you'll get a lot of it. And it comes in a giant sized chest to make you feel like you worked your ass off. Even if you just wanded a boss at a distance and let other people do the heavy lifting.

Remember that with loot of any sort, you can turn it into gold somehow. If you get a complete weapon, you can sell it as is or salvage it for raw materials. You may get crafting ingredient drops, and you can even just get money from chests, plain and simple. Never mind the huge XP gain you get from any boss, dungeon or otherwise. Money is needed to accomplish many things in this game. It needs to be hoarded to a small to moderate extent for crafting purposes, equipping your characters with gear if you don't have karma points or laurels to spend, and of course buying things off of the gem store to aid your day to day gameplay, or making yourself look pretty.



If you play the game a decent amount, you too can look as ridiculous as this without having to spend a dime of any real money.

You can get anything off of the gem store simply by converting in game gold into "gems" if you don't want to use any real money. And you don't even have to really work that hard to get decent money. I can make a minimum of a little over 10 gold each night by running three dungeon paths which takes about an hour or two if done with a good group. Heck, if you get enough money, you even get achievement points and a wearable title for it.



At 200 gold in my bank, I'll get a title and more achievement points just simply for being considered "rich", by ArenaNet standards. 200 gold is still chicken scratch compared to the 2-3000 I'd need to spend on a Legendary weapon if I didn't want to craft it myself.

If you don't have money on your mind, or gear you need to get, there are other events that tie into the ongoing world stories. These pop up every month or so and can include new bosses to fight, new places to explore, and even carnivals. Last month was the "Festival of The Four Winds" which took place above Lions Arch. Yup, above. As in 'in and above the clouds'. These offered up mini games to play which gave you some tokens to turn in for various prizes. Rare materials, food items and even unique wearable items that may not be given out ever again. You can see visually that ArenaNet isn't slacking off when creating new areas, even if they're only temporary.

 

ArenaNet isn't slacking off when creating new areas, even if they're only temporary.

While this covers much of the fun stuff, some of you folks may be curious about the more technical parts of the game, such as crafting, and also the more competitive aspects, such as Arena PVP and Open World PVP. I'll get into these in the next post I do since it's getting late. I'll even see about uploading a video or two from the game. Enjoy a couple more dungeon & open area beauty shots before I head to bed.

 

Fireheart Rise, just outside the Citadel of Flames dungeon/

 

Inside the Citadel of Flames dungeon, waiting for everyone to gather together.

 

A vista somewhere near the Shiverpeak Mountains. This game engine is capable of some wonderful things. This is an artists vision come to life.

 

My Elementalist in Ascalon Catacombs. A female with both beauty and brains who does your bidding. Isn't that every man's dream?
 

Edited July 5, 201411 yr by unr3al