Guild Wars 2: Why I HAVEN’T Been Playing Lately (End of Dragons)

[@SirReffo]

I got to 80 way back when the game launched, but wow dragged me back in. Now that I've lost all intereset in that I found GW2 as a breath of fresh air. Exploring, testing all the expansions I lost out on etc. GW2 has truly evolved and just gotten better and better. Looking forward to it stealing my free time for the next year.

[@tonyrunkzz]

same here

[@matilozano96]

I started playing last year and my mind was blown with how fresh the levelling experience felt compared to other mmos, even if it’s mostly the same since 2012. Although dated, it shows that GW2 aimed to do things differently from the very beginning.

[@Ben-om7ni]

this dude fr came out of nowhere and is now one of my favorite gw2 youtubers. excellent videos so far

[@distortedriolu4618]

The beauty of Guild Wars 2 you can commit as much or as little as you want but it will always be there for ya. No subscriptions no pressure

[@deegthoughts]

This was a really easy listen, enjoyed the conversational tone

[@BloomHD]

Thanks deeg!!

[@Snebzor]

The man, the myth, the bloom.

[@MrMystic1]

Great video! I think you hit the nail on the head with some of the reward problems.

[@Saskidan]

First year till Path of Fire were some of my best times playing an MMO. There always seemed to be something to do and not too much to overwhelm. Really amazing additions like gliding to mounts. I played everyday, running fractals, wvw and pvp, boss events. Raids felt like a serious slog though that failed too often. But when End of Dragons hit I noticed the story really suffered and there was so much fluff and many new items that bloated my inventory. Everything before was so manageable. It's such a shame because it's really an incredible and beautiful world.

[@ReadyDaddy]

02:11 lol what a huge difference between tastes... but understandable, to each his own. In my opinion, gw2 has severe lack of "classic" weapon and armor skins... nowadays everything has to be bright, sparkly, flashy and possibly huge... infusions, rainbow colors etc... id be totally okay with it if there was a balance, but there isn't one. lack of hoods, simple daggers, swords, rugged looking jerkins and plate armors, let alone CLOAKS... some new class specs are downright bland and dull.... also, where are 2 handed axes?? gosh... wish i could be art advisor for just one day. DISCLAIMER - THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, are there any likeminded individuals??

[@nv_spartan1771]

Where did you get that cool shield? I bought it from the gem store.

[@Astralegend22]

Happy to see you back at the videos, still hoping we can one day soon meet up and chat about the game. Great thoughts on the game here, the CMs are pretty lackluster in terms of rewards. Really hoping for some new content or things to chase after soon

[@Kantharr]

Yeah, the only thing that's driving me to do the Strike CM has been the title and LI, even though you can easily get more LIs from raiding than you would from the Strike CMs. I'm only missing the Gazed into the Void title but once I get that plus whatever title Harvest Temple gives I might not go back to Strike CMs again.

[@Astralegend22]

@@Kantharr I feel a similar way to raid CMs. Only worth doing once. If you have a group that can weekly pull 5 CMs, great, but that's rare

[@Kantharr]

@@Astralegend22 I still need to do Adina, Q1, and Dhuum in CM. Since I mostly work I don't really get to do the 5 CMs a week lol

[@Astralegend22]

@@Kantharr Saaame. I need those ones plus Deimos and Q2. Hopefully my squads will get there soon

[@adamg5193]

You bring up a comforting point. GW2 isn't going anywhere. I can take a break anytime and jump back in like nothing happened

[@felipedroppelmann1565]

I agree that strikes and cm strike rewards dont incentive enough to do the content. But at same time all instance content still lock behind the horrendus lfg system that force you to play in a certain criteria. (Players gatekeeping content). If you have community, a group of friends the game is very accesible. But if you are playing solo the content is mostly locked. (This is not about meta builds or roles, or the simple get better, is the lack of accesibilty to group content for players as how a duty finder works.)

[@darensgw2]

Sadly I feel like Anet just cannot justify giving strikes rewards for the amount of people that play them, too much work for not that much ROI. Also a lot of people would get REALLY mad if strikes CMs would give you a particular good skin only obtainable there. That being said they should definetly consider making it so strike missions give you zhaitan shards or research notes or things like that so we can repeat the content without feeling like we are wasting our time.

[@darensgw2]

WHAT THEY COULD DO THOUGH is giving the normal strikes a legendary amulet to grind for and doing the cms give you WAY more currencies for it than the normal modes, that could work.

[@krissss00]

i dont really buy this argument or really any argument for the rewards being this low. the amount of people playing strikes directly positively correlates witht the rewards they give, so if they add good rewards that problem is gone. As far as for effort, they literally just have to tweak around a number in the code from 2 gold to for example 5 per cm. Cant imagine that takes longer then 15 minutes. You might say they cant do that because of the "eCoNoMy" but then why do daily fractals which give 20 Gold A DAY and are done by a lot of players not screw the economy? because its incredibly resilient. if each CM gave 5 g, so 20 gold per weak, that would do nothing to the economy. its a needle in the a pile of hay. Lastly they could even add special skins. the argument here is they "cant" do that because then ppl wouldnt buy in the cash shop. i disagree aswell. 95% of players cant do the cms anyways so they will keep buying in the cash shop. the hardcore players/community isnt the demographic that will swipe for gem skins anyway. they will buy stuff like templates, character slots, storage expander etc. Giving these people the oppurtunity to get a sick skin wihtout the cash shop wouldnt cost anet resume in any substantial way. Why did i write all this? to illustrate that there is no logical reason that the rewards are this bad, other then anet being very dumb or just hating hardcore players. these rewards made me quit strikes months ago and are very close to making me quit the game in general. its just Illogical and Insulting. thx for coming to my TED Talk

[@Aereton]

@@krissss00 can confirm not a pure OW andy but I tend to avoid group content for whatever reason, dunno kinda lethargic about joining groups or guilds my first strike ever was due to the turtle so if they pushed me with exclusive rewards that would be a plus, can't be the only one right?

[@gabepasta7550]

surprised you have been enjoying vindicator given the thing u said about its reliance on weapon block on aus ping. would love to know why u stuck with it.

[@BloomHD]

I think I just find the dodge roll so unique - it looks super cool, feels good to use and sets up a really obvious burst window! I also love the really low CDs on the utilities :)

[@Nilruin]

Sigil of Endurance.

[@jcm2606]

@@BloomHD Sadly, I'm expecting them to raise the CDs on the utilities with the upcoming patch on the 28th. Really feels like they were balanced with the old flip mechanic in mind, to the point where some of the utilities are legitimately broken now that the flip mechanic is gone (looking at you, Tree Song).

[@Traven89]

what reshade do you use?

[@druidicleonnnjj]

I've been going between two MMOs for the last like 3 years. I originally started with Elder Scrolls Online, then burntout, went to gw2 for almost 2k hours and have came back to ESO. I'm a mainly PvE player so my GW2 stuff was mostly just strikes and the main story. The thing which made me burn out, was that I got bored of strikes, getting into strikes was painful especially if you're not commanding because the party finder is just full of people selling. I enjoyed the final boss fight in the jade sea, before they nerfed it, because it was actually enjoyable to struggle, although I admit, 2 hours for nothing if you lose is a bit painful. But anyways, LW1 hasn't really intrigued me too much, so that's not really brought me back. The thing about ESO which I love is the overland, there is just so much more to do, quests, fishing, achievements, delves, dungeons, main quests in each zone, and quests which aren't just doing a repetitive task like what you do in Gw2 to fill out a renown heart. Also Housing lol. There's just not a lot to keep me in gw2 anymore. Every day just feels kinda grindy. I was so excited to do the Aurene weapon, then I just never bothered. Why would I spend SO long getting a weapon for something I already have a legendary weapon for. The skins are cool sure, but like, is that worth spending 100's of hours of grinding, and thousands of gold to get? I don't necessarily think so. I loved End of Dragons, the story, the music, the elite specs were super cool and fun too, disappointed with Untamed tho (Ranger main ;--;). But the end game just didn't feel great. I'm waiting to just see what the summer balance does, the thought of having alacrity on Druid seems very fun.

[@chickenbob562]

can you explain the grind? I sometimes read people talking about grinding, but everyone has a different definition for grind so it's hard to understand what it means in this game let's just say I'm able to do the same thing for around 8-10 hours a day how long would it take me, to obtain a legendary?

[@PARADISE-404]

@@chickenbob562 if you are new 3-6 month if you have the good condition 1-2 week

[@MrKendoex]

ascended gearing guide pls

[@Neroxidy]

The fast farming recipe lists a bunch of (cheap) sources for research notes. Potent Potions of Sons of Svanir Slaying right now equals to 88c/Note, so 10000 research notes only end up costing 88 gold. They also stack to 250, so you can comfortably salvage stacks of them. Used to generate several hundred thousand of research notes for... reasons that way. 10k is not that bad. :)

[@alexwatts1356]

I hope you’ve gotten on lately to see new strike rewards!

[@kalydon2826]

Its very interesting that anet has not really given new and exiting rewards for the cm players. For example, they so have an exclusive Infusion and fractal weapons reskinned in fractals. Maybe they have something in store for us with the harvest temple release ^^

[@ItsKilty]

I laughed so hard at 13:15 😆

[@erezfbmomy]

now im glad i subscribed :) sweet video! gimmi more 🤩

[@RyanThomas970]

Looks like a lot of the issues you point out in your video like no ASS from strikes and 10k research note requirement have been addressed in the latest patch. Maybe you should take another look at the game? EoD strikes are really rewarding right now and the CM's are very fun.

[@BloomHD]

I have been actually! I've been playing the game a tonne as of late haha. Strike rewards were massively improved and I'm currrently almost done with the Mordremoth legendary variant! I also completed my first Strike CM (Ankka) and it was some of the most fun I've had in this game. Great stuff :)

[@boilinggoldman4365]

I'm only interested in gathering t6 mats to make t1 legendary weapons and selling mats to make golds.

[@hovsep56]

i agree that difficult content should have the appropiate rewards with it yet the at the same time if they did add those rewards into it it would increase raid busses even more. FFxiv is the biggest culprit here, most of the ultimate weapons that players got were obtained by simply purchasing a carry through the fight basicly making the cool looking gear pointless. because those players just care about the looks of the weapon, not the meaning of the weapon.

[@Kantharr]

If it wasn't for wanting to finish my raid armor set + Coalescence I probably would've moved on to FFXIV or another game since I've done pretty much everything in GW2. But I would always come back for the LW episodes or any new content they add.

[@Abby_wa]

I'm glad they're fixing season 1 and getting ready for the steam release, but that's not content for me. I'll be back for the strike and I'll be there day 1 of a new season in the future.

[@egoboost13]

They seem to be listening and trying to fix rewards but I agree....they need to be improved...Teapot brought up a good point, though, with the horizontal progression and long term goals it's hard for them to give rewards that are "too good" because then it will undermine the challenge of some of those....although giving ASS for the new CMs....actually a great improvement....changing it to 2500 research notes is nice but since they just added a big gold cost it is still essentially the same...guess that's fine as it's obviously around the amount of effort they want it to be.

[@tisme9420]

Its not as easy as just flopping in flashy exclusive skins into hard content. The monetization system relies heavily on gem store skins, and gem-gold exchanges for the most expensive items like legendaries. And legendaries value also come from their flashy skins. If they did that, it wouldnt stop to one shield, meaning a good amount of exclusive skins that come with prestige. The gem store will slow down.

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

Lol the diablo immoral shoutout

[@kryppo4245]

Honestly it just didn’t click for me I rly liked the story but I dropped it during my skyscale grind and didn’t finish I think was s4 and icebrood saga and just hopped on ff 14 and it just clicked for me and I love the amount of cool items I can grind in 14

[@Tjdraxus]

Sad truth is that they don't have human resources and gem store items are the cash flow.... I'd love to have unique skins that are not legendary shit that you can get for completing challenges... Completing Dhuum CM is as rewarding as spending money in the cash shop.

[@gabrielbennett8191]

Tbh, I’m just waiting for the balance patch

[@LCAyoutube]

dragon bash has nice weapon skins uwu

[@matilozano96]

That’s pretty fair. I think the same of the reward problem, honestly. I’m learning CM strikes because I wanna get better at the game, but as a newer player I’m much more interested in learning the Raids because I want that sweet legendary armor. Let’s just hope things get better and better from now on.

[@carlandmariah]

I think I have to agree , loved the game now blah, and the reward makes for anything is just ugh, honestly I’ve been thinking about playing something else or just go back to wow … smh

[@cezzar1985]

I really like this game but the rewards for instance contant are a totally bad joke

[@bl1tzcraft]

i feel like the whole game has an issue with not being rewarding enough but that's just my take

[@mormegil231]

Wow you went through all that and still managed to work. Makes sense you do not have time to play. Frankly strike CM rewards are slightly better in terms of tokens and liquid gold than normal raids. But yeah some prestige stuff are definitely missing. But i am guessing when there are enough of them they will add some legendary reward. Also come on. 10K research notes are like at most 200g. It is annoying but it is inconsequential. You just buy the (cheap) stuff, salvage and you are done in like 20 minutes. I think people see the number and get scared without looking how much it actually costs.

[@darensgw2]

The problem with research notes are not the gold but that they are annoying to do

[@mormegil231]

@@darensgw2 They are very much. But it is still just 15-20 minutes of salvaging that is part of a process that takes weeks and thats it. So it is still pretty inconsequential. The research notes actually are there for the sake of the economy. It makes a lot of useless stuff useful. And good economy is good for everyone. And the reqs needed to be that high to serve that purpose.

[@ArchaeanDragon]

I played since beta with a few breaks that amounted to around a couple years. 10,000+ hrs. I've been working on Legendary weapons for about 6-7 years, and the insane resource requirements make it so that the game became a job. 2-4 hours daily resource runs. I've made 2 Leg weapons, the Leg backpack, and the PvE Leg trinkets. That's it. I'm burned out. GW has always been Grind Wars for largely cosmetic stuff.

[@jmbrady1]

"best its ever been" meaning you need to have end of dragons just to even stand a chance in pvp because the elite specs outdamage, outmitigate, and outheal all prior expac elite specs

[@Xemozazk]

We will never get any decent rewards because of the gem store.

[@danteyoda]

Man those Gen3 legendaries are ugly as sin.. and gating just makes me avoid content.

[@FenrirFrostborn]

honestly this game has been like wet newspaper for years now. The hollow game design will always disappoint when you look past the initial flash.

[@MrKendoex]

ascended gearing guide pls