I never picked up the first one but City of Heroes is going away and I need a potential replacement so I was considering GW2. I assume from the name that teaming is strongly encouraged but can you solo if you wanted to? Is the game fun that way? Thanks.
Yes, highly soloable. In fact there is no raiding or group required end game like in other games.
I played GW1 solo and enjoyed the hell out of it, and now that I’ve learned how to dodge and avoid being killed repeatedly I’m enjoying GW2 as a solo player, too. I’m still putzing around at the beginning of the game, but I know there’s enough content and variety to keep me playing for a long, long time.
Yeah, you can solo a lot.
You also can take part in a lot of content that requires more than one player simply by being in the area. For everything except dungeons, if there’s a multi-player event going on and you’re there, you can just do it. There’s no grouping up, getting a quest, or anything like that. If the pirates are raiding a village and you want to help defend, you just help defend. And if the pirate king shows up and he’s a badass and it takes a whole lot of people to take him down, you just start fighting him, along with a lot of other people. Very easy, very fun, and no need to go out of your way to participate if you don’t want to.
Awesome, I was a big-time solo player in WoW. Something that didn’t work too well in DDO… I also liked the ad hoc grouping in Rifts, which worked much the same way that Athena described.
Yup, it’s just like Rift (which I played), only all the quests are like that. You have no quest list, you just wander around and if you’re near a quest, you get it. Wander outside the area, it’s gone. Very easy, and makes you wonder why all the other games had the clunky quest feature at all.
Play a guardian, they are the easiest solo class.
I’m just about level 80 on my necro and the vast majority of that is totally solo. Sometimes you find yourself sticking with another person or a small group clearing out an area. Also you often see people just running through an area with a small group of bad guys in tow…Remember sometime you only have to get to the star and don’t have to kill every damn thing.
That said, some of the storyline missions can get pretty hairy. I just helped out a guildie on a level 45 storyline mission and it was harder than I remembered it. Sometimes you do die and just resume from a check point. But like I said I’ve gotten to Orr, doing all the storyline by myself.
You do also gain experience when you craft and can get a huge amount of XP in WvW.
Is any class particularly hard to solo? I played Mesmer and Necro in beta (only to level 15 or so) and Engineer now (54 now) and they’ve all been pretty easy to solo. I haven’t heard anyone complain that their class is hard to solo with.
Only compared to other classes, my thief dies a hell of a lot more than my warrior.
With my Mesmer things seem to either be a cakewalk, or impossible, depending on whether or not I’m using all of my abilities properly.
So far I’ve played Mesmer, Guardian, and Ranger, and I don’t have a favorite yet. The game seems to be designed to be solo-friendly with any class, it looks like.
This is all very reassuring, thanks, but please any all further discussion is welcome.
Yeah, using the right skills takes a bit to get used to. Weapon swapping is invaluable to making through some areas.
I wish I had played more mesmer during the beta. I see now that I probably should have named her Luornu Durgo instead of Chris Angle.
Guild Wars 2 is both very soloable and very group oriented. Because full xp goes to everyone who contributes, there’s no need to form a formal “party” like in other games. There’s no kill-stealing, no resource-hogging, no competition. When an event starts, players spontaneously work together to meet the goal. (It’s really cool to start an escort event, and as the NPC walks along, see a PC guard form.) You do your own thing, but you’re basically grouped with everyone else all the time.
And the game throws xp at you all the time. Kill monster, get a little xp. Explore new area, get a little xp. Do a static quest (“heart”), get xp. Do a dynamic event, get xp. Do your personal story quest, get xp. Gather resource, get a little xp. Craft something, get some xp. Play PvP, get xp. Unless you restrict yourself to doing only one thing, you’re going to get xp fast. But you can’t outlevel content, because you get automatically down-scaled to whatever area you’re in.
I have read complaints in another forum that your contribution in events is based on whether or not you do some damage to monsters. That is, someone who only buffs or heals, will not get credit. But it only takes one hit to get credit for contributing. Since GW2 has got away from the damage-tank-healer trinity (everyone does everything, at least a little), I don’t see this as a problem. Players need to use all their skills.
You can’t be a pure healer or a pure buffer though, so if someone is only doing that they are actually not doing much of anything.
Yeah, all classes can solo, but some are more durable when doing it. I was playing early in the morning after a night shift, and ventured into an area filled with ettins higher level than me. They seemed to respawn really fast, too, and I was having slight trouble not getting swamped, when another player wearing robes ran towards me with 2 ettins in tow. They killed her, leaving me with 3-4. I killed them and 2 more added during that fight. I killed them, getting again 2 more with combat never breaking. After a few more ettins I had killed 10 or so in a row and had full health before the combat ended. My elementalist would have easily died before getting halfway of that fight.
Warrior is the only class I’ve played past 20 (she’s 56 now), but looking at the class list I’d guess elementalist, thief and mesmer are squishy, engineer, necromancer and ranger slightly less so and finally warrior and guardian are fairly hardy. Of course it depends a lot how you do your traits and utility skills - my warrior has 15 points in Defense and the regeneration signet, giving her two stacking in-combat regeneration effects. Those combined with wearing plate armor give me a nice safety margin against most enemies.
How does that work with loot?
Everybody gets loot, that is, the loot tables are generated for each individual person who had a hand in killing the creature. Same applies with chests in dungeons, everybody gets something, no more need before greed or rolling to see who gets the uber rare item.
Same thing applies with resource nodes for gathering crafting stuff. If someone runs up to that tree before you and hacks away at it, that’s ok, because you can do the same thing (it will reappear for you after 24 hours so I’ve heard), so no more contesting of resources along those lines.
Loot is determined individually. IE - you kill a bandit, loot is determined, and you grab it. Meantime, someone else helped you kill that bandit, loot is determined for them, and they grab it. Think of it as if each kill you get credit for is treated like a solo kill (and the same is true of everyone else).
Loot tables are not shared; no matter if you’re in a group or participating in a group event, you get your own loot.
The way it works with dynamic world events is that if you participate at all, you get a rating at the end - Bronze, Silver, or Gold, and a bit of karma points, XP, and cash depending on what level you participate in. In addition, as mobs die, you can loot them for shinies.
I’ve found that any participation at all will get you a bronze - even just mistakenly hitting an event mob as you run by. If you show up in the middle of the event, you might get a silver. Participating whole-heartedly gets you a gold. Hell, sometimes I get golds and I barely even did a thing.
Boss mobs and dungeons will often have chests associated with them. Once again, loot isn’t shared, so if there’s a chest, no need to fight for it.
Also, craft items aren’t shared - no more running up to that ore deposit only to find someone else got it first. They get theirs and then you get yours, no fighting at all.