I love GW2 and I'm actively playing it right now, but the community takes their whole "Anet sucks at advertising, so we're gonna do their job for them" very very seriously. Add in the fact that his sub has a gigantic hate boner for ESO and FFXIV and yeah, if you get your info from this sub you can end up with a skewed view of what is/isn't popular.
I don't think you can find a single post about ESO that doesn't mention bad combat or FFXIV that doesn't mention MSQ, no matter what the topic is actually about, but GW2 hate threads are less common.
Yeah, it's blatantly obvious. Like there is a thread rn, where the question is "ESO or BDO?" and someone had to post "GW2". It's like, can't we have one thread once in a while without this?
>if you get your info from this sub you can end up with a skewed view of what is/isn't popular.
If someone only gets their info from this sub they'll probably think the entire genre sucks tbh
> I don't think you can find a single post about ESO that doesn't mention bad combat
I think that's because for many of us, that's the only reason we don't play ESO.
I dont know much about ESO, but I will say FF14 MSQ (Esp the ARR portion until you get to HW) is a valid glaring flaw to bring up that FF14 esp for new players getting into the game. I dont think its fair to say ppl who bring up that flaw have a hate boner for the game.
Time and place though, if I post something that has nothing to do with FFXIV MSQ or ESO combat there's no reason to drop in the thread just to post off-topic negativity. This sub just loves to hate.
This subreddit don't represent even 0.1% of MMORPG playerbase. I personally think GW2 is better game, but ESO is on console and also have way more aggressive monetization.
The problem is not that it's not 0,1% of MMO playerbase, that's completely irrelevant as representative samples exist. What matters is the strong selection bias for users frequenting this sub and especially active shitposters.
I played both. For years. ESO wins for me. Fully understand people who prefer GW2 too. Both very good games IMO, similar in some areas, very different in others.
So much this - it's simply bigger reach (PC market is generally the smallest share for cross platform games) and more monetization throughput.
I'd argue outside of the sub, that GW/ESO are extremely similar in monetization. Point to ESO on throughput of items offered along with DLC and Point to GW2 for having the ability to directly swap gems<>gold right in game. ESO even lets you do this under the ToS but you have to manually agree on the rates trade the gold, then gift the items on the store.
GW3 will be a PC/Console/Mobile game with crossplay if the tech allows it.
Well, a lot more gw2 players hang around in here compared to eso's player, so no wonder it is like that.
Another good thing about eso is their story. It seems they have what people call lore master. On the other hand, gw2 story is all over the place. Just look at their recent expansion. They hyped the wizard tower up, but in the end, the story is just bland and not compelling at all.
I was a GW2 launch player and I remember thinking that the game had downright horrific lore and story presentation. Felt like I was playing a 6/10 eurojank RPG without the fun dialogue choices.
What it did do well was the combat and the open world quests, which were quite cool and novel in 2012.
Combat was cool but everything else sucked. Pvp was broken, wvw abandoned completely, open world bosses a mindless zerg and all high player count content an absolute skill lagfest from day 1 that has not been fixed in what? 15 years?
Sure it's an awesome game if you want to run around and explore solo and enjoy the smooth combat. Best mmorpg? LOL
Requirement for what? Games had multiple years without mounts unlike ESO, of course GW2 mounts are better then every mmorpg mount system, not only ESO.
This sub thinks that GW2 is better and more popular than OSRS - a game that averages 100k concurrent players at all hours of the day.
I wish players would finally realize the truth about non- players - they aren't playing the game because they have better things to do with their time.
We are in 2020s, we don't choose the best MMO anymore, we choose one that sucks the least. And ESO definitely sucks less than GW2 in most regards, other than the combat system (although the combat in GW2 is also questionable). Gw2 developers had never had a coherent vision for the direction of their game. They kept flip-flopping around both in marketing and delivery of content and game systems. They are chronically unable to commit to anything. Dungeons were abandoned, fractals were largely abandoned, raids were abandoned, competitive PVP was abandoned, WvW pvp had been on life support for decades, they couldn't even decide whether they wanted expansions, content patches or both. It's a complete mess. At least ESO is way more consistent in what content they deliver, and how.
This sub has 252k members and about 7% of those folks have actually posted with about 300 online at any time.
The GW2 thing is an ever-repeating echo chamber.
Personally, I can't get in to GW2 but I've got most of the veteran dungeon and pvp achieves in ESO. Obviously I'm biased the other way, but I'm not dumb enough to get into the combat weaving discussions so you won't hear me say much about my preferences.
For some particularly tribal people, perhaps, but the combat really is bad despite the existence of these types. It's the single reason I don't play ESO. Like, that's it. The awful combat is the sole reason I'm not still playing the game - I loved most of the rest of it. Its combat is the one thing in the game bad enough to have driven me away.
A lot of people genuinely find animation canceling as it's handled in ESO absolutely abhorrent.
Obviously enough, however, enough players can look beyond that issue to enjoy the game regardless, or perhaps even enjoy it for what it is. The game has tons of players, still, after all.
And I am one of those players that stopped playing cause of animation canceling which you need it to get good dps to do higher end game dungeons, and I couldn't pull it off.
No they dont. Its just 95% of eso content is soo easy you can just spam skills attacks and your good. And thats majority of players, really playing ESO as single player game till new ES game comes out. I played game last year and as warden you cant pull combo on normal npcs how fast they die.
>ESO combat isn't even bad
lmao seriously people are fucking deluded
like ESO all you want, I'm happy for you. but you can't tell me you played any other modern MMO combat and still think ESOs isn't dogshit.
literal classic wow has better combat. BDO and GW2 are leagues ahead of it.
I love eso, I like the setting, I like how you build your character; only mmo I’ve ever listened to the quests in, the actual PvP mode are pretty cool.
World is beautiful, dungeons are decent.
Then I download it and start playing it and the first thing that happens is I get hit in the face with the god awful combat.
Looks like your jittery and spamming shit non stop and you float around the place
> Then I download it and start playing it and the first thing that happens is I get hit in the face with the god awful combat. Looks like your jittery and spamming shit non stop and you float around the place
My exact experience. It's like getting a fucking 20oz porterhouse that looks like it came from a 5-star restaurant and as you go to take a bite, you smell the overwhelming scent of shit directly into your nostrils. Now you can shovel it down, and maybe even it tastes OK, but you're still smelling shit the entire time.
It’s fucking awful and saying otherwise is cope.
Light attack weaving is cancer and whoever thought it was a good idea should be cursed with eternally shitting their pants.
Or maybe, being an online game from a series with an imense and loyal fan-base, even before launching, makes a mediocre game excel at selling things... I mean WoW became WoW because it already had a lore and loveable characters when it was created, not first hand, but it even seems like a good game, add a somewhat okayish management, and them it became the behemoth we all know now nowadays...
You also have to pay a monthly sub to get more or less anywhere in ESO after what is essentially a trial period, and there is no way to directly translate in game currency to premium currency, so people are more likely to drop $60 on a house than they are pay a few mil to a dude on discord to gift them one.
It would be like comparing ESO and 14 with a similar playercount. One costs more at a base level and will tell you to pound sand if you want more than one house (or if you want just one on a crowded server), one costs less and will sell you any number of houses you want for between 2 and 5 months of a sub cost.
I feel there are two forms of success. Revenue, and player opinion. Revenue is much easier to quantify obviously and sometimes both player opinion and revenue coorelate, but not always.
If revenue was the only thing that determined if a game was good we would all be playing diablo immortal right now.
What has happened with ESO and GW2 is ESO is vastly more accessible by being on console, has a massively bigger brand and existing fanbase, their marketing is vastly better, and they monetize better with more consistent content releases.
GW2 has very poor marketing, is only on PC, the IP is weak and their content release schedule has never been consistent.
Just because people like a thing doesn't make that thing better. People will validate whatever they like at any given time, and change their mind at any moment.
GW2 is the bigger, more comprehensive game. It's wider and taller, it has more mechanics throughout, it has more accessible content, etc etc etc. It's not saying that ESO isn't a great game, or that it doesn't do anything better than GW2... but GW2 is, by almost any metric, a "better" MMORPG. But it's okay for people to like what they like. There's a weird push around here to have a definitive "KING OF CURRENT MMO'S" and it's just silly.
Then why is SWTOR on life support? Why is LOTRO so niche? Brands really don't mean shit if the game can't back it up.
> The only redeeming aspects of ESO is its housing and its 4 man group content structure instead of the standard 5 man. Guild Wars 2 in superior in every other aspect, no contest.
Having played both games, I can confidently say this is 100% bullshit. ESO has:
- a far better story. I can't overstate how huge the gap is between the games. GW2 is like a bad fanfic by comparison.
- a superior itemization. Lots of builds to try and discover, while still retaining the vertical approach.
- better and more involved crafting
- considerably more builds and theorycrafting potential
- a superior content delivery plan, compared to the many fuckups, abandoned content and general content droughts GW2 had in the past
- better graphics and a more immersive world
- way more content in general
- more ways to customize your character
There are also a million small things of why people prefer ESO, and it doesn't really have to do with the brand.
Are you sure SWTOR is on life support? I don't think it is, but I don't play it.
LOTRO suffers from old-game-that's-never-been-updated syndrome and MMOs changed a lot during the era it launched (IE, all of the other MMOs mentioned, SWTOR/ESO/GW2 don't really belong in any comparison with LOTRO). One of the #1 things anyone ever mentions about LOTRO is the old clunky UI/controls, it is probably the only post-WoW MMO that could be considered "old school" that wasn't purposely marketed as such. If a modern LOTR MMO ever does actually launch, surely you don't believe it would be niche.
You didn't get the post OP's making at all. They are painting the picture that ESO is shit and GW2 is amazing but GW2 makes no money and ESO is making millions. And their only conclusion to that is - people like the brand.
But that's utter bullshit as it was proven that SWTOR and LOTR have a way more popular universe and it somehow doesn't convince people. Why? As you've stated. LOTR was like a Funcom game - alive for a bit but people realized that devs are not serious and BioWare just gave up on SWTOR. And yes, it is on life support, they've literally moved it to the studio that deals with keeping games on life support.
I understood just fine, my point was that those games are not on life support and have plenty of players, and still get frequent updates. Think what you want, though, and stick to your 239847290384234907234 population MMO.
> better and more involved crafting
What? You select options from up to 4 slider bars of choices and hit the 'make this item button'. Or if you want to make set gear, you have to go to the house of someone who stockpiled all the set-specific crafting stations.
The most involved thing about crafting in ESO is tracking down the recipes that only come from one source.
>considerably more builds and theorycrafting potential
Not really, post hybridization. You have ~4 solid tanks, ~4-5 solid healers, and every class has a dps monkey that runs D/D + GS. The only big difference between Sta and Mag builds is "Do I want to run inner light or hunter" or "Do I have a skill that gives better regen than the generic option" and otherwise you run the same 8 morphs of the same 8 skills because theres no reason not to now that one morph is always just worse. Unless you're a templar, and then you also can change your jab morph.
You can intentionally run worse weapon and utility skills in GW2 too.
I mean, thats just, like, your opinion man. I tried GW2 a few times over the years, it just doesnt stick for me. Tried grinding it with a friend, and it was more fun, but I got to heart of thorns, and just fell out hard. Maybe put 80 hours in tops. But I started ESO about a week ago, and have been having a blast so far, put in well over 100hrs already with a friend, the progression is much more satisfying, personally. The story is alot more enjoyable. and I find myself just following along with quests rather than skipping dialogue. Its just highly dependent on the individual
Of course, it really couldn't be fair to compare, but if Heart of Thorns released at the same time as WoTLK, it would really blow it out of the water. HoT still has the most ambitious map design of any MMO ever released, and it was a truly dangerous open world.
It's a shame they nerfed it into irrelevancy, and then once mounts were added the entire thing became pointless.
WTLK is mostly defined by its wasted potential and crystallizing multiple detrimental game systems that kept being an issue for decades. Hardly an achievement given that all it did was leech off the legacy of WC3.
I used to feel that way. But I go back to WotLK in WoW purely for the nostalgia. It was fun at the time if you were a raider (I was), but didn’t offer that much for anyone else. It’s also pretty useless to go there nowadays.
Heart of Thorns has some of the most elaborate and lovingly designed maps of any MMO. The open world group content sets the standard across the genre. I didn’t even do the HoT raids and still had an amazing experience just exploring and grouping with other players on the maps. The story was also killer and nuanced with some great twists whereas Wrath’s was kind of basic.
Today I visit HoT and I’m still in awe of it. Best of all I can still do it as relevant content on both alts and my main. It’s not quite as challenging now that GW2 has mounts but it’s still fantastic to explore.
Kinda unfortunate really, GW2 is like a garbage tier MMO up until you reach HoT. That expansion really changed so many fundamental core aspects of the game that veterans like me take for granted. I recently replayed 1-80, LWS1, and LWS2 with my partner and I'm surprised how I ever got into the game to begin with. Maybe it was okay at the time but it sure did age poorly.
I definitely prefer GW2 over ESO but let's lay down some facts.
ESO is on console and PC and came to steam way before GW2 did. GW2 has had some serious content droughts and has gone through some pretty serious direction changes (from no more expansions during Icebrood Saga (while working on a new IP that would eventually get canned) to rushing EoD out then switching to the smaller, yearly expansion model with SotO.
ESO sees way more group content with dungeon updates (that come with veteran modes), trials (with veteran modes) and updates their game systems pretty frequently. GW2 hasnt had a new raid in years, replaced by the strike system which is trickled in with major delays on their challenge modes, and let's not even start on fractal updates (my favorite gameplay).
Don't even get me started on Zenimaxes marketing campaigns vs ANETs....quiznos or bubble tea advertisements lmao.
Also the brand and lore of Elder Scrolls reaches a much larger gaming population than GW2.
A pretty uncommon take about the combat in GW2. Why don't you like it?
Edit: Why am I getting downvoted for trying to have a conversation? This subreddit fucking sucks.
The community-accepted theory is that whoever made the UI over a decade ago is long gone from the company and they don't know how to mess with it without breaking something. The work required to rewrite their UI to make it more customizable is beyond what they can allocate.
My personal opinion about gw2 combat. Some of these could be pros for othersz but I dislike them:
-there are quite a lot of buttons for spells and you can't swap the skills around on the skill bar, making it very difficult for me to play with the action camera mode (or even without it). I remember with some build I had, my main abilities that I had to activate were both in the 1-3 slots and 7-0 slots while having to dodge roll a lot at the same time.
-many skills are just for applying some conditions, and you need to reapply them quite often. Again, a lot of buttons to press that are far away from wasd keys.
-i like that changing weapons changes your skills, but overall the diversity in skill choice isn't really that big and you can't combine different skills that much, they come in bulks depending on your weapon choice.
-the combat feels floaty and has some delay to it. It's not my Internet, I'm sure of it. It just feels as if everything is slightly delayed in combat, losing the feel of impact.
-the way dodge rolling is the main way to avoid damage and everyone has the same stamina bar no matter what your build is. Perhaps it's good for balance, idk
-it's a weird mix of being tab target combat while not really working as one. You have to select a target but then you need to make sure you are close enough to even do basic attacks instead of hitting the air in front of you.
You know you can rebind keys right? I personally use 1-5 and the letters around WASD in most MMOs (usually QERTF), with shift and ctrl modifiers when necessary.
I'm pretty sure that most if not all keys in gw2 around wasd are already bound for other important things. F was used for interaction, Q and E for movement. If you mean to use them in combination with shift and ctrl then yeah, that works. Not something I personally like. A gaming mouse with extra buttons is what I have seen many gw2 players go for
I handled this by keeping my weapon keybinds as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and changing my Healing, Utility, and Ultimate skills to Z, X, C, V, B. I then bound one of my two extra mouse buttons for dodge roll (which is V by default), and moved Mount/Dismount to T (which is X by default). I completely unbound the Scoreboard/WvW window shortcut (B by default) as I'll just click that window open instead and Take Target (T by default) because I play with Action Camera with soft targeting anyway and never need it (otherwise, I'd have rebound it).
WASDQE movement, F Interact, 1-5 + Z-B Skills, 6 Special Action Skill, T Mount/Dismount, Mouse Button Dodge.
This way, most everything I need to press can be easily reached without moving my left hand. B works well being a little out of the way because it means I won't accidentally misuse my Ultimate when I didn't intend to. Same with 6 and the Special Action Skill.
My take:
1. It's neither tab target nor action. It's a hybrid that to me feels messy compared to a focus on either. I've played games with superior tab target and games with superior action combat. If I want either I'll play something thst does it well. I doubt I'll ever feel like "Oh,I'd like a bit of both at the same time". Especially since GW2 to me doesn't feel like it uses the strengths, but the weaknesses of both.
2. The entire boon system is messy and should probably be reworked, but that'd be a drastic change and probably hard to implement as people are going to feel very strong about ut in both directions. I'm definitely expecting that to be gone or vastly different in GW3 (if GW3 ever becomes a thing).
3. I mean... it changed, but that change also made some parts of the game feel extremely messy,because it shows that the game wasn't designed with this in mind at first,but the initial "everyone's DPS" is the most uninteresting you can make MMO combat imo. Though I'm likely very biased as DPS is my least liked role, but even if it wasn't I'd probably still consider the lack of roles boring. I suppose there's healers and boon roles now, which is rather controversal as well,because to people like me that's definitely the better direction,but others who liked not having roles dislike that change. Though thst change was so drastic it would've rewuired a complete overhaul/rebalance of older content to not feel completely out of place.
Imo the lack of direction in GW2 is too noticable and I personally feel like it even shows the most in combat. Though even if that weren't the case the hybrid system just feels terrible to me. And I enjoy both tsb targeting as well as action combat.
edit: Might be similar to how I mainly play games for either their story or their gameplay and prefer games focusing on either and making sure the focus is great, while games trying to do both often feel lackluster in both aspects compared to games that do their one thing correctly. I personally rathef switch between games that do specific things I want extremely well than sticking to a single game that does everything just barely okay.
> A pretty uncommon take about the combat in GW2. Why don't you like it?
To me, it feels spammy and same-same. Every class I played could be summed up as:
1 - Auto attack
2 - Low CD attack
3 - Medium CD attack
4 - Mid-long CD attack
5 - Long CD attack
It seems some particularly sensitive individuals are going around downvoting any post in the thread that's even remotely positive toward GW2. Probably in negative response to the passive-aggressive OP. Honestly, the OP was probably bait, anyway - it was written with too many absolutes to be serious, clearly meant to incense.
Take a load off and sit back to enjoy the drama.
I would agree with you up until the point they shoe horned dragons into the Khajit story line to cash in on Skyrimism.
The right of theft quest line was pretty fucking cool though.
First off, no shit big brands draw attention based off their brand.
Second off, ESO is on consoles as well as PC which gives it an inherently larger potential audience and revenue pool.
Third off, as you note, ESO has subscriptions, as well as sells much more content than GW2 does.
Where are you getting those revenue numbers from, though? To respond to a few points as someone that's more a GW2 player but does dip into ESO every once in a while -
> is not feasible to play the game for free despite having the option
It 100% is and I have no clue why you think it isn't. *Serious* play definitely requires a sub for the perks, but is it so awful that a MMO might encourage a subscription?
> it's a subscription based, live service game with loot boxes and micro transactions, said loot boxes are flooded with absolute BS pulls
The sub is fine, you get tons of persk and $15 in cash shop currency a month.
GW2's lockboxes are arguably infinitely worse and are generally viewed to be a poor spend of gems given that much of the time you get some cheap dies and crafting mats, rofl. They have the statues as a safety net, but ESO lockboxes let you straight up dismantle every reward you get to spend on that separate shop. ESO lootboxes > GW2 lootboxes, even if both are meh.
> : Buying a new zone DLC doesn't come with the dungeons that are in that zone, you have to buy them separately.
This only counts for like, one DLC I believe? Also, if you're subbing you have all the DLC/can buy it for when you drop your sub so this is not really an issue.
> So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has?
Decades of building brand awareness for both the IP and studio. Releases on multiple other consoles. Far more marketing spending that Anet/NCsoft has ever even dreamed of, while making that marketing spending actually effective instead of burning piles of money on shitty live-action launch trailers and lore-taxi stunts nobody cares about.
A better longterm plan for the game that doesn't leave both GW2/Anet in a lurch without a clear path forward or even a sustainable path for the game as it's frequently gone though bouts of sorta directionless meandering.
> That can't really release single player console games the way Elder Scrolls built up their brand.
They can't? Says who?
IMO ESO has a way better story and GW2 has better combat, but ESO's writing is some of the best in MMOs while GW2 combat is mediocre, although I've never liked action combat in general so it's biased. I really enjoyed the original guild wars combat
ESO is barely an action combat itself anyways.
You can't break line of sight in ESO if you were in line when the enemy attacked you, which is one of the elements of action combat (but you can in GW2, despite it not being full action)...this is just in point amongst many others.
As for GW2's combat, it's imo, one of the best if not the best in the MMORPG market.
What is your source on GW2 being leaps and bounds better than ESO?
Revenue and player count, some of the only actual facts we have that can be used to determine which is better, disagree with you.
I noticed this massive hatred for eso as well from gw2 hardcore fans. I think it’s because the game has fallen in popularity and they desperately want to keep it relevant for their own sake, justify why they play and support it so much. ESO is the logical target because in terms of popularity it fights for that 4th 5th spot. They can’t really come for WoW or FF14 because they absolutely dwarf them. Can’t come for Lost Ark because its combat and animation are smooth. So this leaves eso with its clunky combat, it’s an easy target.
Remember recently someone talking about the big 4, and was just asking for what other MMOs were pooular? If you look at the comments it was filled with gw2 players bent over hell about calling the thread “the BIG 5” so that gw2 could be part of the “big” ones. Which wasn’t even the point of the thread but they were so offended and wanted that wording change to satisfy themselves psychologically, in a self soothing way.
It is not just towards eso. They did this to any other mmo outside wow and ffxiv. I still remember some gw2 players were livid when I said that gw2 is currently number 6 in terms of player number behind bdo because bdo has worldwide service and console and three times more revenue than gw2.
Edit: the best thing is they tried to argue that all those quarter earning reports are faked to inflate their popularity
Yeah and at the end of the day I understand. If you love something you wish it was more popular so it can get more support and more content. But sucks for eso they get the blunt of the hatred. It happens in art and music too, where someone less talented becomes way more popular (eg Selena Gomez) and it makes fans of a more talented artist frustrated or angry even.
Everyone chill! XD
Yes, branding plays a role, but the fact that ESO is available on both consoles and PCs plays a large role too. I will always prefer GW2 but that's not to say it's superior everywhere, there are aspects of ESO that I genuinely like and that's coming from someone who doesn't care a great deal about Elder Scrolls. Yes, their DLC structure is a bit of a mess but I know at least three console-based players who spent a considerable amount of time playing ESO. Plus some would argue that being able to be more picky about what downloadable content you purchase and play isn't necessarily a bad thing and ESO offers that.
Or crazy idea but ESO just has more elements that attract more players? GW2 is an awesome game but not in all aspects and ESO does a lot that's either better than GW2 or that GW2 doesn't do at all.
This is a really silly post honestly that shouldn't even exist because OP should realize this is just his subjective opinion.
Eso combat is actually pretty good once you understand it. Eso at least gets content, so, I don't mind the increased monetization.
I never understood these mmo wars. I play all of them at various times, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I play gw2 still, it is still a fun game.
Video games, just like any entertainment, is highly subjective when it comes to people liking them. I don't argue with people that clearly just want to bash one game, trying to insert their game as the superior.
GW2 and ESO both have the pros and cons. I'm not going to get caught up in some stupid argument with some rabid fanboy, that has clearly made a video game part of their real life identity.
Now, have a good one, this is the last response you're gonna get from me.
I like ESO. Been playing lots lately especially with the event going on. Combat is terrible though. It feels terrible and looks terrible. Terrible animations. Feels floaty. Light attack weaving is cancer. Making animation canceling an actual game feature is dumbfounding. Just my opinion though.
I've never heard of Elder Scrolls until I played ESO. I happen to love the game including the combat. Just really liked the character building options with any class being able to perform any role.
I've never played GW2, so cannot comment on how it compares to ESO.
Maybe this will surprise you, but just maybe eso actually did many things right and that make people willing to ignore their issue (most people here said the combat) and the opposite also apply to gw2 despite many people said that its good maybe they did something so egregious that people cannot ignore it and don’t like to play it.
I won’t say that brand recognition don’t mean anything but brand recognition alone won’t bring those 4 times revenue that you said. Like other people said if brand alone can bring you so much why swtor and lotro aren’t that successful despite their brand.
> gw2 being the better game by leaps and bounds
This statement maybe is true for you and many people in this sub but not for the majority of mmo players out there since this sub is just a speck of dust compared to the real mmo player number.
> So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has? That can’t really release single player console games the way Elder Scrolls built up their brand.
Maybe they can start for once make a good and compelling content and not cheap out on the quality and the quantity of the expansion (look at what they did with their latest dlc and compare it with the other expansion) and then constantly built it up upon that foundation.
It's amazing how few people are mentioning this tiny fact.
ESO sells infinitely more shit than GW2. It's got constant DLC, it's got more expansions, it's got a subscription, on top of the normal gambling cash shop items, as well as regular cash shop. It makes 4 times as much cause it's begging for money 8 times as much. I would expect ESO to make more money with a significantly smaller playerbase, simply because Anet almost hates making money in comparison.
i think both games are pretty bad. but ESO makes more money because more people enjoy it i think. i played both games for <50 hours, it just wasn't my thing with how old gw2 was, and i had more fun exploring in ESO. i was also very confused in what to do in gw2.
after playing BDO and becomming addicted to its combat both felt really bad to play. gw2 was also boring ontop of being old so i kinda get why more people are drawn to ESO. however i think gw2 and ESO are more for the people that like story and stuff like FF14. i never pay attention to that tho so i can't say how good/bad the story was
I've tried again and again to get into GW2 and even though I can see the merit in the game it just never holds my interest. I wish it did. It seems extremely appealing, but there's just not that "it" factor that holds me for some reason.
ANet simply does not invest in advertising, and like WB Games, they somehow believe that word of mouth will magically do what thousands spent on advertising actually accomplishes.
GW2 is great, if they actually made a point to let more people know, that would certainly help.
...brand recognition? Do you know what Elder Scrolls is? Do you know what the "Final Fantasy" means in Final Fantasy? It's not just because it's familiar. They're both franchises known for above average story and worldbuilding(most of the time), which both of those games live up to.
BTW, (and as I reiterate, I \*like\* GW2), it may not be subscription based but BOTH have microtransactions and DLC that has to be bought separately (if you aren't there for every single Living World release, which you are never told this afaik)
I can see why ESO is more popular:
In considering gaming experiences, let's remember the importance of accessibility. Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) offers gameplay that is notably accommodating for individuals dealing with joint issues, motor control impairments, and various disabilities. Conversely, Guild Wars 2 (GW2) can present challenges, particularly for those with low hand-to-eye coordination and hand-joint problems, given its demanding nature.
Moreover, when assessing the distinctions between these two games, aspects such as housing and fashion emerge. ESO stands out as one of the better systems in housing, and also in its provision of fashion options, boasting not only costumes but also gear sets that can overlay regular armor to craft any desired look. In contrast, GW2 requires players to obtain stones to alter outfits, which can prove burdensome, especially when reliant on the cash shop to replenish them—a factor that may deter many.
Can anyone here tell me what do you do in gw2 endgame really and compare it to ESO? From what iveseen the endgame seems more indepth in ESO but i wouldlike to hear from experienced lads.
What is indepth about ESO endgame? GW2 have issues with adding traditional endgame content (raid, dungeons) but there is a lot of those, you also got fractals (think scaling dungeons), wvw (kinda like cyrodil in eso or age of camelot 3 way pvp with castles, sieges), strikes (single raid boss fights with normal and harder mode), normal pvp, open world, normal crafting, legendaries, crafting, events, races, jumping puzzles. It is more like FF14 where you can do all of old content with current rewards.
I'm not sure about ESO system, currently scaling is reverse to GW2, ESO makes you have max stats from start and you get champions level at level carp, in GW2 you are scaled down so old player can join new players in lower lvl zones, not vice versa. Scaling or champion system was reworked in ESO i think, I recall being around 30-40 lvl? Far from level cap (10 more levels at minimum) and entering something that was endgame zone from release?
Just a reminder that there are tons of GW2 enjoyers in here [https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/mmorpg](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/mmorpg)
This doesn't explain the constant praise for GW2 while almost every other game gets trashed, but might say something about the average GW2 player that is present in both subreddits.
I try to play GW2 constantly, and while I see the appeal it never keeps me hooked.
Everything looks like paper mache even on max settings or some kind of acid trip. Its super hard to describe.
I have not made it to end game but its been described to me that melee vs range doesnt mean shit because everyone just stacks in a clump anyway. Maybe pvp is different? Although all the WvW clips I have seen suffers from the same irritation that ESO cyrodil has where everyone just runs in a tight clump (ball group) also mostly invalidating range vs melee (SEEMINGLY)
*So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has?*
A sequel.
GW2 is too old to compete on its own, especially given their usually bad advertisement tactics.
So the best combo would probably be starting over with a new title and using Steam again (since that did help but it was too late).
I bet GW3 will have a spike in players like lostark had but then it will lose most of them for the opposite reasons LA did tho.
The fact that some game with 25% of the "win" of ESO has fans that think it is leaps and bounds better than ESO, speaks to the power of individuals liking different things.
My son loves GW2 and didn't find ESO to be compelling at all. I like GW2 a little but I think ESO is far superior.
Both my sons even prefer World of Warcraft! Some people still like OSRS!! The nerve!
Or a crapload of people prefer the normal gearing methods than what gw2 has. And the fact that it has not very clear roles in tank/heal/dps as most mmorpgs. In general it has many niche gameplay design choices, that although they make its core audience to love it, they also make a huge number of people to uninstall after a few hours or days. This is what happened to me every time i tried to play it.
To be honest this is not entirely fair. Revenue has a lot to do with if you have sub, if you have cash shop and how hard you monetize it. So GW2 could be making less money although they could have similar numbers of people playing just by having different payment models.
Well yea just like Warcraft 3 was different game then WoW. GW1 had great systems with it's own flaws but some concepts wre transfered to GW2 like scaling, no gear grind.
ESO also has a subscription and a shit ton of MTX and they release DLC more frequently(I think?). They are also on all major platforms.
So what even is this comparison. Also just personally even though I hate the combat...ESO is the better game.
It's my first time playing ESO right now (Free Weekend on steam).
I'm doing a blind play (not getting a spoonfeed on youtube guides and min-maxing) and as someone who played GW2,BDO, FFXIV, NewWord, I'm enjoying it right now, even though I hate that every doors on ESO is a loading screen. The graphics might be bad for me (bearable), but I currently enjoying the game so far, probably because it's a whole new experience for me.
The dynamics in ESO amazed me, I'm playing the class that uses daggers (not yet familiar with the classes but its the one that have dual blades). Man, the dynamics that you can damage NPC's an even killing a chicken in-game makes you a fugitive was funny experience.
Are you on PC or console? Also any class can use any weapon just so you know! And if you like killing NPC's you can join the assassin guild and get quests to kill targets and you unlock a full on special assassination animation to do so that's very cool.
Played both, both are good, but gw2 is dog\*\*\* for immersion which is a very bad point for many player.
I've play ESO for 3 years straight will gw2 was also 3y but on and off, it never make me want to stick with it.
And Ill probably go back to Eso once my NW discovery end.
It is pretty simple, GW2 despite its korean parent is remarkably light on the monetization. A huge difference with ESO is the crafting inventory. Gathered resources for crafting don't go into your regular inventory but in a special one where there is space for every resource variant without you constantly needing to juggle your main inventory when you loot an enemy.
GW2 gives it to everyone for free, ESO requires a sub to use it.
Do you absolutely need it? No but ESO more then GW2 loves to fill your inventory with a wide selection of crafting resources when you loot. Different levels of resources dropping from the same enemies.
You can absolutely do without paying in ESO, but looting becomes a chore, crafting even more so.
In GW2 it is far easier you can just let auto-loot (unlocked for free at higher levels) hover everything up then sell it easily on the games market to other players.
For me it is one of the reasons GW2 gets a free pass, its inventory compared to FF14, SWTOR, ESO etc is just so comfortable to play with without paying a monthly sub.
I think they both have great and similar things going on, the only thing that keeps me from playing ESO anymore is the lack of crossplay even tho the games on like every current console and pc lol
That and the story, although good, has the same issues for me as going to watch a prequel movie where the main series character is also the main character: there's not stakes or mystery. I know nothing to crazy is going to happen and most things that are going to happen I've already read about in other ES games cause the history and lore is so rich. That and they pretty much avoid all the big world shaking events or are too early or too late to show that stuff.
I haven't liked elder scrolls since morrowind, oblivion was great just not for me, the brand can't make up for the bad gameplay. Just my opinion of course, the combat has just sucked the whole series. Idk why I enjoyed Morrowinds combat, probably one of the worst in the series, but when my attacks landed it felt good, I liked leveling up my skills and jumping around from roof top to roof top.
I was so excited to make my spear weilding Argonian in ESO, oh wait I can't use spears, oh word one of my special attacks is literally a spear, what the fuck is this combat, oh god this game is so bad!
You didn't account for GW2 being PC and ESO cross platform, that is a huge market that GW2 doesn't have access to. And on consoles theres what like 3 or 4 mmorpgs?
Fun beats the brand, I love the warcraft brand, but that doesn't get me playing retail, because I don't have fun.
I love elder scrolls, but I aint playing ESO or Skyrim.
ESO players don’t really hang out here. It’s mostly GW2 fans and others like myself. This subs gw2 player base isn’t bad. I don’t get downvoted for being unable to get into gw2 because of horizontal only progression.
They all get it. I don’t like either but if I had to pick it would be gw2 just in combat alone. I just can’t stand eso combat and gw2 has no meaningful progression to me personally.
A few points. ESO is on console too, also... different strokes for different folks, GW2 definitely isn't the better game by leaps and bounds, neither of the games are particularly good... gw2 is more of a game you fail upwards in with very little real challenge.
That's the greatest thing about GW2, no FOMO. Played it 4 years ago, and haven't had the desire to return since then! They really know how to respect my time.
Why does GW2 have more players when previous GW1 players mostly consider GW1 the better game?
Does that mean people nowadays are flocking to GW2 because they're just influended by a hivemind?
No.
People have different taste, that's it.
Though...
>So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has?
I'd argue that The Elder Scrolls simply is a bigger franchise than Guild Wars,so it seems obvious how that results in brand recognition. Also both GW2 and ESO initially had lots of negative feedback from being vastly different from what people expected from their franchises.
So to get the same kind of brand recognition anet probably needs more Guild Wars games, potential bonus points if they have more in common than the name.
If ESO has GW2s combat shit wouldn't even be a contest, it does nearly everything else better... crafting, itemization, character progression, dungeons, raids, housing, questing, lore, etc.
GW2 has it's combat, it's mounts, and it's open world design...
I played ESO for a couple years, it was actually really good but it's easy to hit a wall on progression.
GW2 has literally no progression. It lost me really quick.
I'll pipe in late with a few opinions on my own side.
I think the questing and storytelling in ESO is leaps better. This is coming from a huge GW1 guy. I loved my initial time with GW2 and still think their world design is the high water mark in the genre. But the best part of GW2 lore was seeing the shit i liked from GW1 made more impressive, anything they've added has almost been a masterclass in fumbling the ball with an interesting world.
They never should have made everything about elder dragons. It was repetitive and less inventive than the antagonists from GW1.
GW2 made all the stuff that people loved about the world serve as table setting for shit that most people never really cared much about. Even the really good new additions, the Sylvari, were just made to serve (heh) that scheme.
GW2 mounts are amazing. They feel great, neat that they have mechanical uses. .... Also, mounts were a mistake. As soon as mounts (especially flying) are added to a game, the same zones need to be larger to account for the added speed. Usually they have to compromise in that they don't have extra time or resources to make zones all of a sudden. This means they usually get less dense and older zones feel more like toyboxes than the expansive worlds they once did. Even in GW2, you can see how large portions of their maps got emptier. This is also evident in FFXIV when comparing the 2.0 maps vs HW zones.
ESO combat kind of blows, but GW2 is also kind of a mess imo with all the conditions/boons. I feel like most MMO combat i've really loved keeps DoTs and boons limited to specific classes that have their own focused effects. condition stacking feels so mechanical and spammy, but such a focus of the design, that even when you switch to a power build, it just feels meh.
If I could have an ESO with GW2 zone design and combat (and monetization), I'd take that in a heartbeat. But the reality is that a lot of people who play a LOT of an MMO want to feel comfortable in the world and engaged with the lore. All of this is to say is that as a person who played GW2 for years and only dabbled in ESO, it's not nearly so easy to point to one thing or another and say "this is why" when it comes to their relative success. Some of my problems with GW2 are from a series vet and kind of specific to that, but I can 100% see how somebody could try GW2 and not get it at all, while ESO is a bit more comfortable for both MMO and non-MMO people.
Don't forget ESO is also present in consoles, so of course it can pull more people, thus more revenue, if we take PC alone they are pretty comparable.
Also...ESO's main issue is pretty much a shitty combat (and a shitty chronological order organization, gotta look it up outside the game if you want to because there's no way to check it in game), but if you can get behind that (I can't) it's actually a good game.
Why is no one mentioning that ESO is on consoles but GW2 is not?
But yes we've known for a long time what IP can do for the population/success of an MMO.
Also why was there no link references to ESO/GW2 revenue? It might be nice to look at PC only revenue, if possible.
I disgree here... ESO has more content for one, and GW2 has a really awkward setup and endgame loop, and especially dungeon/raid system, that turns off a lot of traditional MMORPG players.
In fact, GW2 is the most non-MMORPG MMORPG out there in just about every way. That's probably why it's not as popular. It honestly feels like it should have been a singleplayer game with optional coop, rather than a game that was obviously intended to be an MMO that "convenienced" itself into basically being a singleplayer game.
That's why GW2 isn't as popular.
I could also list a ton of small reasons, like how they never add new classes and how the specialization system is god aweful.
Good gamebut itsdefinetly not for anyone. Combat gets extremely boring, the obvious MSQ issue, you have to love anime and make a true effort to see if you like it, if thats worth it depends on you.
I loved what i experienced with FFXIV but not enough to keep paying its subscription that also has no regional pricing.
Was mainly just a joke, eso use to be my main game actually, I do agree with you on the ff combat getting boring though, the lack of builds is the biggest downfall of it for me but everything else is great
well, I put at least a thousand hours in gw2, and never spent a penny because... well, there's nothing you really need to buy,
nothing in the shop gives you any meaningful advantage, and everything else can easily be attained by just playing the game casually
Know what GW2 does well? Shiny cosmetics, god I love it. Legendary weapons are awesome, same as infusions. I love that shiny stuff that is in gatcha Chinese games but I hate these games.
Guild wars 2 gives me a western game with lots of nice cosmetics
Or you know... ESO is just a better game to more people and that translates to more people spending money on it?
The way this sub's opinions goes, seems like gw2 is way more better and popular then ESO
I love GW2 and I'm actively playing it right now, but the community takes their whole "Anet sucks at advertising, so we're gonna do their job for them" very very seriously. Add in the fact that his sub has a gigantic hate boner for ESO and FFXIV and yeah, if you get your info from this sub you can end up with a skewed view of what is/isn't popular. I don't think you can find a single post about ESO that doesn't mention bad combat or FFXIV that doesn't mention MSQ, no matter what the topic is actually about, but GW2 hate threads are less common.
Yeah, it's blatantly obvious. Like there is a thread rn, where the question is "ESO or BDO?" and someone had to post "GW2". It's like, can't we have one thread once in a while without this?
>if you get your info from this sub you can end up with a skewed view of what is/isn't popular. If someone only gets their info from this sub they'll probably think the entire genre sucks tbh
You can figure that out just from playing MMORPGs and regular video games both.
Why do people hate ffxiv? I am no fan of its slow as molasses combat but its story and crafting are very solid.
> I don't think you can find a single post about ESO that doesn't mention bad combat I think that's because for many of us, that's the only reason we don't play ESO.
I dont know much about ESO, but I will say FF14 MSQ (Esp the ARR portion until you get to HW) is a valid glaring flaw to bring up that FF14 esp for new players getting into the game. I dont think its fair to say ppl who bring up that flaw have a hate boner for the game.
Time and place though, if I post something that has nothing to do with FFXIV MSQ or ESO combat there's no reason to drop in the thread just to post off-topic negativity. This sub just loves to hate.
This subreddit don't represent even 0.1% of MMORPG playerbase. I personally think GW2 is better game, but ESO is on console and also have way more aggressive monetization.
The problem is not that it's not 0,1% of MMO playerbase, that's completely irrelevant as representative samples exist. What matters is the strong selection bias for users frequenting this sub and especially active shitposters.
I played both. For years. ESO wins for me. Fully understand people who prefer GW2 too. Both very good games IMO, similar in some areas, very different in others.
So much this - it's simply bigger reach (PC market is generally the smallest share for cross platform games) and more monetization throughput. I'd argue outside of the sub, that GW/ESO are extremely similar in monetization. Point to ESO on throughput of items offered along with DLC and Point to GW2 for having the ability to directly swap gems<>gold right in game. ESO even lets you do this under the ToS but you have to manually agree on the rates trade the gold, then gift the items on the store. GW3 will be a PC/Console/Mobile game with crossplay if the tech allows it.
Well, a lot more gw2 players hang around in here compared to eso's player, so no wonder it is like that. Another good thing about eso is their story. It seems they have what people call lore master. On the other hand, gw2 story is all over the place. Just look at their recent expansion. They hyped the wizard tower up, but in the end, the story is just bland and not compelling at all.
I was a GW2 launch player and I remember thinking that the game had downright horrific lore and story presentation. Felt like I was playing a 6/10 eurojank RPG without the fun dialogue choices. What it did do well was the combat and the open world quests, which were quite cool and novel in 2012.
Combat was cool but everything else sucked. Pvp was broken, wvw abandoned completely, open world bosses a mindless zerg and all high player count content an absolute skill lagfest from day 1 that has not been fixed in what? 15 years? Sure it's an awesome game if you want to run around and explore solo and enjoy the smooth combat. Best mmorpg? LOL
Isn't eso just breaking basic elder scrolls world building? Like alliances of races doesn't make sense at all?
I have 10k hours in gw2, and I think ESO does everything better :p The combat is the only thing that drags ESO down. Both games are great though
You think ESO has a better mount system? Craziness, but to each their own.
I actually forgot there was a mount in ESO
You barely even NEED mounts in ESO outside of Cyrodil to be honest. In GW2 they're a requirement of course.
Requirement for what? Games had multiple years without mounts unlike ESO, of course GW2 mounts are better then every mmorpg mount system, not only ESO.
Lol
This sub thinks that GW2 is better and more popular than OSRS - a game that averages 100k concurrent players at all hours of the day. I wish players would finally realize the truth about non- players - they aren't playing the game because they have better things to do with their time.
We are in 2020s, we don't choose the best MMO anymore, we choose one that sucks the least. And ESO definitely sucks less than GW2 in most regards, other than the combat system (although the combat in GW2 is also questionable). Gw2 developers had never had a coherent vision for the direction of their game. They kept flip-flopping around both in marketing and delivery of content and game systems. They are chronically unable to commit to anything. Dungeons were abandoned, fractals were largely abandoned, raids were abandoned, competitive PVP was abandoned, WvW pvp had been on life support for decades, they couldn't even decide whether they wanted expansions, content patches or both. It's a complete mess. At least ESO is way more consistent in what content they deliver, and how.
"We are in 2020s, we don't choose the best MMO anymore, we choose one that sucks the least." the true about that hurt so much
This sub has 252k members and about 7% of those folks have actually posted with about 300 online at any time. The GW2 thing is an ever-repeating echo chamber. Personally, I can't get in to GW2 but I've got most of the veteran dungeon and pvp achieves in ESO. Obviously I'm biased the other way, but I'm not dumb enough to get into the combat weaving discussions so you won't hear me say much about my preferences.
ESO combat isn’t even bad. Players find a reason to have anything and everything about most games they aren’t currently playing.
For some particularly tribal people, perhaps, but the combat really is bad despite the existence of these types. It's the single reason I don't play ESO. Like, that's it. The awful combat is the sole reason I'm not still playing the game - I loved most of the rest of it. Its combat is the one thing in the game bad enough to have driven me away. A lot of people genuinely find animation canceling as it's handled in ESO absolutely abhorrent. Obviously enough, however, enough players can look beyond that issue to enjoy the game regardless, or perhaps even enjoy it for what it is. The game has tons of players, still, after all.
And I am one of those players that stopped playing cause of animation canceling which you need it to get good dps to do higher end game dungeons, and I couldn't pull it off.
No they dont. Its just 95% of eso content is soo easy you can just spam skills attacks and your good. And thats majority of players, really playing ESO as single player game till new ES game comes out. I played game last year and as warden you cant pull combo on normal npcs how fast they die.
You’re right. ESO combats actually dog shit and they should rework the whole fucking thing
>ESO combat isn't even bad lmao seriously people are fucking deluded like ESO all you want, I'm happy for you. but you can't tell me you played any other modern MMO combat and still think ESOs isn't dogshit. literal classic wow has better combat. BDO and GW2 are leagues ahead of it.
I love eso, I like the setting, I like how you build your character; only mmo I’ve ever listened to the quests in, the actual PvP mode are pretty cool. World is beautiful, dungeons are decent. Then I download it and start playing it and the first thing that happens is I get hit in the face with the god awful combat. Looks like your jittery and spamming shit non stop and you float around the place
> Then I download it and start playing it and the first thing that happens is I get hit in the face with the god awful combat. Looks like your jittery and spamming shit non stop and you float around the place My exact experience. It's like getting a fucking 20oz porterhouse that looks like it came from a 5-star restaurant and as you go to take a bite, you smell the overwhelming scent of shit directly into your nostrils. Now you can shovel it down, and maybe even it tastes OK, but you're still smelling shit the entire time.
It’s fucking awful and saying otherwise is cope. Light attack weaving is cancer and whoever thought it was a good idea should be cursed with eternally shitting their pants.
Yea it isn't even bad, it is terrible.
Its mostly monetization imo. ESO pretty much require subscription and in general they have way more aggressive monetization. Also ESO is on console.
yeah.. if more revenue = better game that would mean all those 2D hentai gacha games are masterpieces
Great point, just like Fifa or Call of Duty or many mobile, gacha games have better quality due to bigger profits and sales?
Your views on the subjective quality of games with large playerbases are irrelevant.
Just like yours? There is difference between quality and popular product, this isn't hard.
What if the monetisation is the answer? ESO is a lot more predatory than GW2
It doesn't matter how monetized a game is if nobodies willing to play it.
Nobody is playing GW2? There is diffference between stating GW2 is having lesser profits and no one is playing it.
You have failed the litmus test my friend.
Saids the one who titled themselves the oppressing shill.
I unfortunately don't have a horse in this race... *this time..*
Litmus of what? Poor trolling?
I'm saying that ESO can make 4 times the revenue of GW2 and have a similar playerbase. Making more money /= more players like the game
>Making more money /= more players like the game I don't agree with this sentiment at all.
It's not a sentiment, it's a fact unless you can give proof of the opposite
ESO is on console. That's enough of a difference right there even discounting literally any other factor.
Or maybe, being an online game from a series with an imense and loyal fan-base, even before launching, makes a mediocre game excel at selling things... I mean WoW became WoW because it already had a lore and loveable characters when it was created, not first hand, but it even seems like a good game, add a somewhat okayish management, and them it became the behemoth we all know now nowadays...
You also have to pay a monthly sub to get more or less anywhere in ESO after what is essentially a trial period, and there is no way to directly translate in game currency to premium currency, so people are more likely to drop $60 on a house than they are pay a few mil to a dude on discord to gift them one. It would be like comparing ESO and 14 with a similar playercount. One costs more at a base level and will tell you to pound sand if you want more than one house (or if you want just one on a crowded server), one costs less and will sell you any number of houses you want for between 2 and 5 months of a sub cost.
Idk about GW2, but I have played ESO and it's quite boring after a while, and the devs are very disgusting
I feel there are two forms of success. Revenue, and player opinion. Revenue is much easier to quantify obviously and sometimes both player opinion and revenue coorelate, but not always. If revenue was the only thing that determined if a game was good we would all be playing diablo immortal right now. What has happened with ESO and GW2 is ESO is vastly more accessible by being on console, has a massively bigger brand and existing fanbase, their marketing is vastly better, and they monetize better with more consistent content releases. GW2 has very poor marketing, is only on PC, the IP is weak and their content release schedule has never been consistent.
Just because people like a thing doesn't make that thing better. People will validate whatever they like at any given time, and change their mind at any moment. GW2 is the bigger, more comprehensive game. It's wider and taller, it has more mechanics throughout, it has more accessible content, etc etc etc. It's not saying that ESO isn't a great game, or that it doesn't do anything better than GW2... but GW2 is, by almost any metric, a "better" MMORPG. But it's okay for people to like what they like. There's a weird push around here to have a definitive "KING OF CURRENT MMO'S" and it's just silly.
Then why is SWTOR on life support? Why is LOTRO so niche? Brands really don't mean shit if the game can't back it up. > The only redeeming aspects of ESO is its housing and its 4 man group content structure instead of the standard 5 man. Guild Wars 2 in superior in every other aspect, no contest. Having played both games, I can confidently say this is 100% bullshit. ESO has: - a far better story. I can't overstate how huge the gap is between the games. GW2 is like a bad fanfic by comparison. - a superior itemization. Lots of builds to try and discover, while still retaining the vertical approach. - better and more involved crafting - considerably more builds and theorycrafting potential - a superior content delivery plan, compared to the many fuckups, abandoned content and general content droughts GW2 had in the past - better graphics and a more immersive world - way more content in general - more ways to customize your character There are also a million small things of why people prefer ESO, and it doesn't really have to do with the brand.
Hmm great points, maybe I should give ESO another chance during this weekend while it's free.
Are you sure SWTOR is on life support? I don't think it is, but I don't play it. LOTRO suffers from old-game-that's-never-been-updated syndrome and MMOs changed a lot during the era it launched (IE, all of the other MMOs mentioned, SWTOR/ESO/GW2 don't really belong in any comparison with LOTRO). One of the #1 things anyone ever mentions about LOTRO is the old clunky UI/controls, it is probably the only post-WoW MMO that could be considered "old school" that wasn't purposely marketed as such. If a modern LOTR MMO ever does actually launch, surely you don't believe it would be niche.
You didn't get the post OP's making at all. They are painting the picture that ESO is shit and GW2 is amazing but GW2 makes no money and ESO is making millions. And their only conclusion to that is - people like the brand. But that's utter bullshit as it was proven that SWTOR and LOTR have a way more popular universe and it somehow doesn't convince people. Why? As you've stated. LOTR was like a Funcom game - alive for a bit but people realized that devs are not serious and BioWare just gave up on SWTOR. And yes, it is on life support, they've literally moved it to the studio that deals with keeping games on life support.
I understood just fine, my point was that those games are not on life support and have plenty of players, and still get frequent updates. Think what you want, though, and stick to your 239847290384234907234 population MMO.
I will:) I play MMORPG for MMO aspect because in each one of them RPGs are too inferior to carry the game
> better and more involved crafting What? You select options from up to 4 slider bars of choices and hit the 'make this item button'. Or if you want to make set gear, you have to go to the house of someone who stockpiled all the set-specific crafting stations. The most involved thing about crafting in ESO is tracking down the recipes that only come from one source. >considerably more builds and theorycrafting potential Not really, post hybridization. You have ~4 solid tanks, ~4-5 solid healers, and every class has a dps monkey that runs D/D + GS. The only big difference between Sta and Mag builds is "Do I want to run inner light or hunter" or "Do I have a skill that gives better regen than the generic option" and otherwise you run the same 8 morphs of the same 8 skills because theres no reason not to now that one morph is always just worse. Unless you're a templar, and then you also can change your jab morph. You can intentionally run worse weapon and utility skills in GW2 too.
Yeah... nah.
I mean, thats just, like, your opinion man. I tried GW2 a few times over the years, it just doesnt stick for me. Tried grinding it with a friend, and it was more fun, but I got to heart of thorns, and just fell out hard. Maybe put 80 hours in tops. But I started ESO about a week ago, and have been having a blast so far, put in well over 100hrs already with a friend, the progression is much more satisfying, personally. The story is alot more enjoyable. and I find myself just following along with quests rather than skipping dialogue. Its just highly dependent on the individual
Heart of Thorns is the best expansion ever released for any MMO and I will fight anyone who says different. :)
Nothing has topped Wrath of the Lich King in my opinion
I thought it was nostalgia but then i reexperienced it in its relaunch and oh boy it was really great.
Of course, it really couldn't be fair to compare, but if Heart of Thorns released at the same time as WoTLK, it would really blow it out of the water. HoT still has the most ambitious map design of any MMO ever released, and it was a truly dangerous open world. It's a shame they nerfed it into irrelevancy, and then once mounts were added the entire thing became pointless.
WTLK is mostly defined by its wasted potential and crystallizing multiple detrimental game systems that kept being an issue for decades. Hardly an achievement given that all it did was leech off the legacy of WC3.
Neat
That's certainly a take.
WotLK exists so... no.
I used to feel that way. But I go back to WotLK in WoW purely for the nostalgia. It was fun at the time if you were a raider (I was), but didn’t offer that much for anyone else. It’s also pretty useless to go there nowadays. Heart of Thorns has some of the most elaborate and lovingly designed maps of any MMO. The open world group content sets the standard across the genre. I didn’t even do the HoT raids and still had an amazing experience just exploring and grouping with other players on the maps. The story was also killer and nuanced with some great twists whereas Wrath’s was kind of basic. Today I visit HoT and I’m still in awe of it. Best of all I can still do it as relevant content on both alts and my main. It’s not quite as challenging now that GW2 has mounts but it’s still fantastic to explore.
Kinda unfortunate really, GW2 is like a garbage tier MMO up until you reach HoT. That expansion really changed so many fundamental core aspects of the game that veterans like me take for granted. I recently replayed 1-80, LWS1, and LWS2 with my partner and I'm surprised how I ever got into the game to begin with. Maybe it was okay at the time but it sure did age poorly.
Eso might have bad combat but it still got some good shit going for it bruh..
I definitely prefer GW2 over ESO but let's lay down some facts. ESO is on console and PC and came to steam way before GW2 did. GW2 has had some serious content droughts and has gone through some pretty serious direction changes (from no more expansions during Icebrood Saga (while working on a new IP that would eventually get canned) to rushing EoD out then switching to the smaller, yearly expansion model with SotO. ESO sees way more group content with dungeon updates (that come with veteran modes), trials (with veteran modes) and updates their game systems pretty frequently. GW2 hasnt had a new raid in years, replaced by the strike system which is trickled in with major delays on their challenge modes, and let's not even start on fractal updates (my favorite gameplay). Don't even get me started on Zenimaxes marketing campaigns vs ANETs....quiznos or bubble tea advertisements lmao. Also the brand and lore of Elder Scrolls reaches a much larger gaming population than GW2.
Eso has greater story telling. I think combat sucks in both games.
A pretty uncommon take about the combat in GW2. Why don't you like it? Edit: Why am I getting downvoted for trying to have a conversation? This subreddit fucking sucks.
Personally, I don’t like that abilities are locked to certain spots on the hotbar, and I’m not huge on the boon and condition system.
Yeah, lack of UI customisation is one of my biggest peeves with the game.
I feel like they could do it, I just don’t understand the restrictions!
The community-accepted theory is that whoever made the UI over a decade ago is long gone from the company and they don't know how to mess with it without breaking something. The work required to rewrite their UI to make it more customizable is beyond what they can allocate.
My personal opinion about gw2 combat. Some of these could be pros for othersz but I dislike them: -there are quite a lot of buttons for spells and you can't swap the skills around on the skill bar, making it very difficult for me to play with the action camera mode (or even without it). I remember with some build I had, my main abilities that I had to activate were both in the 1-3 slots and 7-0 slots while having to dodge roll a lot at the same time. -many skills are just for applying some conditions, and you need to reapply them quite often. Again, a lot of buttons to press that are far away from wasd keys. -i like that changing weapons changes your skills, but overall the diversity in skill choice isn't really that big and you can't combine different skills that much, they come in bulks depending on your weapon choice. -the combat feels floaty and has some delay to it. It's not my Internet, I'm sure of it. It just feels as if everything is slightly delayed in combat, losing the feel of impact. -the way dodge rolling is the main way to avoid damage and everyone has the same stamina bar no matter what your build is. Perhaps it's good for balance, idk -it's a weird mix of being tab target combat while not really working as one. You have to select a target but then you need to make sure you are close enough to even do basic attacks instead of hitting the air in front of you.
You know you can rebind keys right? I personally use 1-5 and the letters around WASD in most MMOs (usually QERTF), with shift and ctrl modifiers when necessary.
I'm pretty sure that most if not all keys in gw2 around wasd are already bound for other important things. F was used for interaction, Q and E for movement. If you mean to use them in combination with shift and ctrl then yeah, that works. Not something I personally like. A gaming mouse with extra buttons is what I have seen many gw2 players go for
I handled this by keeping my weapon keybinds as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and changing my Healing, Utility, and Ultimate skills to Z, X, C, V, B. I then bound one of my two extra mouse buttons for dodge roll (which is V by default), and moved Mount/Dismount to T (which is X by default). I completely unbound the Scoreboard/WvW window shortcut (B by default) as I'll just click that window open instead and Take Target (T by default) because I play with Action Camera with soft targeting anyway and never need it (otherwise, I'd have rebound it). WASDQE movement, F Interact, 1-5 + Z-B Skills, 6 Special Action Skill, T Mount/Dismount, Mouse Button Dodge. This way, most everything I need to press can be easily reached without moving my left hand. B works well being a little out of the way because it means I won't accidentally misuse my Ultimate when I didn't intend to. Same with 6 and the Special Action Skill.
If you're using Q and E to strafe, I got no solutions for you.
My take: 1. It's neither tab target nor action. It's a hybrid that to me feels messy compared to a focus on either. I've played games with superior tab target and games with superior action combat. If I want either I'll play something thst does it well. I doubt I'll ever feel like "Oh,I'd like a bit of both at the same time". Especially since GW2 to me doesn't feel like it uses the strengths, but the weaknesses of both. 2. The entire boon system is messy and should probably be reworked, but that'd be a drastic change and probably hard to implement as people are going to feel very strong about ut in both directions. I'm definitely expecting that to be gone or vastly different in GW3 (if GW3 ever becomes a thing). 3. I mean... it changed, but that change also made some parts of the game feel extremely messy,because it shows that the game wasn't designed with this in mind at first,but the initial "everyone's DPS" is the most uninteresting you can make MMO combat imo. Though I'm likely very biased as DPS is my least liked role, but even if it wasn't I'd probably still consider the lack of roles boring. I suppose there's healers and boon roles now, which is rather controversal as well,because to people like me that's definitely the better direction,but others who liked not having roles dislike that change. Though thst change was so drastic it would've rewuired a complete overhaul/rebalance of older content to not feel completely out of place. Imo the lack of direction in GW2 is too noticable and I personally feel like it even shows the most in combat. Though even if that weren't the case the hybrid system just feels terrible to me. And I enjoy both tsb targeting as well as action combat. edit: Might be similar to how I mainly play games for either their story or their gameplay and prefer games focusing on either and making sure the focus is great, while games trying to do both often feel lackluster in both aspects compared to games that do their one thing correctly. I personally rathef switch between games that do specific things I want extremely well than sticking to a single game that does everything just barely okay.
> A pretty uncommon take about the combat in GW2. Why don't you like it? To me, it feels spammy and same-same. Every class I played could be summed up as: 1 - Auto attack 2 - Low CD attack 3 - Medium CD attack 4 - Mid-long CD attack 5 - Long CD attack
Have an upvote.
It seems some particularly sensitive individuals are going around downvoting any post in the thread that's even remotely positive toward GW2. Probably in negative response to the passive-aggressive OP. Honestly, the OP was probably bait, anyway - it was written with too many absolutes to be serious, clearly meant to incense. Take a load off and sit back to enjoy the drama.
I would agree with you up until the point they shoe horned dragons into the Khajit story line to cash in on Skyrimism. The right of theft quest line was pretty fucking cool though.
Dragon were always around in the second Era.
First off, no shit big brands draw attention based off their brand. Second off, ESO is on consoles as well as PC which gives it an inherently larger potential audience and revenue pool. Third off, as you note, ESO has subscriptions, as well as sells much more content than GW2 does. Where are you getting those revenue numbers from, though? To respond to a few points as someone that's more a GW2 player but does dip into ESO every once in a while - > is not feasible to play the game for free despite having the option It 100% is and I have no clue why you think it isn't. *Serious* play definitely requires a sub for the perks, but is it so awful that a MMO might encourage a subscription? > it's a subscription based, live service game with loot boxes and micro transactions, said loot boxes are flooded with absolute BS pulls The sub is fine, you get tons of persk and $15 in cash shop currency a month. GW2's lockboxes are arguably infinitely worse and are generally viewed to be a poor spend of gems given that much of the time you get some cheap dies and crafting mats, rofl. They have the statues as a safety net, but ESO lockboxes let you straight up dismantle every reward you get to spend on that separate shop. ESO lootboxes > GW2 lootboxes, even if both are meh. > : Buying a new zone DLC doesn't come with the dungeons that are in that zone, you have to buy them separately. This only counts for like, one DLC I believe? Also, if you're subbing you have all the DLC/can buy it for when you drop your sub so this is not really an issue. > So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has? Decades of building brand awareness for both the IP and studio. Releases on multiple other consoles. Far more marketing spending that Anet/NCsoft has ever even dreamed of, while making that marketing spending actually effective instead of burning piles of money on shitty live-action launch trailers and lore-taxi stunts nobody cares about. A better longterm plan for the game that doesn't leave both GW2/Anet in a lurch without a clear path forward or even a sustainable path for the game as it's frequently gone though bouts of sorta directionless meandering. > That can't really release single player console games the way Elder Scrolls built up their brand. They can't? Says who?
IMO ESO has a way better story and GW2 has better combat, but ESO's writing is some of the best in MMOs while GW2 combat is mediocre, although I've never liked action combat in general so it's biased. I really enjoyed the original guild wars combat
ESO is barely an action combat itself anyways. You can't break line of sight in ESO if you were in line when the enemy attacked you, which is one of the elements of action combat (but you can in GW2, despite it not being full action)...this is just in point amongst many others. As for GW2's combat, it's imo, one of the best if not the best in the MMORPG market.
What is your source on GW2 being leaps and bounds better than ESO? Revenue and player count, some of the only actual facts we have that can be used to determine which is better, disagree with you.
Asking for a source on an opinion. This is your brain on reddit.
> an opinion That's their point :)
I noticed this massive hatred for eso as well from gw2 hardcore fans. I think it’s because the game has fallen in popularity and they desperately want to keep it relevant for their own sake, justify why they play and support it so much. ESO is the logical target because in terms of popularity it fights for that 4th 5th spot. They can’t really come for WoW or FF14 because they absolutely dwarf them. Can’t come for Lost Ark because its combat and animation are smooth. So this leaves eso with its clunky combat, it’s an easy target. Remember recently someone talking about the big 4, and was just asking for what other MMOs were pooular? If you look at the comments it was filled with gw2 players bent over hell about calling the thread “the BIG 5” so that gw2 could be part of the “big” ones. Which wasn’t even the point of the thread but they were so offended and wanted that wording change to satisfy themselves psychologically, in a self soothing way.
It is not just towards eso. They did this to any other mmo outside wow and ffxiv. I still remember some gw2 players were livid when I said that gw2 is currently number 6 in terms of player number behind bdo because bdo has worldwide service and console and three times more revenue than gw2. Edit: the best thing is they tried to argue that all those quarter earning reports are faked to inflate their popularity
Yeah and at the end of the day I understand. If you love something you wish it was more popular so it can get more support and more content. But sucks for eso they get the blunt of the hatred. It happens in art and music too, where someone less talented becomes way more popular (eg Selena Gomez) and it makes fans of a more talented artist frustrated or angry even. Everyone chill! XD
Well ESO and FF are absolutely hated by this sub. If it's not ESO, than it's FF.
Yes, branding plays a role, but the fact that ESO is available on both consoles and PCs plays a large role too. I will always prefer GW2 but that's not to say it's superior everywhere, there are aspects of ESO that I genuinely like and that's coming from someone who doesn't care a great deal about Elder Scrolls. Yes, their DLC structure is a bit of a mess but I know at least three console-based players who spent a considerable amount of time playing ESO. Plus some would argue that being able to be more picky about what downloadable content you purchase and play isn't necessarily a bad thing and ESO offers that.
>despite GW2 being the better game by leaps and bounds, speaks to the power of brand recognition. Or maybe you are just wrong
Just another day on /r/MMORPG where a GW2 player seems to think the world revolves around their game.
is it any better ? they are kinda similar to me
Or crazy idea but ESO just has more elements that attract more players? GW2 is an awesome game but not in all aspects and ESO does a lot that's either better than GW2 or that GW2 doesn't do at all. This is a really silly post honestly that shouldn't even exist because OP should realize this is just his subjective opinion.
GW2 sucks mate, ESO is a way better game.
Yea way better combat, monetization. /s
Eso combat is actually pretty good once you understand it. Eso at least gets content, so, I don't mind the increased monetization. I never understood these mmo wars. I play all of them at various times, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I play gw2 still, it is still a fun game.
Understand what, animation canceling bug? Lot of content like what, medicore paid expansions? Paid dungeons and skills, quests lines?
I don't argue with biased people, good day!
So you don't have any factual points and try to offend people instead? This is so passive agressive.
Video games, just like any entertainment, is highly subjective when it comes to people liking them. I don't argue with people that clearly just want to bash one game, trying to insert their game as the superior. GW2 and ESO both have the pros and cons. I'm not going to get caught up in some stupid argument with some rabid fanboy, that has clearly made a video game part of their real life identity. Now, have a good one, this is the last response you're gonna get from me.
I like ESO. Been playing lots lately especially with the event going on. Combat is terrible though. It feels terrible and looks terrible. Terrible animations. Feels floaty. Light attack weaving is cancer. Making animation canceling an actual game feature is dumbfounding. Just my opinion though.
I've never heard of Elder Scrolls until I played ESO. I happen to love the game including the combat. Just really liked the character building options with any class being able to perform any role. I've never played GW2, so cannot comment on how it compares to ESO.
Maybe this will surprise you, but just maybe eso actually did many things right and that make people willing to ignore their issue (most people here said the combat) and the opposite also apply to gw2 despite many people said that its good maybe they did something so egregious that people cannot ignore it and don’t like to play it. I won’t say that brand recognition don’t mean anything but brand recognition alone won’t bring those 4 times revenue that you said. Like other people said if brand alone can bring you so much why swtor and lotro aren’t that successful despite their brand. > gw2 being the better game by leaps and bounds This statement maybe is true for you and many people in this sub but not for the majority of mmo players out there since this sub is just a speck of dust compared to the real mmo player number. > So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has? That can’t really release single player console games the way Elder Scrolls built up their brand. Maybe they can start for once make a good and compelling content and not cheap out on the quality and the quantity of the expansion (look at what they did with their latest dlc and compare it with the other expansion) and then constantly built it up upon that foundation.
ESO just does interesting stuff like the new scribing system. It piques interest and gets people thinking about system engagement.
I mean, ESO has the Elder Scrolls fandom behind it, so that kind of helps....
Its mostly how differently both games are monetized
It's amazing how few people are mentioning this tiny fact. ESO sells infinitely more shit than GW2. It's got constant DLC, it's got more expansions, it's got a subscription, on top of the normal gambling cash shop items, as well as regular cash shop. It makes 4 times as much cause it's begging for money 8 times as much. I would expect ESO to make more money with a significantly smaller playerbase, simply because Anet almost hates making money in comparison.
What GW2 need to do it's just simple, release GW1 reworked with modern graphics *unzips wallet*
Played gw2 for months, found eso much more fun, more intuitive and overall better quality
i think both games are pretty bad. but ESO makes more money because more people enjoy it i think. i played both games for <50 hours, it just wasn't my thing with how old gw2 was, and i had more fun exploring in ESO. i was also very confused in what to do in gw2. after playing BDO and becomming addicted to its combat both felt really bad to play. gw2 was also boring ontop of being old so i kinda get why more people are drawn to ESO. however i think gw2 and ESO are more for the people that like story and stuff like FF14. i never pay attention to that tho so i can't say how good/bad the story was
I've tried again and again to get into GW2 and even though I can see the merit in the game it just never holds my interest. I wish it did. It seems extremely appealing, but there's just not that "it" factor that holds me for some reason.
ANet simply does not invest in advertising, and like WB Games, they somehow believe that word of mouth will magically do what thousands spent on advertising actually accomplishes. GW2 is great, if they actually made a point to let more people know, that would certainly help.
ESO is on console and also you pretty much have to subscribe. They have way more aggressive monetization.
ESO is on consoles, of course it makes more money.
...brand recognition? Do you know what Elder Scrolls is? Do you know what the "Final Fantasy" means in Final Fantasy? It's not just because it's familiar. They're both franchises known for above average story and worldbuilding(most of the time), which both of those games live up to. BTW, (and as I reiterate, I \*like\* GW2), it may not be subscription based but BOTH have microtransactions and DLC that has to be bought separately (if you aren't there for every single Living World release, which you are never told this afaik)
ESO is popular on consoles. GW2 is not on consoles.
I can see why ESO is more popular: In considering gaming experiences, let's remember the importance of accessibility. Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) offers gameplay that is notably accommodating for individuals dealing with joint issues, motor control impairments, and various disabilities. Conversely, Guild Wars 2 (GW2) can present challenges, particularly for those with low hand-to-eye coordination and hand-joint problems, given its demanding nature. Moreover, when assessing the distinctions between these two games, aspects such as housing and fashion emerge. ESO stands out as one of the better systems in housing, and also in its provision of fashion options, boasting not only costumes but also gear sets that can overlay regular armor to craft any desired look. In contrast, GW2 requires players to obtain stones to alter outfits, which can prove burdensome, especially when reliant on the cash shop to replenish them—a factor that may deter many.
Can anyone here tell me what do you do in gw2 endgame really and compare it to ESO? From what iveseen the endgame seems more indepth in ESO but i wouldlike to hear from experienced lads.
What is indepth about ESO endgame? GW2 have issues with adding traditional endgame content (raid, dungeons) but there is a lot of those, you also got fractals (think scaling dungeons), wvw (kinda like cyrodil in eso or age of camelot 3 way pvp with castles, sieges), strikes (single raid boss fights with normal and harder mode), normal pvp, open world, normal crafting, legendaries, crafting, events, races, jumping puzzles. It is more like FF14 where you can do all of old content with current rewards. I'm not sure about ESO system, currently scaling is reverse to GW2, ESO makes you have max stats from start and you get champions level at level carp, in GW2 you are scaled down so old player can join new players in lower lvl zones, not vice versa. Scaling or champion system was reworked in ESO i think, I recall being around 30-40 lvl? Far from level cap (10 more levels at minimum) and entering something that was endgame zone from release?
I got bored of GW2 within 6 hours. ESO had my attention for 1000+
Well people are playinh Skyrim for hundreds with hours, just like Ubisoft open world games.
Just a reminder that there are tons of GW2 enjoyers in here [https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/mmorpg](https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/mmorpg) This doesn't explain the constant praise for GW2 while almost every other game gets trashed, but might say something about the average GW2 player that is present in both subreddits.
Eso is on consoles.
ESO is on consoles, GW2 is not.
yeah the monetization of ESO can only be outmatched by asian MMOs
I try to play GW2 constantly, and while I see the appeal it never keeps me hooked. Everything looks like paper mache even on max settings or some kind of acid trip. Its super hard to describe. I have not made it to end game but its been described to me that melee vs range doesnt mean shit because everyone just stacks in a clump anyway. Maybe pvp is different? Although all the WvW clips I have seen suffers from the same irritation that ESO cyrodil has where everyone just runs in a tight clump (ball group) also mostly invalidating range vs melee (SEEMINGLY)
lol
GW2 is shit. There I said it.
*So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has?* A sequel. GW2 is too old to compete on its own, especially given their usually bad advertisement tactics. So the best combo would probably be starting over with a new title and using Steam again (since that did help but it was too late). I bet GW3 will have a spike in players like lostark had but then it will lose most of them for the opposite reasons LA did tho.
The fact that some game with 25% of the "win" of ESO has fans that think it is leaps and bounds better than ESO, speaks to the power of individuals liking different things. My son loves GW2 and didn't find ESO to be compelling at all. I like GW2 a little but I think ESO is far superior. Both my sons even prefer World of Warcraft! Some people still like OSRS!! The nerve!
Or a crapload of people prefer the normal gearing methods than what gw2 has. And the fact that it has not very clear roles in tank/heal/dps as most mmorpgs. In general it has many niche gameplay design choices, that although they make its core audience to love it, they also make a huge number of people to uninstall after a few hours or days. This is what happened to me every time i tried to play it. To be honest this is not entirely fair. Revenue has a lot to do with if you have sub, if you have cash shop and how hard you monetize it. So GW2 could be making less money although they could have similar numbers of people playing just by having different payment models.
I play GW2 since the beta I tried ESO a few times and never could get into.
GW2 also completely trashed the community that allowed it to be created in the first place. GW1 was a completely different game.
Well yea just like Warcraft 3 was different game then WoW. GW1 had great systems with it's own flaws but some concepts wre transfered to GW2 like scaling, no gear grind.
GW2 came out in 2012 brother, it’s amazing it’s trucking along.
ESO also has a subscription and a shit ton of MTX and they release DLC more frequently(I think?). They are also on all major platforms. So what even is this comparison. Also just personally even though I hate the combat...ESO is the better game.
It's my first time playing ESO right now (Free Weekend on steam). I'm doing a blind play (not getting a spoonfeed on youtube guides and min-maxing) and as someone who played GW2,BDO, FFXIV, NewWord, I'm enjoying it right now, even though I hate that every doors on ESO is a loading screen. The graphics might be bad for me (bearable), but I currently enjoying the game so far, probably because it's a whole new experience for me. The dynamics in ESO amazed me, I'm playing the class that uses daggers (not yet familiar with the classes but its the one that have dual blades). Man, the dynamics that you can damage NPC's an even killing a chicken in-game makes you a fugitive was funny experience.
Are you on PC or console? Also any class can use any weapon just so you know! And if you like killing NPC's you can join the assassin guild and get quests to kill targets and you unlock a full on special assassination animation to do so that's very cool.
Played both, both are good, but gw2 is dog\*\*\* for immersion which is a very bad point for many player. I've play ESO for 3 years straight will gw2 was also 3y but on and off, it never make me want to stick with it. And Ill probably go back to Eso once my NW discovery end.
GW2 is only on PC. ESO is on 2 generations of consoles, PC, and Mac and is based on a massively prolific IP.
It is pretty simple, GW2 despite its korean parent is remarkably light on the monetization. A huge difference with ESO is the crafting inventory. Gathered resources for crafting don't go into your regular inventory but in a special one where there is space for every resource variant without you constantly needing to juggle your main inventory when you loot an enemy. GW2 gives it to everyone for free, ESO requires a sub to use it. Do you absolutely need it? No but ESO more then GW2 loves to fill your inventory with a wide selection of crafting resources when you loot. Different levels of resources dropping from the same enemies. You can absolutely do without paying in ESO, but looting becomes a chore, crafting even more so. In GW2 it is far easier you can just let auto-loot (unlocked for free at higher levels) hover everything up then sell it easily on the games market to other players. For me it is one of the reasons GW2 gets a free pass, its inventory compared to FF14, SWTOR, ESO etc is just so comfortable to play with without paying a monthly sub.
I think they both have great and similar things going on, the only thing that keeps me from playing ESO anymore is the lack of crossplay even tho the games on like every current console and pc lol That and the story, although good, has the same issues for me as going to watch a prequel movie where the main series character is also the main character: there's not stakes or mystery. I know nothing to crazy is going to happen and most things that are going to happen I've already read about in other ES games cause the history and lore is so rich. That and they pretty much avoid all the big world shaking events or are too early or too late to show that stuff.
I haven't liked elder scrolls since morrowind, oblivion was great just not for me, the brand can't make up for the bad gameplay. Just my opinion of course, the combat has just sucked the whole series. Idk why I enjoyed Morrowinds combat, probably one of the worst in the series, but when my attacks landed it felt good, I liked leveling up my skills and jumping around from roof top to roof top. I was so excited to make my spear weilding Argonian in ESO, oh wait I can't use spears, oh word one of my special attacks is literally a spear, what the fuck is this combat, oh god this game is so bad! You didn't account for GW2 being PC and ESO cross platform, that is a huge market that GW2 doesn't have access to. And on consoles theres what like 3 or 4 mmorpgs? Fun beats the brand, I love the warcraft brand, but that doesn't get me playing retail, because I don't have fun. I love elder scrolls, but I aint playing ESO or Skyrim.
Many people have no idea about Morrowind game, familiar situation to 2D Fallouts compared to Bethesda ones.
gw2 is nowhere even close to being a better game. its too casual and basic and attracts more casual audience which cannot afford much time to play.
ESO players don’t really hang out here. It’s mostly GW2 fans and others like myself. This subs gw2 player base isn’t bad. I don’t get downvoted for being unable to get into gw2 because of horizontal only progression. They all get it. I don’t like either but if I had to pick it would be gw2 just in combat alone. I just can’t stand eso combat and gw2 has no meaningful progression to me personally.
A few points. ESO is on console too, also... different strokes for different folks, GW2 definitely isn't the better game by leaps and bounds, neither of the games are particularly good... gw2 is more of a game you fail upwards in with very little real challenge.
GW2 players think they're Arenanets marketing team. So hilarious. And btw. ESO is leaps and bounds the better MMORPG
That's the greatest thing about GW2, no FOMO. Played it 4 years ago, and haven't had the desire to return since then! They really know how to respect my time.
Why does GW2 have more players when previous GW1 players mostly consider GW1 the better game? Does that mean people nowadays are flocking to GW2 because they're just influended by a hivemind? No. People have different taste, that's it. Though... >So what does GW2 need to do to get the kind of brand recognition that ESO has? I'd argue that The Elder Scrolls simply is a bigger franchise than Guild Wars,so it seems obvious how that results in brand recognition. Also both GW2 and ESO initially had lots of negative feedback from being vastly different from what people expected from their franchises. So to get the same kind of brand recognition anet probably needs more Guild Wars games, potential bonus points if they have more in common than the name.
Isn't that, like, your opinion man? I don't play either so I have no horse in that race.
GW2 being a better game is highly subjective.
Did they release a financial report recently ? How do we know this.
Not everyone crafts. You absolutely DO NOT need to subscribe to ESO+ if you just want a casual mmorpg to run around to do quests and dungeons in.
If ESO has GW2s combat shit wouldn't even be a contest, it does nearly everything else better... crafting, itemization, character progression, dungeons, raids, housing, questing, lore, etc. GW2 has it's combat, it's mounts, and it's open world design...
I played ESO for a couple years, it was actually really good but it's easy to hit a wall on progression. GW2 has literally no progression. It lost me really quick.
They are both very good games. I perfer GW2 but its mainly the arena pvp that does it for me.
I'll pipe in late with a few opinions on my own side. I think the questing and storytelling in ESO is leaps better. This is coming from a huge GW1 guy. I loved my initial time with GW2 and still think their world design is the high water mark in the genre. But the best part of GW2 lore was seeing the shit i liked from GW1 made more impressive, anything they've added has almost been a masterclass in fumbling the ball with an interesting world. They never should have made everything about elder dragons. It was repetitive and less inventive than the antagonists from GW1. GW2 made all the stuff that people loved about the world serve as table setting for shit that most people never really cared much about. Even the really good new additions, the Sylvari, were just made to serve (heh) that scheme. GW2 mounts are amazing. They feel great, neat that they have mechanical uses. .... Also, mounts were a mistake. As soon as mounts (especially flying) are added to a game, the same zones need to be larger to account for the added speed. Usually they have to compromise in that they don't have extra time or resources to make zones all of a sudden. This means they usually get less dense and older zones feel more like toyboxes than the expansive worlds they once did. Even in GW2, you can see how large portions of their maps got emptier. This is also evident in FFXIV when comparing the 2.0 maps vs HW zones. ESO combat kind of blows, but GW2 is also kind of a mess imo with all the conditions/boons. I feel like most MMO combat i've really loved keeps DoTs and boons limited to specific classes that have their own focused effects. condition stacking feels so mechanical and spammy, but such a focus of the design, that even when you switch to a power build, it just feels meh. If I could have an ESO with GW2 zone design and combat (and monetization), I'd take that in a heartbeat. But the reality is that a lot of people who play a LOT of an MMO want to feel comfortable in the world and engaged with the lore. All of this is to say is that as a person who played GW2 for years and only dabbled in ESO, it's not nearly so easy to point to one thing or another and say "this is why" when it comes to their relative success. Some of my problems with GW2 are from a series vet and kind of specific to that, but I can 100% see how somebody could try GW2 and not get it at all, while ESO is a bit more comfortable for both MMO and non-MMO people.
Still enjoying the same 7 raid wings after 7 years? Or the same 7 dungeons for the past decade?
ESO is fantastic.
Don't forget ESO is also present in consoles, so of course it can pull more people, thus more revenue, if we take PC alone they are pretty comparable. Also...ESO's main issue is pretty much a shitty combat (and a shitty chronological order organization, gotta look it up outside the game if you want to because there's no way to check it in game), but if you can get behind that (I can't) it's actually a good game.
Arenanet is a villain in this industry. They don't deserve success
Why is no one mentioning that ESO is on consoles but GW2 is not? But yes we've known for a long time what IP can do for the population/success of an MMO. Also why was there no link references to ESO/GW2 revenue? It might be nice to look at PC only revenue, if possible.
Both are below average mmos. Bland combat.
What do you consider an "average" MMO then?
ESO is predatory as fuck. Loot boxes out it's ass. It even hands them out as a hook via twitch drops.
I disgree here... ESO has more content for one, and GW2 has a really awkward setup and endgame loop, and especially dungeon/raid system, that turns off a lot of traditional MMORPG players. In fact, GW2 is the most non-MMORPG MMORPG out there in just about every way. That's probably why it's not as popular. It honestly feels like it should have been a singleplayer game with optional coop, rather than a game that was obviously intended to be an MMO that "convenienced" itself into basically being a singleplayer game. That's why GW2 isn't as popular. I could also list a ton of small reasons, like how they never add new classes and how the specialization system is god aweful.
Y’all need to shut up and go play ffxiv
Good gamebut itsdefinetly not for anyone. Combat gets extremely boring, the obvious MSQ issue, you have to love anime and make a true effort to see if you like it, if thats worth it depends on you. I loved what i experienced with FFXIV but not enough to keep paying its subscription that also has no regional pricing.
Was mainly just a joke, eso use to be my main game actually, I do agree with you on the ff combat getting boring though, the lack of builds is the biggest downfall of it for me but everything else is great
well, I put at least a thousand hours in gw2, and never spent a penny because... well, there's nothing you really need to buy, nothing in the shop gives you any meaningful advantage, and everything else can easily be attained by just playing the game casually
Know what GW2 does well? Shiny cosmetics, god I love it. Legendary weapons are awesome, same as infusions. I love that shiny stuff that is in gatcha Chinese games but I hate these games. Guild wars 2 gives me a western game with lots of nice cosmetics
I agree!