Everything you need to know about Guild Wars 2.
Questing
There are basically 3 types of quests in GW2.
1) Personal story, much like your class quest in TOR. This is logged in a quest log so you always know what stage you are on and can go do it at any time.
2) Hearts quests (these show up as a heart on the world map) it’s basically a quest giver who is always there and provides an “area quest.” Any player in the area can help him with what he needs. ie, rats are eating his crops, kill 10 rats. Now his crops need to be watered, get 10 buckets of water. Now that his crops are growing nicely rats are eating his crops, kill 10 rats, repeat, repeat. No quest log.
3) Dynamic quests. These change depending on what’s going on in the world, and are generally chained. Ie, bandits are attacking, kill 10 bandits. Bandit attack has been defeated, go to the bandit camp and capture the leader. Bandit leader has been captured, and interrogated, he was hired by a rival town. Go to rival town under the control of a dragon, slay dragon. Chain ends. Days pass. Bandits attacking town agian. No quest log.
PVP
There are two types of PVP, instanced and WvWvW
1) No true open world PVP. No getting ganked while leveling.
2) Instanced, balanced battle grounds, you are upleveled to max level (80), nothing new here.
3) WvWvW, you are upleveled to max level (80), 3 servers fight in a massive battle for control of objectives, you take resource camps which provide supply.
- this is a PVE/PVP zone there are pve oppontents (guards, keep lords, etc)
- supply camps provide supply for keeps a keep with no supply cant repair walls/doors and is much easier to take.
- Supply camps are designed to be taken by 5 man group.
- every few minutes you gain points based on what you control, 5 pts for supply camps, 25 for keeps, 50 for castles, etc.
- Winning provides buffs for everyone on your server
- games reset after 2 wks, servers are matched based on ELO ranking, winners fight winners, etc.
- loot drops and xp from PVP kills, but actual level appropriate. You are level 12, but bolstered to 80, level 12 loot drops.
PVE content scaling
All PVE content scales for level and/or level scales for content.
1) if you return to do your class quest at level 80 you will be de-leveled to the appropriate level.
2) if you are level 50 and group with a level 15 friend in a level 15 zone you will be de-leveled to 15, but still get xp as if you were level 15.
3) all pvp zones up level you to 80, but this is just base stats, you are still weaker because of missing gear and skills. You can start to pvp at level 2.
4) Public quests scale based on number of players participating. Quest requires killing 5 rats to complete, 10 players show up, now it requires killing 50 rats.
5) you are only upleveled for PVP not PVE. PVE is “tutorial mode”
Dungeons.
Two dungeon modes, story and exploration
1) Story mode is easy with lots of lore and conversations.
2) Exploration mode (hard mode) much harder. You must beat story mode to do exploration mode. More dynamic, ie sometimes the bosses are different. No cutscenes.
Combat
Trinity is gone
1) Tank and healing/support are play styles not roles. Much like in a MOBA or FPS a group of all DPS is viable. Think League of Legends Online.
2) Dodge telegraphed attacks and dont stand in the fire are not just boss mechanics, but PVP and leveling mechanics too.
Trade skills
1) Disassemble junk gear in the field for components.
2) Anyone can harvest resources, no special skills needed
