end game still a gear grind? Really did like the game... was too obvious of a grind at end game though.

Breaken wrote on Aug 25^th, 2013 at 2:07am:

I didn't know you were in the Butthurt Brigade!

before I post the link - YES there are still bugs, and YES, they nerf and tune enough to get the leet most hardcore's panties in a wad.

But I've found GW2 to be extremely fun since I started in the spring.

There's grind if you wanna, as Breaken said; but nothing REQUIRES you to do so except perhaps vanity (which ain't their fault).

The biggest grind is for a legendary weapon, should you choose to get one.  The stats on those and the next best option (Acended) gear are better than the gear you can get casually - but not SO much so that they are a must-have.

The biggest complaints I have are a function of their "Living World" feature.  Living World is a phrase they use to refer to quests/storylines they put into the game for 2-4 weeks-ish that cause changes to the world.  Think of it as "playing this week's episode of %your_favorite_tv_show%".

My two complaints with this are

1) they don't live up to the promise these event irrevocably change the world of Tyria (I am betting that's something they start next year) - once an event is over, it's over and pretty much everything else returns to normality

and

2) I think they're releasing these things too fast.  Every two weeks creates the feeling (to this casual gamer, anyway) that it is hopeless to finish EVERYTHING with the event before the next one is released, so I play for a few days, then go back to exploring the regular stuff, leveling, etc.  To be fair, a LOT of GW2 players love the fact new content is constantly being added - so I guess it depends upon your preference.

My only regular open world complaint has been performance - specifically "culling".  I have a high-end machine; but the culling feature they had implemented (removes some of the models during high-drag battles, etc) was HORRENDOUS IMHO.  You couldn't see players who were fighting alongside you - and that was no big deal.  The AI, however, ALSO used to remove the goddam MOBS; so before you knew it, there was a stack of centaurs 5 deep on top of you.

They JUST gave us the option to turn culling off; and thus far, it's MUCH MUCH better for me.  Even increased performance for me.

Here's the one year speech from ArenaNet:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/