Is this game worth coming back to?

Allow me to explain, I've played the Hell out of this game, I was mostly for PVP but it had a lot of fun content and I met a lot of great people, I sew now for a living only because someone I met on here a few years ago taught me how .

It was around the time when the traitlines got reworked and HoT came out that honestly killed it for me. I was so excited but everything just kinda fell apart the more I dove into it. WvW was unplayable for months, PVP was plagued with balance issues regarding the elite specs such as chrono tank, I used to watch the livestreams of pro PVP and they just flat out couldn't kill each other, Stronghold was a HUGE letdown, it got forgotten about so quickly, one of my favorite classes, warrior, was also unplayable for a very long time, almost a year because berserker was just so pitifully weak people chose vanilla warrior over it. Build diversity also died, before I saw some hilarious builds with some success like killshot, banner tank, shoutbow, hambow, greatsword, etc. and that was just on warrior. It then turned into "one build and one build only."

The expansion straight up made my group of friends and me, leave the game as it was such a disaster. Perhaps it needed to happen as I was spending too much time on the game at the time, I passed up on PoF because I just have trust issues right now. This isn't to trash GW2 I've had a great time in the past, but if you do understand where I'm coming from, what do you think?

From what you've said about HoT, I think you would also be disappointed with PoF. I mean, I obviously can't speak for you, but a lot of things that drive people away from PoF have to do with balance issues, wvw is the same, and PvP is really rough with people cheating the system and using hacks without being punished.

Pve is really nice though, so if that interests you then it might outweigh the negatives associated with PvP and wvw.

(Although supposedly wvw will be getting a rework at some point to make it more of a megaserver type thing. Idk when though.)

@Kako.1930 said:From what you've said about HoT, I think you would also be disappointed with PoF. I mean, I obviously can't speak for you, but a lot of things that drive people away from PoF have to do with balance issues, wvw is the same, and PvP is really rough with people cheating the system and using hacks without being punished.

Pve is really nice though, so if that interests you then it might outweigh the negatives associated with PvP and wvw.

(Although supposedly wvw will be getting a rework at some point to make it more of a megaserver type thing. Idk when though.)

PVE never quite interested me before, but up until this week I never had a gaming PC and mine would chug during PVE. I now have a gaming PC so the game definately runs 100x better and can actually enjoy the content

Thats unfortunate, I had n oidea WvW and PVP were still i nthe same state as they were a few years ago

NO its not. I didn't think balance would get worse after HoT. But since PoF it did. Build diversity is a myth still. But another attempt at balance comes on Tuesday. Since it don't have a monthly fee I cant say don't waist your money. So if you want come back and you just lost a little time.

The game is free to return. Come back, see what you think, do stuff that allows you to meet you new people, and then decide whether you want to spend US$30 on PoF.

None of us here can tell you the one thing (or twelve things) you'd need to hear to make your decision easier, because we haven't shared your experiences (good or bad). There are problems in every game mode and yet, tons of people have tons of fun at all aspects of the game. There's no way to know how much those problems will matter to you until you discover for yourself.

As a general rule, I find that people who ask, "is this game worth returning to" tend to have been unhappy when they left and therefore find it difficult to return. When they do return, they tend to find it challenging to find their groove. It's a vicious cycle, that can easily lead to being disappointed.

There are a couple of ways to avoid that. Come back thinking of it as the sequel, so that you have to start from scratch. Or identify 2-3 things that you miss (or loved back in the day) and focus on seeing how those are. Or find something new: if you burnt out on PvP, try WvW. If you were challenging instances (fractals|raids), try open world (small group, large group, no group) or even the stories.

Good luck and please let us know what you end up deciding ... and how it turns out for you (good, bad, or ugly).

@Sharen Graves.1276 said:NO its not. I didn't think balance would get worse after HoT. But since PoF it did. Build diversity is a myth still. But another attempt at balance comes on Tuesday. Since it don't have a monthly fee I cant say don't waist your money. So if you want come back and you just lost a little time.

Maybe I'll just wait for sea of thieves then in a few months. That was one thing about this game that was so cool to me was the build diversity.

Yeah, there was a meta, there were bullshit builds, but I could make up some really out there choices. When ranger was awful I made up a build with spirits, longbow (before it got buffed) rune of the pirate, soldier amulet, etc. and made this might stacking tank that took people off guard and won games. I miss the craziness like that, seeing a warrior run all signets and it actually works

@DrDivine.5378 said:

@Sharen Graves.1276 said:NO its not. I didn't think balance would get worse after HoT. But since PoF it did. Build diversity is a myth still. But another attempt at balance comes on Tuesday. Since it don't have a monthly fee I cant say don't waist your money. So if you want come back and you just lost a little time.

The game is an ok time waster. there are a few classes that dominate right now, but the ones complaining the most probably couldn't do much on hot/vanilla classes anyway. Dip your toes, what do you have to lose? wvw is getting a remake in a few months, so we wont be stuck with the same people forever. gew a firebrand, scourge, or mirage and you will be royalty. the other classes are ok, but just not as good.

It's worth coming back, I also suggest you try asking in reddit for genuine responses. You'll find the same salty people here over and over like in every official game forum.

Well, if you want an honest opinion, you're not likely to get it in the forums. Go out and try the game.

Although balance isn't great at the moment, it also got a lot better post HoT, eventually. The problem is their slow pace at balancing more than anything, they can do it, though. A new patch is coming out tuesday, might be it, might not.

Current PvP is still way better than after HoT though! Sure Scourge is a bit of a powerhouse with low counter-play, but it does have some, it's not like chrono tanks that couldn't be killed for days, if you focus a scourge it'll go down fast, especially with ranged and power builds.Spellbreaker (the new Warrior elite) was made for PvP, Scourge kinda surpassed it, but both are great for PvP, since both target the opponent's boons, removing them in Spellbreaker's case, or outright turning them into conditions for Scourge (kind of like core necro, but with more tools).

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Well, if you want an honest opinion, you're not likely to get it in the forums. Go out and try the game.

Although balance isn't great at the moment, it also got a lot better post HoT, eventually. The problem is their slow pace at balancing more than anything, they can do it, though. A new patch is coming out tuesday, might be it, might not.

Current PvP is still way better than after HoT though! Sure Scourge is a bit of a powerhouse with low counter-play, but it does have some, it's not like chrono tanks that couldn't be killed for days, if you focus a scourge it'll go down fast, especially with ranged and power builds.Spellbreaker (the new Warrior elite) was made for PvP, Scourge kinda surpassed it, but both are great for PvP, since both target the opponent's boons, removing them in Spellbreaker's case, or outright turning them into conditions for Scourge (kind of like core necro, but with more tools).

I remember after we left I played league of legends with them for awhile. One thing I can say that was really appreciated was how fast they balance things. If something is OP, it usually gets banned and will have a balance patch every two weeks.

With Guild Wars 2, that issue was very notable when HoT released. Wvw was unplayable for months, Chrono tank ran rampant for a few months, I know they have to balance three game modes but letting something that broken last for months was a death sentence. I guess I'm torn because I really want to like this game again, it was just a horrible experience for me during HoT

If you need salty forum folk to persuade you ... I think you answered your own question.

@"DrDivine.5378" said:Allow me to explain, I've played the Hell out of this game, I was mostly for PVP but it had a lot of fun content and I met a lot of great people, I sew now for a living only because someone I met on here a few years ago taught me how .

It was around the time when the traitlines got reworked and HoT came out that honestly killed it for me. I was so excited but everything just kinda fell apart the more I dove into it. WvW was unplayable for months, PVP was plagued with balance issues regarding the elite specs such as chrono tank, I used to watch the livestreams of pro PVP and they just flat out couldn't kill each other, Stronghold was a HUGE letdown, it got forgotten about so quickly, one of my favorite classes, warrior, was also unplayable for a very long time, almost a year because berserker was just so pitifully weak people chose vanilla warrior over it. Build diversity also died, before I saw some hilarious builds with some success like killshot, banner tank, shoutbow, hambow, greatsword, etc. and that was just on warrior. It then turned into "one build and one build only."

The expansion straight up made my group of friends and me, leave the game as it was such a disaster. Perhaps it needed to happen as I was spending too much time on the game at the time, I passed up on PoF because I just have trust issues right now. This isn't to trash GW2 I've had a great time in the past, but if you do understand where I'm coming from, what do you think?

In my opinion, GW2 does one thing particularly well and that's open world PvE. It also has a pretty solid combat system that plays fast and fun, as well as some pretty unique class designs (ele, engi, and mesmer come to mind!). Otherwise, I'm not too impressed. Organized PvE (raids/fractals/dungeons) pales in comparison to trinity games like WoW, in my opinion. WvW I just plain don't like at all (and people who do enjoy it never seem to have anything good to say about it either!). PvP is quite enjoyable, but suffers from a lack of players at the platinum+ rating tiers, balancing issues, and the fact that it basically has only one game mode.

I happen to love GW2, but I mostly just play in open world and do relatively little of this other content. I can't say I'd recommend it for players who don't spend a large portion of their time in open world.

@DrDivine.5378 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Well, if you want an honest opinion, you're not likely to get it in the forums. Go out and try the game.

Although balance isn't great at the moment, it also got a lot better post HoT, eventually. The problem is their slow pace at balancing more than anything, they can do it, though. A new patch is coming out tuesday, might be it, might not.

Current PvP is still way better than after HoT though! Sure Scourge is a bit of a powerhouse with low counter-play, but it does have some, it's not like chrono tanks that couldn't be killed for days, if you focus a scourge it'll go down fast, especially with ranged and power builds.Spellbreaker (the new Warrior elite) was made for PvP, Scourge kinda surpassed it, but both are great for PvP, since both target the opponent's boons, removing them in Spellbreaker's case, or outright turning them into conditions for Scourge (kind of like core necro, but with more tools).

Yes, LoL is a very good example of balance done right, not only do they balance patch weekly, there's also the Draft pick which also allows people to ban or counter pick specific champions. And there's a lot of variety for picks to counter others.

GW2 is getting there with variety, although it would get there faster if they stopped reserving the elite specs for new expansions (which means only one every 2 years).

In terms of balance, they're not as incompetent as the salt in the forums would make you believe, but they're incredibly slow. Arena Net established a 3 month interval between patches, which is way too long especially at these times just after an expansion when balance is incredibly broken due to bad balance of the elite specs (it's expected, you can't really get things right out the bat, but they simply keep to their stubborn schedule regardless).

About counter-picks, Ben (the pvp guy) said they considered it, but since it was too big of a departure from what we have currently, it's unlikely to happen (although imho it would make the perfect solution for balance, if done right).

Balance is no better then it ever was. Instead of Rock, Paper, Scissors, ever since elite specs it's been Rock, Rock, Rock. With 1 balance patch every 6 months (they keep delaying them), and most of that being nerfs to professions that are already lol-tier, it's not likely to change soon either. The old school pvp is dead and not coming back.

It's worth playing if you like open world stuff but tbh there are other games that do every other game mode better.

@"DrDivine.5378" said:WvW was unplayable for months, PVP was plagued with balance issues regarding the elite specs such as chrono tank, I used to watch the livestreams of pro PVP and they just flat out couldn't kill each other, Stronghold was a HUGE letdown, it got forgotten about so quickly, one of my favorite classes, warrior, was also unplayable for a very long time, almost a year because berserker was just so pitifully weak people chose vanilla warrior over it. Build diversity also died, before I saw some hilarious builds with some success like killshot, banner tank, shoutbow, hambow, greatsword, etc. and that was just on warrior. It then turned into "one build and one build only."

WvW is getting a makeover but has no ETA so, there's that. As far as balance, that is every MMO ever made since Everquest. Build diversity is not usually an issue with the devs or the game, it's usually an issue with the players. Yes, some builds flat-out suck but most have a function of one sort or another. The issue is less about available builds and more about min/max players/guilds that want [X-spec Y-class for Z boss] in a raid, or WvW, or PvP, or whatever. A support Mesmer will not do the kind of spike damage a Thief would in PvP or roaming WvW but a Thief can't lend group support to a raid or a WvW zerg like a Mesmer can. As far as 'well X class only have 1-2 good builds', who are you asking? Do you have fun with X build? If so, play it. Do you have fun with X build, want to raid, but can't raid because your DPS is 10% lower than they demand? Find a raid group that doesn't suck and/or treat the game like a job or swap specs and deal with it.

You will never be able to play a MMO and not have balance or min/max issues.

I returned from 3-4 years bought both updates ect. I can tell you this. It's not worth it. You will be lost to many things to do. the wvw and pvp are way past your skill now. You'll have to spend 3+ months relearning everything just to be equal. So in IMO the game is not good to come back to am very disappointed. I used to be high ranked now I cant even kill a noob haha. You'll have to spend alot and relearn everything. IMO

For open world pve yes. For pvp I doubt you will have fun if you did not like it before. Wvw is one big blob fest right now so that will stay thecsame untill anet will do something about that.

My opinion is also a big NO as well. Anet can't even figure out how to balance a block of wood on a flat table much less than keeping classes competitive with each other. There is immense disparity between classes, traits, weapons, builds, etc.

I'd say since this was from February, the OP that already decided.

@thcue.6578 said:I returned from 3-4 years bought both updates ect. I can tell you this. It's not worth it. You will be lost to many things to do. the wvw and pvp are way past your skill now. You'll have to spend 3+ months relearning everything just to be equal. So in IMO the game is not good to come back to am very disappointed. I used to be high ranked now I cant even kill a noob haha. You'll have to spend alot and relearn everything. IMO

In otherwords ... the game requires skill because you can't simply step into it after being away from it for 3 years and PWN everyone ... if anything, that sounds like a great reason to come back.

I'm loving it, so one vote 'yes'.

I have been playing since Beta and I still love the game .... including the 2 expansions .... I am enjoying it all.

Only you can decide if you will like it or not. Don't let anyone else tell you what to like or not like. You still own the game, no monthly fees so no more money needs to be spent by you to figure out if you like it or not. Personally I would not let anyone tell me what game(s) to like to not like.

As artemis already said, the OP made this thread in February. I'm sure they've made their decision by now.

@"DrDivine.5378" said:Allow me to explain, I've played the Hell out of this game, I was mostly for PVP but it had a lot of fun content and I met a lot of great people, I sew now for a living only because someone I met on here a few years ago taught me how .

It was around the time when the traitlines got reworked and HoT came out that honestly killed it for me. I was so excited but everything just kinda fell apart the more I dove into it. WvW was unplayable for months, PVP was plagued with balance issues regarding the elite specs such as chrono tank, I used to watch the livestreams of pro PVP and they just flat out couldn't kill each other, Stronghold was a HUGE letdown, it got forgotten about so quickly, one of my favorite classes, warrior, was also unplayable for a very long time, almost a year because berserker was just so pitifully weak people chose vanilla warrior over it. Build diversity also died, before I saw some hilarious builds with some success like killshot, banner tank, shoutbow, hambow, greatsword, etc. and that was just on warrior. It then turned into "one build and one build only."

The expansion straight up made my group of friends and me, leave the game as it was such a disaster. Perhaps it needed to happen as I was spending too much time on the game at the time, I passed up on PoF because I just have trust issues right now. This isn't to trash GW2 I've had a great time in the past, but if you do understand where I'm coming from, what do you think?

yes

People who are upset with the game will always be more vocal and loud than those who are happy with it. That's true of anything in life.

I'm happy with the game. Much better than the alternatives out there.