I'm struggling to enjoy this game

A WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

I purchased this game with its two expansions around January last year. The reason why i did it was obvious at first - it was non-subscription based MMO with seemingly decent combat system and a lot of features which actually promoted fun, instead of mindless grinding like most, if not all other MMOs out there.

However, since the summer I've been playing just the bare minimum to get a daily done and then I immediately log off. The more I played this game, the more I realized how many serious flaws it has. I also cannot help, but compare it to WoW. To the true WoW, not the abomination it has become. I could go play the vanilla servers when they release, but sadly, as good as the game was in its original state, the classes just aren't balanced and it lacks the polish of Burning Crusade where all specs were good for something to a degree. So, not gonna happen.

Let's focus on GW 2 though.

-The combat. Very important, because this is what you do most of the time. When I saw that you can dodge I was very happy. It reminded me of Dark Souls series which are very dear to my heart. Sadly, instead of facing mobs with individual strengths and weaknesses which can seriously mess me up if I do something wrong, I am bombarded by weak enemies with some unique gimmick/ability here and there, Diablo style. Weren't the creators of Diablo also involved in making GW2? Because it feels like Diablo in 3rd person, really. But to the point - These weak mobs are boring to fight. Even if I die, the second wind mechanic ensures I will most of the time survive.

I have all nine classes in this game at 80 with maxed professions. They all play the same. You just mash 2 or 3 buttons that do some damage and you win. Some of the core specs like Mesmer and Engineer need more attention due to low dps, but they are in the minority. On some classes i am not sure what some of the buttons do, honestly. I never needed to learn. I never felt challenged. Granted, the mobs in HoT are tough, but they either two shot you or you outdps them.That's it. Then you get second wind if lucky and repeat. Instead of learning patterns and using specific tactics to beat certain enemies, this is what the combat is in this game. The biggest difference for me is if a mob can reflect missiles so I don't range him. Boring.

In comparison, in vanilla WoW, mobs could also simply do a lot of damage, but every class was truly unique. I was constantly in danger of running out man/rage/energy. I had to make sure I had enough to interrupt someone at the right moment or abuse line of sight if it was a strong caster. With frost mage I could kite for days and pull crazy shenanigans while totally dominating melee enemies. If I was a healer, I could drop HoT over time or shield on me preemptively or use short casting heal during combat to prevent myself from being constantly pushed back during a longer cast. Basically, while it wasn't incredibly deep, the combat was intuitive, you naturally learned what does what during the course of the game. In modern WoW after Cata you can just spam abilities with impunity and that is why I left during that time.

The combat in GW2 is unintuitive. I am also bothered that you don't have to even target an ally to heal him. As someone who liked supporting when in group, I could target someone and literally save their life by doing the right thing at the right time. I also had to manage mana. It felt rewarding. Not the case in this game. Every class can do everything. Indeed, some are simply better at this than others, especially when it comes to groups, but the lack of Holy Trinity makes every class much more generic regardless if it is tanking, healing or dps. That is, if we can even say these roles exist here.

-The world. The creators of this game realized that making generic quests which people simply grind out is pointless. So, they replaced generic quests...with generic hearts. But you know what? In WoW there were some great quests. Quests that could take you exploring half a continent to complete them. Quests which involved interesting characters and subplots which you can slowly reveal. Many were tied to dungeons which also made exploring the dungeon more fun, because you knew why you went there beside gear.

If you go to Darkshore and you see The Master's Glade you start wondering. Hey, what is that thing over there? Who is the Twilight's Hammer? Who put that sword in the thing's head? I even looked on the internet for those things and it made the world feel alive. Why is Duskwood dark? What happened to Sven and his family? Is there connection between the Embalmer and Morben Fell? Who made the Worgen? Can the Horde trust the Forsaken? Is there hope for the Scarlet Crusade? How is Balnazzar alive? Most of those questions have already been answered, but you get the drift.

In GW2 we have a few generic land massesAscalon - northern land in eternal autumn. Unique enemies -Branded and rebel humans.Shiverpeak - frozen wasteland. Unique enemies - Svanir and mole men.Kryta - pastoral green area - Unique enemies - centaurs and bandits.Asura/sylvari - jungle area - Unique enemies - Nightmare Court and Inquest.Orr- another wasteland with undead.HoT was more jungle and Mordrem.PoF added desert and egyptian undead+Forged and more Branded for flavor's sake.

Every enemy is just bad for the sake of being bad. To be honest, some of them like Nightmare Court have somewhat deeper motivation, but hardly enough to make it very involving. The world is shallow and boring. I never felt emotionally attached. There is no politics, no backstabbing, no intrigue, no hidden motivation, nothing. The personal story is somewhat interesting until you get to the guilds. Then its a straight downfall. And after you realize there are no choices in the personal story, you just pray it is over sooner so you can get to the Battle of Claw Island for that sweet key. Every time they release a new LW episode I am like....Pff, to get that cool mount, gear, perk or whatever, I have to play through the story. /Facepalm.

PvP. I admit I tried that in unranked a few times and lost pretty badly. Nobody to blame, but me because i was bad and deserved it. However, after every match the game tried to place me somewhere? Why would you give me rank or measure me in any way when I play unranked? From what I heard and watched in videos PvP is an afterthought. I've been told matchmaking is bad and nobody cares too much about balancing it anyway. Why bother getting good then?

WvW. Went there for the spoon. Without the mount I felt it was very sluggish, slow to get anywhere. Saw a tag, ran to it and had a bit of a zerg fight. There were so many explosions, so many flashing lights I had trouble understanding what is going on. It is not only hard to see, but even starts to hurt the eyes. When I stray away from the zerg someone kills me.

Shortly before starting to log only for the daily, I made my guardian a Firebrand with a WvW support build I saw in MetaBattle. Gave it exotic minstrel gear, ascended minstrel weapons and accessories and monk runes. When it was fully geared I couldn't bring myself to play it in WvW. The process of gearing was more of a goal than playing it, it seems.In addition, support Firebrand with its pages plays very differently from the core guard. While this is good, the unintuitive combat of this game is a huge turn-off. I tried watching a video on how to play FB in WvW and you know what i learned? Make sure your team has stability and retaliation. Couldn't even find a proper guide, honestly.

When I went to battlegrounds in WoW I performed well. The idea behind each and every one is simple enough. I understood the tactic and never needed to use discord unless in a premade. Seems that if you want a proper multiplayer experience in GW2, you need to use voice chat. I don't even have a way to learn how to play FB properly in WvW and honestly getting blamed for not doing something by some tryhards doesn't seem the most fun way to approach this.

Fractals. I went there with my guardian because it was my first character and did a few of them. Mostly to finish my mastery points. Fractals are well designed, but the problem remains. Combat is boring. I put GS 4 on the ground, press GS 2 and spin to win. GS 3 to close the gap. Use trap (it's DH) on cd for extra burst. I know there is rotation and all, but at low lvl fractals doesn't matter anyway.Again - in 5 man dungeons in WoW I had to manage resources which isn't the case here. If I was a mage I had to polymorph and my CC was vital for the success of the group. And if people were nice I gave them food or water. A well placed shield on my priest could save lives. On my druid I was constantly trying to get aggro from multiple mobs and taunt if something went bad. Once more - it felt rewarding, it felt engaging. Not in GW2. More dps, less dps, whatever. Stuff dies.

Raids.I've raided in BC and found they were just a part-time job, especially as a dps because the rotation is pretty much what you do in GW 2 now. Spam shadowbolts/fireballs, whatever your main nuke is and occasionally refresh a debuff. So, don't care about them.

Currently I am logging in just for dailies. The thing I enjoyed the most at first it seems, was to get the fashion I wanted. Skins. So far, I think , I've gotten most of what I desired. rest is locked behind WvW/Fractals or raids. Don't see much reason to play for vanity's sake if I don't like what the game offers. I feel like I've wasted my money? Convince me to give some aspect of the game a second try?

In open world, of course some things are gonna be simple, or easy to fight, that's just open world (some things like group events, champions, or a few of those HPs in HoT aren't gonna be easy to do alone and provide a pretty decent challenge if nothing else interests you or you're just bored/really needa get it done). The thing is, if you're really wanting a challenge in the combat side, T4 fractals might be for you; highest tier and pretty hard combat wise if you're comp isn't strong enough (don't know too much about fractals, but I suppose it's good enough).

Keep in mind, I think raids is the only piece of content with that "holy trinity" idea in mind, otherwise, the rest of gw2 has it's own set of ideal comos and meta. Like for instance, WvW and PvP. Those places have specific comps and specifc jobs each class and elite spec do best, but it just sounds like those modes aren't exactly your cup of tea.... Raids might interest you though, those may seem like you just spam a rotation, but trust me, and I'm still new to raiding, there are mechanics to the boss fights there that are engaging.

In the end, if you truly do not like any of the game modes and dislike the combat, hearts, story mode and all those things that make gw2, gw2, then perhaps gw2 isn't exactly for you?

I can’t write a wall of text answer currently because im on my way home(phone).

But many people play gw2 BECAUSE its not WoW.

Let’s take normal Quest vs Hearts.

I don’t care much about the stories most quest tell.I care more about the reward they give.I also dont like to play endless chains of boring content.

So every time i had to look up the Quest on a wiki just to find out if its worth my time.

Hearts are done quite quickly and i get my reward directly.

My point is, i play Gw2 for a reason.

Maybe Gw2 is just not your style.

Maybe you need a little spark to find the fun.

For the PvE part.Im very happy that most of the pve is rather simple.

After 9 - 10 hours of work, i just want to relax and not play a second job.

I could contest a lot about the comparisons. But, it seems like mostly pining for a game that no longer exists, rather than any particular fault with GW2. (There's a ton of faults, don't get me wrong. :P)

But, I also know the feeling. Most nights when I get on, it's dailies, seeing if the guild is doing anything, chipping away at one or two achievements, then I log off.Maybe it's choice paralysis: Which grind do I want to do today? The legendary with a literal 15,000 leather scrap requirement, or the roller race that requires 15 runs of a 3-minute, obnoxious track (and rinse-repeat for the other 4)? Anything with PvP involves dealing with salt from people who just can't even. And raid culture in GW2 is sewage. New LW releases get less than a week of interest, and for anything to keep the map alive, it's more grind.

It sounds like this game is not for you. And then there's me, I've been playing since beta, can't stop and can't play other MMOs anymore because they are all horrible compared to GW2. See, people are different. Go find YOUR game.

Oh my god! A game where you push buttons to use attacks or move around?! What heresy is this?

If you're struggling to enjoy something, then you probably don't enjoy it.

i have bin talking about this dead world for years, no one even wants to listen to ppl who care about lore.i rather want achievements to be in the world as quests then as dead weights.

Well, if you don't like it you don't like it - and probably shouldn't play.

However, two things I'll offer:1) If the wvw tactics aren't obvious to you, then you should experiment and learn through experience. It sounds more like you just don't want to do it than that there's any real obstacle. You say gearing was more a goal than playing - so if you don't want to play...2) I agree that mobs are too easy to kill. I think the various mechanics of each profession are actually potentially a lot of fun, and quite varied, but you rarely need to implement these abilities because mobs are too weak. That's one area where the game could improve. Having said that, every MMO has the same issue. I stopped playing WoW after Burning Crusade myself, because at that point they were nerfing pve to the point where it was agonizingly boring. I'm not sure if it's since improved, but in a WoW vs GW2 game-play contest, in my books GW2 comes out waaaay ahead.

@Biff.5312 said:Well, if you don't like it you don't like it - and probably shouldn't play.

However, two things I'll offer:1) If the wvw tactics aren't obvious to you, then you should experiment and learn through experience. It sounds more like you just don't want to do it than that there's any real obstacle. You say gearing was more a goal than playing - so if you don't want to play...2) I agree that mobs are too easy to kill. I think the various mechanics of each profession are actually potentially a lot of fun, and quite varied, but you rarely need to implement these abilities because mobs are too weak. That's one area where the game could improve. Having said that, every MMO has the same issue. I stopped playing WoW after Burning Crusade myself, because at that point they were nerfing pve to the point where it was agonizingly boring. I'm not sure if it's since improved, but in a WoW vs GW2 game-play contest, in my books GW2 comes out waaaay ahead.

i got interested because of legion, the story and mixed gameplay makes GW2 look like a boring child's book. (got horrible again in BFA tho)

I agree with much, if not all, that you have to say. The lack of challenge in much of the content in particular. The emphasis on spamming one or two keys, with little call for resource management, timing, or target/skill prioritization is another point of agreement.

I disagree with commentary comparing WoW favorably. I found that game to be slow, bland, and boring.

@Mea.5491 said:It sounds like this game is not for you. And then there's me, I've been playing since beta, can't stop and can't play other MMOs anymore because they are all horrible compared to GW2. See, people are different. Go find YOUR game.

This is pretty much me, ive tried other MMOs after GW2 came out and none of them kept me around for very long.

Op, if you arent enjoying it, it might just not be the game for you, which is okay.

A lot of MMO's these days offer an open world experience that is aimed at a casual approach to game-play. GW2 is no exception. In fact, WoW was no exception, despite your grass-is-greener view of its virtues. While MMO world PvE is potentially more engaging than FB games, it is not -- and has not been since early MMO's like EQ -- been about offering challenge to semi-skilled play in the "open" world.

It sounds like you are looking to re-experience things that are/were on offer in games you played before. That rarely works out, even for most sequels. If the lack of challenge in open GW2 PvE does not appeal due to lack of challenge, and if you are not interested in the game-play on offer in PvP, WvW or instanced PvE, that do require attention to what your skills do and what the "enemy" is doing, then it's probable that anything I might say would be to no avail.

Good luck going forward, whichever game you decide to devote your time to.

It's not like anyone is forcing you to enjoy this game, if you don't like it, drop it. Simple.

As a very casual player, I'm grateful that there is a non-sub MMO that I can play when I have the time and don't lose out to some insane vertical progression.

"Low DPS professions like [...] Engineer." What on earth?? Engineers and low DPS? :s

I am also bothered that you don't have to even target an ally to heal him.

You could do that in GW1, since there was a healer profession. There is none per se in GW2, and the only content where you need dedicated healers is group content where you support all surrounding players, not one at a time. The mechanics are different, and in this context it makes sense that you don't have to target single individuals.

In WoW there were some great quests. Quests that could take you exploring half a continent to complete them.

I like those the best as well, but you have similar content in some achievement and in story missions. I admit, it is not the same, and I agree that GW2 could use more of that type of questing. :+1:

Every enemy is just bad for the sake of being bad. To be honest, some of them like Nightmare Court have somewhat deeper motivation, but hardly enough to make it very involving. The world is shallow and boring. I never felt emotionally attached. There is no politics, no backstabbing, no intrigue, no hidden motivation, nothing. The personal story is somewhat interesting until you get to the guilds. Then its a straight downfall. And after you realize there are no choices in the personal story, you just pray it is over sooner so you can get to the Battle of Claw Island for that sweet key.

Agreed. (Except for Claw Island, which IMO was among the worst implementations of content ideas this game has to offer. In fact, all of core Tyrian content needs an overhaul to live up to current standards.)

Every time they release a new LW episode I am like....Pff, to get that cool mount, gear, perk or whatever, I have to play through the story. /Facepalm.

Disagreed. The current LW season is the best writing the game had to offer story-wise since the first half of the personal story (PoF was decent, too, but the stuff before that... well, check my signature ;) ).

Yup. Engineer has low dps. CORE engineer.

OP, i have had the same thoughts over the years that the game really doesnt offer much to stay, but i keep coming back every 3-4months for the story and to dink around. also could be just longing for something that in the past had so much meaning and now just lost novelty as we get older.. so, you can justbe like me and come back every now and then, or go play another game

Not going to read a wall of text of someone not liking a game. Move on, games are supposed to be fun and you are not enjoying it.

If you think all professions play the same... you're not playing them right.

OW isn't supposed to be challenging. Try fractals/raids. Although you will need to research your build and learn what you want your class to do.

Some of the skills have more importance in pvp than pve. So maybe give that more of a shot?Of course you're going to die at the beginning. PVP is very difficult in this game because of such fast combat.As to WvW, did you research your build? you can't just jump in and roam, you're not going to win that way.

I've never been 2 shotted in HoT, unless I ran in in rares or an ele. Or tried to take on some of tje group HPs sole.. but basic mob, no.What armor do you have on your characters?? 0oEvery class can only do everything, if they're built for it. Well most things anyway. I don't think I've heard of healer thief xD.But you can't be a healer in DPS gear. And Druid isn't really good for DPS. So yes there are roles, they're just flexible. Although you will notice them less in OW.

Tactics/patterns are for raids and fractals.

As a healer.. you can save your party by doing the right thing at the right time. Having to target specific members in such fast combat would be almost impossible to do in time. So I don't think AoE healing should change.

There are quests in this game of which you speak.The Mad Kings backpiece, The Wintersday Christmas tree are 2 I can think of.Other collections also, and then there's LS.

I'm not reading the rest of your post.This isn't WoW. Stop comparing it to WoW. They are very different games.

It sounds like you still have alot to learn in this game. But don't enjoy it enough to do so.

Is there anything YOU LIKE about gw2? because if not perhaps it's time to move on? You tried. You probably played your monies worth but the game isn't for you. And that's ok. It won't appeal to everyone.

This game works perfectly fine for me .. only issue is.. I find the update is a little slow but it's a free game ... and an awesome one, I can't complain too much. This game is not just smashing button..If you are in serious PvP and serious wvw group .. or pve raid, you know why

This post is an example of how ascended gear got added to the game. Incredibly small group of players complain that this isn't like WoW and doesn't have gear grind. Anet adds ascended gear to cater to them.

@warherox.7943 said:This post is an example of how ascended gear got added to the game. Incredibly small group of players complain that this isn't like WoW and doesn't have gear grind. Anet adds ascended gear to cater to them.

still in pain after all those years. gl

i guess you also left a wall of text in wow forums when u left it!

From reading through your post, In my opinion your points of view are very indicative of someone that's just brushed over the surface of GW2 or/and has only partly played it on a very superficial level. Someone that hasn't taken the time to actually get to know and delve deeper into the game, both in terms of the mechanics and the lore. Some of what you say you crave is here in GW2 there just waiting for you to discover. But it doesn't hold you hand like other games, you have to go looking for it.

You've literally commented on thing you clearly have not experienced and know nothing about (by your own admission) yet that doesn't stop you from criticising them? Some of your assertions are a complete departure from what the actual reality is in-game. It honestly confuses me why you would do such thing, and makes me question your motives for writing such (and so much).

If you don't enjoy the game, then - as others have said - by all means don't continue playing it. You'd be mad to. These are computer games after all; something to do in our spare time, a source of enjoyment. If you're struggling or forcing yourself to enjoy it there's something wrong and it's time to move on.