Why do all the good players leave GW2?

Hello all I have a legit question, If you wana be trolly with your answer whatever haha but im looking for actual answer, im still newer to the game picked up the game around a year after pof release I know that gw2 was supposed to have a competitive like Esports thing a long long long time ago but that looks like its been scrapped I hear all the time that a lot of the really good players left but why? this seems to be a touchy question but im pretty curious :)

I'll let others do the long answer, but the short answer is: Lack of support

I am not one of those good players, but pretty much due to lack of support of the game mode and the down tuning to making it super casual. Back at release you had to know the ins and outs of your profession and others. But now with elite specs any player can do well with little knowledge of the game.

Long story short, GW2 just isn't a PvP focused game. The devs toyed with the idea of making it an Esport up there with the well known greats, but their focus has always tended toward PvE content. The PvP is great, and even with the new elite specs you can get very good at a class to get highly ranked, but it's still a very small part of the game as a whole.

Who is leaving & what constitutes a "good player"?

I think that we all need to remember that if we play this game is to have fun. Are you having fun? Cool. Are you not? Then look somewhere else. And I mean that: why would anyone keep doing something they don't enjoy?

On another note, I've been playing MMORPGs since 2007, and people ALWAYS, emphasize in ALWAYS, complain about PvP. No ring fits everyone, it's literally impossible to make a competitive game (or game mode) that will satisfy the entire player base.

Having said that, just enjoy the game, dude.

all the "good" players left years ago, and all the "decent players" became casual who stop caring for rank pvp.

Lack of "team" games, Lack of proper update balance, and Lack of a better rank system has made everyone not want to really play or care. Only 1s left are usually the kids who are in college that play when they can, the kids who are under 16 years old and then you got the self ego monkeys who play because they have noting else their good at so they stick around to just complain about everything/everyone.

Just wait for 2020 gw3 gonna be announce sometime within the next 5 years hopefully they'll do a better job.

interesting :) thanks all for the answers, people definitely are still good at the game but I have noticed for example in WvW if you don't play on reset you wont really find any good fights, I was playing last night it was baron, no roamers, no fights, maybe MAYBE 1 person running around but that's about it, its discouraging for sure I love the game and have been making youtube videos for it but should I maybe look into another game too? GW is an amazing game, but I definitely agree its pve focused.

No incentive to play as a team and improve.

Removal of ESL support and Pro League means no prizes for being good except in game gizmos.

When When Pro League ended no-one was told it was done forever for months after it finished.

Glacial pace of balance which makes meaningful changes to the meta. Classes by and large keep the same places and roles within the meta.

Massive disparity between issues that need addressing and what ANet does.

Power Creep turning the game into a spamfiesta where even a lobotomised monkey can get to platinum by running the meta build and spamming.

Power Creep essentially making everyone die in seconds so the aforementioned monkey is a real danger when they really shouldn't be.

Take your pick. I'm sure @bluri.2653 might have a few to add to the list.

Anet took their sweet time, like months, nerfing bunker chrono during the HOT days so all the really good players left to another game. (competitive games were taking the full 15mins with 0 points scored)

And they still take their sweet time nerfing op specs (mirage for example, 1.5 years of being op)

Have a great weekend!

lack of game modeslack of profession balancelack of balanced teams

What is the incentive to play competitively? There are no major events, the attention you get by playing GW is not that impressive and hence it is hard to get a good sponsor and earn money... So why should good players or teams invest in this game if they can move on to another one? With all the other problems the game currently has it is not very likely that anything will change in the future, I fear.

I think this is the comment that puts it into perspective the most, thanks for this. I think my biggest thing Is I Love Mmos. but there are no thriving mmos, even WoW is dying. I had more traction In ESO then I do here and people where definitely more accepting I don't think im going to leave GW but this answers my question best Thank you :) > @syszery.1592 said:

What is the incentive to play competitively? There are no major events, the attention you get by playing GW is not that impressive and hence it is hard to get a good sponsor and earn money... So why should good players or teams invest in this game if they can move on to another one? With all the other problems the game currently has it is not very likely that anything will change in the future, I fear.

Bad design, lack of support, pandering to brain dead gameplay, no actual competitive level(it was removed due to mismanagement and bad design). It’s like an R.L Stein choose your path.

@sinsrock.1702 said:Hello all I have a legit question, If you wana be trolly with your answer whatever haha but im looking for actual answer, im still newer to the game picked up the game around a year after pof release I know that gw2 was supposed to have a competitive like Esports thing a long long long time ago but that looks like its been scrapped I hear all the time that a lot of the really good players left but why? this seems to be a touchy question but im pretty curious :)

The game is nearly 7 years old, people come and people go, including top players.

But truth be told, there are a lot of those players whom people believe left the game, who never left the game at all. They just had main accounts banned and came back with alt accounts.

GW2 is all about PvE. PvP lacks all things a competitive game mode needs except for a good dynamic combat system (that also comes from PvE).

I won't speak for the top players, because I'm really not one. But there's another side to it, that GW2 doesn't foster the environment for up-and-coming players. For instance, I'm quite PvP focused in any game that I play and wanted to carry this over to GW2. The point that I generally stopped, whilst I enjoy the classes that I play, is that the community population is quite small and when that occurs, the level of toxicity artificially increases because you're more likely to run into 'those players'. These are the players that AFK when things go wrong, that scream abuse when you have a 50 point gap. These are the players that don't listen to instructions that could win a match, but would rather that everyone stayed silent because: 'You're not the leader of me, [insert expletive here].'

For example, in some divisions, you could and can run 2x Thief, if you have the game knowledge to do it. You can essentially play any class and gain the skill to reach a high enough rank. However, the community doesn't believe this, overall. So wandering into a match-up, on something that you want to play and getting told to 'switch or get reported', is completely detrimental to the growth of new players. Essentially, if you don't know how the report system works, getting a threat of 'banned for match manipulation' is really off-putting for the rise of new talent.

In addition to this, the layers of skill differ between classes. If one class is easy and another is really challenging to do the same thing, you're forced to pick the easy one even if it's the most mind-numbing thing ever. The reward of getting 5 kills in 3 seconds is only great if you feel like you've actually gained knowledge from it. Pressing two buttons and nuking a team isn't fun or healthy for a PvP game. So anything that's 'high condi pressure' or 'high burst' for a meta without a clear, extreme counter removes any kind of skill, which is what a PvP game needs to stay populated and active. It needs layers, and making the game more simplistic, removes those layers.

If I can take a stab at why SOME players have left, it's likely the decline of complexity in the gameplay itself, and the lack of support for PvP over recent years.

Basically we were promised in the MMO-Manifesto that GW2 would have all the good things of GW1.

What did we have concerning PvP in GW1? Diverse Modes...... Guild Hall focussed PvP(it's even called Guild Wars!)

Before I start my critic please be assured that I have no evil intentions, and all the exaggerations I use are for fun and not serious - please don't take it personal and read it with the right voice in your head :P

What do we have in GW2? Capture the point?!?! The whole(!) PvP is based on this one mode that get's boring very very fast. Most of the new players don't even understand how it's supposed to work. Balancing is one thing - but not including all essential modes for PvP spoils the experience. In GW1 we had the choice even the Codex Arena was a great idea..... There also no PvP we can watch like in GW1 embedded in the game. GW1 had a great PvP design. It might not have been the most balanced one but it was fun!

Also we cannot fight each other in Guild Halls anymore. It's a feature with which you could display the unity of your group and set a statement of who you are as Guild. The Capes also worked great. Guild Halls(for Combat) and the Capes were the integral main features of GW1. I can't comprehend why the GW2 would not include it. People loved it. Of course capes could be hard to do I see the point. Why not a Mist Aura with the Guild Emblem?(The Guild Armors and Weapons really need an optical enhancement, it would be better to have one item... and if it's just an holographic backpack with the Guild-Emblem)

We haven't seen any of the good things of GW1 PvP and the game was always considered a PvP-Game. You could really try to make a difference. In GW2 it's like that you mostly join random groups and what you do has only like a maximum of 30% impact on the actual game. One could call it balanced, but it's also annoying and boring. It simply needs additional mechanics to regain points you lost in the early game. But let's not talk about this, as the problem is mainly that there's nothing else than "capture the point"

There ain't many tactical elements, or moments where you can turn the match around(Why not flip all points when one group is too far behind?) . But in the end my critic can only go back to the one thing: We can only capture points! Want a great shiny PvP weapon? Capture a point. Wanna be the best? Cap the point! Wanna have fun? Cap some points!

I do love your game but it's one of the things I really can't understand. You don't even have to have enough staff or anything like that(Look at Piranha games! Their MWO got plenty of modes and is still a valued game in the community where founders still play). The right mix is the foundation for success in Esports. You cannot expect people to be happy with the same boring game mode for eternity. It might look good on a meeting paper as it's balanced and everything you can positively connect with it.... But It leaves out the fun.

Why didn't you just copy your own game? It was successfull in PvP. Of course you changed the Skill-System that's fine . But why didn't you include all cool features like Guild Hall Combat, Capes and the PvP Modes people loved?

@"Exatherion.3075" said:Basically we were promised in the MMO-Manifesto that GW2 would have all the good things of GW1.

What did we have concerning PvP in GW1? Diverse Modes...... Guild Hall focussed PvP(it's even called Guild Wars!)

Before I start my critic please be assured that I have no evil intentions, and all the exaggerations I use are for fun and not serious - please don't take it personal and read it with the right voice in your head :P

What do we have in GW2? Capture the point?!?! The whole(!) PvP is based on this one mode that get's boring very very fast. Most of the new players don't even understand how it's supposed to work. Balancing is one thing - but not including all essential modes for PvP spoils the experience. In GW1 we had the choice even the Codex Arena was a great idea..... There also no PvP we can watch like in GW1 embedded in the game. GW1 had a great PvP design. It might not have been the most balanced one but it was fun!

Wow this definitely hits home, I played Gw1 for over 10 years, your absolutely right, more game modes helped keep the classes balanced, where 1 class wouldn't be good in 1 game mode it would be good in another making the "meta" more diverse in different game types

What made me stop playing pvp is the lack of content after 6 years. You know how many pvp/gvg game modes we're in gw1? More then you can count on one hand....the only constant content update for pvp in the past 6 years is balance updates every 3-4 months. For me that is not acceptable. And it wasnt acceptable for the esport scene either. A few teams actually quit matches that just started like 100-50 becuase of the devs refusal to do balance changes between tournaments. The bunker meta for the esport scene was terriblely not fun to watch.The lack of attention is what drove me away from pvp and as far as pve goes, i dont really care for there story of dragons and gods.So i just dont play gw at all any more. I loged on real quick a few days a go thinking one of my rl buddies might want to have a duo quo but in the end conquest is OLD and boring and we decided other games are more attractive then the 6 year old one trick pony/game mode that is gw2.. There is nothing in gw2 that screams play me.And it brakes my heart i LOVED gw1 its pvp was top teir topest of teirs back in the day. And the devs promise at launch of gw2 having what gw1 had was a 100% lie. Alittle regret for falling for the developers tricks and lies, yes i have it.

Its called guild wars, not tyran wars, or world of tyria. And compairing that to gw1 the devs really dont understand that i feel from day one.

Things were going good jn pvp rill it cam to season 5 and all bets were off.

Sure HoT was a jumbled mess and brought us condition wars but.. once it went from team play (or solo like I did 90% of the time) to the wintrade wars we are at now. That was the major hit with losing good ppl players. Then came the total lack of any pvp support with the same mundane maps that require you to stand in a circle.

Now sadly we dont have a legit leaderboard and that also turns away strict pvp players that want some actual competitive pvp.

I miss seasons 1 - 4

I heard they all came back since they got duo queue. Thats what they said last season.

The community.

@BadMed.3846 said:I heard they all came back since they got duo queue. Thats what they said last season.

Not all, not even close. Maybe only like 25% of the people that left came back with the duo q at most...with out a 5 man q you will never see the numbers pvp had in its esport era.

Lot's of things they could have done with the game but haven't not much has changed when you compare it to other titles. That and no PvP focus anymore and before people get on to me for saying that. Name the last good update that made players flood to PvP or WvW and if you don't even focus on those game modes to improve them. Why bother having them that's just the reasons I have gotten from other players from the original days of GW2. Cheers with the arguing amongst yourselves

@Eddbopkins.2630 said:

@BadMed.3846 said:I heard they all came back since they got duo queue. Thats what they said last season.

They need to get their act sorted out then. They made big noise to get duo queue last season and got it. All lies, I guess then. Wrecking our games for no reason.

Tbh - I'd rather have them gone as natural attrition and see new good players emerge over time.