Returning Player wants to know: Why do you still play GW2?

Hi everyone, I am a returning player with no expansion packs as of yet and long ago there were a lot more people playing. It wasn't like I wanted to stop playing, I had hardware issues for a few years...long story...but when I came back the other day there were expansion packs and hardly any people on the lower level WvW areas. Is it only PvP that's important now, is it nostalgic for older players, what keeps you coming back to the game. I'm trying so hard to get back into it but as I have played more open-ended games of late, I feel a bit constricted and want to PvP when I level more but don't want to get laughed at. Long story short, what besides PvP makes the game enjoyable and do the expansions make gameplay more enjoyable? Thanks so much guys!

Look, unless u enjoyed the general ow pve content theres not much for you here. If you buy the expacs u gonna unlock a big chunk of content (lw se3 and 4, maybe even 2 if you dont have that excluded) and the elite specs will give you variety but pvp and wvw are neglected atm.

You might want to play it casually look around and w8 for Aug 30th to see what anet has in store for gw2 in q4 2019 and for the rest of 2020.

Oh and mounts which were included with pof are very cool.

I still play GW2 because there is no other game where I feel a sense of community while playing content. I can play alongside others without formally creating a group and just as easily switch to another zone and find another group. I love just finding someone, stopping to help them, and all of a sudden there's a group of 20 people doing an event that only a single person actually needed to do. People go out of their way to help others in this game and I love it.

To scratch the pvp itch here and there. Quit pve months ago cuz it got mind numbingly boring. Eso pve is league's ahead of gw2 it's not even close but due to gw combat mechanics it's still fun to jump into some pvp for an hr till frustration due to horrendously bad balancing sets in than it's time for another break till the itch returns lol.

Oh, well, let's see -

• I'm up to 4,939 achievement points and I'd really like to hit the big 5,000.
• I've got a future Scourge, Herald and Scrapper that I'm slowly leveling up.
• I'm still working on the Season 3 and 4 gathering nodes for my home instance. Earning those is a sloooow process (though I got my first one today, woot!).
• There are several things on the gem store that I'm hoping will appear again.
• Festivals are fun. Especially the Bell Choir at Winterfest.
• I'm curious about where the story will go and what will happen to my favorite characters.
• I need to see what Lord Faren is wearing next season. For science.

The combat mechanics are fun, and it's the only MMO I play where sometimes I will just run off in a direction and see where it takes me. The world is still as interesting as always, it's one of GW2's greatest accomplishments and that holds true today. I also do a bit of WvW and fractals, and am slowly working toward my Ad Infinitum.

It's just a fun game to play, and no subscription fee!

Oh I just read your question about the expacs:

Heart of Thorns is brilliant IMO, but I always enjoyed crazy long map wide meta events, which HoT has on each map. They're also genuinely dangerous zones and constructed with a lot of verticality - HoT introduced gliding afterall.

Path Of Fire is way more casual, more story focussed, rather easy and I think generally preferred by most players (they're wrong mind you, but I realise my idea of fun being punishing mob mechanics and labyrinthine map design isn't held by most players).

Both expacs are very different, I would watch some Let's Play videos to guide your choice, but I think you will find enjoyment in them, perhaps moreso from Path Of Fire.

I like birds, I like Magic and I like MythologyCombine that with a small image off a Griffon of the pof expansion and I was sold right into this game.Now I'm trying to complete my second part of the raid armor achievent, dang u Cairn!!!

While also doing pvp for the legendary armor and farming T4 fractals for gold so I can buy the parts I need to complete these legendary armor pieces/trinkets

Because I still find it fun, and I haven't 'finished the game'.Very excited to see what the big reveal coming next month will be.

Because I’m a hardcore casual, I love taking my time; logging in without the need for multi hour commitments; dabbling in various game modes; no gear grind...

Cause it has real time action combat, and the animation is very fluid. No other mmos that has the combat I like.

I still play GW2 because the combat is infinitely more interesting than any other MMO I've seen, and I vastly prefer horizontal progression over vertical progression. It allows me to hop back into the game whenever I want and continue doing whatever I was doing; even if I had been away from the game for weeks or months at a time. Most other games have some stupid subscription fee and still feel like clunky messes with regard to most of their features.On top of that, this game actually has an open world...that people do things in. Sure, you can say it's super easy content and afk through meta events to press F for loot. But at least the maps are worth something more than just playing story on the new maps then forgetting they even exist.

I love asura.

No new MMORPG releases that are worth it for me, so I'm stuck with Gw2 ;)

Reasons why Donutdude still plays:

• Combat
• Story
• World
• Friends

I love this game.

I love monster bashing. GW2 has some fun PvM. There are groups if you want, you can team if you want, solo, whatever you want for the day. Been playing since GW1 and just joined my first guild this week. We will see if that is a good idea ha ha.

I supposed there is some PvP and WvW if that is your thing, but I have never tried them. I prefer the 'us v them' of monster bashing :)

@Parkley.8270 said:Hi everyone, I am a returning player with no expansion packs as of yet and long ago there were a lot more people playing. It wasn't like I wanted to stop playing, I had hardware issues for a few years...long story...but when I came back the other day there were expansion packs and hardly any people on the lower level WvW areas. Is it only PvP that's important now, is it nostalgic for older players, what keeps you coming back to the game. I'm trying so hard to get back into it but as I have played more open-ended games of late, I feel a bit constricted and want to PvP when I level more but don't want to get laughed at. Long story short, what besides PvP makes the game enjoyable and do the expansions make gameplay more enjoyable? Thanks so much guys!

Before I answer here's a few points in response to things you mentioned.

There are no low level WvW areas - everyone in World vs World is scaled up to level 80 and everyone played on the same 4 maps (Obsidian Sanctum is just a jumping puzzle, and the Edge of the Mists is basically a waiting room for when there's a queue on all the main maps). But WvW is also the one part of the game which is still server-specific. For everything else maps are shared between all servers in your region but in WvW you'll only play with people on your server (and one it's grouped with, if applicable) and not all servers have a big WvW population. It's also much more dependant on the time of day, with most activity in the evenings, especially on Friday just after the matchups reset.

If you want to play structured PvP (the one the game calls PvP) then your level and equipment is irrelevant - you're not just scaled up there, you start as a full level 80 with all skills and traits unlocked and everyone's equipment is always level 80 exotics. You can choose your stats through the PvP build menu, but there's absolutely no need to level up first. (You can also play WvW at any level, but you will be at a bit of a disadvantage at first because of having fewer skills and traits available.)

As for why I play, I hardly ever play PvP. According to the menu I've played a total of 21 PvP matches and none since 2016. I spend almost all my time in PvE, doing the story, exploring maps, doing collections and achievements when they interest me. I actually spend a lot of time on low level characters repeating map completion and the story because I enjoy it. I tend to play slowly, both in terms of how long I'm online (averaging about 2 hours day, but with many days when I can't log in at all or only briefly) and because I like to take my time looking around, talking to NPCs etc. so it takes me a long time to get stuff done which means I've always got more to do in this game. Plus I sometimes make up my own activities - I spent most of yesterday evening flying over Desert Highlands on the griffon and skyscale just to see which could go furthest/fastest and how different they were. I keep playing this game because it's fun for me, I like the setting, the gameplay and the mechanics and the fact that it gives me that freedom to focus on whatever I want to do instead of always chasing the next thing required to be allowed into the bits I want to play.

I'm confused....what do you mean by lower level WvW areas? Do you mean lower level open world zones? If so, I'm not sure where/when you are hanging out, but I see people everywhere....all the time.

edit: also, I play for WvW. It is my end game content. There isn't another mmo (except maybe EVE Online) that has equivalent end game content for me.

The expansion packs and Living Stories that go around them add a TON of PvE content: story, achievements, raids, new maps, collections, special acquisitions such as mounts. That's where everybody is, and it can be overwhelming. I play pretty much everyday but I still have not come close to finishing the PvE content available, but that's also because I mainly do WvW for the social and dynamic fighting aspect.

In terms of replay value, each character you have can go through the story as well; I've only had 3 of my 9 characters do so, working on the 4th. Every class has their own specialization weapons and achievements that will take much playing to get. So depending on how many different characters you bother to play, there can be some or a metric ton of content to go through.

It can be overwhelming, but before you think that there is too much to do before you feel caught up to everyone, know that GW2 is designed for the casual gamer in that you can feel like you can still be effective as others even if you don't have all the new shiny stuff (except for mounts because they made movement incredibly easier).

Only MMO I know of without the pointless constant gear treadmills.

@Odinens.5920 said:I'm confused....what do you mean by lower level WvW areas? Do you mean lower level open world zones? If so, I'm not sure where/when you are hanging out, but I see people everywhere....all the time.

edit: also, I play for WvW. It is my end game content. There isn't another mmo (except maybe EVE Online) that has equivalent end game content for me.

I believe he meant the Edge of the Mists. It used to thrive with people, especially low level players. Now it is a dead content, but hopefully upcoming changes to WvW will change things around.

Random group open-world PvE is why I come back, specifically (still) HoT metas. I never seem to get enough of them. So yes, HoT makes my game more enjoyable.And so does PoF, if only for the best mounts in any MMO.

Raids and dailies

I enjoy the way the game plays. I love this game. There are a great many things about it that I don't like but I love it as a whole.

I like gw2 better than wow, ff14, and eso. A close second would be WoW and I played that much longer than I played gw2 but its emphasis on power-thru-gear-only is a turn off (a naked 100 played for 1 hour has the same number of abilities as a naked 120 played for 1,000,000 hours) and its end-game structure obsoletes every other zone and funnels everyone into a handful of zones for the entirety of an xpac (repeating the same content for 2-3 years becomes really tedious).

In my opinion, Gw2 has a fairly good combat system, the best approach to open world exploration I've personally seen, solid pvp, and a content structure that makes every zone worth doing even at max level. It also has a really imaginative approach to mounts and flying

I wish GW2 had a better LFG system, more varied low-level dungeons that really integrated into your personal story, and a UI that was customizable. Its far from perfect. But compared to other games, it's the best as far as I'm concerned.

Beetle Gymkhana.Fashion.Beautifully designed open world and all it has to offer in events, metas, bounties, etc.Great base design human characters (hence my many alts).(I have no clue why anyone would like WoW humans, they're so wide and fat. If I wanted to see big people, I could just drop by my local Walmart.)