Whats preventing you from coming back to play Guild Wars 2 ?

[zealex.9410]

@Randulf.7614 said:I haven't left, I'm not playing anywhere near as much - I used to play daily even when I had little to do in game.

• Combination of there not being much to do beyond repeating content on alts. And the story is too poor for that
• Episodic content is generally weaker than large scale content drops. And that applies to most games I've played as well as GW2
• A directional shift by a team different from launch who seem to want to take the World of Tyria away from its roots. ( incl the ruination of Joko, the over-pushing of Aurene (who is now the central character according to the devs), a focus on touchy feely and so called shock factors which are adversely deteriorating the story)
• Over reliance on unsuitable skins and effects which aren't marrying up well with the GW2 World.
• A general lack of consistent comms by the devs or at least Game Directors who seem unwilling to engage with their community unlike most games I play or follow
• Being worn down by the over reliance on rng, gambling mechanics and gem store. Sure these have always existed in the game and they need to fund the game, but eventually it becomes wearisome. I feel more and more we are less treated like gamers and more like something they can squeeze money from
• A complete loss of every single friend who has played the game since launch
• A realisation that I am missing out on too many other great games by focussing on one. Given how low the story has sunk, I've started to get back into a wider range of RPG's. So far almost all of which have been better at narrative and world building within their own contexts.

The last point is perhaps the biggest for me since it is what is pulling me away the most right now. It is unlikely I will ever truly leave GW2 behind, but I can't see me playing like I used to without significant change or large scale content drop

I’m obviously no longer the target audience which is a shame since I used to be a fervent supporter of theirs, but it’s harder to do that 7 years on. If S5 is more of the same of what we have had in terms of low content, poor quality story and sketchy rewards well that only frees up more of my time

I dont see the ruination of Joko but the rest are solid points.

Edit: actually about the episodic point im not sure, multiple games release new quests and story with patches its not like thats unique to gw2. Id say tho that gw2 patches just have less content in general, plus the episodic aproach it self even in the series business is taking a backsit for bingewatch that netflix and amazon have adopted to an extend.

[sephiroth.4217]

I still play but not as active as I once was... The game and community is slowly pushing me away.

With each patch, Anet and the community belittle and shun those who want to enjoy PvP and the combat system.I am being told to be thankful for my side game mode and to thank PvE players for supporting it as if my countless purchases meant nothing, this is enforced with "thats why you get no content"I am told that ganking has no part in WvW and that killing players outside of a zerg is wrong for open world pvp, not only am I told this but Anet cater to it.I am told that I am not allowed to farm shiny skins with friends via PvP in a MMO, I must play solo or exclude friends to play with 1...You so much as voice a personal opinion that goes against the collective and next thing ya know everyone is trying to fabricate arguments from it in an effort to farm likes... "Oh you said the sun, here's why you're wrong and why the sun doesn't actually yadda yadda" when the conversation was about population then that person recieves 8 likes for it, then Anet moderates and delete logical responses to them and that leaves no room for progression, it's a mob mentality now.. Even Anet are apart of it now.There's no care for the actual health of the game overall, everyone is "me me me me"...

The game changed, the community changed with it.If all this game has to offer now is another Dragon Age or Dragon focused story line, then I got plenty of other titles on the market to chose from. None of which have WvW or PvP to use such an intricate combat system though which is why I'm still around, I'm just doing 20 games a season instead of 400+ and I'm doing an hour of WvW a week instead of 20.

[godofcows.2451]

The person who introduced me to this game and even let me use his account just to try out the game quit a long time ago. He tried to visit the game again (pvp/wvw) earlier this year but gave up rather early. The reason was balance. Alot of you are probably cringed at the word thinking "not another balance post". But seriously, he did give up early and it was the reason. He was just blown away with the power creep right now. I had a very difficult time telling him that majority of expansion classes just had so many advantages right now compared to core, a complete deviation from the original concept that they will just be choices for the player and core will still be competitive. He's not exactly the best player out there and there is alot of rest time between when he was active and what he is right now but, one of the flaws in the game presented itself early in his return. Arenanet lost a chance to sell their expansions on him. I really doubt he'll be back again.

[Thornwolf.9721]

Before I start, I log in to grab content patches and dabble. I used to be ferociously supportive of this game and once Might of even been considered a Shill because I love tyria and the universe its in. (I took a year break between launch and HoT and then small breaks between living world episodes, and PoF. I have all but dipped off since PoF coming for the living world episodes. I haven't logged into game recently and probably won't until a new content drop comes. Whether that is living world or not I have no clue; And if the 30th doesn't really give me anything to make my hope into assurance then I probably will end up staying away until much later on.)

! 1. All the people I know have left, my guild is basically dead because they moved to Destiny 2, ESO or some other game. Those were my friends and family from guild wars 1 and the people I Grew up gaming with so for me they were a huge aspect of this game. To see them leave to other games that I myself am kinda eh about or ones like WoW that I just can't and won't do the sub model makes it hard to stay motivated.! 2. There is not much incentive to go for rewards; It feels as if nothing matters and nothing has a point. The game feels like it is at odds with itself, it lacks identity and it really feels meh most of the time. The combat is fun but it doesn't feel as good as other mmo's because there is less diversity and less "Wow this build" or "Look at his cool stuff for THEIR CLASS." Its more "Oh.... wow more stuff that looks like shit on anything but humans or sylvari. Fantastic."! 3. The story is trash, the lore has been soiled and my appreciation of it has been ruined. I am not interested as much because everything has become almost stake-less, we are unstoppable god killers.... I don't much care for high fantasy.! 4. The races feel pointless, could remove all of them but human and it would make the game less of a mess. (I love norn/charr but they feel like an after thought.) The customization of your character is crap-tastic and doesn't make you feel very accomplished because there is no further racial differences, when it comes to cosmetics such as armor, skill skin or even just flavor-full stuff based on the lore they are built within.! 5. Tons of empty, broken promises. (The alliance system which I Doubt is even being worked on, The changing progressive world which arguably ESO did better, Class reworks to make them more fun or viable, various forms of content being abandoned when they said they wouldn't be. ==> PvP, WvW and Dungeons.)! 6. The over saturation of cute, glittering trash that removes the immersion or even the sense of being in dark fantasy. The original game was a dark fantasy game and this game is to it what something like Age of Sigmar is to warhammer fantasy. It poops on the original game, lore and characters and pushes all sorts of none-sense to the forefront.! 7. No new races, one new class and even that one new class still feels unfinished despite my love of it for the throw-backs to GW1. Sorry but sitting with what we have now I have nothing to really get excited about. Elite specs? Don't care. Because either the spec will make everything else my class has complete garbage, because they will gut my other specs/core to make room for it. OR it will be a dumpster fire and won't be worth even going into because its complete garbage, as a Rev main who does open world pve/ WvW/Fractals and whatever else outside of raiding and PvP (Haven't cared for PvP since PoF. I did enjoy it in before and Post HoT) Glint is a better spec than Renegade. Renegade feels like complete trash to me, and in a lot of ways is a "Raid" spec because revenant had trouble getting into raids prior to it so they made a spec focused on being so orientated to it that it sucks everywhere else. (Doesn't help they murdered my man mallyx...)! 8. There is nothing concrete going forward, the dev's won't talk to us and refuse to even give us hope. Unless the 30th brings something amazing I highly doubt anything they say will matter; Those who have left will remain gone. Those un-invested will not be drawn in and those remaining will continue on because they see no need not too, or they could leave because perhaps its not for them. Living world was attempted to be the main way content was given... it failed and I doubt this will change as expansions bring hype and spreads word of mouth... patches not so much.! 9. Armor skins are hideous (Male norn player) there are hardly any fur, bone and leather armors that remotely look good on a heavy or even a medium and the wish for more viking/Celtic/barbarian armor makes it really hard to invest myself into a character WHO WILL NEVER LOOK THE WAY I IMAGINE HIM.! 10. And finally, the increasing amount of collections with poopy rewards at the end of it. I mean really like most the armor doesn't look good on my character, I have ascended armor and I have NO NEED or desire to go for legendary. Now ascended food? Legendary sigils/runes... Really? Why. This isn't needed and to me it just boggles my brain as to why. The game feels like a theme-park yet they want you to stick around so they make it grindy; BUT they refuse to make the game rewarding or have any sense of progression that means more than just silly mounts that they can then sell you skins for. (Same goes for gliders, costumes ect.) But the game itself feels un-rewarding and even legendary items and skins are starting to look less interesting than the gemstore items.! Added point, I hate how they abandoned guild battles, guild halls and Alliance battles. They went for this basic pvp system and the game itself, ITS FREAK'N NAME!! isn't even an applicable game mode? No instead we are focused into small little groups, or zergs that bum rush everything but the cool stuff from GW1 infact ALL THE COOL STUFF in guild wars 1 from lore, story and content was abandoned. What was brought back was destroyed and made more "Pc, realistic and correct by today's standards". I don't understand why they keep going with "Guild wars 1 did it, so now watch as I take it and destroy parts of it and abandon the rest." A lot of features and ideas from their original title should be present here; One of the biggest turn off's this game has right now is it doesn't feel like a sequel. It feels like a different reality or a fake running around in the skin of the real guild wars. This game DOES NOT FEEL LIKE THE SEQUEL to guild wars 1, it feels exactly like a knock-off but watered down version of that game. ~ Which now that I think about it is a shame, especially when ESO did a better job being the successor to guild wars 1 than its sequel did.! added point 2. The community is horrible, they literally will make straw-men when things don't go their way. And if you dare have an opinion or want anything outside of more of the same they jump you and try to mob you down. The people who come out (Can't all them what we used to call them) and defend the game despite all its flaws don't want it better, don't want it worse and they don't want change. They merely want it to mutter through~ They honestly are another huge turn off for this game, its all nice when you first get into it. But the moment you say something against their views; It becomes "Me,me,me,me" and "Well you're wrong because, this is the narrative I believe so therefor you must too !" There are some good people but they are so far and few between, between the "Casuals" and the "elitists" which are actually the same thing, pointing fingers at each other as the problem but both being equally to blame because the game as a whole has "Casual elitists". People who don't desire to devote a good portion of time to a game, but want all the benefits that a game like WoW or Final fantasy online provides with its grind. Ergo we end up here where the game doesn't know what it wants to be, because the loudest mouth gets the most active response.

In conclusion with all that I've listed I have hope for the game, I Want it to change and be a game Im proud to play and enjoy. But It feels like they actively are pushing me away Im not the target audience despite supporting them all this time. Buying the stuff I like, the expansions and all of the guild wars 1 content and playing the hell out of it Im not the one the game is being built toward. Im someone they want to go away of my own volition so this can be the hello-kitty cute world, is how it feels where they take the stuff I like and smear it on the floor and desecrate it for the sake of whatever "agenda" or fancy that tickles them in the moment. I loved joko and then they turned him into satire he wasn't even serious NOR DID HE FEEL LIKE A THREAT TO ME. Kralk? I mean he kinda gets diddled, we get pushed back and then dragon jesus pulls a stunt and we slap him for being bad. Just feels like this is their way of saying "All the guild wars 1 players, fans of dark fantasy or heck anyone who was here at launch needs to go. We have new fans now and there is no room for you; So you might as well pack it up."

[Redfeather.6401]

It feels like elder scrolls online is an mmorpg version of guild wars 1 more than guild wars 2 is. Since I love guild wars 1 I'm going towards it's spiritual successor.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I haven't "left" technically, but I'm playing the game in maintenance mode. I log in, do quick dailies, and log out. My main reasons are as follows:

(1): It is too hard to play the game, and Anet wants it that way. Every change to remove "passives' just makes everything tedious and frustrating to manage. My performance for each class keeps going down and down, and I hate it.(2): My health is terrible. I can't play a lot of games anymore because of how much it hurts to play games now.(3): Everything Anet is adding to the game is expensive. There's a lot of gem store stuff, and I don't have the gold or the cash to front it anymore.(4): I'm getting pretty sick of this community. For a game that is supposedly full of adults, everyone argues like obstinate children. Nobody is straight with me anymore. Players in-game have this dark triad of mean, stupid, and unskilled.(5): I can only play one game for so long. After awhile, I just get bored.

[Wakani.1829]

Played the original GuildWars for almost 7 years straight, never got bored, never ran out of things to do.

GuildWars2 dropped, i spent 6 months playing PvP exclusively, because i wanted to try something new, and they kept pushing pvp as something they were gonna focus on, that didnt happen, so i went to PvE for roughly 2 hours before i was bored out of my mind.

Heart of thorns dropped, and i returned to the game about a month into it's release, played till just before the 3rd boss in the spirit vale was released (sabetha).

Returned again in April 2019, and played through the Path of Fire expansion, aswell as the living world seasons, several new raid wings have come out, but i have yet to get into them, because everyone and their gram's wants you to have 250+ proofs of kill, wich i obviously do not have.

GuildWars2 cut out over half of the GuildWars Franchises soul, and from what i can tell, they've seemed almost religiously adamant on making new content exclusively for the cash shop.

If i was to say whats keeping me from playing seriously, like i did the Original GuildWars?

A distinct lack of options when it comes to skills and builds, GuildWars (the Original) did it right, Guildwars2 - not so much.Wheres the Ritualists ? what about the dervishes ?.Why did we ever go away from Elite Areas?, they were basically a mix of a dungeon, fractal and raid, if that had been utilized in GuildWars2, it'd have been amazing endgame content to aim for.Why is every single skin a cash shop item ?, give us a healthy split, for things that can be earned in game.Why are Utility items, such as gathering tools, and Primers for food, even IN the cash shop ?, these things should be things you have to earn through playing the damned game.and who's not-bright-at-all idea was it to allow people to BUY gold for gems?, whoever did ought to be fired, out of a cannon - into the sun.

Where is Cantha

[Tzarakiel.7490]

Fire emblem, Smash Brothers Ultimate and the rest of my Nintendo backlog.

[TheBravery.9615]

I exclusively play wvw and it's dead. No fights, laggy when there are fights, lack of content

PvE sucks

[Etterwyn.5263]

Well right now, it's waiting for Cox to send a technician to fix my cable connection. :p

After that, what keeps me from playing PVE is the repetition and lack of focus. A beautiful, painstakingly crafted, new map comes out, it offers 2 hours worth of story and is never revisited. If the farming isn't good then people go back to SW. All of the LS3 and LS4 maps were large and varied enough to support 2 episodes each, and maybe more. Feels like a waste.

Might be age but I'm tired of grinding. Ive got plenty gold, but these new collections all seem to require time investments that don't feel in line with the rewards. And F time gating... "you can only do this once a day" when it's got to be done 50 times... there's nothing in the game that compels me that much.

I quit PVE and got into WvW for those reasons, but the neglect eventually drove me away. Barrier was a ridiculously stupid idea. The POF elites are simply ridiculous for a competitive game. I for one loved the warclaw, in concept, but Anet screwed it up by giving offensive capabilities. Skill balances are too infrequent and often cause more harm than good.

[zealex.9410]

Man, i wish gw1 was still supported with new content, id legit play that over current gw2.

[vyncius.6105]

i still play, but not for long (i dont believe aug 30th will give us any hope).

Mainly what i hate:

1. No content in WvW
2. Bad pvp balancing
3. I hate this stupid story, being special snowflake, guardian of all, slayer of dragons and gods. Its bullshit, story should be about world and we are only travelers.
4. I hate gem store. Evrything looks so much better in gem store than in actual ingame. I hate we cant obtain mount skins, atleast some dye slots. I dont care about gliders, since i have Ascension, which is the best glider/backpack.
5. I hate easy open world content and meaningless rewards
6. Time gate, ohhh shit how i hate that. I had to do some insane time gates while doing astralaria collection, or aurora collection (3 weeks for 1 item to get).
7. I hate everysingle story character, they all look and act stupid, especialy taimi, so annoying. I feel my miniature has more soul than Rox.
8. Legendary armor is not fixed, medium looks like trash, dye channels are so bad on this one. Heavy looses colors, if i dye everything in shadow abbyss, it means i want everything to look dark... nop... in some areas shadow abbyss heavy leggy set looks full white... FULL kitten white!!!!! with the darkest dye i could find in game...

End of rant

[Draco.9480]

the focus of casual boring single player mode that has no purpose in repeating.adding more farming maps that just makes lfg empty after few months and adding more useless currencies.lack of real competitive in pvp - solo yolo queue in rating.lag in wvw.no new dungeons.last 2 fracs are just bad and we don't get good fractals anymore.raids are too easy.cannibalistic community that don't want change or real challenge and just wants to farm in faceroll content and safe space, and gets triggered by anyone who disagrees with their opinion or methods.no real balance, necro always gets to be the weakest spec in both pvp and pve.

[Leo G.4501]

New races. That would cement me back in the game for a while. I haven't played in over a year. Nothing really holding me back in the game, just doing a lot of other stuff and when I have time, I'll play something like a pokemon or a mobile game for a bit. When I do have time, there are other games on my plate.

But if they want me to skip that other stuff, put in Tengu or Kodan campaigns. I'll have so much backlog content to play through...

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Rendalmj.3152 said:This question to some of you who is only here lurking in forums but no longer play the game

Not enough development toward the things I care about.

For PvE, announcing that no expansion was planned and that living story is it was a killer. I need those expansions to keep the gameplay fresh. Maybe they'll announce something that will change my mind, but if it's just going to be nothing but living story from now on then count me out.

PvP/WvW. I find it infuriating that they put almost zero resources toward these game modes. Again, it's nowhere near enough. Alliances should have happened already. PvP should have had more than one stupid game mode YEARS ago. It's a pathetic effort. Count me out.

[Xanadrine.4352]

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:

@Omernon.9762 said:

@BlueJin.4127 said:I’m not completely gone, yet, but I play significantly less. This game is an orgy of unhealthily bright flashing effects (I cannot even play Holosmith due to all the flashing effects) and an incomprehensible mess of visual clutter (despite having killed them dozens of times, I still don’t know what many of the champions even look like). And there’s the ridiculously long aggro range of PoF and beyond (600 pre PoF compared to 900 and 1200 in PoF and beyond) that makes it annoying to explore open world.

I suggest you start using f.lux then. It might help. Not only it’s healthier for your eyes on day to day PC use, but warm colors also change intensivity of the flashes, because the bright, white light is by far the most damaging one.

I use f.lux, but it doesn't affect GW2 unless I play in windowed mode (which I don't want to do for a number of reasons). Presumably GW2 Hook can be set up to have a similar, but more carefully controlled, effect - although as I understand it, it can have a negative effect on FPS.

Win 10 does, it has night light settings you can set to any color you are comfortable with. Just type in the search bar night light. And it carries over into the game, i use it.

[Redfeather.6401]

@zealex.9410 said:Man, i wish gw1 was still supported with new content, id legit play that over current gw2.

Me too!The amount of theory-crafting was crazy.Making unique builds for so many parts of the game was like a puzzle.It was an amazing time.

[Hexalot.8194]

@c space cowboy.2764 said:1.)lack of content in wvw/pvp.2.)lack of skill/class balance in wvw/pvp.3.)skill and server lag in wvw.4.)drastically declining population in wvw and pvp, that isnt being addressed by anet btw.5.)lack of communication from anet regarding wvw and pvp content/skills/updates6.)lack of rewards in wvw/pvp.

This.

[Acheron.4731]

The sense of being strung along

[Ekolix.2961]

@c space cowboy.2764 said:1.)lack of content in wvw/pvp.2.)lack of skill/class balance in wvw/pvp.3.)skill and server lag in wvw.4.)drastically declining population in wvw and pvp, that isnt being addressed by anet btw.5.)lack of communication from anet regarding wvw and pvp content/skills/updates6.)lack of rewards in wvw/pvp.

This basically sums up my problems with wvw. When it comes to pve tho... I don't know what happened to the quality we got from the season 3. PoF in general and following that with the season 4 of the living world content is a lot inferior to what they did with this games pve content before. They are already pretty slow compared to the other big mmos out there when it comes to releasing pve content. On top of that the content they release is uninteresting with shallow design choices and they have zero replay value. There is literally nothing for me to do in this game anymore when it comes to pve.

I play another mmorpg for months now and couldn't be happier. GW2 is just a game that I play 3 to 4 hours every 4 months for a new living world episode at this point which is really sad.

[Sojourner.4621]

The people I play the game side by side with are currently playing something else, so I am currently actively playing that same something else. For my part I will probably always prefer the combat of GW2 over every other MMO out there, and the world itself and its exploration focus. Doesn't matter without the people I care about playing with me, though.

[TactualRain.7109]

@"Rendalmj.3152" said:This question to some of you who is only here lurking in forums but no longer play the game

Not knowing WTF to do :D I used to enjoy the game a lot, then IRL happened - tried to come back once or twice and thought, "Man, there are a lot of buttons on that toolbar."I posted in Reddit recently for some advice on how to get my muscle memory back, but that got downvoted because ... well, it's reddit, and abides by laws this universe can't fathom. As a filthy casual my needs are pretty low, but the re-entry barrier causes me to burn up :)

[Iron.4372]

I think it's between synergy between rewards/new content/repeatability/social/marketing - There are multiple MMO's, that mix few of those things, but there is no one to fix those issues at once. I loved GW because it connects few general aspects at once.

Few years later I was LITERALLY no-life with 40kish maxed titles GW1 with, few "God Walkin" and I wanted something different than now. Right know I have plenty of off-line player (casual) duties, but in my case is not because of content/GW at general.

There are many different types of players - farmers (new items design, fashion), storylovers (GW, EXP, LS), social-ones (guildies, WvWvW), pathfinders (JP, 100%'ers) and many, many others.

Everyone needs to be pleased, so there will always be negative/possitive feedback, depending on current satisfaction-factor :D

[Bladestrom.6425]

48 and still destroying :) got to love naga.

[Faowri.4159]

Combination of adult free time and health prevents me from playing more than I'd like to. I try and get back on to bash out each living story ep and then sometimes I start some of the collections and 'extra' bits of the episode, but run out of time before the next one lands. Trying to complete the skyscale collections now D'X GW3 might be out before I finish.

Kinda surprised to see so much vitriol for the story though. I feel like it's dramatically improved from Path of Fire onwards. I've loved having my character be a more central and focused part of the story, with personal stakes, instead of just getting dragged along anonymously by events. I've enjoyed having a much more vivid supporting cast to love or hate, and the cutscenes and general cinematic polish have come such a long way since original release. The only thing I routinely handwave is the often fluffy-sounding lore, which . . . eeeeh, I've always found forgivable if the characters and general thrust of a story are interesting enough.

Maybe it's pure personal taste - I acknowledge that we've moved away from the drier, less personal writing of GW1, but I prefer it whereas perhaps other people don't? I never, ever for a second thought that story was GW1's strong point. But that's just me! :)