A post from the heart - Massive Post

[Charall.4710]

A post from the heart By Dravvi.3146, Aka Spirit Mender Vii

Greetings everyone, after nearly 11 years of gw2 being out and having played it for quite some time now. Hearing stories, being a part of some stories, participating in every aspect of the game from PvP to WvW, Raiding to Fractals, Dungeons to Open World PvE, and the Personal story. I'm going to share a great deal of experiences that have lead me to making this massive post, this may or maynot be the very last forums post I ever make and the last time I play this game. It really depends on how I feel going forwards

This isn't a "I'm quitting because ___" post, It's a deep dive into my perception of the Guild Wars 2 community. From the beginning to its very sharp decline not in player base but community feeling overall and why I believe it's far more toxic than it should have become.

The no-grind philosophy and expansive rich open world

As someone who fell madly in love with guild wars 2's initial pitch, seeing how the trailers made me get the chills, the musical score from Jeremy Soule, seeing asura for the first time, charr, the combat animations and combos, the massive world, everything. This was my dream MMORPG, the one to rival all the rest. A course correction, a passion project that I could see was made with love and affection.

The initial base game in 2012 was beautiful, honestly, I miss those days and compare Guild Wars 2's current state to it so often because of how new and amazing it was. Seeing the open world for the first time, creating an asura, and marveling at the golems in the game, what seems so trivial now once was made me connect to everything and perhaps that's part of the problem.. Through the years? Things have become trivial, there's no life in certain places like there once was.. nothing that makes me go "Wow..." and feel like it's all not "fresh" but vast.. rich feeling.

Perhaps that's part of my problem with the game as it is now, I look around and feel like things are rushed, you can't feel the passion behind the expansions like HoT or PoF or even EoD like you could in central tyria.. the feeling of the game has changed and I am not very fond of the new content. Often times I find myself going back to divinities reach, rata sum, staying out of the new lions arch, going to queensdale or metrica province.

That should tell you some of the things I value.. I don't care about big green vines or world-ending gods, those things make me roll my eyes. What doesn't is seeing beautiful zones that OBVIOUSLY had a ton of effort and love put into them, not rushed content riding on the idea of things being "epic" or "grungey" <-- however you spell that one.

Beyond that.. there was once very little if any grind to the game, you could spend hours playing, feeling like you were just doing things you enjoyed, and weirdly? things would unlock along the way, gear would drop, generally there wasn't a lot of "grindy" feeling to the game.

The new legendary gear grind and exhausting amount of loot bags I have to open for things and stuff like that? Really makes me feel burnt out some times, like I just don't want to do much. I cannot speak for the vast majority, but that genuinely makes me feel like the game has turned into nothing but a grind fest.. Add atop of that masteries and it just doubles down on that.

Come on Anet, please.. just realize it isn't fun..

Incentive vs lack of incentive, old content and why it needs love.

This is a big one to me.. something that makes me look back at all the years we didn't have LS1 and ask "But why?", something that makes me look back at dungeons that are more or less dead and ask "But why?", something that generally makes me feel like anet.. doesn't care about those who initially played their game anymore.

One of my favorite things to do back in core tyria was run Citadel of Flame Path 1 for gold, I know that kinda defeats the "grind" thing I said earlier but hold on! Put the pitch forks away, because it wasn't the gold that made me run it primarily. It was the amusing line:

Spoiler

"Shh, I think we have more spies!"

If you remember that.. lol I died laughing the first time I heard it said like 10x in a row, so much so that I can't help but repeat it for certain meme-worthy scenarios even to this day.

But anyways, over the years.. anet has largely degraded the experience for dungeons, making it feel like there is little to no point in running them anymore beyond the initial time doing them, there's been no expanding on them.. they're just one and done with no love shown to them.

Living world season 1: This was up until recently a big thing to me, the battle for lions arch? Why was this so hard to implement? Why would this be taken away for all these years with nothing but a weird cutscene that you watch once to unlock an achievement to remember it by?

I don't understand why it seems like you hate your original work, Anet.. I really don't. It was some of your best effort, some of the most personality you put into the game, some of the best content. Please work on going back and giving us more to do with things like this, personally it drove me away for a time because I wanted to play the game but didn't feel like you cared about players who enjoyed your initial creation.. I'm repeating myself, but I hope my point is clear here.

Old content needs a revitalization for more than one reason, you have new players coming in.. They deserve more than "Oop heres a level boost as an apology for sparsely run content." no.. they need to be shown what drew us here in the first place. Not left till level 80 to go back and ask "what made all this so special?"

^ That I feel degrades the community a great deal, it makes things from back then feel unimportant and that's not something nice to feel.

The Trait System and Elite Specializations

So.. This one.. Yeah.. I'm going here, I've mentioned it before in passing I believe in other posts that I've made. But let's go a bit further into things here for a moment.

Story time:
Once upon a time guild wars 2 had a trait system with one minor trait and one major trait per trait line tier and had 5 trait lines available to pick from. The tiers were Adept, Master, and Grandmaster.

These traits had two ways to obtain them, gold and skill points which have been renamed to hero points.. Or my personal favorite way, going out into the open world and completing certain objectives to obtain them. Such as killing the bosses at the temple of orr, killing the ogre in queensdale, taking down the fire elemental, etc. All of this was a system that coulda been fantastic if they kept it..

But instead.. During the 2014 NPE [New Player Experience] they wiped it all away and brought it into what it is today, if you wish to see what it looked like.. go google "gw2 old trait system." in the images tab, you'll see it was vastly different and sure.. It may have had uneeded stats.. But compared to what it is now? that was a lot more diverse and this system feels dumbed down.

Add to that elite specializations that kill base classes? it all feels like they just want to forget about it all.

PvE & PvP vs WvW

The title of this segment of the post.. pretty well explains the entire situation here in my eyes. PvE keeps getting new maps, new content, new ways of playing, etc. Same with PvP getting new game modes, new maps, new mechanics, etc.. But WvW has been ignored for 10 years.

..I don't even know where to begin, why oh why is this such a controversial subject? WvW was one of the original selling points of guild wars 2 but yet it has been treated like an afterthought.. It's depressing, and saddening, I can understand why people are upset with Anet over WvW. I feel it too.. I want them to focus more on it, my last post about delaying the new expansion was evident in how desperate I am to see things change.

This is a problem area and to pretend it isn't will just make WvW players more distanced from you.. This is something that BADLY needs attention..

The Friendslist Stalking Problem

Now we're getting into some not often talked about issues, some of the darker sides of guild wars 2. I've taken you through the things I loved, the things I wish they would put more effort into, and some of the things I am not super fond of.. But now this is one of the things I really despise.

Having the friendslist be an account handle is a particularly dangerous tool in 2023, when anyone can add you with or without your permission across all characters? There is no way to escape harassment.. None at all. No way to prevent stalking you around the game, nothing.. it's just literally giving someone the ability to know where you are at any point in time without you even realizing it. The worst part is the paranoia that comes from looking at the "followers list" after having a minor dispute with some unhinged people. 9/10 times they add you to keep track of you in game no matter where you go.

Dumbing it down..

This is a tough one to explain for me and why I feel like this, so let me try my best.. Guild Wars 2 was never intended to be for the hardcore crowd, that is true.. I acknowledge that full well, knowing that the game was actually made with casual gameplay in mind and people could easily point to raids or challenge modes in fractals or things like that. But.. there's also something almost insulting about seeing content become more of a zerg-fest.

I'm going to use WvW as a prime example here because.. That fricken war claw killed roaming for the most part, when people can just hit V twice and zip away? theres very little incentive to meet people on the field and cause chaos rather than running with a big 50 person blob to trample over the enemy server using the boon sharing meta and capping objectives like SMC because.. wooo.. karma.. yey..

Like anet, this post isn't made to make you look at things and get discouraged. This is coming from the bottom of my heart when I say stuff like this, please encourage diversity in gameplay..

The Meta, The Overarching Major Problem That Needs Solving

This right here covers elite specializations, the trait system, gear system, WvW, PvE, PvP, classes, everything.

..What you need is to stop encouraging certain focuses on specific builds, there needs to be content that caters to different types of roles.. I hate going into WvW and seeing a necro spamming #1 on a scepter to dominate people or fractals full of only zerker classes. ..Just why? There's nothing fun about everyone doing the exact same thing in all bits of content..

We desperately need diversity, I mean shoot at this point there are so many gear types that are irrelevant that it's like.. ? why do they exist?

The Closing Statement

I love arenanet as they were.. Not what they had become over the years. I keep playing the game and criticizing it because I hope things will improve, I do like some of the content so I stick to that.. but I want a reason to enjoy the new stuff.. please do something.. 

- Love, Spirit Mender Vii

Edited July 13, 2023 by Dravvi.3146

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

✊

They have degraded it is true. The way the story is progressing is cringe worthy. The writing has gotten bad. The Competitive and PvE balance has gone to trash, but that has as much to do with years of bad decisions and badly designed especs. But the game is good, still, which speaks to the resilience of the original game.

[Obfuscate.6430]

The game will never feel as new and fresh to you as when you first played it - it's been a decade. 
Many of the original developers have left the company;  management and direction has changed a couple of times as well. 
Your complaints don't take in to account how much is fundamentally different behind the scenes. 
 

[Linken.6345]

44 minutes ago, Dravvi.3146 said:

The Friendslist Stalking Problem

Now we're getting into some not often talked about issues, some of the darker sides of guild wars 2. I've taken you through the things I loved, the things I wish they would put more effort into, and some of the things I am not super fond of.. But now this is one of the things I really despise.

Having the friendslist be an account handle is a particularly dangerous tool in 2023, when anyone can add you with or without your permission across all characters? There is no way to escape harassment.. None at all. No way to prevent stalking you around the game, nothing.. it's just literally giving someone the ability to know where you are at any point in time without you even realizing it. The worst part is the paranoia that comes from looking at the "followers list" after having a minor dispute with some unhinged people. 9/10 times they add you to keep track of you in game no matter where you go.

You do know that this is fixed right?

If you block someone your removed from their friend list now the only way they can see you is if your in the same guild.

And ofcourse people should be able to see other people in their guilds.

[Batalix.2873]

I really don't want to discredit the sincerity and value of your post but...

You focus really heavily on HoT/PoF/EoD being less satisfying than core, especs being less satisfying than core. Both of these things have been pretty normalized as the state of the game since 2015, 8 years ago.

Same thing with the criticisms that WvW gets nothing while PvP...does? PvP hasn't gotten a new map or mode since I believe 2018, almost 5 years ago?

My point is that if these are a lot of your major sticking points, the game hasn't been anything remotely what you remember and enjoyed for a long, long time.

Again, I do not disagree with your sentiments in the slightest. As much as I do like a lot of what HoT and PoF brought to the game, core Tyria, dungeons, professions, has a lot of charm that has been largely neglected, trivialized, and skipped over for quite some time. And WvW has so much potential to be fun but hasn't received any meaningful support or updates in far too long.

EDIT: Also I recognize that the original spec system was not very flexible and needed some opening up closer to what we have now, but kitten was it aesthetic. Wish the new spec system had retained more of that clean design sensibility.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I will talk about 2 topics. Stalking and Grind. 

 

Stalking

Stalking Was an actual problem I had ingame. He even impersonated me on reddit I was told. Just to get my attention. 

The f list being abusable as it was made me not play for a few months. 

Luckly that problem was solved. 

 

Grind. 

This one I don't get. Maybe it's just me but I never really found something to be grind in GW2 and that comes from someone with over 42k AP, 3 legendary armors, 24 Legy weapons, 7 legendary trinkets, 7/8 Legy runs and Sigils. 

Except for 2months Pre Hot where I farmed silverwaste, I never farmed money in GW2 and made most of my money from WvW. And we all know how little gold per hour that is

And I was still able to comfortly make all the stuff mentioned above. 

I even have all the Perma contracts. 

All bought by money made from playing the game. 

I really don't get how people not make money. 

I only run meta trains these days and my gold just keeps increasing at a good rate. 

 

The inventory is also something I don't understand. Just Typ cons in the search bar. Now all bags are highlighted. Double click all of them, press the store mats button, press all salvage, destroy all the leftover stuff that's not needed. 

Sell stuff that reaches your Max limit in your mats storage once a week. 

Easy peazy. 

[Lanfear De Noir.9127]

Hey there Dravvi... So sad you feel disheartened by the way the game has changed and how unsafe you feel at times within the community.  But speaking as a new player (7 mths old), I LOVE the game, LOVE the people in the game. Yes, sometimes there is a person or two that are bad seeds, but as a whole the community is good.  I have come from other extremely TOXIC games and I have to tell you, the GW2 community is amazing and helpful and always ready to jump in and help if/when needed. 

I have little understanding of how the game has changed over the years, thank you for your explanation.  But for me, I love the game... I would have loved to have been a part of all of the changes over the years, good or bad.

I apologize for all the LOVE I am giving this game and its people. It's just that I feel refreshed and have a renewed respect for games as a whole because of GW2... now I sound like a simp for GW2... lol

Best of luck to you Dravvi... maybe take a small break and come back with a fresh eye.

[yoni.7015]

5 hours ago, Dravvi.3146 said:

A post from the heart By Dravvi.3146, Aka Spirit Mender Vii

Greetings everyone, after nearly 11 years of gw2 being out and having played it for quite some time now. Hearing stories, being a part of some stories, participating in every aspect of the game from PvP to WvW, Raiding to Fractals, Dungeons to Open World PvE, and the Personal story. I'm going to share a great deal of experiences that have lead me to making this massive post, this may or maynot be the very last forums post I ever make and the last time I play this game. It really depends on how I feel going forwards

This isn't a "I'm quitting because ___" post, It's a deep dive into my perception of the Guild Wars 2 community. From the beginning to its very sharp decline not in player base but community feeling overall and why I believe it's far more toxic than it should have become.

The no-grind philosophy and expansive rich open world

As someone who fell madly in love with guild wars 2's initial pitch, seeing how the trailers made me get the chills, the musical score from Jeremy Soule, seeing asura for the first time, charr, the combat animations and combos, the massive world, everything. This was my dream MMORPG, the one to rival all the rest. A course correction, a passion project that I could see was made with love and affection.

The initial base game in 2012 was beautiful, honestly, I miss those days and compare Guild Wars 2's current state to it so often because of how new and amazing it was. Seeing the open world for the first time, creating an asura, and marveling at the golems in the game, what seems so trivial now once was made me connect to everything and perhaps that's part of the problem.. Through the years? Things have become trivial, there's no life in certain places like there once was.. nothing that makes me go "Wow..." and feel like it's all not "fresh" but vast.. rich feeling.

Perhaps that's part of my problem with the game as it is now, I look around and feel like things are rushed, you can't feel the passion behind the expansions like HoT or PoF or even EoD like you could in central tyria.. the feeling of the game has changed and I am not very fond of the new content. Often times I find myself going back to divinities reach, rata sum, staying out of the new lions arch, going to queensdale or metrica province.

That should tell you some of the things I value.. I don't care about big green vines or world-ending gods, those things make me roll my eyes. What doesn't is seeing beautiful zones that OBVIOUSLY had a ton of effort and love put into them, not rushed content riding on the idea of things being "epic" or "grungey" <-- however you spell that one.

Beyond that.. there was once very little if any grind to the game, you could spend hours playing, feeling like you were just doing things you enjoyed, and weirdly? things would unlock along the way, gear would drop, generally there wasn't a lot of "grindy" feeling to the game.

The new legendary gear grind and exhausting amount of loot bags I have to open for things and stuff like that? Really makes me feel burnt out some times, like I just don't want to do much. I cannot speak for the vast majority, but that genuinely makes me feel like the game has turned into nothing but a grind fest.. Add atop of that masteries and it just doubles down on that.

Come on Anet, please.. just realize it isn't fun..

Incentive vs lack of incentive, old content and why it needs love.

This is a big one to me.. something that makes me look back at all the years we didn't have LS1 and ask "But why?", something that makes me look back at dungeons that are more or less dead and ask "But why?", something that generally makes me feel like anet.. doesn't care about those who initially played their game anymore.

One of my favorite things to do back in core tyria was run Citadel of Flame Path 1 for gold, I know that kinda defeats the "grind" thing I said earlier but hold on! Put the pitch forks away, because it wasn't the gold that made me run it primarily. It was the amusing line:

  Reveal hidden contents

"Shh, I think we have more spies!"

If you remember that.. lol I died laughing the first time I heard it said like 10x in a row, so much so that I can't help but repeat it for certain meme-worthy scenarios even to this day.

But anyways, over the years.. anet has largely degraded the experience for dungeons, making it feel like there is little to no point in running them anymore beyond the initial time doing them, there's been no expanding on them.. they're just one and done with no love shown to them.

Living world season 1: This was up until recently a big thing to me, the battle for lions arch? Why was this so hard to implement? Why would this be taken away for all these years with nothing but a weird cutscene that you watch once to unlock an achievement to remember it by?

I don't understand why it seems like you hate your original work, Anet.. I really don't. It was some of your best effort, some of the most personality you put into the game, some of the best content. Please work on going back and giving us more to do with things like this, personally it drove me away for a time because I wanted to play the game but didn't feel like you cared about players who enjoyed your initial creation.. I'm repeating myself, but I hope my point is clear here.

Old content needs a revitalization for more than one reason, you have new players coming in.. They deserve more than "Oop heres a level boost as an apology for sparsely run content." no.. they need to be shown what drew us here in the first place. Not left till level 80 to go back and ask "what made all this so special?"

^ That I feel degrades the community a great deal, it makes things from back then feel unimportant and that's not something nice to feel.

The Trait System and Elite Specializations

So.. This one.. Yeah.. I'm going here, I've mentioned it before in passing I believe in other posts that I've made. But let's go a bit further into things here for a moment.

Story time:
Once upon a time guild wars 2 had a trait system with one minor trait and one major trait per trait line tier and had 5 trait lines available to pick from. The tiers were Adept, Master, and Grandmaster.

These traits had two ways to obtain them, gold and skill points which have been renamed to hero points.. Or my personal favorite way, going out into the open world and completing certain objectives to obtain them. Such as killing the bosses at the temple of orr, killing the ogre in queensdale, taking down the fire elemental, etc. All of this was a system that coulda been fantastic if they kept it..

But instead.. During the 2014 NPE [New Player Experience] they wiped it all away and brought it into what it is today, if you wish to see what it looked like.. go google "gw2 old trait system." in the images tab, you'll see it was vastly different and sure.. It may have had uneeded stats.. But compared to what it is now? that was a lot more diverse and this system feels dumbed down.

Add to that elite specializations that kill base classes? it all feels like they just want to forget about it all.

PvE & PvP vs WvW

The title of this segment of the post.. pretty well explains the entire situation here in my eyes. PvE keeps getting new maps, new content, new ways of playing, etc. Same with PvP getting new game modes, new maps, new mechanics, etc.. But WvW has been ignored for 10 years.

..I don't even know where to begin, why oh why is this such a controversial subject? WvW was one of the original selling points of guild wars 2 but yet it has been treated like an afterthought.. It's depressing, and saddening, I can understand why people are upset with Anet over WvW. I feel it too.. I want them to focus more on it, my last post about delaying the new expansion was evident in how desperate I am to see things change.

This is a problem area and to pretend it isn't will just make WvW players more distanced from you.. This is something that BADLY needs attention..

The Friendslist Stalking Problem

Now we're getting into some not often talked about issues, some of the darker sides of guild wars 2. I've taken you through the things I loved, the things I wish they would put more effort into, and some of the things I am not super fond of.. But now this is one of the things I really despise.

Having the friendslist be an account handle is a particularly dangerous tool in 2023, when anyone can add you with or without your permission across all characters? There is no way to escape harassment.. None at all. No way to prevent stalking you around the game, nothing.. it's just literally giving someone the ability to know where you are at any point in time without you even realizing it. The worst part is the paranoia that comes from looking at the "followers list" after having a minor dispute with some unhinged people. 9/10 times they add you to keep track of you in game no matter where you go.

Dumbing it down..

This is a tough one to explain for me and why I feel like this, so let me try my best.. Guild Wars 2 was never intended to be for the hardcore crowd, that is true.. I acknowledge that full well, knowing that the game was actually made with casual gameplay in mind and people could easily point to raids or challenge modes in fractals or things like that. But.. there's also something almost insulting about seeing content become more of a zerg-fest.

I'm going to use WvW as a prime example here because.. That fricken war claw killed roaming for the most part, when people can just hit V twice and zip away? theres very little incentive to meet people on the field and cause chaos rather than running with a big 50 person blob to trample over the enemy server using the boon sharing meta and capping objectives like SMC because.. wooo.. karma.. yey..

Like anet, this post isn't made to make you look at things and get discouraged. This is coming from the bottom of my heart when I say stuff like this, please encourage diversity in gameplay..

The Meta, The Overarching Major Problem That Needs Solving

This right here covers elite specializations, the trait system, gear system, WvW, PvE, PvP, classes, everything.

..What you need is to stop encouraging certain focuses on specific builds, there needs to be content that caters to different types of roles.. I hate going into WvW and seeing a necro spamming #1 on a scepter to dominate people or fractals full of only zerker classes. ..Just why? There's nothing fun about everyone doing the exact same thing in all bits of content..

We desperately need diversity, I mean shoot at this point there are so many gear types that are irrelevant that it's like.. ? why do they exist?

The Closing Statement

I love arenanet as they were.. Not what they had become over the years. I keep playing the game and criticizing it because I hope things will improve, I do like some of the content so I stick to that.. but I want a reason to enjoy the new stuff.. please do something.. 

- Love, Spirit Mender Vii

I disagree with almost everything you wrote. 

[Balsa.3951]

i think it could be u changed.

game is better than ever now a lot stuff from the past we see with nostalgia

early game had so many bugs some fun some bad once. i almost lost my first char during a loading screen bug. needed a week before they fixed it.

salvage everything per click. game was run silverwaste and have inventory open to constant salvage and deposit.

horrible unskippable cutscenes. the commander was a mute.

story was it better ? we had trehane who was really underselling the dramatic of the moment.

no wardrobe!! u had a skin only when u had the item.

no legendary functionality it was just a exotic with a skin 

no legendary armor 

no endgame like at all 

gemstore was empty often didn't work 

server system if ur server was empty u was lost 

 

anyhow so much I cry about SOTO I think u may should give it a shot. Or if quiet the game thats also ok with the free up time can do sport and get fit.

[costepj.5120]

2 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I really don't get how people not make money. 

This

18 minutes ago, Balsa.3951 said:

game is better than ever now a lot stuff from the past we see with nostalgia

And this.

[Endaris.1452]

Exploration content naturally is the best the first time. I would tend to agree that handing out level 80 boosts to new xpac buyers is meh as it incentivizes skipping old content more than not, but it's still there and if we can believe reddit and new players, they certainly still play and appreciate that content if that's what they came for. But exploration has little to no replayability.

Regarding the trait system: It had its own problems and the unlocking thing was ridiculously annoying. I would tend to agree that it gave more flexibility in trait selection however and had stronger transformative impact on builds via traits impacting skill mechanics rather than just numbers / boons. In a way certainly fun.

And the grind...yeah, well, they kind of drove that into the ground by mismanaging the economy rather than anything else. After the bliss of Tarir loot there was no going back, then we got unids affected by magic find, Istan loot. New crafting and skin content tends to be ridiculously expensive nowadays if only to try and take resources out of the game to slow the ever-rising inflation. It's definitely a thing and I certainly dislike that it tends to be bound to materials with gold value rather than map currency as in most of LS4. Not even talking about legendaries here.

Warclaw was most certainly a terrible idea. Can't remember if anyone ever wanted that but logically none should have. I was already sceptical about gliding in WvW but the mount certainly had a huge impact on the landscape.

[ilMasa.2546]

I agree with many of the points you've listed. The problem is that many of those points don't go along with business.
In the sense that I believe that the bulk of the changes that have been made have been made to satisfy and/or interest users in the current market, which is obviously different from 10 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I much prefer how gw2 was 10 years ago than how it is today and while I've enjoyed some of the changes they've made there have been many more that I absolutely fail to like.
I liked that there wasn't a meta and I liked that gw2 presented itself as that mmorpg where you logged in and you didn't have to farm that much to get a best in slot (It didn't take that much to get you full exotics with karma). It was a different take on the genre without having to maintain the consistency that instead you had to keep on every other mmorpg for example on wow.

Although it may seem an unpopular opinion, for me WvW was meant to be the actual endgame on release. Because none of the activities you could do in the endgame could be considered a sort of endgame. And in fact all those "raiders" who moved from other mmorpgs at the time, when they started farming dungeons for just themed skins and no acutal gear progression, they returned to play where they came from.

But people want the tredmill:
- they want gear progression (ascended,legendaries)
- they want achievements (daylies,unlocking things)
- they want endgame (raids,fractals...)
- they want the dps meter and then complain about the dps elitarist

... and so Anet made a decision. And the decision was to focus primarly on pve content and shift to a more wow-ish structure.

Also it seems to me that today the mentality of those who do pvp has also changed. There are very few who do pvp for the simple sake of doing pvp and having fun doing pvp: that is to confronts with others, improve, become the best. Today the vast majority of people do it if is "worth the time". And you can clearly see this idea in all those recent pvp openworld games or those games where u can have a open world pvp zone.They flag for pvp if they have something to gain out of it: more loot or a 50% exp icrease...

Im a huge WvW player,i moslty play only WvW,but unfortunally WvW doesnt sell as much as a new raid or a new currency to grind to get new achievements so u can unlock a new collection so u can unlock new gear...

Do you remember the orb of power? Did Anet fix it? No,not worth the time.The only major update was the desert BL,nobody in WvW asked for something similar to it.Ok they didnt like it let's go back make strike missions then... lol

Edited July 13, 2023 by ilMasa.2546

[ilMasa.2546]

For example Anet has this fixation for verticality...Each expansion they go up: they give you the rabbit to jump, they give you the glider to glide, the skyscale to fly...lets go DEEP for once.
Why not a nice expansion that expand underwater combat.

- adjust existing skills to be viable underwater
- add elites dedicated to underwater combat
- expand the open world to have interesting underwater content

In WvW they could add a bottom layer of rivers, underground lakes co0nnected to the existing ones where people could specialize in underwater combat.So that people can fight simultaneously on different zones but in the same map, without the need to create from scratch a new map, but instead expanding the existing ones with new or interesting mechanics, to just refresh what people already like. 

Edited July 13, 2023 by ilMasa.2546

[mercury ranique.2170]

Can I has your stuff??
 

Just kidding!!

Although I party understand and share your sentiment, I also think that there is more to it then meets the eye. People tend to conserve the things they love and cherish it. It is the root cause of any conservatism. We like it the way it so we dislike change. (which is perfectly ok).
But not everyone likes it the way it is and so change is inevitable. Just like you and I have changed in the past 12 years, so has the game.

When I started playing I had tons of time and had all the time of the world to dive into the tiny little details of the game.
Around the time of HoT I started a fulltime job and had to limit my playtime
Around the time of PoF I found love and married her. It strained my playtime even more

Now-a-days I play for about 5-6 hours a week while I used to play around 10 hours a day.

So to me the way the state of the game has evolved, actually fits my playstyle. I had no issue playing through EoD and the two living world chapters and even could do some achievements and grinds. something that would have been impossible back in 20212/2013 with the amount of content and richness.

So to me, my personal evolution and the games evolution is still a match, but I know that nothing lasts forever and one day we will be parted.

I think your situation is more that your evolution and the games evolution has grown apart. You now expect the game to change back to what you loved and want to conserve that. Ask yourself how realistic that is. It might be better to accept it and change how your ingame activity fits into your life. Maybe you draw the conclusion it is time to move on. Maybe you stick around with a different perspective. Maybe over time GW2 evolves further that is more of your liking, wether you stay or go, it will be there for you even then.

That for the more philosophic approach to my reaction. Now to be more into the matter.
I actually agree. I am a GW1 veteran and I remember the precursor of the official forum being full of impatiences about this upcoming new game. We all where GW1 veterans and know development there had stopped in favor of this new game.
We had high acceptations.
And they delivered. They went beyond expectations. To me, the biggest mistake they made however was listening to the community from that time onwards.

1: it messed with the release cadance of content and they haven't found a new cadance fitting ever since then.
2: Raids....fractals....drm's... all down in an attempt to please that part of the crowd that voice themselfes.
3: Guildhalls. I remember endless debates. once Arenanet gave in it took them a lot of resources to implement them. I do not know for your guilds, but my halls are mostly deserted with a rare exceptation of an idle player.

I could stretch this list on and on, but although some feedback has given us good progress, many of the feedback has given us bad progress. I would wish Arenanet would care less about us and go back to the time we didn't know what they where doing and surprised is in a very pleassant and positive way. But then I am conservative again. I know that too many people have been used to being cathered to whatever they desire that it would not be accepted at all.

[The Boz.2038]

55 minutes ago, ilMasa.2546 said:

Why not a nice expansion that expand underwater combat.

Nobody wants this.

Even ANet doesn't. They had a whole sea-themed expansion they could have used to redo and revitalize some underwater content.

At this point, making sure very profession works to at least an acceptable minimum standard underwater would be basically expansion-level content, and nobody is excited about it.

Let it die.

[Charall.4710]

Just now, The Boz.2038 said:

Nobody wants this.

Even ANet doesn't. They had a whole sea-themed expansion they could have used to redo and revitalize some underwater content.

At this point, making sure very profession works to at least an acceptable minimum standard underwater would be basically expansion-level content, and nobody is excited about it.

Let it die.

..I mean I do.

[ilMasa.2546]

26 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Nobody wants this.

Even ANet doesn't. They had a whole sea-themed expansion they could have used to redo and revitalize some underwater content.

At this point, making sure very profession works to at least an acceptable minimum standard underwater would be basically expansion-level content, and nobody is excited about it.

Let it die.

Well they didnt want raids and any standard endgame at first as well..they tunnel vision on endgame for 6 years 
They wanted legendary to just be a nice looking skin at first,then they turned those to bis
They didnt want dps meters and/or any addons aswell...we have all of that anyways with no problems

It's not that im asking anet to tunnelvision for an other 6 years just to fix water combat
Still i dont "sea" (see what i did there) a problem in having an expansion that expand and revitalize areas that would otherwise be outdated and uninteresting.
Also imo the underwater combat in gw2 was a really nice concept  unfortunately it was not developed further just like the skiff dont make any sense with the "maritime" gameplay we have atm.

Also they plan to release new wepons for each class after the new expack right?...so they are going to change and add new features to old systems...it's totally doable
and just like there is a separate tab for spvp gear they could introduce a tab dedicated to underwater combat that is automatically activated when you dive, and it would be an expanded system of what already exists so... never say never imo

nobody wants it: is an extremely dismissive way of arguing an idea.

In the history of gaming someone else said something similar: you think you do but you don't . Classic was announced  few years later...just sayin 😛

Edited July 13, 2023 by ilMasa.2546

[Shuzuru.3651]

9 hours ago, Dravvi.3146 said:

The Meta, The Overarching Major Problem That Needs Solving

This right here covers elite specializations, the trait system, gear system, WvW, PvE, PvP, classes, everything.

..What you need is to stop encouraging certain focuses on specific builds, there needs to be content that caters to different types of roles.. I hate going into WvW and seeing a necro spamming #1 on a scepter to dominate people or fractals full of only zerker classes. ..Just why? There's nothing fun about everyone doing the exact same thing in all bits of content..

We desperately need diversity, I mean shoot at this point there are so many gear types that are irrelevant that it's like.. ? why do they exist?

I think you need to remove the rose tinted glasses here. 

The game has never been so diversified the last 2 year than it ever been (in PvE, I don't know about PvP)

Little reminder of old time of high end PvE :

- Power was the only viable option

- Berserker was the only gear option

- Warriors were dominating, followed by Elem

Now, we've got both dps damage (power and condi), dps with support (so boon duration), pure healer, tank healer, hybrid build (celestial), pure tank (a bit out of meta, thought)

On top of every class being relevant* on 1 or multiple build.

*there are some balance hiccups, I aggree, like right now, but it's more of a general statement. 

[Ashen.2907]

48 minutes ago, ilMasa.2546 said:

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Ashen.2907]

48 minutes ago, ilMasa.2546 said:

Well they didnt want raids and any standard endgame at first as well..they tunnel vision on endgame for 6 years 
They wanted legendary to just be a nice looking skin at first,then they turned those to bis
They didnt want dps meters and/or any addons aswell...we have all of that anyways with no problems

It's not that im asking anet to tunnelvision for an other 6 years just to fix water combat
Still i dont "sea" (see what i did there) a problem in having an expansion that expand and revitalize areas that would otherwise be outdated and uninteresting.
Also imo the underwater combat in gw2 was a really nice concept  unfortunately it was not developed further just like the skiff dont make any sense with the "maritime" gameplay we have atm.

Also they plan to release new wepons for each class after the new expack right?...so they are going to change and add new features to old systems...it's totally doable
and just like there is a separate tab for spvp gear they could introduce a tab dedicated to underwater combat that is automatically activated when you dive, and it would be an expanded system of what already exists so... never say never imo

nobody wants it: is an extremely dismissive way of arguing an idea.

In the history of gaming someone else said something similar: you think you do but you don't . Classic was announced  few years later...just sayin 😛

They did want raids, they just wanted to call them by a different name. ANet described explorable dungeon paths as GW2's version of raids. Of course that didnt work out very well so they replaced them with Fractals, to serve the same role. People wanted raids with a larger group size than the existing content intended to fulfill that role so ANet added new 10 player content, and chose to use a more familiar term, Raid, this time.

[ilMasa.2546]

13 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

They did want raids, they just wanted to call them by a different name. ANet described explorable dungeon paths as GW2's version of raids. Of course that didnt work out very well so they replaced them with Fractals, to serve the same role. People wanted raids with a larger group size than the existing content intended to fulfill that role so ANet added new 10 player content, and chose to use a more familiar term, Raid, this time.

Help me understand this: so story mode was their "dungeon" version and explorable mode was the "raid"... something like that?
To be fair i wasn't that much into pve back in the days,might have missed this paculiar clarification cos i dont remember it. good to know if thats the case

[Freya.9075]

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. Many times you can look back at the "good old days" and miss the fun you had back then. I understand that feeling. But if you were to magically teleport back then with your present knowledge and quality of life they added throughout the years, you would not get the same feeling as you did when you were a new player. This goes for any game and even real life situations. I was a new player just a few years ago, and I have nostalgia from the beginning as well. Many years after the veterans had the same feeling when starting the game. And new players to this day still have this "new game" feeling when they start gw2. When WoW classic was released, many veteran players flooded it because of nostalgia, only to quit the game as it was not as fun as they remembered. 

[Ashen.2907]

26 minutes ago, ilMasa.2546 said:

Help me understand this: so story mode was their "dungeon" version and explorable mode was the "raid"... something like that?
To be fair i wasn't that much into pve back in the days,might have missed this paculiar clarification cos i dont remember it. good to know if thats the case

Exactly so.

They thought that explorable mode was a sufficiently significant step up in challenge to serve as GW2's version of raids.

[Randulf.7614]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

They did want raids, they just wanted to call them by a different name. ANet described explorable dungeon paths as GW2's version of raids. Of course that didnt work out very well so they replaced them with Fractals, to serve the same role. People wanted raids with a larger group size than the existing content intended to fulfill that role so ANet added new 10 player content, and chose to use a more familiar term, Raid, this time.

It’s difficult to say fractals were designed to replace explorable because they weren’t working out though. Fractals arrived 3 months after launch, so they were always the plan for new instanced content alongside dungeons. Their development were likely a year or more prior to gw2 launch. Explorables were dead likely because TA4 was somewhat of a miserable failure in reception a few months later. Fractals were clearly more popular, despite the very different presentation of 4 randoms they started as

[Balsa.3951]

3 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Nobody wants this.

Even ANet doesn't. They had a whole sea-themed expansion they could have used to redo and revitalize some underwater content.

At this point, making sure very profession works to at least an acceptable minimum standard underwater would be basically expansion-level content, and nobody is excited about it.

Let it die.

not a fan of underwater as well.

they made in my mind a mistake with breathing underwater.

a limited amount of air could create some fun mini games maybe.

they still could add deep diveing mini games.

also get rid of the breather and replace it with an outfit slot.

Abyss stalker already in game.