Why I Keep Leaving GW2

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@"Jaunty.6018" said:

Well I loved Guild Wars 1 and put over 2,000 hours into it, so I believe I may have been part of the intended audience?

That was the theory, anyway. I also loved GW and put a ton of hours into it. I also find GW2 to be lacking. What might be odd is that only one of the things that bother you (skills tied to weapons) bother me. What makes this game less enjoyable for me are the incorporation of standard MMO elements, many of which I find unenjoyable. For me, though, other MMO's are even more like what I hate about MMO's. I don't know what your alternative to GW2 will be, but mine is not "Play another game." it's, "Don't play a computer game."

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@STIHL.2489 said:well I can't speak for anyone else, but my take away was that you keep coming back

Ha. That was my first thought, as well.

[Crab Fear.1624]

@Lunateric.3708 said:It's funny most of the things that you don't like about the game are strong points for the people that stick around. It's almost as if you're not the intended audience for this particular MMO.

I thought the intended audience was the one willing to spend money

[Dimi Gravedancer.1463]

@"Jaunty.6018" said:

5. Tying skills to weapons resulted in players using largely the same skills the entire game, whereas in GW1 you could use any skill you wanted. It was amazingly free and you could get really creative with it. I remember just daydreaming about the kinds of classes I could make. Especially now that I have a legendary bow (Kudzu); of course I want to keep using that weapon because I worked so hard for it and it's beautiful, which means the same five bow skills over...and over...again.

This, right here is one of the things I hate most about the game. I miss in GW1 how you could be extremely creative with your skills and build!!

[zealex.9410]

@Dimi Gravedancer.1463 said:

@"Jaunty.6018" said:

5. Tying skills to weapons resulted in players using largely the same skills the entire game, whereas in GW1 you could use any skill you wanted. It was amazingly free and you could get really creative with it. I remember just daydreaming about the kinds of classes I could make. Especially now that I have a legendary bow (Kudzu); of course I want to keep using that weapon because I worked so hard for it and it's beautiful, which means the same five bow skills over...and over...again.

This, right here is one of the things I hate most about the game. I miss in GW1 how you could be extremely creative with your skills and build!!

U can still be creative with your build. Wether it will work out is a diff matter. Now and then.

[Lunateric.3708]

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Lunateric.3708 said:It's funny most of the things that you don't like about the game are strong points for the people that stick around. It's almost as if you're not the intended audience for this particular MMO.

I thought the intended audience was the one willing to spend money

you can't target every wallet with a single product, that's as obvious as it gets.

[Ashen.2907]

A lot of stuff I agree with there OP, but...

If your guild has little, or less, to offer then it is not a problem with the guild system that led to players leaving.

If you do not like Soulbeast...don't play it. It is very easy to not load a given elite spec. Takes literally zero effort to not load it.

[Vargamonth.2047]

I completely agree about the social aspect, that's unfortunately the side effect of being extremely casual and PUG friendly.I've always been a small but strongly bonded guild guy, and in my experience GW2 clearly fails in this aspect. There's barely anything to do your with your friends. Or better said, whatever thing you could do with your friends, you could also do it on your own with little difference, so more often than not you find yourself talking on voice comm about who knows what while everyone does his own thing ingame (or even plays different games)Instanced content, which is a perfect scenario for playing with guildmates, looking for different strategies and sinergies, ends up being not so great due fixed rewards and group sizes. The game won't care if you complete the content with 2, 3 or 5 people, so you often find yourself having to either fill group slots with random players or leave some guildmates out (which will have to fill their own group with randoms if they want to play that content), which is definitely not the same as playing with your guild. Is either that or accept you will be penalized reward wise.Raiding is pretty much the only gamemode where I've get to know new people, and that's basically because it's less PUG friendly. I guess WvW or tournament PvP could be similar. However, excluding WvW, which can be a main game mode on its own, these activities are just a small subset of what a player can do and quite limited both in time and group sizes.

I also have to agree with the second point. I guess it's complicated to prevent kill steal and other annoying scenarios without granting everyone full reward because, let's be honest, the effort needed to be fully rewarded is minimal. I can easily spot the (huge) difference between doing my best on a "decent", familiar build and somewhat slack on some crappy builded alt, and the game won't care about that.AFKing on the middle of some events I know I already have contributed enough or leaving the char autoattacking to, lets say, check the trading post or look for new messages on the phone has become increasigly common for me and, honestly, it shouldn't. I won't even mention ignoring possible pre events preceeding the event I'm interesting in (and Dredge Commisair knows I'm not the only one).However, as I said, it's probably not that easy to achieve a fair reward structure without facing a whole new set of issues. At least they introduced event chests, somewhat solving the old issue where your reward was not only almost independant of your performance but also extremely linked to how many people had shown for the event (It seems they didn't totally liked the outcome tough. Ask Akili).

[Game of Bones.8975]

I'm speechless.In order to spend the time to put all that into words and by the nature of the title itself, it means you still care enough about the game to play periodically.
It's not perfect, but it's better than what I could come up with for the price.

[Jaunty.6018]

@Game of Bones.8975 said:I'm speechless.In order to spend the time to put all that into words and by the nature of the title itself, it means you still care enough about the game to play periodically.

It's not perfect, but it's better than what I could come up with for the price.

Of course I care! As I stated at the beginning of my post, I'm a long-time fan of the franchise. I've invested a ton of time into these games and I want to see GW2 become something more than what it is, what it has largely been since launch. Part of my playing GW2 as long as I have stems from my feeling of investment. I have a legendary weapon, I've paid over $250 for the game, its expansions, and gems, I've grinded (ground? People need to start saying this) endlessly to fill up my HoM in GW1, in preparation for GW2--and it's the only MMO with lore that I actually kinda care about. But every time I come back to GW2, I get burned out very quickly and usually end up leaving within a month or two, only to come back again a few months to a year later to repeat the process. It has a whole lot to love about it, and if I had listed all these things in my original post, it would have entered the territory of novel writing. I know many of my criticisms will never be addressed, but some definitely could, and I'm sure Anet would like to know the reasons why some players are taking frequent breaks from their game.

[Abakk.9176]

@Jaunty.6018 said:

@Game of Bones.8975 said:I'm speechless.In order to spend the time to put all that into words and by the nature of the title itself, it means you still care enough about the game to play periodically.

It's not perfect, but it's better than what I could come up with for the price.

Of course I care! As I stated at the beginning of my post, I'm a long-time fan of the franchise. I've invested a ton of time into these games and I want to see GW2 become something more than what it is, what it has largely been since launch. Part of my playing GW2 as long as I have stems from my feeling of investment. I have a legendary weapon, I've paid over $250 for the game, its expansions, and gems, I've grinded (ground? People need to start saying this) endlessly to fill up my HoM in GW1, in preparation for GW2--and it's the only MMO with lore that I actually kinda care about. But every time I come back to GW2, I get burned out very quickly and usually end up leaving within a month or two, only to come back again a few months to a year later to repeat the process. It has a whole lot to love about it, and if I had listed all these things in my original post, it would have entered the territory of novel writing. I know many of my criticisms will never be addressed, but some definitely could, and I'm sure Anet would like to know the reasons why some players are taking frequent breaks from their game.

Sounds to me like someone changing because of getting older. That is quite a common and natural thing to happen.

[Urud.4925]

I agree with some of your points, but I wouldn't change the game so drastically, as you would.Having played many other MMOs, I find GW2 a good hub to link together asocial people... I mean, every class can be replaced quite easily and big fights resolve in huge zergs, where no one can say what's happening. This is the only reason why I still prefer the old MMO that I played, because the contribution of every party member is more visible, and you get more satisfaction.But GW2 is GW2, I would keep it different from the other hundreds of MMOs out there. There's no point in competing with them, they all fail at some point, when they ask you more and more farming, and you have less and less free time.

Making friends here is not hard, especially if you are into the achievements, and look for some help to complete them. I always met good people. But true be said, they are mostly short friendships: I keep them in my contact list, but I barely whisper them again.Having multiple guilds could be also a reason for this "loose" friendships, as you say, though not the main one. Maybe reducing the cost of the upgrades would stimulate people to level up their small guild, rather than keeping one guild for their friends and join a big one for the boosts.I didn't meet any real friend during my travels, but I met some good people here and there when I wandered on foot. This is a game that must be explored, you want to reach a location and while you travel, you find some event and derail from your path. I like this, and I've been against the mounts. But most of the players asked for them, so Anet gave them. I cannot blame the devs for this. Increasing the waypoint's cost wouldn't help, imho.

Also I wouldn't change the rewards for dealing 1k damage over 1kk. I play the PvE in GW2 because I hate the competition, when many people become unfriendly and rude. I don't want to ignore someone who died because if I'd ress him I'll lose dps and reward. There are already many other MMOs for this, if you like it (where no one kills the adds because it would lower your personal damage on the boss. You are in party with them, but it's like everyone plays alone).

The inventory could be improved, you are right, and I hope they'll do it. The bundles in Istan for example, are a good thing: you gather them and you can open them after the meta. Currently I'm not able to play fractals because I haven't enough inventory space, and my mates don't want to stop every 5 mobs to give me time to sell the stuff. I'm waiting for a character slot discount :/

Level scaling is great. Without it, all the lower levels maps would be dead. Think about other MMOs. They are only used until you level up, then there's no reason to come back again. Level and loot scaling is one of the best thing in GW2. Although I'm wondering what will happen when even more maps will be added in future expansions, and the playerbase will be even more scattered across the world.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I haven't read through all the posts, but overflown it. What irony, the points with 'antisocial' you mentioned are exactly what makes this game 'social'. You don't just run solo in your own instance with henchies. That's what many people just did in GW1. Even I, I did a lot of content with henchies, be cause no one was around. And I sank over 4k hours in this game. Of course there were guilds and I had friends and we played together, but don't forget how many hours you played solo (at least it was for me).

[Faaris.8013]

@Ashen.2907 said:If you do not like Soulbeast...don't play it. It is very easy to not load a given elite spec. Takes literally zero effort to not load it.

Come on, it's not that simple. It's about getting something with an expansion but not really getting anything. I mainly played thief, and it looks like we got Deadeye, but in reality we got nothing. As Soulbeast, at least you get into T4 fractal groups, try that as Deadeye. Some classes are overlooked, and simply not playing them is not an easy solution to the problem. If Ranger was the only class and there was no connection to team play at all, that might be a solution. But other classes getting nice stuff and yours getting nothing does affect you.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@Faaris.8013 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:If you do not like Soulbeast...don't play it. It is very easy to not load a given elite spec. Takes literally zero effort to not load it.

Come on, it's not that simple. It's about getting something with an expansion but not really getting anything. I mainly played thief, and it looks like we got Deadeye, but in reality we got nothing. As Soulbeast, at least you get into T4 fractal groups, try that as Deadeye. Some classes are overlooked, and simply not playing them is not an easy solution to the problem. If Ranger was the only class and there was no connection to team play at all, that might be a solution. But other classes getting nice stuff and yours getting nothing does affect you.

The thing is, that "nothing" is far too subjective. P/P Deadeye is exactly the gunslinger I've wanted since I saw Unload in the Thief profession video, and I find the rifle really fun in its narrow niche. Soulbeast took a few weeks to warm up to before finding a Power spec I liked, and it made me branch out to more melee than I was initially comfortable with.

There are a few HoT specs I doubt I'll ever touch after unlocking, and a few PoF specs I'm sceptical to as well. That's just how it is - a spec can't be a hit for everyone.

[Rodrick.1942]

@Lunateric.3708 said:It's funny most of the things that you don't like about the game are strong points for the people that stick around. It's almost as if you're not the intended audience for this particular MMO.

Agree, I think u can play WoW instead, that is the game u want. Not this one.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Have too say also gw 1 was not a mmo it was closer too a single player game with co op options

[Hela.3856]

I don't necessarily agree with all of your points, but I do feel the anti-social point clearly. It's hard to join a guild. Perhaps this is a localized issue for me, as I have a pretty terrible anxiety disorder and I don't like reaching out to people. (you seem cool, can I join your guild? /utter terror /will die) The thing is, Pre-HoT it never used to be a problem. I'd constantly see recruitment messages, I could hop in to WvW and run around and I'd be asked to join a guild. Maybe it's an effect of the mega-servers, maybe it's just the game has gotten so big (map wise), or maybe the population is smaller than I remember. I don't know. All I know is I played actively for about a month and spent 90% of it alone. I had to reach out to guilds through websites to join one, and even then it turned out to be a bad fit, because they did content on hours I worked. Maybe the mega-server I end up in is always dead, I'm not sure.

I have plenty of gaming friends, but they've all moved on from this game for one reason or another. Most quit around the changes to dungeons. I think that was the last point that allowed you to socialize on a smaller level. I'm sure people will suggest fractals, but it's nothing like how the dungeons used to be. Not to say that I don't understand the reasons for the changes, just it can be so hard to even FIND a fractal group outside of a guild. I made a number of good friends through dungeon groups gone off the rails. I never make connections in a big squad, spamming aoes. Btw, this all sounds like whining because I'm very clearly whining. xD

I do love the game, I just envy some of the social aspects of other games. GW2 is so different that most of those ideas wouldn't work. The only thing I can think of is adding "guild recruitment" tab for LFG or something similar.

Annnndddd, if we could just delete green sigils/runes from the game I'd be happy. Only reason I ever have inventory issues.

[Urud.4925]

@"Hela.3856" said:I do love the game, I just envy some of the social aspects of other games. GW2 is so different that most of those ideas wouldn't work. The only thing I can think of is adding "guild recruitment" tab for LFG or something similar.A guild recruitment tab would be nice. It was the first thing that I searched when someone invited me for the first time and I wanted to see other options/guild advertisements. I didn't find it, obviously.

[Vayne.8563]

@Jaunty.6018 said:

@Lunateric.3708 said:It's funny most of the things that you don't like about the game are strong points for the people that stick around. It's almost as if you're not the intended audience for this particular MMO.

Well I loved Guild Wars 1 and put over 2,000 hours into it, so I believe I may have been part of the intended audience?

I put over 15,000 hours into Guild Wars 1 and I like Guild Wars 2 as much. Many of the things you don't like I love, and some of it I didn't like about Guild Wars 1.

Take downleveling. I always hated that going back from LA to get to Ascalon was boring and a waste of time. It's like a wasted world in a way. I'd have preferred to have had the world more relevant, than just something you run through that was meaningless.

My guild is more than five years old, it's a pre launch guild and many of our members, our core membership, has been there for years. The loyalty doesn't come from having or not having. It comes from offering a fun place for people to hang out. The guild is social if you make it social. During my time in Guild Wars 1 I can't tell you how many guilds fall apart. Nothing wrong with having multiple guilds, if your guild gives a reason for people to be there. That doesn't have to mean a greed reason. My guild offers camaraderie and a casual, fun, social experience that many guilds don't.

Soul Beast btw, is one of my favorite elite specs. You don't have to use a dagger is you don't want, any more than I have to use a long bow on a Dragon Hunter. If you don't like the dagger, don't use it. Doesn't change the fact that my soul beast is very successful in every area of the game I've attempted and I have a lot of fun playing it

Honestly, I'm relatively happy with the game, and if they changed it to the game you wanted, I'd be less happy with it.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Abakk.9176 said:I despise the notion that everything always seems to have to be competitive all the time. I prefer to do things together with others in an unforced way. The way GW2 lets you jump in, what you call a 'zerg', seems way more like natural human behavior than the straight jacketed 'grouping up' where you are expected to play your role perfectly or else you get kicked.

I disagree with most of what you said OP and would say that all your gripes and disagrees come from having different personal preferences that are better served in most of the other MMO's out there.

I do agree that this game could do with a fishing rod and some lures though... B)

@Lunateric.3708 said:It's funny most of the things that you don't like about the game are strong points for the people that stick around. It's almost as if you're not the intended audience for this particular MMO.

Sums it all up perfectly and hits the nail right on the head imo.

I see your point.. openworld pve was great when it first evolved and I still enjoy it, being part what is essentially community content that the OP seems to think doesn't really exist.

However Openworld brings its own set of issues which do help to detract from the games replay value for myself and likely others and that essentially comes down to scaling.. not player level scaling but event scaling. Many events as they loose their freshness become ignored by players or frustrate newer players because where there was once an endless openworld zerg now only a boss or achievement mob remains and too few players to make a dent.ANET brought character level scaling in, which I agree works for me.. but on the flipside events need scaling or scaling whole lot better shall we say.Openworld was also a good way of taking away the need for that trinity effect.. except when the events or achievs become unpopular, maps loose their height of activity, but the event remains unscaled.. it kinda almost brings back the need for an organised group and that trinity effect.

Second issue I have with Openworld PvE is something the OP actually touched on.. event AFK'ers. By making content completely accessible to players also has a tendency to create the auto attack while watching a movie, die and stay waiting until the event finishes and a res is forthcoming .. not fun to see events struggle and often fail because of this and worse where an event actual does have some scaling, the AFK dead donkeys keep it scaled high. Event loot maybe also needs some kind of contribution scaling.

Third issue I see with openworld, when events are fresh or are just plain popular for loot etc.. you can't see what your actually attacking cos all the particle effects hide it all .

As to community/social activites.. yeah fishin is kinda fun if implemented in the right way not just sit at water cast/catch.. it needs a little bit of x factor alongside it. The racing is a step in the right direction but its not really a race its more run the course, get the achiev/item and be done with it... moa racing was a lot more fun imo.

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

Many of the things you cite are things that I actually like about GW2. I've had plenty of social moments either across map chat or just standing around someplace on a map whether waiting for an event to pop or just hanging out in Claypool. And yes, while some things can be described as being very guild unfriendly in the game design, getting to be in multiple guilds increases the chances for socialization if that's your thing.

Personally, my biggest problem to date is that I've hit a small progression wall because I need like 2 or 3 core mastery points to finish unlocking my last core mastery and the ones I can most easily get are not that easy to get for me at this time so any and all xp I earn in core maps is completely pointless and the same is true for HoT maps.

[costepj.5120]

@"PookieDaWombat.6209" said:

Personally, my biggest problem to date is that I've hit a small progression wall because I need like 2 or 3 core mastery points to finish unlocking my last core mastery and the ones I can most easily get are not that easy to get for me at this time so any and all xp I earn in core maps is completely pointless and the same is true for HoT maps.

Have you got all the core masteries they added a few months ago? They were all just the run up and commune type, scattered across various core maps. I was also a couple short of maxing prior to that, so they were a welcome addition!

Edited to add: Wiki entry for anyone who missed them ...https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery_Insights_(Central_Tyria)

[Sojourner.4621]

@Jaunty.6018 said:

@"Mewcifer.5198" said:

1. Literally the exact opposite experiences as me. I am in multiple guilds and still manage to be social in all of them. My smaller guild is still around and kicking, it even has a guild hall and some upgrades. Parties are for friends. But there is plenty of situations where squads are very useful and encouraged for people to join. I never had an issue with not running into people. There is a
   lot
   of downtime where people chill and chat. The main location for this is Lion's Arch. I have actually sat and talked to people there for hours when I had originally planned to go do other content.

Talking in squads or on map chat is not the same. Can't remember one single time in my 1,000+ hours when I became friends with someone just by gabbing on map chat. Mostly people want to spout off a bunch of junk publicly because they're bored and seeking attention.

And I've personally made several close friends by talking to them first in map; most of them were some new player asking for help and advice, that I then party with, and join in their adventures for a little while, and then become good friends with. To be honest, making friends in game is like making friends in real life... you won't if you don't actually make the effort to do so. The problem here is, in fact, you.

2. "I think that's healthy competition" No, that's a recipe for toxicity.

How is that a recipe for toxicity? To be rewarded more for putting in more effort? If you're arguing that autoattacking Bob would become vocal about not being rewarded as much as me, well, should we design the whole game around autoattacking Bob? Should we cater to him and give him a pat on the back for simply showing up? I say no. Anet says yes. That's where we differ.

A lot of people play GW2 specifically because it promotes cooperation over competition. I don't want to race to kill an enemy because someone might come in and last hit it and take my loot. I don't want to have to race to find harvesting nodes because they aren't unique per player, but rather disappear the moment someone else interacts with it. I don't want to have to wait in line for world boss kills for achievements and drops. I don't ever EVER want to have to roll for loot.

3. I do not have this problem. I very very very rarely fill my bags.

I'm sorry, are we playing the same game? My bags are constantly full.

Yeah, with deposit all materials being a thing, and the fact that the game basically throws merchants at you to sell off your excess garbage, to the fact that you can easily AND cheaply craft a mystic forge conduit to throw all your substandard runes in to, to the fact that you can right click to salvage all... no, I never have issues here. EVERY once in a while, even running constant meta maps, I do fill my bag, if I didn't bother to pause for five seconds to clear it.

4. Going back to a low level area and killing a trash mob does not make me feel powerful at all. Going into raids and killing a hard boss with my blood, sweat, and tears makes me feel powerful.

That's fine. I expect many people to disagree with me there.

Eh, tbh I'd rather it go the other way... make every zone level 80 like ESO, then scale you up like WvW does (though you perform better at 80 cause you actually have skills and better stats instead of "scaled" stats, etc.) Could be done well if they tried, and can actually potentially make earlier levels more challenging which is something a lot of people do want.

5. Weapon swapping is a thing. If you insist on using only one weapon but wanting different skills. Play a different class that uses that weapon for a while. While I can agree that having traits change some of the weapon skills would be interesting, it would also be complex and hard for the devs to work with and keep balanced.

Really? I had no idea weapon swapping was a thing. Thank you for enlightening me.

Also, "that would be hard" isn't really a great reason for Anet not making changes.

Actually it's an amazing reason for them to not make some changes. In a recent AMA, someone asked about a "simple' change that would show more map currency types at the bottom of the inventory panel. When asked why not, the answer was, basically, that with the way the panel was written to begin with they would have to rewrite the entire inventory panel from scratch in order to get it to display more than two currencies at a time. NOT a simple fix like folks suspected, and because of the spaghetti coding GW2 is written on, many things are like this in the game. I don't know if you realize this, but ANet has about 350 employees, roughly... I would much rather they not halt their current development cycle to work on something that might potentially require a core game engine rewrite. WoW can get away with massive playstyle shifts and mechanics changes like it did with Legion because Blizzards devs number in the actual thousands, and the money they make is many times over the income of ANet.

6. I do not even know how to respond to this. First, you do not have to use the weapon that came with an elite spec when using that elite spec. Also, I still play a lot on my base engi because I do not like it's elites. This is not a reason to leave the game. It's barely even worth talking about.

I'm very well aware that you don't have to use the weapon that came with an elite spec when using that elite spec. I simply don't like the dagger abilities and I don't find daggers to be a desirable weapon choice for a ranger. And if I were excited to try a new elite spec in order to change up the monotony of my favorite class, then yes, it could very well be a good reason to leave the game. Of course, it's not my sole reason, as you can see. But it's worth mentioning.

Eh, you may not personally like them... as someone who likes the traitlines for Deadeye but not the Rifle, I do sympathize. At least for Ranger, the dagger is in fact objectively better on the Condi setup than the Axe ever was. The Elite Spec as a whole for Ranger, though, does a lot of really cool things with the specs that I enjoy playing (in particular power Greatsword/Longbow Ranger can do some very very strong burst thanks to interactions with Sic' em' and pet merging, and I do appreciate the One Wolf Pack stance a great deal.)

7. I like the new LA.

That's great.

You're going to get a real mix here... I personally like parts of it and dislike others. The net total for me is a positive mostly because I love the JP, and bat-manning around the rooftops. The "residential" districts with the tall spires and scaffolds and everything have a really cool feel to them, and as the kind of explorer this game is targeted at I love that I can walk on top of EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

@costepj.5120 said:

@"PookieDaWombat.6209" said:

Personally, my biggest problem to date is that I've hit a small progression wall because I need like 2 or 3 core mastery points to finish unlocking my last core mastery and the ones I can most easily get are not that easy to get for me at this time so any and all xp I earn in core maps is completely pointless and the same is true for HoT maps.

Have you got all the core masteries they added a few months ago? They were all just the run up and commune type, scattered across various core maps. I was also a couple short of maxing prior to that, so they were a welcome addition!

Edited to add: Wiki entry for anyone who missed them ...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mastery_Insights_(Central_Tyria

)

LOL, yes, but still good info to keep sharing. Its because of those that I am just 2-3 away from finishing them off. :D