Is this game worth coming back to?

[Seveleniumus.5973]

I played this game for 1k hours when it first came out, but then quit it some time before it becoming open to f2p. I logged in recently, but couldn't remember anything anymore ;D My question is - is this game worth coming back to? Is the community/PvP/WvW/Dungeons/fractals still pretty active? Does this game still have a lot to come in the future or is it on its last legs?

[DeanBB.4268]

You're asking this in a community where only people who own GW2 can respond? 😮

 

There is a ton of content, and a 3rd expansion on the way. Revamp of WvW via Alliances is on the way (some will roll eyes at this). Tons of players. What exactly you experience will vary depending on what you do. Dungeons are dead content, replaced with fractals, raids, DRMS, meta events, strike missions, Marionette. Some people say WvW is dead, some PvP, some Open world. As most MMOs some say it's been dead since it launched, so whatever...

 

But really, if you already own it, just play and find out.

Edited July 20, 2021 by DeanBB.4268

[Luclinraider.2317]

The game is still very much alive. Considering it functions on world servers with around 500k active player.

 

Games like WoW Classic for example may have 1.1 millions, over double the active players, however, their player base is split into servers with even the most populated having around 25k. With GW2 all 500k of us are all playing together, so you can literally pick any zone in the world and find people as opposed to WoW where 98% of the zones are empty post leveling.

 

That being said, the big expansion reveal is in 7 days (next Tuesday) so there's tons more to come.

 

Imo, a great time to jump back in.

[DeanBB.4268]

Also, may want to browse the official news to see what's new and find their plans for what's coming:

 

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/

Edited July 20, 2021 by DeanBB.4268

[Vayne.8563]

18 minutes ago, Luclinraider.2317 said:

The game is still very much alive. Considering it functions on world servers with around 500k active player.

 

Games like WoW Classic for example may have 1.1 millions, over double the active players, however, their player base is split into servers with even the most populated having around 25k. With GW2 all 500k of us are all playing together, so you can literally pick any zone in the world and find people as opposed to WoW where 98% of the zones are empty post leveling.

 

That being said, the big expansion reveal is in 7 days (next Tuesday) so there's tons more to come.

 

Imo, a great time to jump back in.

I really wish people would stop inventing player numbers. The only ones who know how many people are playing is Anet, period. Those numbers are guesses at best, based on sites which guess. That information isn't publicly available.  People should stop quoting these numbers as something factual.

You may believe that's the number of active players. You can't know.

[Vayne.8563]

Yep the game is worth coming back to. Plenty of people playing, plenty of stuff to do.

 

Edit: Spellling. Almost edited ending the sentence in a preposition but decided that was overkill. lol

Edited July 21, 2021 by Vayne.8563

[firedragon.8953]

As mentioned above, you are going to get biased responses due to the nature of asking on the GW2 forums.

But here is my biased answer! 

Most definitely, yes!

I bought the game in 2012 when it was first released, played a little (up until level 40 or something) and then quit for various reasons (not solely because of the game). Decided to come back during the pandemic to "explore virtual worlds" since real world exploration became...difficult. So glad I did! World design, combat, community, artwork (sans some gem store eye kitten) is great! I also love the lore of Tyria (story writing could be a bit better, but eh, it could also be MUCH worse). Seems very populated and the future of the game looks brighter than it has for a long while.

[Pacificterror.7805]

Game is still busy for sure, although if you talk to people about specific game modes you'll get mixed responses.

 

WvW is busy, but depending on your timezone and your server it may not be as busy as you'd like (although as someone mentioned earlier, "Alliances" is coming which -should- solve that for anyone with that unfortunate issue). I'll note that I've played WvW on 2 servers and didn't encounter this issue on either. You'll see mixed reviews about the state of WvW because different people play it in different ways, and that rubs some people the wrong way....being on a server where groups primarily do X style of play instead of Y.

 

Fractals are active.

 

PvP is one of those things where you'll see highly mixed reviews. I haven't tried it myself, but see countless complaints of bots, X profession/elite specialization being far too common or OP, the base being toxic, etc etc etc. There are definitely people that play PvP, even those that primarily ONLY play PvP, so it could easily be a case of the voice of complaints rising above the rest.

 

Open world is thriving.

 

Dungeons is, as far as I can gather from threads on the subject, dead/forgotten content.

[voltaicbore.8012]

2 hours ago, Pacificterror.7805 said:

Dungeons is, as far as I can gather from threads on the subject, dead/forgotten content.

 I'd second everything you said, except for this. With the exception of Aetherpath and Arah, it isn't too hard to find or fill an LFG for any of the other paths. The other nice thing is that every single story dungeon and the vast majority of explorable paths are soloable anyways.

[Infusion.7149]

If you asked in 2019-2020 maybe you would have gotten a different answer.

PvP: Josh Davis is back (a former top 2% rating PvP player that was dev) , PVP is going to get some attention as when he was at Arenanet they had World Championship and ESL

WvW: Alliances slated to be tested "this year", Josh Davis has engaged with the community regarding WvW rewards , future DX11 test client release should help a bit for people that don't use d912pxy or dxvk
 

Dungeons/fractals: dungeons are finished due to no further development, fractals gained new ones just this past year (Sunqua Peak) and T4s are active around reset time daily

Edited July 21, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Pacificterror.7805]

19 minutes ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

 I'd second everything you said, except for this. With the exception of Aetherpath and Arah, it isn't too hard to find or fill an LFG for any of the other paths. The other nice thing is that every single story dungeon and the vast majority of explorable paths are soloable anyways.

 

Good to know, ta.

[Danikat.8537]

Yes it's still worth playing. Various areas of the game aren't as busy as they were when they first released and everyone was crowding in trying to rush through achievements, but you'll have a hard time finding any part of the game which is genuinely empty.

 

One bit of advice: A lot will have changed since you last played. I strongly recommend making a new character if you've got a spare character slot and levelling them up by playing for a bit to re-learn the game. You don't have to take them all the way to level 80 and you absolutely should keep your other characters to go back to when you're ready, but it will help you remember or in some cases learn for the first time how the game works, so you can then decide what you want to focus on.

 

One thing you might need to know: the Looking For Group tool in this game is not just for dungeons and raids. It can be used for any content and is often necessary to find organised maps for open-world meta events because the game will create as many copies of a map as it needs to hold all the people who want to go there so if lots of people are piling in because a big event is starting you might end up on a newly created copy with relatively few people and no one organising it and you'll need to find a group to join in LFG and join their copy of the map instead.

 

8 hours ago, firedragon.8953 said:

As mentioned above, you are going to get biased responses due to the nature of asking on the GW2 forums.

I'm actually surprised there haven't been more responses along the lines of "Sorry to say the game is pretty much dead. I'm only here waiting for [rumoured future MMO] then GW2 will be completely dead because everyone will be playing that."

 

I know new MMOs aren't being released at the same rate they were even 5 years ago but it surprises me there isn't even one people want to claim will be the best thing since sliced bread and kill off all the others because it's going to be most super-awesome perfect game ever made.

 

8 hours ago, Pacificterror.7805 said:

WvW is busy, but depending on your timezone and your server it may not be as busy as you'd like (although as someone mentioned earlier, "Alliances" is coming which -should- solve that for anyone with that unfortunate issue). I'll note that I've played WvW on 2 servers and didn't encounter this issue on either. You'll see mixed reviews about the state of WvW because different people play it in different ways, and that rubs some people the wrong way....being on a server where groups primarily do X style of play instead of Y.

Admittedly I've only ever played WvW on one server but that's definitely been my experience. Last night I was in a squad of about 45 people with one guy constantly complaining that everything was wrong. The commander had set up the sub-groups wrong, we were going in the wrong direction, they used the wrong siege, we should be on a different map all together, we spent too long fighting that group...we didn't spend enough time fighting another group, no one was enjoying it we were all just stuck there because there wasn't another open tag.

 

He was told repeatedly that if he was so sure he could do better and wanted to be on another map he was welcome to go there and tag up but apparently he preferred to follow us around and complain instead. I'm sure he would say WvW is dead or unplayable, either on my server or all together, but the other 44 people seemed to be enjoying it.

 

5 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

 I'd second everything you said, except for this. With the exception of Aetherpath and Arah, it isn't too hard to find or fill an LFG for any of the other paths. The other nice thing is that every single story dungeon and the vast majority of explorable paths are soloable anyways.

I agree.

 

Dungeons are "dead" content in the sense that Anet doesn't call any of the newer group instances dungeons and they're not a popular way to farm gold any more so you won't see multiple speed clear groups running each path every day, but it's not hard to put a group together or find one to join.

[Jukhy.2431]

Short answer: yes, very much so! Other posters have already listed accurate picture about the state of the game.

Advice: find a guild (or multiple) you like for more enjoyable gaming experience. That way you'll also have help available if needed.

[Fueki.4753]

15 hours ago, Seveleniumus.5973 said:

Is the community/PvP/WvW/Dungeons/fractals still pretty active? Does this game still have a lot to come in the future or is it on its last legs?

Dungeons are mostly dead and the raids are played by hardly anyone.

Fractals had some additions, but (to my knowledge) Arenanet has not fixed Sunqua Peak (the newest fractal) since its release.

PvP keeps losing players. These days, it's not uncommon to have ranked matches that contain both low silver and platinum players.

PvP balance doesn't exist. Some professions (mostly Necromancer) are horribly over-performing and Arenanet doesn't do anything about it.

I don't do WvW outside of easy dailies, so I can't say anything about that.

 

However, Open World PvE (especially meta events) is quite active.

They are also continuously working on the story, even if the Grindflood Saga kept hitting new lows in both narrative quality and content quality.

 

Whether you consider it worth to come back to (or not) is not something we can say though.

It's something you need to decide for yourself.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Aemeteriis.3874]

So I disagree with some of whats said here, Theres a lot of insinuation if its not Open World its dead or dying which is quite wrong, frankly. People run Dungeons Regularly, just because the people here claim they're dead doesnt make it so. The Aerodrome is ALWAYS crawling with people, More than Traders Forum, so again I dont know what they're talking about. My PVP queues are always shorter than League Of Legends Queues. The games in a very healthy state, and has much more coming. If you liked the game enough to put a thousand hours in around launch and season 1 you're going to enjoy the content thats come since enough to give it a go.

[DeanBB.4268]

My point was that Dungeons are dead to the developers, not how much they are played. No more dungeons, no fixes, nothing.

[Touchme.1097]

Yes, the game is worth playing right now, it's decently populated. Adult minded non-toxic players are always welcome in GW2.

[Harfang.1507]

Just a little comparison:

About a year ago I happened to fly through Hellfire Peninsula, the opening zone of Draenor in WoW. I checked. I was alone. Not a single other player around. I found it depressing. I genuinely love WoW.

I have a hard time imagining any open world zone in GW2 to sink to that level. Some maps are quiet, yes, but never deserted. The reward system ensures that no content is ever completely obsolete.

I cannot say anything about PvP or WvW, but in PvE, you may have difficulty PUGing some of the less popular stuff, e.g., dungeons.

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Touchme.1097 said:

Yes, the game is worth playing right now, it's decently populated. Adult minded non-toxic players are always welcome in GW2.

I don't mind child-minded non-toxic players.

After all, the game is for 13+, not only for adults.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[DoomNexus.5324]

On 7/21/2021 at 12:15 AM, Seveleniumus.5973 said:

My question is - is this game worth coming back to? Is the community/PvP/WvW/Dungeons/fractals still pretty active? Does this game still have a lot to come in the future or is it on its last legs?

I would say yes but it depends on your personal preference I guess.

I don't know about WvW (zerg-content) but Alliances is coming this year so there's that. While roaming used to be a lot more engaging in the past I don't think it's in a dire state, at least in the current matchup I'm fighting against other players fairly often.

I pretty much never do fractals but I know from a lot of people that they are running them very frequently. PvE in general seems to be in a pretty good spot, especially for someone who quit and didn't already burn out of the content. Depends on your prefered difficulty and your goals with PvE. I personally quite like the raids for example but I don't like fractals at all.

PvP is still pretty active (my main game mode actually), my queues are always pretty short (<5 minutes), especially during prime time.

 

Don't believe grumpy people who claim the game is dead or dying. While some game modes could be more populated of course it's nowhere near "dead" and it's not dying in the forseeable future either. Just because player numbers are lower than in the past doesn't mean it can't sustain itself.

[Aemeteriis.3874]

23 hours ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

My point was that Dungeons are dead to the developers, not how much they are played. No more dungeons, no fixes, nothing.

ah yeah thats quite fair then.

[Kenstar.9352]

Short answer is yes, but kind of depends on you.

 

I quit about 6-7 years ago because I thought it was boring. Now there are raids, dungeons, fractals, and lots of already existing stuff that I wasn't aware of back then. However, it wasn't enjoyable for the first week because of the overwhelming amount of content and complex road map (imo).

 

Practically speaking, if you have spare time and is looking for an MMO to play... I mean, nothing really beats GW2 at the moment. FFXIV is great but there's a subscription fee. It's not about the money, but I was pressured to run dailies EVERYDAY to ensure I'm getting value out of the subscription.