What's preventing you from coming back to/playing Guild Wars 2?

[Svifnymr]

Well I can log in today and see that the gear I obtained 4 years ago is still my BiS. That alone is enough to not feel encouraged to play.

I know GW2 goes for the horizontal type of progression and that is completely fine but it’s just not my cup of tea.

Had a blast the first months when playing the game though. Real good new player experience.

Sure, but can you Bond of Faith off your Skyscale? No?

Don't get me wrong, I understand people like the gear treadmill in the same way people used to always go "DING!" when they hit a new level. For myself, I play the game because I enjoy the gameplay. I do like the goals of a new living story, but it's not enough to make me play a game I don't like playing.

[Astalnar]

They moved away from personal story. That for me was the number one draw to the game. Without that, I feel I'd be just wasting my time. Don't care about endgame, and their "living story" to me just looks cheap.

[jellmoo]

I haven't played in a while, so I don't know if it's gotten better, but the thing that drove me nuts was how many builds simply didn't work at end game. It felt that every build I thought was cool just wasn't part of the meta and would get shit all over.

p/p Rogue? Hahahaha.
GS Mesmer? Nope.
Engineer running around with a Flamethrower and tossing down turrets? OH DEAR LORD NO!

I hate it when a game gives me cool options but then doesn't balance the mechanics to allow me to play them, and seems uninterested in ever making the options viable.

[Big Law]

I'd play a lot more if I could change my chars appearance without spending real money.

I'd also like to create more alts because that's my favorite thing to do in game.

It just sucks I have to spend cash anytime I want to do this.

[xStevooo]

I bought like the super version of the game on release, played at launch about 45 minutes and got bored. The combat was pretty cool at the time but that was about it, didn't bother playing again.

[korijenkins]

Poor optimization. The game runs like absolute shit.

[Svifnymr]

I'd play a lot more if I could change my chars appearance without spending real money.

I'd also like to create more alts because that's my favorite thing to do in game.

It just sucks I have to spend cash anytime I want to do this.

I've accumulated quite a few of the kits that allow you to change appearance without buying any, but it's certainly not as easy as going to the barber in WoW.

Occasionally the character slots go on sale, so I'll buy an extra one. I usually use gold-to-gems though, and barely ever spend actual cash for gemstore purchases.

Of course, the rate of acquisition for these things can be an issue, so not saying you're wrong.

[Big Law]

I've accumulated quite a few of the kits that allow you to change appearance without buying any, but it's certainly not as easy as going to the barber in WoW.

Occasionally the character slots go on sale, so I'll buy an extra one. I usually use gold-to-gems though, and barely ever spend actual cash for gemstore purchases.

Of course, the rate of acquisition for these things can be an issue, so not saying you're wrong.

I can farm for the kits? how?

[Potatowizard]

I have tried to pick up GW2 twice over the last year / two years. I was really into for a while when it first came out. Took a break, came back. Still enjoyed it.

But... I think I picked it back up after 1-2 expansions came out. And I felt lost. I had no idea what to do, where to go, what I should be doing. Resorted to world vs world PVP as it was something I picked up before my first break. But certain maps I lacked certain flying items / gliders? So I couldn't do those maps? And thats where majority of the players were at.

I wanted to get a cool looking new glider skin. And reading about getting certain ones was essentially;

Grind this item, to get this item, to get this item, so you can grind this item, to grind this item, to get this item from here, and get another item for this item from this place for this item. You need 20 of each of these items to get this item, which you combind with 20 items from 40 of these items...

Now, take that item and combined it with this item. You get this item by grinding this item, to get this item, to get this item, so you can grind this item, to grind this item, to get this item from here, and get another item for this item from this place for this item.

It was overwhelming and confusing. So I stopped.

[Magicon]

Yeah. I hate linear story too.

[Svifnymr]

I can farm for the kits? how?

Not directly, no. They come in achievement rewards, black lion chests (keys can be farmed) and of course you can earn gold and convert that to gems if you need to.

As I said, certainly it's not as easy as a barbershop so you can't do it regularly.

[Xorzor]

WoW is still my MMORPG of choice right now; lot of time has been invested.

Also, ArenaNet (is that them?) weren't very helpful with recovering my account (it has a layer of security on it attached to an old mobile number that's no longer in use), so stuff them!

[letssee]

I dont know if I have mentioned it in this thread, but I worked on Guild Wars 2 for a year. I was part of the QA team. Im not one to play the games I work on.

loool wtf, how can u not play the games u work on.

sounds like what blizzard does nowadays

[MeTaL GuArD]

For me, the lack of gear progression beyond Ascended killed it completely. Sure, there are Legendary weapons to collect which look cool, but that's about the extent of what they are - cosmetic rewards. There is a certain satisfaction I derive from collecting stronger gear, and raids and fractals barely have anything stronger than the things I can collect through laurels or other daily rewards. Inability to "outscale" things is a bit of a killer for me as well as I like to steamroll creatures occasionally, and that only really happens if you go back to the low level zones.

Build viability and balancing in general also left me disappointed - Warrior is pretty much a support class in raids because of the banners, and if you don't take those you may as well get out. There are all these weapons and abilities tied to them, but vast majority of them is not worth using - each class usually has two or three specific weapons that they stick to, some of which are there on swap so you can use the one ability that is worth anything from it, then swap back asap.
Another thing is that the guild I joined with kind of stopped playing around the same time I did, and most of the people from that guild vanished into the ether, leaving the guild an empty husk full of players offline for months.

To be fair though, I did spend a bunch of time having a blast when I first came back to GW2 somewhere last year. It's just, one day I randomly decided I don't feel like doing dailies, logged off, and never felt like logging back in again up to this day.

loool wtf, how can u not play the games u work on.

sounds like what blizzard does nowadays

I think he meant outside of his job. I'd find it hard to play a game I've spent hours digging through to find that one thing in the code that makes characters T-pose into space.

[Big Law]

Not directly, no. They come in achievement rewards, black lion chests (keys can be farmed) and of course you can earn gold and convert that to gems if you need to.

As I said, certainly it's not as easy as a barbershop so you can't do it regularly.

Thats fine, how can I farm keys? I really dont need to change that often, just every once in a while it would be cool to do. I'm fine with doing things in game to acquire it.

[Svifnymr]

Thats fine, how can I farm keys? I really dont need to change that often, just every once in a while it would be cool to do. I'm fine with doing things in game to acquire it.

You can level an alt to level 10 and get the key at the end of the level 10 story once a week. Level 50 also has a key. You can also get keys from doing zone completion (except cities).

[crox]

I log in. My bags are full with a ton of stuff and I don't know what to destroy or keep. Bank is full. Just log out.

[Svifnymr]

Thats fine, how can I farm keys? I really dont need to change that often, just every once in a while it would be cool to do. I'm fine with doing things in game to acquire it.

Just so you know, Nov 29th (Black Friday), character slots will be 30% off. SO 560gems each (212g each if you convert gold to gems).

[Highelf]

I played the heck out of it when it was first released. But there was NO end game content and "boss" fights just felt like a chaotic nightmare with 0 structure. It got old REALLY fast. And leveling alts was no fun as it's literally the same exact quests and story line with no payoff at the end of it.

[ChangeMymind]

The lack of content and non-existent community feel , in a game that calls itself Guild Wars 2 being in a guild doesn't even matter .