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

[Svifnymr]

that was the only place I cared about exploring this one : https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...h_i_feel_like/
such a shame
were the "boats" actual places you could explore or were they just showed for the scenery with no actual interior (also remembering an halloween skin for that place)

Some of the ships were open, some closed, and there's still plenty of the same. The new one isn't as ramshackle as old Lions Arch, but same theme. There was a nice rooftop puzzle that was lost, and a new one to replace it.

I mean, it's free to play, so you could always just hop in, get to Lions Arch in like 20 minutes of gameplay and explore it. It's been years and years since Lions Arch changed (as well as the one zone were the serpent tower fell), much longer than those things were in game. Since then they've changed the way the Living Story works so they add new zones rather than permanently altering old stuff, and that change was like 6-7 years ago!

[Toby451]

I have bought and played both expansions.


I dislike the progression system in GW2. I greatly prefer WoW style of leveling up each expansion and getting new gear. Every time I play Guild Wars 2 I dont feel like im ever actually progressing my character in any meaningful way.


And that is fine. Different games for different folks. But thats why I dont plan on ever playing GW2 again personally.

[Dakhath]

Tried logging into my old GW2 account and apparently it was stolen from me some time ago. Can't even get it back it seems.

[CaptainV]

Being bluntly honest, the straw that broke the camels back for me was Heart of Thorns, then everything else that followed.

I gave GW2 a chance with season 3, it started good, didnt pay off, by PoF the story went all kind sof directions with endlessly rushed/short and unresolved plots, an increadably deep focus on woke writing (not the decently written kind, the tediously forced kind) where issues and inclusivity became more important than an actual plot and it started to show heavily when blatant agenda's made more pushes than story itself.

By season 4 they'd lost me, and Season 5 is a dead cause to me, ive not even touched it and ive really got no reason to care.

For the record, let me be blunt about something before I hear angsty Radical comments:

I dont dislike inclusivity when it is written well, but when it becomes the central focus to your story to the point that inclusive heroes are more important than the lore/plot because inclusivity is more important than world building?

Yeah it stops having much of a charm.

The games also become increasingly more monetised in bad ways forcing people to pay for specific items for in game outfits that actually borders extortion sometimes (hello black lion chest exclusive items).

Plus the pvp, pve and general end game is dead, so much so they cancelled future raids.

[probert]

i played a lot of Guild Wars 2 at launch, daily for 18 months. had great fun chasing dragon timers, doing WvWvW, and fractals.

Heart of Thorns was ok, but didn't like the verticality in terms of navigation and found the zones pretty tedious.

New expansion didn't hold me.

Now when I login, there's two big barriers.

- WvWvW seems opaque in terms of progression and objectives, and its clearly a game mode that has received little focus
- Everything is crafting oriented, and i look at the hundreds and hundreds of materials i've already gathered, and its just so overwhelming to organize that i just give up.

Doesn't help that I found the story writing pretty bad.

It was a great game when i launched and offered a good alternative to WoW. But they never quite delivered on the promise of the game in my mind, and I've had little interest in continuing.

Tremendous memories of the first 2 years though. So many nights spent in WvWvW, great fun.

[Alydael]

I love this game but there are a couple of things:

1) Tons of quality of life issues. Every map has its own currency (they build up quick), some of the mastery hero point stuff is hard to do without a group and it is often hard to get groups (map metas have the same problem), difficult to get groups for dungeons, raid group finder filled with boosters, for Wvwvw is great but you have to be there at the right time.......

2)There are nowhere near enough guides for this game. It is difficult to figure how exactly to do the things you want to do to get the rewards you want. (Seems simple but read through all the post here this is a huge issue for this game).

3) Customer service is abysmal. It is not even worth the time trying to contact them.

If this game had great guides like WOW and they fixed the difficult to get a group/ meta issue- this game would be insanely great and probably dominate the market.

They are just making a few key mistakes managing the game that keeps players away. Wow is starting to fall into the same trap. Making management mistakes costing them players- like spending dev time designing borrowed power systems no one wants instead of just making more content (that the players enjoy).

[Darynn]

I only played the original GW2 but i never really liked the pvp system. I liked GW1 and WoW just way more for pve and pvp.

[PACOX]

I love this game but there are a couple of things:

1) Tons of quality of life issues. Every map has its own currency (they build up quick), some of the mastery hero point stuff is hard to do without a group and it is often hard to get groups (map metas have the same problem), difficult to get groups for dungeons, raid group finder filled with boosters, for Wvwvw is great but you have to be there at the right time.......

2)There are nowhere near enough guides for this game. It is difficult to figure how exactly to do the things you want to do to get the rewards you want. (Seems simple but read through all the post here this is a huge issue for this game).

3) Customer service is abysmal. It is not even worth the time trying to contact them.

If this game had great guides like WOW and they fixed the difficult to get a group/ meta issue- this game would be insanely great and probably dominate the market.

They are just making a few key mistakes managing the game that keeps players away. Wow is starting to fall into the same trap. Making management mistakes costing them players- like spending dev time designing borrowed power systems no one wants instead of just making more content (that the players enjoy).

On your 2nd and 3rd points.

I've never had a problem with Anet customer service. I've had to have authenticators removed from my account and never had to wait more than a business day. Some people people expect them to do things they simply aren't able to do or support then blame CS.

I'm not sure what you mean about guides. GW2 has one if the most comprehensive wikis that's tied into the games API and has and in-game command. There's also a number of very good update sites that cover various tops from builds to the games economy. I know someone who rights guides for the wiki and a bunch of endgame (raid and fractal) trainers. The amount of time they spend teaching the game is amazing. A lot of stuff I see in my guild from new players is 'how do u do x?', which can easily be answered by hovering their mouse over something.

There's a wealth of information about the game, in game and out, but the game doesn't force you to read any of it.

Also never had a problem with the LFG tool (unless I'm lagging). Just like WoW it comes down people knowing how to make an effective listening or bothering to even make one when they are looking to do something. Dungeons are dusty old content at this point and still fill in 5 minutes if you make a proper listening.

[meowfurion]

What's preventing me from coming back?

Several things:

The amount of just pure CRAP in my inventory and bank is overwhelming to have to sort through. Entirely too many currencies, tokens, reputations.

Picking up where you leave off is a nightmare.

The jumping and mario platforming is too prominent. Getting around in the game is frustrating.

I play a Firebrand, and it's the only class I really enjoy playing. Everything else is just boring to me.

[MoanaLisa]

I picked it up again after a couple of years away from it. I remembered very little about it at first so I started a brand new human ranger and have taken it slow. It's clicking with me now in ways it never did before. I've been on every day for 3+ weeks now and quite enjoying myself. I'm still not crazy about jumping puzzles but at least there's help out there if I need it.

Anyway, I was preventing myself from coming back for a long, long time. I'm glad that's past. Game suits my style which over the years has become more about working on collections, playing by myself mostly, and keeping an eye out for a very casual guild of mostly older people.

Just to add to this, after some thought, I sold off most of my mats, deleted all of my other characters other than the ranger and started up a bunch of new ones that I'm very casually leveling. As much as possible I tried to give myself a clean slate without having to rebuy the game. It's worked for me. Definitely not for everyone but I haven't regretted it as I'm in a much better place vis a vis the game.

[Raizstorm]

Just to add to this, after some thought, I sold off most of my mats, deleted all of my other characters other than the ranger and started up a bunch of new ones that I'm very casually leveling. As much as possible I tried to give myself a clean slate without having to rebuy the game. It's worked for me. Definitely not for everyone but I haven't regretted it as I'm in a much better place vis a vis the game.

I'm in the same boat but you should at least keep one old character because they get a birthday present every year. You can find the list here : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift

[Edge-]

I'm in the same boat but you should at least keep one old character because they get a birthday present every year. You can find the list here : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift

Oh shit, thanks for reminding me I need to log into my alts to see if I've got any other goodies!

Edit: Had like, 4 characters with gifts. Yay free dyes!

[MoanaLisa]

I'm in the same boat but you should at least keep one old character because they get a birthday present every year. You can find the list here : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift

Yeah, I kept the ranger.

[Kerrion]

I am so tired of the Skyscale quests. I just want my dragon, why does it have to be a chore to get it. Last time I've stopped playing was because I got tired of it after the Newborn Skyscales part. I came back and all I have to do is get the saddle materials, but I got tired of it again, cause now I have to farm 6 or 7 maps for materials. So exhausting.

[Donald Hellscream]

As of right now? The response time from Arenanet, I came back to the game after having been away from the game for a year or so, only to find my account blocked for security reasons, I trawled through my emails to see if there were any suspicious login attempts during my absence, there wasn't so I figured the fact that I have a new isp since I last played probably triggered an automated system by showing a different IP address from last time I logged in. Regardless I can do fuck all until Customer support lifts the block.

[Malthanis]

As of right now? The response time from Arenanet, I came back to the game after having been away from the game for a year or so, only to find my account blocked for security reasons, I trawled through my emails to see if there were any suspicious login attempts during my absence, there wasn't so I figured the fact that I have a new isp since I last played probably triggered an automated system by showing a different IP address from last time I logged in. Regardless I can do fuck all until Customer support lifts the block.

How long have you been waiting? They're usually pretty quick about account access issues.

[Donald Hellscream]

How long have you been waiting? They're usually pretty quick about account access issues.

Tbf I am probably just a bit impatient, I have been waiting for about 8 hours at this point, I understand that due to covid and what not the response time might be upwards of 2-3 days, atleast thats what I gathered from browsing Reddit on this specific issue.
It just blows because I really want to get into GW2 again now that WoW is no longer my main game, but I guess I will just have to be patient.

[PACOX]

Tbf I am probably just a bit impatient, I have been waiting for about 8 hours at this point, I understand that due to covid and what not the response time might be upwards of 2-3 days, atleast thats what I gathered from browsing Reddit on this specific issue.
It just blows because I really want to get into GW2 again now that WoW is no longer my main game, but I guess I will just have to be patient.

Blizzards CS is mostly automated. Anet is a much smaller company. Usually takes a business day at the most for them to answer a ticket. They will also investigate why the account is blocked before hand, though may or may not tell you exactly what happened depending on the circumstances.

[zorkuus]

I tried coming back a while ago. Then I realised there's still probably nothing else in the game for me except FashionWars.

[Tyrick]

To answer the thread title:

I started playing GW2 a long time ago, around that time when PoF has been announced.
I loved every moment of it, I even canceled my WoW sub for that few months while I was playing GW2.
I hit max level, PoF got released, been playing a few more months and I then realized that how much I miss something a similar gear system as in WoW.
I just don't like the idea of having like 3 types of gear, weak -> strong -> a bit stronger.

The legendaries and the crafting itself is pretty awesome, but the legendary gear's stats are also the same as Ascended gear?

I stopped playing because I didn't feel like my playtime contributes into my character's strength.
I can play 24 hour a day every day, I will be still the same as anyone else on the server.

I stopped playing and came back multiple times but probably not going to touch the game again.

At least not until they introduce a gear progression system... and why they'd do that?
Their playerbase likes the current system as it is.