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

[Deleted]

Too complicated to get back in to.
The entire game feels like a grind.
To few abilities to use.
Game expects lightning reflexes to avoid stuff.

I've tried several times over the past year to get back into it, but after every play session I felt like I didn't progress an inch forward. I was just checking boxes, so to speak. In WoW there's a far more obvious measure of progress that I can get myself to care about to some extend - that's just not there for me in GW2. And in general the combat feels really dull to me.

[Deleted]

I think the problem is that the GW2 team (Anet devs, etc) doesn't make it clear enough what is constituting progression and what there is to do. Most people I talk to (including some playing) don't seem to fully understand it.

In both x pacs, they added elite specializations- then the proper gear stat combos to max it out. So- progression would be something like: elite specialization completion, finish your new story, farm out your new gear/ stat combo set, new map completion, fractals, there are dailies, they added raids with HOT and don't forget PVP. You also have those achievements that coincide with the story chapters and crafting new legendaries.

There is actually a ton to do, but A Net needs to connect it all in someone meaningful way so that instead of being: a bunch of seemingly unconnected stuff to do; it can be: a narrative that connects all those things and through the narrative makes a clear suggestions to the player as to what there next step in progression is.


Also, PVP is a huge part of that game. I would actually say the game is more PVP focused than PVE. PVE amounts to little more than a fashion show.

I don't think the game needs to feel connected in the sense that it should funnel all players to only one activity. I think that is something WoW does with raiding and i think that is bad design.

But i do agree that GW2 is very overwhelming when getting into it. There is a lot you can do and it isn't communicated. I felt very overwhelmed when coming back and i had to do a lot of research outside the game to understand what to do. That is definitely something they should improve on.

I think PvE and PvP is about the same. PvP is not interesting me much at all. WvW is kind of like a a big zerg. The smaller organised pvp is a bit better, but what i think is a weak point of GW2 is the battle system, so it's not really up my alley. I like the PvE though.
On that note, things like buffs and debuffs are very hard to see in the game and the whole UI could use more customization... but yeah... PvE eventually just runs out when looking at it in a power creep way. As you say, you can play fashion wars, or you can work on getting other characters geared up to vary your play style. But the game is very much like GW1 in which at some point you are playing because you enjoy playing the game and not because there's a carrot in front of you. That feeling can be quite liberating. I don't quite get that with WoW sadly.

[Eazy]

Have other things to do and other games to play.

[gushDH]

It's weird, why do you ask others. It's obvious there will be people that have weird opinions about the game, like "too much for me" or "not good design" or whatever. But I am pretty sure there are also people who enjoy the hell out of the game. The best option for me would be to try it for a month. You have nothing to lose. The time you spend is anyway "game time" so it doesn't really matter where you go from using it.

[Deleted]

Was a figure of speech. Was more referring to a player in general with the statement without trying to speak for everyone. I just used if I was in that situation as an example.

The gear treadmill and being behind exists in all games like these. Just it's not a big detriment in Guild Wars 2. Still existent though. There is still a noticeable difference between Exotic and Ascended gear and always will be. 6% is still noticeable.

As for Legendaries. Thankfully all they provide are interchangeable stats whereas the damage range is the same so it's nowhere near a must have. Some do look pretty though. Although subjective. I know people like the GS legendaries for example but me personally they just look horrid.

I saw some here say it's 6% but it's actually up to 20% because of the different new and more optimal stats and how it scales as the new specializations start dealing more damage.

For example the concentration stat that will make buffs last longer ends up giving quite a huge net contribution. Expertise and increasing the duration of your DoT's is huge aswell.
It's not unlike the WoW stats where you usually have one that gives more contribution than the others.

[Alistorshame]

stop playing -> upgraded PC -> Can't find stupid code to re-install

[Deleted]

Too complicated to get back in to.
The entire game feels like a grind.
To few abilities to use.
Game expects lightning reflexes to avoid stuff.

I've tried several times over the past year to get back into it, but after every play session I felt like I didn't progress an inch forward. I was just checking boxes, so to speak. In WoW there's a far more obvious measure of progress that I can get myself to care about to some extend - that's just not there for me in GW2. And in general the combat feels really dull to me.

To be honest, i agree with your assessment to a certain extent. But let me offer some insight.

It is very overwhelming
It "can" be grindy (this depends on your play style)
The few abilities... depends. Are you even playing efficiently? The rotations in GW2 tend to be more complex than WoW's. There is an optimal and satisfying way to use the skills. When i don't know what i'm doing i'm pressing them all, and quite honestly it doesn't feel like it's much fun when i do that. But when i know which skills i should be using when and when to swap weapons, everything just settles in a satisfying flow.
Game expecting lightning reflexes... well... i do like the increased difficulty, but remember that in GW2 when you die, you don't actually die, you go on a downed state. That is why they get away with doing that. But i do believe everything is avoidable. It's just that on certain encounters if you do make a mistake, you can get one shot (but then your buddies just come and res you).

The thing is, i can understand where you come from and i had similar complaints when i first tried the game. Especially since i was expecting Guild wars 1 in a persistent world and that was not what i got. The combat is still a disappointment to me, but i found enjoyment in it now.
What i did find is that the new spec system made the character customization be closer to what i had in GW1 and i stuck with the game cause i care about the lore (GW1 was my first MMO and i loved it).
What i can say is that theres alot to enjoy aswell. In particular the maps. Just doing stuff out in the world is a joy, and the GW2 team still tries to innovate like the amazing mounts we got now with PoF. HoT is an incredible piece of content aswell with very complex maps and amazing and rewarding meta events.
This is still the only game i can play and seen a hundred players all getting together to do something. In WoW i think it see a maximum of 10 people nuking the same elite on patch release day. In GW2 it happens all the time with way more people. It's quite amazing really. It feels great to see the world populated like that (granted your PC might not enjoy the strain xD).

[Sanguinerd]

I played it at release for a while but just couldn't really get that into it, also bought/read the book Edge of Destiny but didn't connect with me.

I just like/liked WoW alot more so went back.

[Deleted]

stop playing -> upgraded PC -> Can't find stupid code to re-install

You know... its under services in GW2.com.

But let there not be any excuses. https://account.arena.net/welcome

Hope you enjoy.

[Lazuli]

Ascended

The way stat's were implemented

Pvp cancer

Story is awful

Too busy with WoW, if it were more like GW1 it would keep me. I didn't even buy PoF, weaver was incredibly underwhelming and deadeye is my worst fear come true thanks to the carebears who wanted ranged on thief. No reason for me to play, maybe next xpac will have a GW1 assassin combo-esque spec for thief, only thing tht would bring me back. Another x amount of years playing the same spec I've played for years already in pvp isn't really exciting and pressing 1 with dodge in pve isn't exactly god tier design.

Basically PoF failed for me before it even dropped and I knew I wouldn't be playing it.

[Deleted]

Greetings champions, good to see you, as always.

This is a question for those who do not play Guild Wars 2 - either people that have already played it, or those who didn't try the game yet and lack something to try it.

What's preventing you from coming back or playing this game?

Nothing negative for me. I played it, I enjoyed it and I stopped playing it. Just as I stopped playing Wildstars. I love the game to pieces.

I have been thinking about this question in general, why do i stop playing a game that I loved? Also from a buisiness point of view cause GW2 and Wildstars/WoW are good games. I think it has to do with priorities only, like everything in life. And time is like money in this situation. A day has 24 hours.

Priority 1: Sleep 7/8 hours (I know... I have a awesome job that lets me sleep lots)
Priority 2: Work 6 hours (I know... being a programmer is awesome!)
Priority 3: The misses, when she wants to do something together, I drop everything i'm doing as long its not Priority 1/2.
Priority 4: This is where my free time comes in, and if you look at it.. you only have a certain amount of hours to spend. Since MMO's are pretty time consuming they drop in my priority list quite fast. Fast games like a game of overwatch/Dead by daylight (my favorite now) or PUBG wins is for me. I can do 1 that takes 20/30 minutes max, and log of right after.

However, if a day had 48 hours and I did not need twice as much sleep, MMO's like GW2, wow and wildstars are deffo somewhere on that priority list!

For those that want to know, paying attention to salty/trolling players is one of the last priorities! :P

[Deleted]

To be honest, i agree with your assessment to a certain extent. But let me offer some insight.

It is very overwhelming
It "can" be grindy (this depends on your play style)
The few abilities... depends. Are you even playing efficiently? The rotations in GW2 tend to be more complex than WoW's. There is an optimal and satisfying way to use the skills. When i don't know what i'm doing i'm pressing them all, and quite honestly it doesn't feel like it's much fun when i do that. But when i know which skills i should be using when and when to swap weapons, everything just settles in a satisfying flow.
Game expecting lightning reflexes... well... i do like the increased difficulty, but remember that in GW2 when you die, you don't actually die, you go on a downed state. That is why they get away with doing that. But i do believe everything is avoidable. It's just that on certain encounters if you do make a mistake, you can get one shot (but then your buddies just come and res you).

The thing is, i can understand where you come from and i had similar complaints when i first tried the game. Especially since i was expecting Guild wars 1 in a persistent world and that was not what i got. The combat is still a disappointment to me, but i found enjoyment in it now.
What i did find is that the new spec system made the character customization be closer to what i had in GW1 and i stuck with the game cause i care about the lore (GW1 was my first MMO and i loved it).
What i can say is that theres alot to enjoy aswell. In particular the maps. Just doing stuff out in the world is a joy, and the GW2 team still tries to innovate like the amazing mounts we got now with PoF. HoT is an incredible piece of content aswell with very complex maps and amazing and rewarding meta events.
This is still the only game i can play and seen a hundred players all getting together to do something. In WoW i think it see a maximum of 10 people nuking the same elite on patch release day. In GW2 it happens all the time with way more people. It's quite amazing really. It feels great to see the world populated like that (granted your PC might not enjoy the strain xD).

Oh, no, I'm for sure not playing efficiently. I tend to just, slowly, gravitate to some sort of rotation in any role playing game that works, but I'm just not getting there in Guild Wars 2. I used to play Signet Warrior at release, which admittedly was rather dull, but worked wonders and chopped through enemies. Then I played Ranger and just couldn't settle in any kind of rotation or play-style. My last attempt was an Elementalist, which I mostly liked to try because Frost/Water spells are cool and I'm a total sucker for that. I got that to work with a Staff and Dagger & Fan combo, where the actual combat was pretty satisfying but the damage wasn't there and the general game was just simply way too overwhelming at that point, with Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire adding only more to the end game, so I just stopped playing again.

I'm not the youngest any more and have other obligations, so by the time I get to sit down to play I'm pretty tired (mentally) and I can tell when and where I've got to dodge, but I'm just not getting the timing down. Which is why I enjoy Mage so much in WoW, I can just go "ICE BLOCK, HA!". ;) I know there's a down-state, but that still feels bad and I mostly play alone, so being aided isn't always a guarantee.

I really enjoyed Guild Wars 1, even tried (and failed) to do the silly titles (Or what-ever they where called) where you had to level up to a certain level without dying. So was pretty invested in that game, but that's also when I had the time to do so. And that game had a lot of structure to it, that frankly, I feel is missing in Guild Wars 2.

[Svifnymr]

Yeah I get that. Theres little in the game to connect the pieces if you dont have the living story. Going from Core tp HoT to PoF makes no sense without context from the living story chapters in between. They could have a NPC that gives you a vague summary.

PoF is probably the most confusing without living story episodes to back it up, double if you played Nightfall.

They did a quick summary of Season1, it's fairly meh.

If they don't want to do the whole season for free, I wish they'd make like a simple version of it that could be played through quickly. Just the story with some fighting without all the drudgery and travel. Maybe they don't unlock the entire new zone, just with a quick instance elsewhere.

I'm not opposed to them just leaving the stories unlocked, by any means. Just seems like if they've decided to monetize them they really need a bridge.

[LichGoon]

So many reasons. I still come back now and again to see how things have changed, though -- raiding in HoT got me back into it for a few weeks.

Number 1 is terrible customer service (seriously, I've had a ticket in the system for 20 days now -- check the official forums for more examples of this). Why'd you have to sack the budget Anet?! WHY?!

They aren't developing dungeons or other meaningful 5-man content any longer, in favor of fractals. And quite honestly, I hate fractals. You never get to choose what you want, and there is no telling if you're going to get something incredibly out-dated and boring or not.

Meanwhile, dungeons (and other areas of the game) are still just sitting there, along with all of their old issues (which is why they were never that popular in the first place). There are so many aspects of the game that were terrible on-release, and instead of fixing them (giving players actually interesting and/or difficult content to keep coming back to at max lvl) they just let them sit and accrue dust. This also applies to the original personal story, which everyone knows is god awful after their first playthrough.

Raiding, in contrast to this, has been pretty great and scratches an itch I'd had in GW2 for quite some time. I think it's awesome that people can always come back to a difficult encounter and experience it the way it was meant to be. Still, raiding has its own issues (in regards to meta and class-balance) and its such a huge time investment compared to alternatives and not everyone has the resources.

Balance changes are largely dictated by GW2's PvP scene. It's annoying when a cool/useful skill gets nerfed into oblivion because of WvW/PvP-related reasons and becomes just as terrible in PvE. Granted, I do enjoy the PvP in GW2, I just think that overall class/skill balance is executed so terribly. There are huge gaps between the PvE and PvP scenes for this game, and I wish Anet would address that, rather than continually piss each demographic off with changes meant for a specific one.

Really, those are my core complaints. The game has a lot to love, but that love really starts to wane during the end-game if you're an MMO-junkie.

Also going to append this rq: Give me non-waifu human faces that I don't have to pay for.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't care about the guild wars world. It's a nice game to enjoy the exploring but the lore it self doesn't seem interesting at all to me so I can't really get into the game to heavily.

[PACOX]

They did a quick summary of Season1, it's fairly meh.

If they don't want to do the whole season for free, I wish they'd make like a simple version of it that could be played through quickly. Just the story with some fighting without all the drudgery and travel. Maybe they don't unlock the entire new zone, just with a quick instance elsewhere.

I'm not opposed to them just leaving the stories unlocked, by any means. Just seems like if they've decided to monetize them they really need a bridge.

thinking about it, LS2 can technically be accessed for free. you can get someone with access you taxi you into the instances, you just wont get the rewards for completing missions. LS3 is a problem because it requires you to have access to the LS3 maps.

[Kazgrel]

Most of my gaming friends have been sticking with FF14, and since they just had a patch this week, there's more stuff to do there. I intend to buy PoF at some point, figuring I'll run out of stuff to do on FF14 eventually.

I will also admit I still feel a bit of singe from the burn that was HoT, stemming from it's first month. The only xpac that has run me off as quickly as that was WoD for WoW.

[Deleted]

So many reasons. I still come back now and again to see how things have changed, though -- raiding in HoT got me back into it for a few weeks.

Number 1 is terrible customer service (seriously, I've had a ticket in the system for 20 days now -- check the official forums for more examples of this). Why'd you have to sack the budget Anet?! WHY?!

They aren't developing dungeons or other meaningful 5-man content any longer, in favor of fractals. And quite honestly, I hate fractals. You never get to choose what you want, and there is no telling if you're going to get something incredibly out-dated and boring or not.

Meanwhile, dungeons (and other areas of the game) are still just sitting there, along with all of their old issues (which is why they were never that popular in the first place). There are so many aspects of the game that were terrible on-release, and instead of fixing them (giving players actually interesting and/or difficult content to keep coming back to at max lvl) they just let them sit and accrue dust. This also applies to the original personal story, which everyone knows is god awful after their first playthrough.

Raiding, in contrast to this, has been pretty great and scratches an itch I'd had in GW2 for quite some time. I think it's awesome that people can always come back to a difficult encounter and experience it the way it was meant to be. Still, raiding has its own issues (in regards to meta and class-balance) and its such a huge time investment compared to alternatives and not everyone has the resources.

Balance changes are largely dictated by GW2's PvP scene. It's annoying when a cool/useful skill gets nerfed into oblivion because of WvW/PvP-related reasons and becomes just as terrible in PvE. Granted, I do enjoy the PvP in GW2, I just think that overall class/skill balance is executed so terribly. There are huge gaps between the PvE and PvP scenes for this game, and I wish Anet would address that, rather than continually piss each demographic off with changes meant for a specific one.

Really, those are my core complaints. The game has a lot to love, but that love really starts to wane during the end-game if you're an MMO-junkie.

Also going to append this rq: Give me non-waifu human faces that I don't have to pay for.

When did you last play? I think fractals have changed since you last played. They aren't random, you can choose wich one you go to and its only 1 dungeon. It takes 15-20m. It's quick dungeon content.
I do like the classic dungeons aswell. They aren't as popular as fractals but people still run them and they are a great way to make gold aswell. You get lots of mats and a nice 5g reward every 8 paths you run. Not amazing, but definitly not a waste of time.

[LichGoon]

When did you last play? I think fractals have changed since you last played. They aren't random, you can choose wich one you go to and its only 1 dungeon. It takes 15-20m. It's quick dungeon content.
I do like the classic dungeons aswell. They aren't as popular as fractals but people still run them and they are a great way to make gold aswell. You get lots of mats and a nice 5g reward every 8 paths you run. Not amazing, but definitly not a waste of time.

When did you last play? I think fractals have changed since you last played. They aren't random, you can choose wich one you go to and its only 1 dungeon. It takes 15-20m. It's quick dungeon content.
I do like the classic dungeons aswell. They aren't as popular as fractals but people still run them and they are a great way to make gold aswell. You get lots of mats and a nice 5g reward every 8 paths you run. Not amazing, but definitly not a waste of time.

Pretty good news about fractals! Gives me another reason to try out the game during PoF, have definitely been tempted to come back. As for dungeons, the only thing I've ever ran them for is the armor sets. A lot of them are just lackluster (especially Arah) and lack a genuine challenge -- "Stack and DPS race!" I'm not saying they ~aren't worth anyone's time, its just that (for the majority of them) the most appealing thing about them is the gold/armor, not the experience you have running them. I remember a few fractal zones being genuinely challenging, fun, and just as rewarding. That's the content I'd rather be spending my time on. It would be cool if they could overhaul dungeons with some actual mechanics. The zones are there and they have potential, but as of now it feels like the devs just stopped half-way. Also, it probably wouldn't bring in as much $$ as new xpacs do (bigger problem in non-sub mmos).

[LichGoon]

When did you last play? I think fractals have changed since you last played. They aren't random, you can choose wich one you go to and its only 1 dungeon. It takes 15-20m. It's quick dungeon content.
I do like the classic dungeons aswell. They aren't as popular as fractals but people still run them and they are a great way to make gold aswell. You get lots of mats and a nice 5g reward every 8 paths you run. Not amazing, but definitly not a waste of time.

Pretty good news about fractals! Gives me another reason to try out the game during PoF, have definitely been tempted to come back. As for dungeons, the only thing I've ever ran them for is the armor sets. A lot of them are just lackluster (especially Arah) and lack a genuine challenge -- "Stack and DPS race!" I'm not saying they ~aren't worth anyone's time, its just that (for the majority of them) the most appealing thing about them is the gold/armor, not the experience you have running them. I remember a few fractal zones being genuinely challenging, fun, and just as rewarding. That's the content I'd rather be spending my time on. It would be cool if they could overhaul dungeons with some actual mechanics. The zones are there and they have potential, but as of now it feels like the devs just stopped half-way. Also, it probably wouldn't bring in as much $$ as new xpacs do (bigger problem in non-sub mmos).