Guild Wars 2

Yes, I am playing less:

1. Holidays
2. Lost a lot of faith in anet due to introduction of gated content and gear grind
3. Relaxing prior to Darkfall 2.0

During the start of the game, and all the way to Halloween, I have been playing non-stop, and never wanted to logout from the game. I was up really late and messed up my sleeping hours for school and whatnot.

But when they introduced Ascended gear, I barely log on at all anymore. I don’t even want to log on to the game anymore. When they introduced Ascended gear, I pretty much lost all hope for this game to be the main MMO for me. I lost faith in ArenaNet and I can’t really think of anything that will make them regain my respect again.

I’m playing a bit less while I wait to see what direction they take the game in next. Prior to the Lost Shores event, and especially after Halloween, I had a lot of confidence in ArenaNet to know where they needed to make adjustments. I don’t want to harp on Ascended gear, but my real problem with it is that it’s an incredibly shallow way to add longevity. It was worrying to hear them start to talk up new “item progression initiatives” right before the patch, and then after the patch, it was severely disappointing. For something that justified a world event for release, the new area is underwhelming (not visually, mind you—artistically, it’s spectacular). It makes it seem like they have no ideas for expanding content in new and interesting ways, so the Fractal levels and Ascended gear are meant to make up the difference.

That may not actually be true, but I’ll feel more comfortable sinking time in when I see what their future plans are, and hear more details on how they plan to implement them. The game was already mostly depending on grind to keep people occupied at max level. I don’t mind that, but it’s a little disturbing that when faced with the need to give people more things to do, they added more grind. They just made it grind for better stats, instead of cosmetic stuff, as though there’s actually a difference in the two beyond the tastes and perception of the individual player (one likes the feel of looking cooler, one likes the feeling—accurate or not—of being more powerful). Even with the event going badly, I would have had far more confidence in ArenaNet if Southsun had turned out to be full of neat DEs and things to discover and do. It’s a very small map and could have been packed with features, but the best things about it are the pretty scenery and jumping puzzle.

All of that said, I would probably still be playing regularly if drops hadn’t been severely nerfed. I think this is a bug, since it goes completely counter to what the patch notes say and apparently not everyone has been affected by it, but it still sucks. Magic Find isn’t working for me; in frustration I piled on all my MF gear, food, and a booster I had saved and still got a lot of empty mobs, a lot of vendor trash, and a slight increase in greens, blues, and crafting mats over farming without MF. Something is weird and broken here, and it wasn’t happening before the patch. I got loot from exactly two mobs during the Lost Shores invasion event. If it’s fixed, I’ll probably be back so I can farm for the cosmetic stuff I want at a reasonable rate.

I’m sure ANet’s gotten tons of feedback, and I hope it’s helped. I do love the game. I know they have talent and ambition, and I’ve seen the evidence that they can put both to great use. I don’t expect every single patch to hit it out of the park, but this is really their big chance to show that they learn from their missteps.

Avatar.1923:

yeah, fractals screwed it up….

players are afraid to step out of the fractal hamster wheel because they might not find a group later on.
they should have done a grind that actually takes you to different dungeons/part of the world.

anyway, there is also the ultimate grinders, D3 style players, that account for a lot of the playerbase; an no matter what it is, they will repeat the same content over and over IF this is the most rewarding content.

sad, really.
thats a problem with mmos, until somebody come up with a better design.

ANet came up with that better design. It resulted in a vibrant and cohesive community. Then they released fractals and Ascended gear and now you have “LFM FotM – level XX, people below this level need not apply, link exotics or be kicked” .
It’s like they’re INTENTIONALLY trying to sink their game. I’m waiting for monday, and if I don’t like what I read i’m so far gone I won’t even bother returning to MMOs.

I won’t lie and say the ascended gear is “ok” with me, but the much MUCH bigger issue that’s killing the community is the fact that it’s not available from ‘whatever gameplay you choose’ per the manifesto, and that the ONE way it is available is so heavily gated even people who choose to do ONLY THAT end up in “have and have-not” camps.

Making a heavily gated, increasingly difficult “challenge mode” the only source for “shinies” has drawn in people who are after loot and only loot but are not necessarily up for challenges, and has encouraged the most horrendous thing you can see in any chat: “LFM FotM – people below level XX need not apply, link exotics or be kicked”

That’s what i liked about explore modes before — by making their gear rewards no better than other sources, I was able to find great dungeon groups and do them for the sake of the encounters and challenge… what a concept! Not anymore, everything is empty, because the only way to “progress” is to do FotM….

btw.. i think it’s rather ironic, because if FotM is not radically changed soon, this whole title will be “FOTM” and then forgotten. People who want shinies will just go to the next game.

gadenp.7586:

1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
2. When did you start playing less?
3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?

I started hitting the forums more than playing the game after the precursor giveaway during the Ancient Karka event. Posted about my reaction to it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/lostshores/Lost-Shores-Creating-Winners-vs-Losers/first

I’ve tried leveling an alt, but stopped around L40. I found the process too tedious. It didn’t help that I already did 100% map exploration on my main, so I’ve seen all the areas and done all the hearts. It might have been better if doing story quests alone were enough to get to L80.

FotM was fun at first, but the most challenging aspect nowadays is getting a group for the same level. Worse still, the fractals themselves are getting a bit repetitive, and it takes way too long to find a group for any other dungeon.

I made some half-hearted attempts to go for a legendary weapon and craft an ascended backpiece, but ecto and T6 fine material prices are just spiraling out of control. And I didn’t get anything from the Ancient Karka event either (disconnected and couldn’t get back).

Sooooo… I just bought Torchlight II off Steam, and will check back in a week or two to see if there’s anything new in GW2 that might make me consider playing again. Otherwise, well, it was fun while it lasted.

After the weekend event kicked me out before getting my reward, I play less. I kinda think the game is slowly bleeding to death (not sure about this though). Many areas (fireheart rise) are just empty.
I bought awesomenauts on steam and now I check in on GW2 for the dailys and soem little exploring. Still find it really fun, but all my friends stopped playing and areas are empty.

gadenp.7586:

1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
2. When did you start playing less?
3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?

1. I don’t actually play the game less yet because I still have world completion on my list. Well, after that… I don’t want to join the grind that has becomce common now. Probably I won’t get into the mists anyway since it already seems hard to find groups starting at level one.
2. not yet, but FotM and ascended gear actually were a big deal for me, heaving been a WoW and grind addict some years ago.
3. as I said, I’l probably start playing less after world completion and will only return for one-time events and addons. Maybe I’ll be back when ascended gear can be obtained in a variety of other ways (especially excluding dungeons) and when I can be sure that there’s no other rarity with higher stats planned.

I’m playing less because I realised just how shallow this game is at endgame, and the fact that the community cries at the slightest sign of vertical progression is very offputting.

Still playing the game a lot though, but now I’m managing to balance it between Tera and Minecraft.

I don’t enjoy grinding dungeons, this explains why my FotM level is only at 2, and it’s near impossible to find a party willing to do it at level 2.

I cycle through the first instance till I reach the Volcanic Fractal, then I proceed to kill off all the Grawl and leave the instance – rinse and repeat. I’m forced to do stupid stuff like this because getting ONE Vial of Condensed Mists Essence is so difficult. My luck has always been terrible, and having to deal with a RNG is just a big kitten you from Guild Wars 2 to my face.

At the very least put it in the Dungeon Store where I can purchase it with some Fractal Relics, this way people with horrible luck like me can get it. For my other materials, I can explore and slowly earn money to buy it, but for this Vial of Condensed Mists Essence I have to rely on some kitten RNG to get it.

In short, I don’t want to grind the same 9 instances continuously just to get the looks of an Endless Quiver. I want to slowly enjoy doing Dungeon Story and Explorable modes and still get respectable rewards.

Then again, introducing the Ascended Gear was a horrible idea to begin with.

I don’t regret spending money on this game – I enjoyed leveling to 80, exploring the different areas, and finally getting my Exotics. But if Lost Shores is any indication of what’s to come, then I’m sad to say I won’t be playing this anymore.

Right now, the ONLY reason I would log-on is to play with my friends, and nothing else.

There is nothing wrong with FoTM or dungeon grinding. some like it (i do), some not. with audience so broad anet will never please everyone.

The problem lies in the unacceptable and unexplainable absence of any kind of LFG tool. Without LFG tool, when you want to do any dungeon, not just fotm, you have to sit in the zone spam map chat getting nigh to zero responses as everyone sits in LA / sit in lions arch posting your line between the spam of lfm fotm lvl x messages.

Give us proper LFG cross-server cross-character queqeing tool so I can go explore, do dynamic events, hunt vistas on any char any place in world, then when my group is ready alert us and let us go any dungeon we want and queqed for.

You wanted to break the MMO stereotypes, do a unrestricted lfg that is actually effective to use then, why force people who want to do dungeons to the confinements of LA or the dungeon zone.

Yes I know I could join a guild and do the same dungeons with same people, I prefer the pug aspect which works greatly in gw2 – i.e. no mob/node/quest item stealing etc. I should not be forced into guild if I want to enjoy the game as a nameless hero joining other brave adventurers in the world to cleanse its evils, not a memeber of a adventurers organisation.

1. I do not play the game at all but check the forums from time to time because i like the passionate community which lately has been disappearing also on account of all the infractions and deleted posts.
2. After the 16 nov patch
3. I quit the game after being lied to about the balance changes and after seeing that they have no clue about what needs work and what can wait. The nerf to bs thiefs didn’t come and rangers got underwater buffs…. after being promised substantial improvements. Classes are not balanced in a game that all the classes can have any role i find the class i love to play is subpar and worthless.
I do not mind being weaker in a game on account of my gear or skill but i do mind when i spend 500 hours on a char and it ends up being week because of bugs and balance issues.

I’ve been playing somewhat less since I hit 80, and more specifically since I finished my personal storyline and got 100% map completion (which eventually boiled down to checking WvW several times a day in case we had Stonemist.) I then did all the jumping puzzles because I’m apparently a masochist, and tried to join in Lost Shores but couldn’t really participate due to the bugginess. I found the whole event weekend disappointing.

In retrospect I wish I’d levelled up a different character first, or not gone for 100% map completion right away because now I feel less interested in levelling an alt having already gone through all the hearts, the dungeons and a lot of the DE. Might level another toon when I’ve had more time to sorta forget everything, so it’s more fresh.

I think I am just too casual for the effort needed to work for a legendary to seem worthwhile and there aren’t normally enough people online in my guild to do a lot of dungeon runs (don’t particularly enjoy all of them either, some are all right but some of them aren’t really the kind of challenge I like, I don’t find repeating the same ‘damage-dodge from one-shot down attack-repeat’ for 10-15 minutes to be fun. Could do with some tweaks on some of the dungeon fights I think, keep the punishing mechanics but reduce the health/fight length, or vice versa maybe.)

I suppose that is the upside of not having a sub though, I can always come back in a few months if I fancy it. I may be pretty behind on gear but I’m not going for bleeding edge content so I don’t really care.

Logging way less post patch, and when I do log a pretty much exclusively do spvp. It’s the only part of the game that still has anything of the original spirit left: skill gets you rewards. I enjoy it quite a bit— but $60 for spvp?

What’s a shame is prior to patch I enjoyed all parts of the game equally. I had fun making money on the TP, joining guildies in WvW, running pretty much any dungeon exp that people needed a fifth for… I could do anything I wanted and so long as I felt that it was fun, quality time, then there was no “opportunity cost” for doing so.

But now it’s hard to justify a lot of that time spent. If I’m not doing FotM I get behind and can’t pug games. If I’m not running the new area I’m missing the powerful blood drops and the rich ori vein. It’s too bad, because I primarily was a pve player. That’s where I spent my time (and gems). There was a lot of great content leveling 1-80. Beautiful zones to travel through, exciting world bosses to fight along the way. I wish they would have enriched the content they already had.

Make the world denser not more stratified. I (and I suspect others) will spend time in it.

“When did you start playing less?”
As soon as the Lost Shores event ended. I have taken a week away from the game.

“Why / What caused the decline in time spent?”
The large crash which prevent thousands of players from not receiving their chest after a 3 hour long event. I was extremely disappointed about how rushed the whole event was and then this large lag people had to endure to finally get booted out of the game moments before they get their well deserved chest. That infuriated me so much that I decided to not play for a week, that way when I returned I would be more relaxed and would have cooled down and hopefully missed the game a little. I am checking the forums daily to see how they will handle the “Karka Crash” as I do not want to be left out on being compensated because I missed an opportunity by not logging on here as I don’t use twitter.

Other reasons that make me play less, every time they go back on their word about something such fractals (which I actually love) making players turn away players. Once you hit a specific level to play any of the other dungeons you were fine and it worked as levels did not matter in the end but with fractals only certain people can join together. You cannot come with us until you are level 28F, too bad. Players end up spending too much searching for groups now than being in them. While this kind of thing does get on my nerves a little, it annoys me more because we were promised it would not be one of those games. As for gear progression, personally I don’t mind the ascended stuff as it is not much different in stats and the main reason people are getting it is for the agony resistance. As long as no other gear progression is implemented I will be happy.

Personal story and voice actor capabilities, why was this not done better? You had the money, the people and all the capabilities. My hope for the future that this is looked on as a disgrace and a something you learn from. I won’t go into detail again on this subject, it has been worn out, I think if the next content with voice acting ends up as drab and pathetic as the current one I don’t actually know if I will be willing to sit through it. This also goes against the promise of an epic story, please hire better writers or a voice director that does his job and not let this travesty occur again. (If you like amazing story-telling that will make you laugh and keep you hooked I suggest playing ‘The Bard’s Tale’ as that was fantastic)

The main thing that will drive me away from the game for good is watching Anet ignore players, pumping out content patch after content patch but never looking at the current game, never perfecting it; and it needs to be perfected. Tweaks need to be done, bug fixes, etc. The Anet for GW1 was quality first and then money, I would love that team back. Please fix what you have before pumping out another shoddy piece for us to leave to the side and just scowl at it every time we get home from work and manage to make eye contact with it.

Yes, I check the forums more and play the game less. No, I won’t spend any money in the PTWF (pay to win faster) shop. At launch I was trying to talk friends into buying the game. Upon reaching 80 (about a month after launch) I realized that the gear grind would take several months to end for me. I bought the game because the company president said this game wouldn’t be a grind.

He lied.

The dynamic events are not dynamic, they are just on a very slower timer of repetition. Many now must be done solo because there are very few people out in the zones, which is understandable, because the rewards from playing in Tyria do not cover the costs of taking waypoints. I understand why this is; to prop up the PTWF shop and continue encouraging in-house RMT there.

And now ArenaNet has bowed at the alter of progression, sacrificing their integrity and breaking their trust with many of their biggest fans and die-hard supporters.

Add in the bugs, the imbalance, the horrid communication methods…

This game was supposed to be different, to break all the rules. Instead it is just another failed version of the same old crap found in all the other MMO’s. There is nothing innovative or different in GW2. I don’t talk about the game anymore to anyone outside of it, unless it is to tell them not to waste their money on it.

I certainly feel like I fell for a bait and switch scam.

Maybe the AMA on Monday will help a bit, but I’m not holding my breath.

MrClockmakerSir.1095:

At launch I was trying to talk friends into buying the game.

Funny enough I was doing the same thing before launch. And they were trying to sway me towards D3. After playing this game for 3 months and experience all the broken promises, last week I didn’t even mention to them the “invite a fried” thing. Not that I want to hurt GW2 in any way, I still hold hope that at one point all this will change, but there’s nothing in here from what there was initially advertised and I’d just waste their time.

And I was right to do that. The whole weekend was a huge bug-fest starting with insane lag, events not triggering, disconnections, broken scavenger hunts and ultimately broken login server during the finale. Why would I subject anyone to that?

In my personal opinion, I don’t see any reason why people should stop playing the game JUST because of the ascended gear.

Some people said they quit just because of the EXISTANCE of the Ascended gear but they did not wait to see what was changed and how its going to effect the game.
Besides this is a more “skill” based game, gear helps a lot for sure, but if you know how to make a good build for your class and use different weapons depending on your own personal strategies then the quality of the gear won’t be as big a deal as people are making it out to be.

Also, for those who say they quit, is there ANY other reason why you should stop playing aside from the Ascended gear? From what it sounds like Arena net is releasing this as a “test” perhaps, since they are only releasing pieces at a time. If by the time they release a full set and people in game hate it they will probably remove it, they removed several other things that gave players unfair advantages like from WVW. they noticed some exploits and eliminated them.

Give the game some time, don’t just quit, watch and see and don’t delete your progress, based on what ArenaNet has been doing you may regret deleting everything when a new and impressive update is released.

I for one am playing this game consistently and enjoying every moment of it. (except for waiting for the Darn Cattlepault.) I feel I am getting my money’s worth and then some, the addition of one new set does not bother me one bit. It would only start to bug me if they said “Hey, we are going to release 30+ sets uber rare gear that almost never drop, just like WoW. Each significantly more powerful then the next.” THEN I am concerned.

Alastar.2863:

In my personal opinion, I don’t see any reason why people should stop playing the game JUST because of the ascended gear.

Some people said they quit just because of the EXISTANCE of the Ascended gear but they did not wait to see what was changed and how its going to effect the game.
Besides this is a more “skill” based game, gear helps a lot for sure, but if you know how to make a good build for your class and use different weapons depending on your own personal strategies then the quality of the gear won’t be as big a deal as people are making it out to be.

Also, for those who say they quit, is there ANY other reason why you should stop playing aside from the Ascended gear? From what it sounds like Arena net is releasing this as a “test” perhaps, since they are only releasing pieces at a time. If by the time they release a full set and people in game hate it they will probably remove it, they removed several other things that gave players unfair advantages like from WVW. they noticed some exploits and eliminated them.

Give the game some time, don’t just quit, watch and see and don’t delete your progress, based on what ArenaNet has been doing you may regret deleting everything when a new and impressive update is released.

I for one am playing this game consistently and enjoying every moment of it. (except for waiting for the Darn Cattlepault.) I feel I am getting my money’s worth and then some, the addition of one new set does not bother me one bit. It would only start to bug me if they said “Hey, we are going to release 30+ sets uber rare gear that almost never drop, just like WoW. Each significantly more powerful then the next.” THEN I am concerned.

This is not just about ascended gear. It’s about a promise that was made before this game was launched that was later kitten on. You don’t need an “impressive update” to deliver as a company what you promised. This should have been done from the start. The game was not advertised as “buy this game and maybe in 1 year it will become this MMORPG changing experience”. Simple enough you need to listen to people’s opinions. Yes, there’s a lot of hatred and ranting going on on these forums but there are also valid ideas that are simply ignored.

You need to not be pigheaded about a LFG system and turn LA into Spamadan.

You pride yourself on removing the “trinity” and then you introduce fractals which splinter the community even more than the “trinity” ever did. Not only you have A LOT of different levels of fractals which makes group picking very lvl based but you also have ascended gear with a RNG drop rate. I know people who made it to fractals lvl 20 without dropping one item, while other people dropped to before they hit 15. Lvl 15 and higher is all about agony reduction and you will most likely not find a group if you don’t have ascended gear.

You need to fix stuff than needs fixing BEFORE introducing new content with it’s fair share of new bugs.

And the list can go on..

My lack of playing time is due to the art-syle, weird movement, and how the game feels overall; it’s just not working for me. This might be more of a personal preference thing. I tried discussing it here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Does-the-art-style-bother-you/first#post804986

Alastar.2863:

In my personal opinion, I don’t see any reason why people should stop playing the game JUST because of the ascended gear.

Some people said they quit just because of the EXISTANCE of the Ascended gear but they did not wait to see what was changed and how its going to effect the game.

I cannot speak for anyone else who quit. For me, yes, I am done. I have played MMOs for 7 years. I had some bad experiences in the vertical progression style MMORPG. I was subjected to griefing and insults which were commonplace in a certain MMO. Then I was subjected to racism and sexism. That was it and I quit. And what was the usual reason for such treatment – you suck because you do not have XXX gear or have not done YYY raid or you know, you just suck so go away.

I was reluctant to play a MMO again but I read up on GW2. I played the beta and was so excited that I bought and played all of the original GW1 content. Then I witnessed Arenanet taking a clear stance against griefing, discrimination, forced grinding and elitism/exclusion. After seeing their commitment to making the game a fun, safe, inclusive environment for everyone and experiencing it myself, I believed I had finally found my kind of MMO.

I was relaxed playing. Never felt like I had to do anything. Just played the game my way. I took my time getting my Exotics because they said it would be the max stat gear. No pressure, no worries, just enjoying the experience.

This patch has destroyed that in my opinion. Only a few days after the patch, I saw in-game and on these forums “familiar” nasty behavior. I read the requirements to get just one piece of the better Ascended gear, for me it will be significant grind. For now, Fractals gives me a feeling that I had with traditional MMO raiding (running the same dungeon over and over hoping you get that item). And that is not a good thing.

Very little about the new gear and dungeon has given me the fun feeling that I had about GW2 prior to 11/16. So I am done. If the mechanics return to horizontal progression and the mood of the game returns to the degree of cooperation, friendliness that it had before, I may return.

Alastar.2863:

Give the game some time, don’t just quit

Sorry to post again, but I forgot one other thing that quite frankly, irked me.

The marketing statement for the introduction of vertical progression stated that it was being done for “the most dedicated players.”

Please Arenanet. Have more experienced marketing people review any PR releases in the future. When I read that, it made me feel like I was not valued as a customer. Your marketing material should never do it. It should make people feel excited about the change and garner support.

So when I read that and fully understood your direction, I believed that you sent me a clear message that I am no longer the customer you want in your game. I never stay where I am not wanted.

Setting aside the whole issue of Ascended Gears, I just want to play a bit of fotm, but the level system just makes it impossible. I just spammed an hour in Lion’s Arch for my particular level and only found 3 more players. Of all, 2 left during the recruitment because it was taking too long. It’s such a backwards system.

Please change it so its a queueing system. That way, we can just sign up and go on about in the world to do whatever we want to do. When the time comes, we’ll get the queue asking if we’re ready to join the fractals. I don’t want to sit in LA spamming to find a group and waste time. So yeah, I’m playing way less than what I used to since the Lost Shore update, and it’ll continue that way if fotm/ascended gear continues its way.

Slowed down before FoTM. Stopped almost entirely after FoTM. This game is pretty much just grinding dungeons. Boring.

If you disagree, more power to ya.

I do like that there is no sub though. Can check in from time to time to see what’s up.

Earlier in this thread, I answered the question posed by the OP. My answer got deleted because “the Code of Conduct you accepted by joining this forum, does not allow you to contest members of the Community Team or Arenanet.” I shall therefore repost what I said, with the names removed. Please don’t delete it again. I’m not violating the Code of Conduct by sharing my opinion here.

Original post, with ArenaNet staff names removed, as follows:

Because GW2, a game I’d been excited about since it was announced after the release of EotN, is not what was promised.

See any of many other threads for a description of things not promised. Don’t forget the 10500+ post thread that was closed, with EVERY SINGLE ONE of the questions therein left unanswered.

TL:DR – What they advertised and what I bought were completely different. Feedback is ignored and/or not welcome, as it gets closed, and goes unaswered. I feel that either ANet have no clue, or no conscience.

If I don’t see an improvement after Mondays AMA, I’m done. The ArenaNet I knew and loved during Guild Wars is gone, and I’ve got no interest in the new one.

1. Ascended gear is utterly contrary to the design philosophies espoused during the development of GW2. Exotic gear is already, to be honest, too grind-intensive compared to max-stat gear from GW1. I have absolutely no intention of grinding for dozens and dozens of hours just to get slightly better stats, but on the other hand it feels like absolute crap to have gear that’s second-rate.

2. The gutting of the Elementalist Trait Evasive Arcana, in concert with the deceptive way it was done and the lack of subsequent communication over the issue, completely robbed me of whatever desire to play this game I had left after hearing about Ascended gear.

For those who don’t know, Evasive Arcana used to give Elementalists a spell at the end of their dodge roll that counted as a Blast Finisher, with a 10 second cooldown per attunement. This was really cool because Eles have a lot of combo fields but not many combo finishers, and being able to complete your own combos is a big part of feeling helpful in dungeons and a general boon while PvEing on your own. Elementalists are also generally considered to be one of the weakest professions (if not THE weakest), so we needed every advantage we could get. More importantly, Evasive Arcana was fun. It made every dodge a complex tactical decision and forced you to think three steps ahead at all times. It made Fire 4 in Staff an especially fascinating spell to use since you could dodge roll into a field and then hit Fire 4 to escape from the chaos of the melee without wasting precious Energy that could be used for another blast finisher. Discovering EA as it was basically gave me another level of tactics to play around with, and it was very engaging and dynamic.

In the last patch, however, ANet completely took out the blast finishers from Evasive Arcana, calling it an “unintended bug.” The Trait had given blast finishers since the first BWE, making it seem unlikely that this effect was removed because it was “unintended.” Basically, it feels like ANet is lying about why they changed it, and that sucks. It seems like an extra slap in the face because of how weak the Ele feels compared to other professions, and ANet hasn’t given a single post on the Ele forums to help assuage fears that our beloved profession will be getting any help.

Those are the two reasons why I’ve stopped playing. I’ve been with Guild Wars since the final beta event of GW1 and it breaks my heart to abandon it, but they’ve betrayed their principles and actively made my profession of choice much less fun. Oh, and all the communication we’ve gotten from them at all, on any topic, has been heavily encoded in doublespeak.

I’m playing less now as well. Mainly coz it’s so hard to find people to do dungeons now that everyone and their grandmother is doing fractals mostly. I don’t like fractals at the moment coz of the dc issue, and it’s quite hard to find people to do them at low levels (esp at overflow).

Somehow, as soon as I finish my daillies, I’m done for the day. I extend a bit for some spvp (just for fun) and some wvw, but my overall daily play time has decreased.

sammael.7136:

There is nothing wrong with FoTM or dungeon grinding. some like it (i do), some not. with audience so broad anet will never please everyone.

The problem lies in the unacceptable and unexplainable absence of any kind of LFG tool. Without LFG tool, when you want to do any dungeon, not just fotm, you have to sit in the zone spam map chat getting nigh to zero responses as everyone sits in LA / sit in lions arch posting your line between the spam of lfm fotm lvl x messages.

Give us proper LFG cross-server cross-character queqeing tool so I can go explore, do dynamic events, hunt vistas on any char any place in world, then when my group is ready alert us and let us go any dungeon we want and queqed for.

You wanted to break the MMO stereotypes, do a unrestricted lfg that is actually effective to use then…

This is so very wrong a direction I don’t know where to begin.

The moment LFG tools go cross-server it breaks server community completely, and removes the social penalties for various griefing behaviors.

The root of the problem stems from the gating mechanism. It does the opposite of rewarding people for playing with and helping their fellow community. It results in 15 people looking for the same dungeon but being unwilling to group with one another due to different gating levels.

For what its worth, I doubt they even care what I have to say. Still, I love the idea of this game, but for the last week I have played less and less, including the last two days I haven’t even logged in for more than 5 minutes.

1. Attention to WvW – this should be the main feature of the game in my opinion. It seems the developers put it low on the list of priorities.

2. Server Transfers Still Free and only 7 Day Cooldown – should cost gems for server transfer by now and the cooldown should be two weeks at the very least.

3. Class Balance – A few classes are played in huge numbers while others seem to dwindle due to lack of any real attention. Some classes have many options, while others may have only one. Some classes are just blatantly overpowered. This includes anything that can’t be killed easily by five players or more actively trying to target them.

4. Vertical Progression Added – make no mistake, this one is a big killer for me.

5. Lack of Communication by Developers

6. Bots

7. Price of Gold (Gems) is too high for non-rich folk (in comparison in what you get out of it).

8. Gated Content

9. Gear Repair Bills

10. Forum Moderation – it seems some of the moderators are bias to certain players/servers/classes and are giving out infractions far too easily.

All of these together sap my enthusiasm when I go to play the game each day. This game could be so much more than it is, but I guess it is what it is. Either way, I’ll be looking for a new title and will try to continue playing the game, but I’m not even sure I can now.

Played less since 16/11
Anet make me disappointed on the november update.
1. They abandoned to their manifesto.
2. They never care about Asian players felling.
3. They didn’t fix the balance, thieves still imba with their godlike stealth.

Guild just ditched our weekly WvW to do Fractals.

A wild Planetside 2 appears!

1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
I still want the game to succeed, because I invested money into it and hope that it will herald a lot more B2P MMORPGs oh which one may decide to be the spiritual successor of GW1, at least when it comes to PvE.

2. When did you start playing less?
Around November 12-13th.

3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?

The moment I realized that the main goal the new gear and infusions served was to increase the time it takes to get maxed out armor, which is something I hate and want to get over with as soon as possible. Without maximum efficiency, I always feel like I should be working towards getting stronger whenever I try to grind for a skin or title. I quit because I will not adapt to what I ought to enjoy.

I don’t like PvP at all(unless it’s very impersonal and indirect), but I’d rather play PS2 and repair turrets and tanks all day than force myself to settle for the second best gear in GW2.

They had me hooked until they introduced ascended gear. I love running through dungeons for fun. I did a ton of in GW1 (in the elite zones, which to this day are some of my favorite zones of all time), in CoH, in WoW (to a point; see below), in SWTOR, and now in GW2. Thing is, the moment that it feels like I need to constantly run content just to keep up, I’m out. This is what FotM did for me. If there is a defined end state that I can reach and play at for a decent amount of time, I’ll do it, but that’s not what’s going on with this new patch.

Then again, maybe Anet has some awesome grand plan, but they sure as heck aren’t communicating it. That’s another killer for me.

For $60, I’ve gotten a lot of hours of fun. Maybe it’s just time to move on.

1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
Yep, guilty. I hope the game comes out alright but better ways to spend free time have come up.

2. When did you start playing less?
The lost shores event. Lag and getting diconnected and screwed out of the first events rewards made me say “There are better ways to spend my time out there”

3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?
I was already getting bored with the skinner box mechanics by the time the lost shores hit, it was just the final tipping point. That combined with this and SW:TOR being my only forays into mmorpgs, I’m firmly back to viewing the entire genre as “button mashers” and now have no plans to come back. The story was underwhelming, gameplay horribly simple, repetitive, and grindy. Pvp was boring as all get out. I’ll probably come back for events but that’s it.

I actually play more. I was bored, most of my guild quit prior to lost shores because the game offers no progression what so ever…. we were a WvWvW guild very hardcore pvp’ers actually… but there was just no player progression for doing what you like to do. So our guild officially dropped GW2 and went back to LoL. Now they are curious again since Lost shores has been added, as it shows Anet is acknowledging that some form of progression is needed or people are going to quit regardless…. because once you have done it all… doing it repeatedly for really no reason other then just to do it creates boredom. When you add a goal then people come back… many in my guild are coming back and playing more now. They are apparently adding progression to WvW of some type im sure that will bring even more of my guild back.

So in short I play more now, because there is actually something to work towards.

Basically I’m playing it less because the old issues which have been brought up time and time again haven’t been addressed…. and the release of new content has not only showed these issues haven’t been addressed, but are further inflaming these issues if not creating more issues.

I’ll just use the two more recent PvE content examples since I don’t really do WvW or PvP much to make real insightful comments.

I’m not hung up as much about the Lost Shore thing because although it’s cheap that the event gave precursors (and some exploited the chest), the very nature of the precursors before Lost Shore was an issue that never got dealt with (RNG over skill/time commitment). Lost Shore only inflamed this issue.

Fractals was a neat idea. Ascended gear and inscriptions (not for +stats, but agony res and inscriptions with dungeon specific buffs) could’ve been something, and some of the encounters are a little more cooperation-based, but it is still plagued by old issues of loot being heavily low rate RNG, and now fractals have key progression loot being RNG; and then the +stats caused an uproar although those don’t bother me. Fractals at higher levels also reveal the imbalances among the various mechanics and profressions even more than explore dungeons; from boons and certain utility mechanics (which are not necessarily available to all professions), to damage dealing.

I definitely play less now, though I’m far from stopping altogether. My biggest reason for dimished playtime is the fact that I got Halo 4 and Assassin’s Creed III last week, though really that’s not all. I was really rocking it before the FotM/Ascended fiasco, but ever since that patch I feel the game is headed down a path I’m not prepared for. There were so many things that could have been improved upon, expanded, implemented, or outright fixed, but all the effort went toward adding in a gear grind to appease the “Hardcore” whiner group of players. An infinite dungeon is clever and all, but grinding it over and over and over for a few pieces of marginally better gear… endlessly, to infinity even, is just too much.

All of a sudden I’m getting left behind for taking a day or two off, I can’t find a group for anything else I want to do (Still two runs away from that TA staff I wanted so bad), PvP is a ghost-town and I can’t get a decent tourny group together to save my life. It’s not the ascended gear itself that bothers me, it’s the effect it had on the community. It’s the fact that everything else became completely obsolete because of terrible drops and terrible gear, it’s left me with little to do when I log in. I can either PvP, WvW, or run FotM if I’m not leveling another alt. Even when I do decide to run a FotM, it’s rarely on my level (I’m sitting on about 150 tokens and only level 3), the community has become split to INFINITE proportions.

And the LA spam is only getting worse…

I just got bored. I only PvE so my comments are restricted to that experience.

I stopped levelling my first character (a necro) around level 53 or so as it was plain to me that class is bugged. I then levelled a warrior to the mid 70s and just got bored and I got disappointed that there were fewer and fewer people around to do zone events. When I find the motivation I may bring it up to 80 but I am just not enthusiastic especially now that people are talking about the beginning of a gear grind.

I read these forums from time to time just to see what’s new.

1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
I keep hoping ANet says something that isn’t PR puke, that some patch begins to address the huge lists of bugs on the class forums, that Ascended gear is an early April fools.. that they retool the 80% of unused skills to bring build diversity into the game.. that PvP meta becomes more than a stale pile of dogkitten.

2. When did you start playing less?
Shortly after I ran the numbers of where ascended gear is going, even if it is the “last” tier and found out how much grind there is to get it.

3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?
I don’t want to grind gear.
I hate instanced dungeons, and my WHOLE kitten GUILD is in there, so I can’t find anyone to do anything with.
ANet has continued to ignore the real bugs and issues and instead is rolling out broken content and grind.

I don’t know what to expect from GW2 patches anymore. This is a problem. Consistency leads to trust, inconsistency leads to dissent. Some patches lots gets fixed, others break things more. I don’t know who is asleep at the helm, but it’s time to wake up.

I’m actually playing more. Cancelled WoW and subscription ran out on Nov 20th. Only level 35, but playing a lot more lately.

Cheers.

Im playing less, but I blame real life. shakes fist kitten you, life!

I’m also playing much less. Game has lost it’s appeal for me with the recent changes. I think I’ll finish my personal story which I’ve not got to do yet, due to a few progress bugs with it. And maybe level another toon, but even more casually than before. And I’ll certainly not spend another cent on the gem shop.

I’m playing more than ever. If they keep up the new content at this rate I don’t see myself quitting anytime soon. Guildies and I all love the game so far…….

pretty interesting to see that many people fed up with anet and guildwars2

to be honest I do not feel th same way at all. but thats mainly because i am not anywhere near to bother with dungeon grind for exotics or hitting lvl10 on fractals. ..farming mats for a legendary? I probably will never get there. hecl i am leveling a guardian right now… inspite of the fact that i already have on at lvl 80. (did not like the race )

you can play this game at any pace you want. feeling that oyu HAVE to do something is just some voice in your head.

still: the fractals lvl lfg thing is really stupid

i cant say if anet is on a path to self destruction – this thread seems like it though

I am playing less because:

1. I have 2 80s and 4 other alts in-between level 2 and 46 so “been there, done that” for the most part.

2. I have world explorer already on 1 toon and no incentive to repeat this on my other toons – in particularly because of the PVP POI, WP, and Vista requirements. I am on Denravi and we no longer have a PVP presence, so there is no good way to collect these without a server transfer. Now that server transfers are for a week minimum – no thanks.

3. No incentive to grind to a legendary. I have exotics now so meh.

4. No incentive to get on the gear treadmill with FotM – I’ve played FotM some and its fun the first several times but after that – just a grind really.

5. With FotM out there are fewer people running old dungeons now, and its not like the loot there was anything special anyway aside from skins. LFG without a tool means sitting in LA spamming – no thanks.

6. Lost Shore island was underwhelming – explored it all, no incentive to return.

7. DEs – been there, done that, and loot drops are still meh.

8. W3 – not into it, especially on Denravi where all the W3 players left for SOS. It was fun first couple of months, but after that its more World v Wall rather than real PVP since everyone just hunkers down in towers and castles and hammers you with siege while you bang on their doors. Gets old.

9. sPVP – do not like the way this was implemented (versus Rift and other games) where you are forced into a cookie-cutter build that is foreign to your normal build and playstyle. No – thanks anyway.

10. Lack of confidence this game is headed in the right direction after the horrible Lost Shores event (aka the Lag Monster and no loot for many while others got precursors) and the addition of ascended gear.

I play less because my guild is slowly dying and less and less are logging on. Also I can’t be bothered to log in and spend an hr or two looking for a Fractal group. It’s a really bad idea to have a dungeon scale so much. I’m at level 4 and I saw people looking for a level 47 group! Good luck trying to find someone on your exact level. Plus it’s the only way to get new gear which is even dumber. There’s a whole new zone why can’t you get it there? WvWvW is okay but when you play the same two servers every week it gets pretty lame lol

Well I’m quite new in this game, not 80 yet cause I didn’t want to play it like WoW(race to 80 and do hc + you monthlys). Now I get why I couldn’t find any groups for the 30-66 dungeons…I tried for so long everytime but all there was was Fracs…

I still come on for my dailys and i do have my 150+ hours, so i played my moneys worth…but as this is going on i think i might go back to WoW. Atleast there the “race” is legit and balanced out more, not one guy can just go grind Fracs and end up with uber gear.

I agree about the PvP…Raid on Cap, Kyhlo, and that new thing sucks quite hard. the other maps are well balanced. best map imo is Foefire.

New game mode for PvP would be really awesome. Atleast give us a flag running mode.

1vs1 PvP…well some classes just > others 1vs1. So i’d say atleast 2vs2. Then people can’t moan cause its who you man-up with that will make the diffrence.

All in all i guess i wont be going for 80…that’s what i said at the start when i only played pvp since im from WoW and the dungeons are way diffrent(dying is no shame, not 1 single tank, not one single healer. all mixed up)but it can’t be compared to WoW. Though after playing AC and then CM and SE i got used to it. and i love the “must move around” factor of it! But seeing as that would be quite useless now…ahhwell might aswell stick to PvP dailys

Maybe gw2 wants to be more like WoW? Start a race and moving at such pace that if you dont do the dungeon thats best at the time as much at possible you get behind and new stuff comes out while youre still grinding for the old stuff. GJ guys

I’m somewhere on these pages with my own answers.

Just adding here that I do mainly WvW these days and having fun at it, because of the guild I run with.

When WvW is tooo slow, or I can’t commit without being afk every other minute, I do some questing in search of skill points mostly.

I’m still playing not that much, but when I do it’s WvW.
As if that’s the game for me: a B2P WvW game I hop into every now and than…

I love the game, its gorgeous. But GW1 was a more fun game to play over a long period of time.
Why?
You could replay missions/storyline for something to do. And the Bonus Missions for completion/titles was fun.
More variety of things to do.
Easier to group up with friends, since we still lack guesting.
Mesmers. What is called Mesmer now isn’t nearly as great as the original class.

I think GW2 is beautiful. I love the world, I just am not enjoying playing IN it as much anymore. Most places are ghost towns, while LA has become the ToA of GW2… (LFG LFG LFG)

Sigh..

Really enjoy GW2, however, there were a couple things that stopped me from playing for the most part over the last month or so.
1) Lost Shores event issues
2) Lack of guesting
The lack of guesting is probably the main issue for me (among a couple minor things un-noted) as everyone I know who still plays the game that I ‘would’ be playing with refuses to switch servers (as do I as I am on a high pop server), so I got bored of playing solo.