Some perspective on me and my playing. Played GW1 since beginning to days before GW2 dropped. Bought all expansions and all costumes for GW1. I supported a game I loved to play.
My issue with this is for casual play it comes down to the rest of the community. I am able to play more than my fiance is able. When she gets on we play together. This is fine for most things. The problem comes when we want to do something else, like dungeons. I consider dungeons to be part of casual play. Previously, they could be done at your leisure for the cosmetic look and potentially for the gear. Now, it will be hard to get people to run those dungeons when we have time because the rewards are not there for those other players.
It comes down to the long term aspect of casual play. If someone is only able to play every other weekend, they will have that much more to do to catch up. And by catch up, I mean, when there is more gear there is that much more to do to get it. When other games release expansions it invalidates their older content and it is not run anymore. GW1 did not do this and it was glorious. You were not just grinding to hit top level so you could play the small percentage of the game where everyone was playing.
For gear we could stomach the 252,000 karma for Orr gear for a long term goal. I am about halfway there, she is not. But since I won’t be more powerful, it didn’t matter if I got it first. When other methods of acquiring new gear come in to play what is the point of getting Exotics anymore. I am not going to drop 252,000 karma on gear that is useless, when I will probably have to spend (just guessing) 504,000 karma. Crafting, sure, so now I need 50 ectos per piece of gear, up from 5! Well, that seems wrong. Not counting the T6 items or anything else. Now, I have to try and get I don’t know how much gold for all of that unless I want to farm, which takes away from the fun that i was planning to have. Or, by paying money for the gold and that is seriously wrong for a stats increase. Also, my numbers may be off for Karma.. it could be 2,520,000 for a full set, if the crafting for the back piece is any indication.
I have a number of friends that have lives and other things they need to do right now. The reason they bought this game was because they could stop for 6 months if they needed and come back to the game and be right where they left off, just more areas to explore. This was wonderful in GW1. I took over a year off from the game. Came back and didn’t need new armor at all. There was new armor I could acquire, but it was not better and I did not need it for anything. I could go to Underworld, FoW, The deep, Urgoz, Sorrow’s furnace, and Mallyx area (can’t recall name right now) and all of the other dungeons and not be at a disadvantage. Sure, there was the PvE skills that got better with more rep. BUT, the best part, you did not have to use them. They made some bosses/events maybe somewhat easier but I could and did do those things without them. That was a huge part of the game, playing as you wanted to play without being force to get certain gear.
Infusions in GW1 was only for the storyline in Prophecies and is not the same thing in GW2. It was part of the storyline and you would get your armor infused while playing the game (1 mission and 1 other area in the game). But it had no stats increase and was a 5 minute gate (You could get someone to run to the spot in about 5 minutes). This was not part of Factions, Nightfall or GWEN.
None of the mechanisms in GW1 invalidated previous content. With ascended gear and FotM it will invalidate the other dungeons and only be run sparingly, with difficulty in finding a group, for the skins themselves.
I am still playing right now, but am losing enthusiasm for the game and am questioning if I want to give money to a company that does not deliver what they have promised.