Guild Wars 2

First off I am leaving Guild Wars 2 and going back to Planetside 2 and probably won’t bother coming back to comment on this. All of the below is my own personal beliefs of Guild Wars 2 and is in no way an attempt to troll or whine.

Review Time:

When I bought Guild Wars 2 I was really excited for launch. I had gotten into a beta weekend and had a ton of fun running around and smashing people. In all ways I found the game new and exciting. Unfortunately, it would be those new ideas that would eventually drive me away from the game.

The first thing that seemed like a great idea and turned out to not work for me was the step away from tank/healer/dps or the “unholy trinity” as ANET liked to call it. Unfortunately it has become painfully clear to players that it is actually the “holy trinity” and allows for organized and streamlined game play that can focus on teamwork and environment without the need for a lot of groups to end up resorting to face rolling through dungeons by just having a constant stream of people dying and running back.

The second thing that seemed like a great new feature and turned out to be disastrous is the downed state. While the idea of this was interesting and effectively made everyone a “healer” it ended up not working that way in game. The biggest effect of this was in WvW where the ability for people to rebound because someone they had hit was killed caused fights to just become ridiculous. In PvE this was also not really a great feature as it just added another phase of dying. It didn’t really make the game easier and also caused people to flock to the downed person to heal them which would often result in an aoe wiping the party.

The third thing I thought was going to be good but turned out to be bad was no Raids and Dungeon gear being cosmetic only. For people who don’t know it takes about 2 days to farm enough gold to buy a full set of exotics in any stat configuration. It takes about the same time running dungeons to get 1 piece of exotic gear from a dungeon in the same stat configuration. This made two problems, 1 there was no real motivation to run dungeons and 2 it only took 2 days to go from fresh 80 to fully geared 80(minus legendary but come on w/e). The lack of raids added with this lack of gear progression made it so that people had literally zero motivation to run PvE other than to farm different currencies.

WvW was the next big disappointment for me. In addition to imbalances due to player populations the invisible army patch was ridiculous. BTW this didn’t exist when the game came out, I have screenshots of me sitting on top of EH Keep looking down at a fight at Bluelake seeing the whole enemy force outside and the whole friendly force. There was a patch about 1 and a half weeks in that actually added the invisible armies for people with good computers. Granted it the idea was to help people with bad computers but it was a clear choice to screw people who had quality gaming machines to try and pander to people with Bestbuy HP or Dell garbage(that or it was a short sighted patch that’s effects were not thought about). This isn’t how you make quality pvp battles this is how you alienate people who spend money on games.

The next is also related to WvW, first was the instant server transfers that were free. This caused and immediate flock to the top servers which severely diminished servers that were actually quite good in BW3. It also created ridiculous queues on those servers. The lack of Oceanic servers and regional IP locks created an issue of night capping. This wasn’t night capping like you might have if a server had 1 or 2 late night guilds, this was night capping by hundreds of people and it became the single largest determining factor to the power level of a given server. The response to this was unfortunate when they basically said, “As Intended” clearly what they really meant was “Crap our bad but it is honestly too late to fix so we hope it works out”.

The next thing is the Commander Tome. The 100g price tag was a joke as it has nothing to do with how long players WvW but it also was so lacking in features to basically be a smack in the face to anyone that bought it for the right reasons. The lack of a raid system (which is just standard stuff man come on) created the need to get the Commander tome for some large guilds. Unfortunately this tome simply put an arrow over your head and didn’t actually provide any other real benefit. No one uses the waypoints and squad chat was a joke and also unused. It was literally all for the blue arrow.

Next is all the stuff to do in WvW besides WvW. There should never have been npc events, skill points, vistas, pois, and jump puzzles in WvW. Even things like quaggin and lightning nodes add something else besides players fighting players. I know that this stuff seemed like a good idea but ANET should have taken a page out of the Planetside book and just made the mists an empty battlefield. This would help with rendering, server load, botters, and people being in wvw taking up queue slots but not fighting. This was just the type of silly oversight that unfortunately changed something that could have been standard setting for new MMOs into something that was just another crash and burn.

Anyways, I stayed longer than most that I came to the game with. At this time I can say that about 50% of the people I knew before GW2 who bought the game have since quit the game. I imagine this is a pretty across the board number for most people. While I wish it would have been different I think that unfortunately the mistakes that were made post launch compounded a lot of the issues into things that simply broke the game.

ANET took a page out of the Funcom book in their response to the issues. Locking and Deleting threads about botters and hackers, suspending forum accounts for complaining about bugs, ignoring the real issues while trying to make small indecisive fixes that were meant to keep just enough people happy and believing real fixes were coming, and lastly just ignoring the real issues that needed someone to stand up and say hey we got this and here is the plan and this is when it will be done. All of these mistakes have been made before and no game ever succeeds with them.

CCP/Blizzard/SOE all have one thing in common, they talk to their players, listen to them, and aren’t afraid to make the big decisions when something needs real fixing. It was an unfortunate ride that was filled with more hope than fun. Take care ANet maybe in another 5 years you will put out another game that will be better managed.

Ah well 50% player left out the what ? 2 million sales ?

sounds good to me.

Yeah, I respect your review and I have my issues but they are vastly different than yours. Many of the things you dislike are the things I think ANET did well with.

I guess everyone has different tastes. Fifty percent retention really isn’t that bad for a game now-a-days.

I was doing some edits and thought I should point out one thing, 50% isn’t the end retention. It is the 40 day retention my guess is that the 90 day retention will look a lot different.

Also sadly as most people know people don’t come back to games these days they just go back to their last game or wait for the next game(sad reality but it is a reality).

Anyways to speak more to what I think you both were saying; this doesn’t mean doom for the game and I didn’t include it to try to sound that way. It isn’t really good retention either however.

Cayden.4587:

I was doing some edits and thought I should point out one thing, 50% isn’t the retention. It is the 40 day retention my guess is that the 90 day retention will look a lot different.

Also sadly as most people know people don’t come back to games these days they just go back to their last game or wait for the next game(sad reality but it is a reality).

Anyways this doesn’t mean doom for the game, but it isn’t really good retention is all.

Keep in mind though that this game is free to play.. Big change ppl will start to wonder in a few months what the updates did for this game..

All it takes is a installation no need to get that subscription going etc.

Gibbel.5734:

Cayden.4587:

I was doing some edits and thought I should point out one thing, 50% isn’t the retention. It is the 40 day retention my guess is that the 90 day retention will look a lot different.

Also sadly as most people know people don’t come back to games these days they just go back to their last game or wait for the next game(sad reality but it is a reality).

Anyways this doesn’t mean doom for the game, but it isn’t really good retention is all.

Keep in mind though that this game is free to play.. Big change ppl will start to wonder in a few months what the updates did for this game..

All it takes is a installation no need to get that subscription going etc.

Possibly, however this not returning has stayed true through F2P as well. If GW2 gets a return due to being initial purchase only it would be norm breaking.

Also GW2 isn’t F2P it is initial purchase so it won’t get the more new players that DDO and LOTRO did when they went F2P. That is unless ANET makes GW2 actually F2P but that most likely won’t happen and would kitten off anyone who paid 60 bucks initially.

Anyways I don’t want to stay and feed the thread my piece was said and enjoy your game. Off to Planetside 2 now.

You make some good points, but I disagree about the holy trinity being required for teamwork and streamlined gameplay. In fact I think the roles of support, burst, dps, (insert missing game mechanic that would allow another option). However, it’s poorly executed with NPCs/bosses, limited skills, and lack of customizability. It’s all just watered down completely with the added bonus of positioning and active dodges. If you look at GW1, you’ve got three times as many skills, and all of which help define whatever build you decide. I’m mostly disappointed with how the mesmer turned out since it was my favorite GW1 class. Maybe it’s because they removed energy from the game, but now it’s just a mediocre DPS, you might say, “Oh cool mesmer, cloak, blink, and illusions!”, but it does nothing to insinuate teamwork where the mesmer’s main job should be to disrupt casters from casting or at least make it situationally difficult for them. It’s like they took all of the unique, and individual skills, that made the mesmer great and stuffed them into a condition(confusion). I guess it has me a little confused and I could go on about the other classes, but oh well.

He made good points; points I already made in one of my threads long ago which was censored by moderators because I didn’t brown nose them for a bot friendly, bug ridden, unbalanced game.

I don’t really agree with all of his points, but he (or she) made them all without insults or bashing anything. I think that overall the management team for this game is in way over their heads and it shows.

It was fun before they started “improving” things.

I enjoy the game and will continue to play, although I’m not sure that I’m the type of ideal player ArenaNet wants — my highest character is level 42, I haven’t bought any gems, I only have a few days played, and I’m already down to playing only around 5 hours a week. There is so much that I like about the game, and just as much that I don’t. I’m thinking this thread might end up being an example of one of the things I dislike: “Thanks for your feedback. This thread is now closed.”

Wait… Are we talking about 50% retention like it’s fact? Because 100% of my friends who bought this game are still playing it. Does that mean GW2 has 100% retention?

Archer.6485:

Wait… Are we talking about 50% retention like it’s fact? Because 100% of my friends who bought this game are still playing it. Does that mean GW2 has 100% retention?

obviously

yes

Laundry list of mostly ill formed, not entirely accurate, over exaggerated and oft repeated criticisms. When I see one of these that hits all the same points, I always wonder if the author spent more time reading gaming forums than actually playing the game before coming up with their “review”.

The cincher is the agenda to tout another game as an alternative, “better” option.

The game isn’t perfect, but it’s ten times the game as it’s competitors. How many weeks after you move onto Planetside before you post a similar post on their forums about all the mistakes they made and start touting the next great game?

Some people are chronic MMO quitters. If someone can’t find plenty of reasons to stick with this game, then maybe MMOs just aren’t for them, or maybe forum wars are the only thing that they really enjoy about the genre? Each game providing more fodder for the endless stream of cynicism?

I’m at 470 hours and counting with the best, most engaging MMO I’ve played in my 14 years in the genre. I think most people who give up on this game didn’t try very hard to find things worth liking and worth playing for. The game is full of things for people of different tastes and play styles.

So, yeah, what ever.

have fun in PS2 for like a week. if you were disappointed by what GW2 offered, get ready for a world of heartbreak grinding certs, and having no win conditions or purpose to anything you do.

i guarantee you’ll be back for the Oct 22 patch, if you havent already come back.

For someone who said they probably wouldn’t be back to comment, you replied an awful lot.

You still care. <3

I actually agree with most of what you said, sadly, but I do believe that it will get fixed, changed, reformed and I have faith that it will be the game I hoped for. There are so many things I love, and I am still having so much fun despite the problems, so I am far from giving up on it yet.

I think its much to casual and not enough competitive to continue being succesfull .I’m hoping that will change somehow.

Regarding GW2: It has its issues, that much is certain. I haven’t played it for a week really, but I got like 272 hours in. Well worth the money I paid, even if I don’t play anymore (though I will eventually).

@Nerva: Awwww don’t have hate for PS2. I admit, its lacking on the whole ‘goal’ aspect but its a fun game still. They just need to make it more like PS1, as far as base/continent control is concerned. There were no ‘win’ conditions, but you were able to control entire continents.

They’ve already said they plan on getting rid of the footholds and giving each of the empires their own cont. Later on, I’d imagine the newer conts would be the neutral conts that you’d actually fight for control of.

Nice thing about PS2 is that they’re really listening to the community and making changes based off their suggestions, which I believe the OP tried to point out.

456 hours in….and I have to say I agree with the OP on a lot of his issues. I have been really close to quitting over so many issues this game has. At this point I am just wilfully ignoring everything as best I can.

I agree with the OP to a large extent. Sadly.

I’m trying to plug along, hoping it will get better, but I’m not seeing it happening….

The art and music teams are awesome, though. Someone lock those dudes up long-term.

I get it OP, but how can you “leave” a game with no monthly subscription? It’s like defying rain by taking a shower with an overcoat on. Really, come on man.

Ethereas.1085:

I’m trying to plug along, hoping it will get better, but I’m not seeing it happening….

Yes, it’s over. We’re all doomed now. The game is atrocious. It isn’t even perfect! Sure it’s fun, but what can I use FUN for when the end game does not currently meet my standards?

What can I use a fun game for, and sure it might have been worth the 60 dollars I paid for it, but what does THAT matter when it’s not fun virtually forever??

It’s like real life, really. Why would I bother giving two hoots about my life now, when all that matters is how good it will be when I am old and dead?? Seriously.

It seems like a good game to me that just simply not been out for all that long. You sound like you want the game to fail not so much because its a bad game because YOU dislike WvW. This is easy to work out due to looking at your other post btw.
The main thing that is wrong with WvW is that there is no fighting advantages to killing ppl its to easy to get back up from the way points. This is easily fixed by adding in a death timer.

Jski.6180:

It seems like a good game to me that just simply not been out for all that long. You sound like you want the game to fail not so much because its a bad game because YOU dislike WvW. This is easy to work out due to looking at your other post btw.
The main thing that is wrong with WvW is that there is no fighting advantages to killing ppl its to easy to get back up from the way points. This is easily fixed by adding in a death timer.

And yet it’s strange how people complain and get angry over the lack of mounts and having to run back to action. haha!

Sad Swordfish.9743:

Jski.6180:

It seems like a good game to me that just simply not been out for all that long. You sound like you want the game to fail not so much because its a bad game because YOU dislike WvW. This is easy to work out due to looking at your other post btw.
The main thing that is wrong with WvW is that there is no fighting advantages to killing ppl its to easy to get back up from the way points. This is easily fixed by adding in a death timer.

And yet it’s strange how people complain and get angry over the lack of mounts and having to run back to action. haha!

I did not know ppl where saying that truth be told its just if you put down even 2 ppl before you die your side should be wining. If there where mounts (i guess used out of combat) a fight would never end to the point of a tie. In a game where gear is not the main thing behind your hero (your skill and how you build them being the main wroth of them) repair cost is not a big enofe penitently of death.

Sorry dude, you lost credibility when you said you are “going back” to a game in beta and not released.

Cheers little buddy, don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

i like most of the changed but they kittened pvp hard this one.

I agree 100% with the OP. Guild Wars 2 is a massive disappointment. I lasted not even 6 weeks… 6 weeks in MMO time is pathetic. Even a kitten MMO should give you 2-3 months of play time. The only MMO i have ever played that i got less than 6 weeks playtime out of was Vanguard.

I have gone back to Lotro and am having a blast.

Bring on EQ3.

“Ah well 50% player left out the what ? 2 million sales ?”

and 63.7 statistcs are made up on the spot.

game is booming,

How do you quit Guild Wars 2? Give away your account? You already bought the game.

Well I agree with exactly two of the OP’s points:

Cayden.4587:

Next is all the stuff to do in WvW besides WvW. There should never have been npc events, skill points, vistas, pois, and jump puzzles in WvW. Even things like quaggin and lightning nodes add something else besides players fighting players. I know that this stuff seemed like a good idea but ANET should have taken a page out of the Planetside book and just made the mists an empty battlefield. This would help with rendering, server load, botters, and people being in wvw taking up queue slots but not fighting.

…

ANET took a page out of the Funcom book in their response to the issues. Locking and Deleting threads about botters and hackers, suspending forum accounts for complaining about bugs, ignoring the real issues while trying to make small indecisive fixes that were meant to keep just enough people happy and believing real fixes were coming, and lastly just ignoring the real issues that needed someone to stand up and say hey we got this and here is the plan and this is when it will be done. All of these mistakes have been made before and no game ever succeeds with them.

As someone who doesn’t do PvP, the only time I have ever been to the battleground was during the Hunger Royale event when I could be certain there would be nobody else about so I could look at some of the PvE content. It would be nice if there could be a giant brick wall built between PvE and PvP, sadly I think it’ll be far too difficult to do now so for the time being those of us who exclusively engage with PvE content will either miss out, or will bugger things ups for the people trying to do PvP.

The second point is probably the most telling. On the whole, although I have criticisms of it, I love this game and it is most certainly the best of its kind on the market and I see no signs of quitting; I just hope that they stop with the “bread and circuses” mentality and get on with fixing those fundamental issues that are hurting the game (bots, gold sellers, stalled/broken events) for the people who like it … and also stop treating customer complaints (ie. the locked bot thread) with the cavalier disdain they appear to have thus far.

Cayden.4587:

The first thing that seemed like a great idea and turned out to not work for me was the step away from tank/healer/dps or the “unholy trinity” as ANET liked to call it.

Cayden.4587:

The second thing that seemed like a great new feature and turned out to be disastrous is the downed state.

Cayden.4587:

The third thing I thought was going to be good but turned out to be bad was no Raids and Dungeon gear being cosmetic only.

There’s a very interesting article about MMOs in Gamasutra, here which is a nice discussion on how players usually ask for features they have seen in their first MMOs, even if they are not aware of it. Quoting a single paragraph (but go read the entire thing):

In general, players view all their subsequent virtual worlds in the light cast from their first one. They will demand that features from their first world be added to their current world, even if those very features were partly responsible for why they left the first world. They’ll say they hate treadmills, but if their first experience was in a virtual world with treadmills, then they’ll gravitate towards other virtual worlds with treadmills, all the while still hating them.

OP, you want a clone of traditional MMOs, whether you realize it or not. Fortunatelly for you, there are half a dozen of big games like that out there. Fortunatelly for everyone who wants something different, there is Guild Wars 2, too. Your list of complaints is many of the reasons why I like this game.

lol if you think ps2 is any better… get ready for a world of disappointment.

GW2 isn’t different, it just didn’t include basic things. Not sure why some people pretend that heavily restricting what you can do, how you do it and how much you can do it is a good thing but this is the only innovation GW2 brings other than some shallow UI changes to how quests are portrayed.

Group PvE play is terrible, worst in the genre.

Unfortunately … he (OP) made good points : /

Gibbel.5734

Ah well 50% player left out the what ? 2 million sales ?
sounds good to me.

Being so close-minded won’t help Anet so succeed…

If people are not playing, they’re not spending money, they wont recommand the game to new people and they probably will do bad publicity, so how on earth could this be good for ANet ? Many players feel the same way than OP, they shouldn’t be ignored.

Reasons why I quit

- go play a necro at 80. They’ve been “bug” fixing us for a month but somehow we’ve gotten worse… (They don’t fix minion ai, broke plague signet even more, and our trait synergy is garbage)
-WvWvW is buggy as hell, with no skill involved, and I can’t see half the people I’m fighting. What is this 2004?
-sPvP is good, along with Tpvp but with no matchmaking/elo/ladder system, me and my 4 friends who are casual get paired up with the top tpvp team? No thanks
-lack of holy trinity and end game pve (yes I LIKE to heal kitten )
-lack of keeping pve and pvp seperate
-lack of game modes and maps in spvp/tpvp
-lack of gamebreaking bug fixes, but at least we will have halloween kitten
-lack of maturity on forums from mods (and players [this relates to all mmos tho])
-lack of communication in game. What I mean is ya now nobody fights over anything but they made the game almost as if it was a 1player co-op. Never thought I’d say it but I do miss a bit of the barrens chat :p

Was it worth my 60 bucks, yes. Redifining MMOs? No but had the potential. You should have tore a few pages from LoL, WoW and gw1 and maybe I’d still be playing.
That’s my exit review. I didn’t make to 80 before I was bored. And I play casually so go take your “you shouldn’t have rushed” theory out the door.

Edit: Lack of ui and Lack of an in depth combat. It just feels for me guild wars 2 is missing something that should be there.

What I loved about the previous game I played was the PvP.It was the only reason to level and get stronger even tho it was terribly boring.It took years to get to max level.But it was worth it in the end .The PvP was great.This game has a fun way to level yet in the end, it was all just about the journey .Theres nothing there for you at the end of it.They matched everything and made it all fair and yet this game has no PvP.Yes it has sPvP and WvW but those are jokes.I don’t play well whit teams.I don’t wanna play whit a team.You were supposed to have a choice but you don’t.I don’t wanna fight over some objectives.I don’t wanna go there and end up outnumbered.Thats not fair.And I don’t wanna run around the maps like a lunatic to find another lunatic like me who wants some 1on1 action.I want a place where the only objective in mind is me getting you killed.Woooooot for that.
Guild Wars 2 is currently working on that , at least I hope they do.Other than that everything is great, can’t complain.Yes they can do more to polish it but give it time ,they will.

One thing I’ll agree with for sure is that ANet seems to have no idea what they are doing when it comes to many things and the things they fix or introduce vs the problems that exist boggle the mind. It’s often as if they have no idea what’s going on in this game.

Auzirix.9148:

How do you quit Guild Wars 2? Give away your account? You already bought the game.

Same as when you quit anything else in life. You STOP doing it. You abandon or put it aside. You cease or discontinue to do something…

Cayden.4587:

I was doing some edits and thought I should point out one thing, 50% isn’t the end retention. It is the 40 day retention my guess is that the 90 day retention will look a lot different.

Also sadly as most people know people don’t come back to games these days they just go back to their last game or wait for the next game(sad reality but it is a reality).

I’m sure that ANet appreciates you taking the time to give them your honest and comprehensive feedback.

Just a quibble though – I assume that you play with folks that have similar taste to yours, so it would make sense to me that if you’re disappointed with the game, most of the folks you play with would be disappointed also. I don’t think you can draw a lot of conclusions from the fact that about 50% of some unknown sample size of people who have about the same taste in games moved on to other games.

I fully expect the overall population to drop, and I’m not too worried about it because the game doesn’t rely on a subscription model. The folks that like this game, REALLY like this game, and will probably be dropping more than $180/year on average. It’s something that can’t be known by the public until NCSoft publishes their quarterly report. Number of people playing != success for Guild Wars 2.

The DEs are much more fun with folks more spread out (I have been avoiding the high level areas) so I see the population leveling out as sort of a good thing. WvWvW still seems pretty hot and heavy in our matchups during peak times, so I’m not seeing an issue with the folks that realize this isn’t their type of game taking off.

Sadly I agree with the OP. GW2 is still a good game, the open world content is great even if the feel of progression is kittened by some little things. But dungeons and end-game are sad due the reason he’s mentioned.

Gibbel.5734

Ah well 50% player left out the what ? 2 million sales ?
sounds good to me.

Arenanet has sold their kitten off working day and night on their baby they love. Everyone disliking the game is a failure. It’s not the end of the world, by it’s not good. If you want a marketing stand point, other MMO players represent a HUGE market. Those guys don’t play other games for no reason. Anet claimed that its a targeted market (cf. Manifesto) and yet is failing at penetrating it. It’s not good.

So far, Anet has done an amazing job at bringing what’s cool in solo games into an MMO. But it’s also done a great job at removing the good things that were already included in the genre…

I decided to swing by and check the thread and am glad for all the comments maybe they will read this and fix things. One note however:

azmodeus.3409:

“Ah well 50% player left out the what ? 2 million sales ?”

and 63.7 statistcs are made up on the spot.

game is booming,

Archer.6485:

Wait… Are we talking about 50% retention like it’s fact? Because 100% of my friends who bought this game are still playing it. Does that mean GW2 has 100% retention?

Gibbel.5734:

Archer.6485:

Wait… Are we talking about 50% retention like it’s fact? Because 100% of my friends who bought this game are still playing it. Does that mean GW2 has 100% retention?

obviously

yes

Sadly you guys clearly didn’t read the OP where I said: “At this time I can say that about 50% of the people I knew before GW2 who bought the game have since quit the game. I imagine this is a pretty across the board number for most people.”

I didn’t make up stats lol. Good troll attempt though. Lets try to keep this real and not just a troll fest.

Battousai.7586:

lol if you think ps2 is any better… get ready for a world of disappointment.

Been playing PS2 the whole time I have been playing GW2, I can say for ME like this post was all about my feelings. PS2 is more fun and better.

inb4 why you back then….

Cayden.4587:

Possibly, however this not returning has stayed true through F2P as well. If GW2 gets a return due to being initial purchase only it would be norm breaking.

Well the real difference there, is that in a F2P MMO you still have to buy the new content, or grind for days/weeks to get enough in-game currency to unlock it. While in GW2s B2P model you can log back in anytime you want and still have full access to the game, without limitations. I think that will cause a return to be much easier on content patches than in subscription or F2P MMOs.

Agree with some of your comments especially the invisible people in wvw that is a very dumb feature, most of the pve complaints though I disagree with as all the points you seem to hate are actually the things I like,but each to there own + thanks to some of the disasters that SOE have had mean I will never play one of there games again so planet side 2 is a no go for me.

A definite possibility Litego, though I doubt it. Especially with all the next gen games coming down the pipe within a year.

people hating on ps2 because people cant handle gw2 wasnt the messiah. better than the competition? lol if gw2 is around in 8 years with over 10 million active players then we’ll discuss success. a one night stand in sales doesnt equate to success, it equates to curiousity and being duped by clever marketing.

enjoy planetside 2 mate i’ll be there also

Needs more gear treadmill to keep people hooked.

I don’t need.

This is a well written exit review that does a good expressing a perspective. As someone who is frustrated with ANet over many things with GW2 I can relate on a few points but only a few. The bottom line is this wasn’t the right game for the OP to continue playing long-term.

I especially feel his pain on the issue of the holy trinity being gone. I’ll create my own post on that the bottom line is the game has no structured team-oriented play outside of sPvP Tournaments and sPvP is missing too many features… Team-oritented play is the real reason people play MMOs. You have a part, you bring that part and people know if you’re any good at that part. Put aside the anti-grind mechanics in GW2 (which are rather good)
The end game design to run around and help others is broken by high way point cost. If you want to help others you’re going to have to run dungeons or farm in high level zones in order to break-even. Some players don’t like that design.