Guild Wars 2

I stopped playing just before HoT came out because of my school and work schedule and have been trying to keep up with the game’s status and updates. I would like to purchase HoT this weekend to continue where I left off and to eventually try raiding. I keep reading on forums and online that the game is now heavily raid based and returning/new players will have a hard time catching up or even getting into dynamic boss event groups in the expansion because of limited number of players. Is this true? is wvw dead or have things been updated and people are back? I am generally just asking about the game’s population and if i’ll be able to enjoy the expansion with other players or if I will be soloing the whole expansion. This includes dungeons and pve, etc.

mega servers make sure u are not alone most of the time, but u will want to get into maps when the meta events are going

wvw is on life support

pvp is on life support

if u find a guild that will let you raid with them, then u can raid

just make use of the lfg tool to “join in” parties and squads that are doing the meta events

If you hear “this game is heavily raid-based,” don’t take that at face value. The raids introduced since HoT came out have gotten a large share of the excitement, but other game modes have been getting some love as well, even if it’s not as flashy. I don’t raid, and I’m still having a good time, so don’t worry if you can’t find a team of people to raid with.

The thing about getting into dynamic boss events sounds confused. In April, they revamped the LFG tool to with more categories and the ability to post squad-based LFGs instead of just party-based ones, making it easier than ever to get into good PvE maps. The Heart of Thorns maps have some pretty major “meta-event” components, so it pays to join a good map (like Silverwastes or Dry Top in the core game,) but the April update also made it more rewarding to be on less-than-full maps as well, even if you can’t complete the meta.

I can’t speak for WvW, but as far as general PvE goes, you should be fine, especially if you play during the evening primetime. I don’t know that you’ll be able to get a dungeon party right away, especially for certain paths, but that’s always been the case, at least in my experience.

Xhellraiser.9527:

I stopped playing just before HoT came out because of my school and work schedule and have been trying to keep up with the game’s status and updates. I would like to purchase HoT this weekend to continue where I left off and to eventually try raiding. I keep reading on forums and online that the game is now heavily raid based and returning/new players will have a hard time catching up or even getting into dynamic boss event groups in the expansion because of limited number of players. Is this true? is wvw dead or have things been updated and people are back? I am generally just asking about the game’s population and if i’ll be able to enjoy the expansion with other players or if I will be soloing the whole expansion. This includes dungeons and pve, etc.

The game has 3 wings which have appeared over the past 8 months. ANd that is it. It is not heavily raid based. It’s just a content drought in pve which is about to be recitfied which is causing a lopsided view. Because te raids have had bigger updates than open world, it just seems lopsided – that will change soon.

WvW has been massively rejuvenated by updates to rewards and the return of the original borderlands

You can solo, you can group, but the population is high enough and healthy enough to justify doing any content you see fit in the open world, whether it is HoT or Core. Fractals are also easy to get groups going with, but I don’t know about dungeons. The rewards werre revamped, but I am uncertain if the interest in them was lasting.

The game is far from heavily raid based. I’ve gone in to fight the first boss in the raid maybe 3 sessions, never killed it, and I have plenty to do and work on. Unless you really desperately want Legendary armor and don’t believe it’ll never be available in any other fashion, you can completely ignore the existence of raids.

I don’t do dynamic boss events (if you mean world bosses like Shatterer) that much but when I do I find a zerg every time. If you mean the HoT metas, that’s just a matter of paying attention to the timers and joining LFG squads at the right time, then taxiing to the squad’s map.

I don’t know on WvW, though they did put things back to the Alpine maps (I never saw Desert). They’ve linked servers for WvW purposes and are continuing a revamping process of the WvW system. Now they’ve added reward tracks for the Tribal, Stalwart, and Apostle armor, which will likely get people joining in.

I’ve seen complaints that it can take a bit to get a pug together for dungeons. Since I only do them when a few guildies are interested, I have not experienced this. The last one I ran was CM story to help a guildie new to dungeons see it. Our LFG 2 spare slots with “watching cinematics” filled up in a minute or two.

For open world, you’ll find people. The megaserver means that when a map is empty, folks can swap over to a new map. There are also Current Events happening in a number of maps that have people flocking there for the achieves. To be sure you always can find a friend, why not look down in the Looking For subforum to look for a guild that suits you?

Some people just seem to have a very short memory when it comes to releases. Whatever came out most recently is regularly declared to be what the entire game is now based on and what all future releases will be themed around.

During Season 1 that was frequently festivals, zerg rush events or jumping puzzles. During Season 2 it was solo PvE, when Silverwastes and then HoT came out it was meta-event maps, recently it’s been raids. Oh and periodically it’s ‘esports’ when those are running.

When Season 3 comes out it will probably be back to solo content. After that something else.

But if you’re concerned about the population of the game in others areas I don’t think you need to worry. I was just doing one of the new open-world boss events where there were so many people joining in we were getting hit with skill lag and people were complaining they couldn’t get into the map.

Earlier I did low level (7-10) Fractals with 3 different groups from the LFG tool, one specifically for getting the chicken-killing achievement. I went and did Silverwastes the other day and decided instead of going to the 50% or 80% maps advertised I decided to stick with the new one and we got 100% completion. Meanwhile I have a friend who does basically nothing but world bosses who never has trouble with enough people showing up.

Obviously that’s all anectdotal and it’s not a comprehensive list, but certainly my general impression is that there are plenty of people still playing the rest of the game. Some of them raid too, but 1 raid isn’t enough to draw everyone away from the entire rest of the game.

I’m very happy to hear I won’t have a problem finding people or doing content. Thank you all very much for the help I will definitely be buying the expansion this weekend and hope to see some of you in the world soon!