Guild Wars 2

Roughly 2 years ago I dropped this game. I had played for about 1.5 years straight and was easily putting in 30 hours per week near the end, yet I finally lost interest. Real life was also calling me back.

I grabbed a next gen console to satisfy my gaming itch. I played mobile RPGs as well (addictive little things). Recently I started DL’n MMOs like Neverwinter and ESO and was wishing they were guild wars. On top of that, I’ve been bored recently.

Yet, 2 years ago I had done it all. I had world completion, I had my Legendary weapon, and I was an expert Mesmer and Necro. I used a couple other classes as well. I helped manage one of the largest guilds (blackgate i think was the name) on one of the most popular servers (at the time). I did all that PVE had to offer. I was very good at PvP. Yet, I spent most of my time in WvW. The social, atmosphere was great in comms. My server was almost always in the top 3. It was great fun. Running around solo with a Mesmer was fantastic. Run into another solo mesmer… kitten gets reals! Typically I’d be hitting poi for the server. I’d always be bouncing around comms and such.

I’ve been using consoles and phones for so long for gaming PC would probably feel foreign…

Anyway, what is there for someone like me? I enjoyed the playstyle, the community, and simply the polish gw2 has over every mmo consoles have to offer. Yet, is it worth returning?

My PC is a bit dusty and the HDD (secondary drive) is failing I’m sure my specs are a bit under the bar too…

Well it depends…

GW2 is for the most part the same animal. Some things have changed but they’ve stayed the same as well.

The only real addition to PVE are Raids, which I hear are actually pretty darn good. aside from that HoT introduces new maps with new collectibles but thats not new content, that’s just reskinned old content. If you’re tired of grinding open world meta events then the new HoT maps will not peak your interest.

I don’t play WvW much so I can’t tell you a lot. All I know is the WvW community is in uproar because of the changes (I have no idea what they are), and the very famous “WvW players love PVE” dev quote that seems to illustrate that the guys in charge of WvW are completely disconnected from reality. With that said I’m not at all surprise the WvW folks are mad.

They added League Ranking to PvP, but they completely botched the Implementation. Its really bad. Myself and many others wish they would just copy-paste a ranking system from another game that’s done it right, like DOTA or LoL, and just be done with it. But they insist on pushing their own brand and it’s not good. Maybe we’ll see some changes, who knows. The new elite specs are fun though, dragon hunter is a blast and revenant is totally OP. Hopefully that’l get balanced but who the hell knows really.

They’ve killed dungeons. They’re gone. If you enjoyed running dungeons(lol?) you cant anymore. In all my years of MMO’s I’ve never seen a company flat out stop supporting an in game device. It’s crazy and it scares me. What happens if they decide to stop supporting fractals lets say? I don’t know, its just really shakes the pillars of faith of lot of people had in Anet that they can just stop supporting a piece of their game like its nothing. With that said they said they want to move the farm from dungeons to fractals, so fractals are expected to get some buff (soon?) but again, who really knows. Anet is so tight lipped about their plans they might as well be wearing chastity belts. ATM theyve added some rewards which make grinding gold out of Fractals more viable and a time gated back piece, because we all love timegates.

Other than that It’s mostly the same game. Farm gold for your mats so you can farm collections and skins. Farm farm farm. With that said though somehow… I’m having fun? Maybe because I’ve been gone for a while so I’m not burned out anymore but I’m enjoying PvP (despite the fact that ranks are BROKEN with a capital BROKEN), I haven’t tried Raids yet but the fact that you now need some sort of soft tank and healer to do the raid content makes me harder than an oak wood. So I’m really excited for that. Aside from that I’m looking forward to the fractals development. If they can spruce up fractals, add some new ones, perhaps implement some of this tank healer functionality into fractals (although I doubt it), and balance up PvP a little I think this game will have pretty solid footing.

But for WvW guys I’m sorry… I think you’re all pretty screwed.

Be aware…some things alluded to in the above post require the Heart of Thorns expansion.

Welcome return, if you decide to rejoin.

Sharpe.3907:

With that said though somehow… I’m having fun?

that made me laugh.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Be aware…some things alluded to in the above post require the Heart of Thorns expansion.

Welcome return, if you decide to rejoin.

Understood. HoT sounds like a Sylvari-themed expansion. I always like Sylvari best. They glow at night! They kitten’n glow!

Whether or not you come back to GW2 or not, you should clean the dust out of your PC and back up anything important on that hard drive that you would not want to lose permanently.

Helios.3598:

Sharpe.3907:

With that said though somehow… I’m having fun?

that made me laugh.

Well I hope the rest of it was perhaps a bit informative as to what awaits you if you come back? If you do then welcome back and join the rest of us as we grind for the fractal backpiece.

Seera.5916:

Whether or not you come back to GW2 or not, you should clean the dust out of your PC and back up anything important on that hard drive that you would not want to lose permanently.

Thanks. I typically would, but I’ve been so far removed from that “old” desktop that I’ve not bothered. Perhaps I’ll use that as an excuse to login and run around a bit.

PvE is pretty much the same, if you can stomach the visual nerfs you should be fine.

If you’re a PvPer though, no, don’t come back yet, gw2’s pvp is going through a dark phase.

They’ve pretty much turned GW2 into SWTOR. You won’t have the limitations that free players have, but unless you pony up more dough, you won’t have access to ALL of the content available.

I wouldn’t recommend coming back for a couple of months, if ever. The game is not in a good place right now and pretty much all that we’ve got in regard to fixes is a handful of Soon™

Until then enjoy the running joke that is ANet pretending GW2 is a serious competitive PvP game.

GW2 is better than ever IMO. People only come to the forums to complain (this place is terrible) I only came here because of wondering about wintersday.

And jeez to the guy above, its nothing like SWTORs gross model.

You buy HoT and you have everything unlocked. If you had bought GW2 base before it went f2p you have everything unlocked except HoT. If you haven’t paid for anything you basically have an unlimited free trial with restrictions. It’s how practically all MMOs have worked through out time. Same as WoW except no sub fee for GW2.

I was going to write more about how bad SWTOR is but…cmon if you can’t see how obvious they’re attempt to take advantage and milk cash out of their players is..I can’t help you.

Mightybird.6034:

GW2 is better than ever IMO

Sweet lord if this is the best state its seen pvp wise I dread to think what it was like before o.o

Daharahj.1325:

Mightybird.6034:

GW2 is better than ever IMO

Sweet lord if this is the best state its seen pvp wise I dread to think what it was like before o.o

I never said it was the most balanced ever. But I am having the most FUN ever.

For instance, mesmers are super annoying OP now in PvP but I like where they are better now than where they were 2 years ago when thieves kitten all over them and could lolsolo them before they could get to a point. And since they sucked in PvE for the most part too they were just bad overall (yea yea, I know you can make them work and they aren’t THAT bad 2 years ago but I still like where they are now better.)

There are a ton of examples like above I could give. Like there are a ton of OP BS builds but at least people HAVE builds now. So many builds were pigeon holed before, like seriously, if you played engi at one time it was meta to bunker turret…that is so dumb. I’d rather have OP scrappers than fight against TURRETS.

See what I mean? Maybe it was more balanced in the past, but it was BORING and less classes had less roles. People seem to forget that. Or maybe haven’t been playing as long, I dunno.

Let’s not forget how much of a joke rangers used to be a few years ago in both pve and pvp. Like, even worse than mesmers.

Necros where a joke in pve before too now they have reaper.

And for those of you who forget or weren’t around I don’t mean just a joke, but often kicked and made fun of…

Like at this point, sure there are more OP builds than others, but at least you can play whatever class and be good and viable at something. Warrior is not as bad as people make it out to be just because it can’t compete at the top 1% in pvp. And its still played in PVE a ton.

Daharahj.1325:

PvE is pretty much the same, if you can stomach the visual nerfs you should be fine.

If you’re a PvPer though, no, don’t come back yet, gw2’s pvp is going through a dark phase.

visual nerfs? What are those?

I was a pretty balanced player near the end. I probably did 1/3 pve (guild stuff mostly), 1/3 pvp, and 1/3 wvw.

punkazzINC.2150:

They’ve pretty much turned GW2 into SWTOR. You won’t have the limitations that free players have, but unless you pony up more dough, you won’t have access to ALL of the content available.

wait… what?!! I get HoT came out and is required to unlock the new content. Is there more than that?

Helios.3598:

Daharahj.1325:

PvE is pretty much the same, if you can stomach the visual nerfs you should be fine.

If you’re a PvPer though, no, don’t come back yet, gw2’s pvp is going through a dark phase.

visual nerfs? What are those?

I was a pretty balanced player near the end. I probably did 1/3 pve (guild stuff mostly), 1/3 pvp, and 1/3 wvw.

A good amount of skills got their visual effects reduced, the most notable are auras which are very translucent eggs now with different colors and some type of stuff at the bottom to differentiate em

If you want a herky jerky cyclical experience of being punched in the stomach and shoved into a vat of delicious fudge, then yeah, give it a whirl.

Or maybe you’ll get lucky and be one of those people who seems to be starry-eyed about the whole game for some reason.

Mightybird.6034:

GW2 is better than ever IMO. People only come to the forums to complain (this place is terrible) I only came here because of wondering about wintersday.

And jeez to the guy above, its nothing like SWTORs gross model.

You buy HoT and you have everything unlocked. If you had bought GW2 base before it went f2p you have everything unlocked except HoT. If you haven’t paid for anything you basically have an unlimited free trial with restrictions. It’s how practically all MMOs have worked through out time. Same as WoW except no sub fee for GW2.

I was going to write more about how bad SWTOR is but…cmon if you can’t see how obvious they’re attempt to take advantage and milk cash out of their players is..I can’t help you.

You completely ignore the fact the base game was changed and things that we once part of it where removed and/or changed and put behind a pay wall (called HoT). Never mind the what they did to WvW.
Can’t believe you can ignore Anets obvious attempts to take advantage and milk cash out of their (longterm) players.