I love GW2. In no way do I ever want anyone to think I do not. This game has given me more than I could really ask for in a lot of ways. However, because I absolutely love this game it makes me sad that I am finding no reason or want to log in the game because it just is not fun anymore. I will attempt to lay out my reasons below.
1) When I leveled my first character (Necromancers represent!) I fell in love with the game. The art, the areas, the events, the cooperative nature all drew me in and I had an absolute blast. However, now the areas all seem bland and stale due to I have seen a LOT (not all because there are some events in which you dont really see a lot of) of what the game has to offer. This is really not the games fault too much because Tyria is huge and map completing it was awesome fun. What I want though is new zones or events or something that will make me want to play more. I understand Dry top is a new zone but I will talk about it later.
2)The grind for gear is atrocious. I am at the point where I have to farm for dragonite and empyreal and silk. The only way to get dragonite (outside of S2 awards) is to farm the world events over, and over, and over, and over. THIS IS NOT FUN. It would be awesome if events in the world gave a chance to get empyreal or dragonite. This would alleviate the need to farm and would allow players to have more fun in the game without having to farm as much. Silk is another issue. For all the other ascended I have had to gather materials for silk is the one that you need the most with. twice as much. It is also at the point where if you dont spend countless hours farming silk (not fun), you need to buy it on the TP for horrendously inflated prices (not fun). This leads in to the next topic of
3) Money. When I started the game, I loved the money system. Gems were a very fair price of gold and gold was somewhat easy to get (didn’t help I did not know about selling mats on the TP until lvl 80 but that is my own fault so ya). Now the only real way to get gold is either play the TP like a guru (not feasible for most players) or farm, farm, farm which is not fun. OR just buy gems and get gold that way. Honestly, the third option is what Anet seems to be directing their game towards. Which is dangling real, real close to P2W territory. Spending the countless hours farming to get gold is not fun and I would be farming gold to buy items on the TP which seems very silly.
4) Dry top is not a new zone in the way other zones are. Other zones are a part of the world. They add to world completion through their POI, Vista’s, SP, and exploration. Dry top does not do this. but that is not a major gripe with the zone. my huge issue with the zone is that you have taken stances against farming with other places and then you take all those events and toss it in to dry top where the POINT OF THE ZONE IS TO FARM EVENTS. Dry top is not a zone, it is an arena for S2 living story as well as a zone dedicated to farmers. This creates a huge disconnect for me in your world of Tyria. Originally we played in a living, breathing world. Now, we play in that same world, except with a zone that adds dissonance to a world that lives outside of player characters. This, in my opinion, is a HUGE slight to the world you all have created. If no player characters were to exist in the world of Tyria tomorrow, would Tyria still funtion? Would NPC’s go with their daily lives and still farm, hunt, live and die? Yes. However, Dry top would not. Its whole existence is focused around player characters. It is not a zone that is part of the world, it is a zone that is disconnected from Tyria and the living world that it embodies.
Speaking of zones, everytime I open the world map I see so many places I would love to visit. They all have names and are strewn around the central portion of Tyria that we explore. Two years later, none of them have opened up. I was so excited when I started to explore the world you have created and now….now I am dissapointed that they have never come.
5) Collecting is not fun for me. I feel as though that is the way you wish to take your game and focus on that Asian market through the compulsion to collect everything that exists. That is fine, that is your call. However, that is at the cost of everything I have wanted out of your game. No new zones, a bad economy, and a leveling experience that is no longer fun.
I want to play GW2 however I want to have fun doing so. The above reasons are a lot of what I have had issues with and I would love to enjoy your world of Tyria more. Living Story is great and I will keep coming back for it. But past that, I dont know. I really hope that Anet reads this post and makes changes to their game to reflect a better experience. I love this game Anet, please dont let me watch it keep spiraling down.
(edit: I should add that I am not a pvp’er so this is only focused on pve.)
(edited by Joe Glory.1025)