Guild Wars 2

I played from the beginning but then took a long break (like 2 years).
Is it worth coming back? How’s the population?

It is. Its a lot of fun still. And HoT added a lot of great content.

The population is really booming, especially since GW2 became f2p (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/play-for-free-today/).
It’s not uncommon to see 75-125 people at one of the bigger world bosses (Teq, Claw of Jormag, Taidha, etc.) and probably around 50-60 players fighting the smaller WBs (Ulgoth, Shadow Behemoth, Fire Elemental, etc.).
It’s well worth coming back- Heart of Thorns added a lot of new content to the game, not to mention Living Story Seasons 1 and 2 (S1 is not playable atm, however). There are also events like Wintersday (which is going on right now), the Halloween events (Shadow of the Mad King/ Blood and Madness), etc.
HoT added a ton of new things: guild halls, gliding, adventures, new events, and a new Elder Dragon to kill (the Jungle Dragon, Mordremoth).

No, not really.

Is it worth coming back?

Well, do you like Jumping Puzzles? Because they made an expansion out of glueing 50 jumping puzzles together and sticking some bosses in it. That’s the future you know.

redownloading..
Thanks guys

BigZThyDoom.8750:

It’s not uncommon to see 75-125 people at one of the bigger world bosses (Teq, Claw of Jormag, Taidha, etc.) and probably around 50-60 players fighting the smaller WBs (Ulgoth, Shadow Behemoth, Fire Elemental, etc.)

You see so many people because they merged everything into Mega server and kick people out of low pop shards to make it look like the population is booming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not doing poorly, but they’re putting in a lot of effort to make sure it looks that way.

@OP, if you have 3+ hours to play consecutively at least a few days a week it’s probably worth coming back. Otherwise, you’re going to spend most of your time grinding crap just to get to the crap you wanted to grind. Also going to spend a LOT of time in your old spec before you can get to elite spec, so don’t expect nice new things for a while.
After you get past the initial grind it’s not as bad though.

Do you have a creditcard? Your answer you give will be the answer to your own question.

Aveneo.2068:

Do you have a creditcard? Your answer you give will be the answer to your own question.

This.

Tal Drakkan.3284:

BigZThyDoom.8750:

It’s not uncommon to see 75-125 people at one of the bigger world bosses (Teq, Claw of Jormag, Taidha, etc.) and probably around 50-60 players fighting the smaller WBs (Ulgoth, Shadow Behemoth, Fire Elemental, etc.)

You see so many people because they merged everything into Mega server and kick people out of low pop shards to make it look like the population is booming. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not doing poorly, but they’re putting in a lot of effort to make sure it looks that way.

@OP, if you have 3+ hours to play consecutively at least a few days a week it’s probably worth coming back. Otherwise, you’re going to spend most of your time grinding crap just to get to the crap you wanted to grind. Also going to spend a LOT of time in your old spec before you can get to elite spec, so don’t expect nice new things for a while.
After you get past the initial grind it’s not as bad though.

Have you ever tried to do Tequatl or go into a Dragon’s Stand map. Or join any of the more popular metaevents? They all end up in multiple full maps.

A LOT means about 2 days of average playing even if you didn’t do squat in terms of Tyria mainland hero points completion to fully unlock Elites if that’s what you’re focusing on.

creditcard? what are you guys talking about??

bngn.3097:

creditcard? what are you guys talking about??

What they’re saying is that you as an owner of Guild Wars 2 are basically a Free To Play player now. Buy HoT to play the non free game.

100% stay away gw2 is going down the wrong road and probably wont be worth coming back to again. its more about the gemstore then about the game itself mapple story 2.0 if you must.

I am having loads of fun and so is those that I personally know. There are others that I sorta know that are also online and playing just about every day. Sometimes in Core GW2 and sometimes in HoT areas of GW2.

It’s hard to say because it all depends on your playstyle. If you like the idea of leveling a new profession – the Revenant – and playing with it, then it might be worth it to you to come back. If you really liked fractals, there’s now 50 more levels of them than before HoT. There are 4 new jungle maps, a new mastery system (you get abilities and perks by allocating points in a given line), and all the professions now have elite specializations and access to new weapons that they didn’t have before. There are new collections, if you like that sort of thing, such as the new collections for getting legendary precursors. Guilds can get guild halls and upgrade them and there’s a new crafting profession for them called Scribing. All this might interest you. Or not.

Personally, there are things I like about HoT and GW2 in general now and things I don’t like. I enjoy leveling my new Revenant, I enjoy playing around with the new elite specs, I enjoy a couple of the new maps, I love gliding, I like some of the collections, and I like some of the new events and meta events.

Some things I don’t like right now – waiting around for full HoT maps so I can join in and do the meta events, waiting around for meta events so I can finish map completion, waiting around for help with Hero Challenges that I can’t solo. The new HoT maps work on a 2-hour timer and I’m not always in a position during my playtime to get something I need done, so I have to do something else or wait for the next 2-hour rotation. I’m not a big fan of how hard it is to get and then upgrade a guild hall if your primary guild is on the small side. Scribing is too expensive for my tastes.

These are just a few pros and cons of the game right now.

Xae Isareth.1364:

A LOT means about 2 days of average playing even if you didn’t do squat in terms of Tyria mainland hero points completion to fully unlock Elites if that’s what you’re focusing on.

What do you consider average playing? I spent 3+ hours and got 10 or 20 hero points. It takes quite a while to unlock the mastery required to get the hero points in Maguuma.
I can’t see how it would take 2 days of “average” playing unless everyone is required to look up a guide on the most efficient way to farm the masteries and then grab the hero points. But if an element of the game that should be fun requires a guide, and is gating “game changing” content that you should have access to at start, there’s probably a problem anyways.
So either it was poorly designed, or it was meant to take a lot of time.

I don’t think you would enjoy much of what they have done. They made the content a little harder in the new zones, the gliders are fun and same with the bouncing mushrooms. The game as a whole is a mess, with wvw a ghost town, and the pvp puts you on win streaks and loosing streaks that the player base has already manipulated. The high end players who should be setting an example are using exploits with no penalties. It is actually the player base loosing maps because of this, with maps being discontinued. With 2016 looking so promising with a lot of new mmos coming out, my advice would be to hold on to your cash for now , wait for the sale. Or just play something that is well taken care of. The team that owns this has clearly dropped the ball, and they can’t seem to find it!

eureeka.5368:

I don’t think you would enjoy much of what they have done. They made the content a little harder in the new zones, the gliders are fun and same with the bouncing mushrooms. The game as a whole is a mess, with wvw a ghost town, and the pvp puts you on win streaks and loosing streaks that the player base has already manipulated. The high end players who should be setting an example are using exploits with no penalties. It is actually the player base loosing maps because of this, with maps being discontinued. With 2016 looking so promising with a lot of new mmos coming out, my advice would be to hold on to your cash for now , wait for the sale. Or just play something that is well taken care of. The team that owns this has clearly dropped the ball, and they can’t seem to find it!

On the other hand if you enjoy grindy achievements now is the PERFECT time to return.

Tal Drakkan.3284:

Xae Isareth.1364:

A LOT means about 2 days of average playing even if you didn’t do squat in terms of Tyria mainland hero points completion to fully unlock Elites if that’s what you’re focusing on.

What do you consider average playing? I spent 3+ hours and got 10 or 20 hero points. It takes quite a while to unlock the mastery required to get the hero points in Maguuma.
I can’t see how it would take 2 days of “average” playing unless everyone is required to look up a guide on the most efficient way to farm the masteries and then grab the hero points. But if an element of the game that should be fun requires a guide, and is gating “game changing” content that you should have access to at start, there’s probably a problem anyways.
So either it was poorly designed, or it was meant to take a lot of time.

All you really need is basic gliding and updraft usage and look up the quickest hero points to get on Dulfy.

Yes, its not the fun way to do it but that’s what you can do if you really want to get them down fast.

And yes, it is supposed to take a while to fully unlock Elites because its essentially the leveling aspect of the expansion.

No. Stay Away.

“Worth coming back?”

It’s OK for a couple of weeks, then you’ll get bored.

I came back from a long break and I’m extremely frustrated. I have all 9 elites fully unlocked and ready for WvW (my personal end-game focus). Unfortunately, A-Net tried to turn WvW into just another PvE themepark zone and the concept failed predictably and miserably. HoT is OK, but gets stale very quickly… and the proliferation of minigames has triggered my enrage timer.

Nearly no new armor skins since over 1.5 years .. and a fantastic amount of 3 new
sets in a full price expansion .. so no. Personally at the moment i lost all fun in
playing since i liked to grind for new skins, but now its only forced grind to get
nothing beside even more grind.

I quit once before at the Dragon’s Festival… and it looks like I’ll be quitting in the next couple weeks. Fool me once…

If you return you will get bored fast.

nolop.8095:

At this point the HoT is pretty much over. Finding a map with enough people to do the events is very hard and seems to get harder. Maybe at launch it was worth it to get the addon but now it’s not because you can’t play a lot of the content if there are not enough players around. It looks amazing though. The Art team did a stellar job creating a stunning environment. The content is mediocre at best and the story is .. ugh .. it’s bad

TL:DR
nope

Wait what? I must be seeing things when I see all the taxis for AB, T4 VB and DS fill up like boxes on an assembly line then.

I have to question if the people claiming the game is dead even played since HoT.

Xae there is peak times yes. But if you don’t play those times, it can be very frustrating to get anything done with out groups. You are Not able to solo this content.

June 28, 2012- December 15, 2015

RIP

Game is great, except WvW. Just salty people on forum. People enjoying the game are playing the game.

eureeka.5368:

Xae there is peak times yes. But if you don’t play those times, it can be very frustrating to get anything done with out groups. You are Not able to solo this content.

June 28, 2012- December 15, 2015

RIP

When’s ‘not-peak’ time? Because even when I take a day off work and play in the morning, maps still get filled up.