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[Larson Conway]

Compared to my peers, who have crafted legendary weapons and armor, I consider myself a casual player of the game. But boy do I enjoy the game immensely. Immersive environments, intriguing and epic lore that entices you to research outside the game, robust customization options, fluid combat with intricate skill sets, diverse classes and specializations -- and I've only ever done player versus environment. I've barely scratched the surface of this game! World versus world, and player versus player are entirely different experiences which I haven't sunk my teeth into.

The community is active and thriving, and world events have consistently healthy population, so by no means is the game struggling to keep and invite in more players (it recently went free-to-play) -- but I ask why the game isn't more popular, because I believe it simply deserves more acclaim and popularity, like, say, FFXIV. My gauge of this, for instance, is there are hardly any headlines when new themed events like Wintersday (Christmas), Shadow of the Mad King (Halloween), Super Adventure Festival (retro gaming maps), etc.

Its first expansion, Heart of Thorns, did not seem to have a wide coverage or was largely ignored by the gaming community. The same goes for its episodic updates with rich lore progression. I'm afraid with another expansion supposedly in the works, it will go unnoticed yet again. Granted, games like Overwatch and FFXIV (which are always on the frontpage of gaming news sites) are relatively new compared to Guild Wars 2, but the equivalent content of the latter, which still enjoys a massive player base, never seem to get featured. And I'm also comparing it WoW, which understandably has more mileage, in terms of coverage.

So, yes, why isn't Guild Wars 2 more popular despite its stellar quality?

 

[Arkanius]

Because it destroyed a bit of the following it had with the move to the Open World MMO and decided to be a WoW clone.

It's not a bad game, I had lot's of fun with it, but for me, Guild Wars 1 is where the real charm was.

 

[Sinatar]

Didn't like it. Felt like every other boring MMO with awful combat.

 

[Nabbis]

I don't like the combat and the crafting is done needlessly messy. So many different mats packaged in other mats needing other mats to combine into mats.

 

[Quonny]

Combat felt absolutely atrocious and the group play was incredibly unfulfilling.

 

[Bo Knows GAF]

Because it destroyed a bit of the following it had with the move to the Open World MMO and decided to be a WoW clone.

It's not a bad game, I had lot's of fun with it, but for me, Guild Wars 1 is where the real charm was.

Ive played roughly the equivelent two weeks of real time of guild wars 2, and I can confirm that guild wars 1 was a much better game. Maybe not content wise or as action packed but it was more the MMO I wanted than what GW2 turned into. That's just my opinion though.

 

[Horp]

Have given it many a try. It's just lacking in every aspect. Its a Wow-light with overly simplied combat/encounters and much, much less interesting lore.

 

[Jyrii]

It's not a bad game, I had lot's of fun with it, but for me, Guild Wars 1 is where the real charm was.

Agreed. I really prefered the instanced world of GW1.

Also while I understand why they wanted to remove the holy trinity, I really liked playing support characters.

 

[Lulubop]

I love it, played it a ton and I want to jump back in but it's been years

 

[Xaero Gravity]

I can't explain why, but for some reason it just didn't click with me like GW1 did. I put over 2000 hours into the original, but I could barely put 25 into GW2.

 

[Vyrance]

I used to love playing Guild Wars 2. I didn't like when they moved the World Bosses to a timing schedule though. Also, I really liked when they had the live updates every 2 weeks. They stopped that unfortunately. I don't care about raids either, and when I stopped they just had too much of a focus on that. Should have never bothered adding raids to that game.

 

[ShdwDrake]

I wish it was more of an improvement upon the Guild Wars 1 formula tbh.

 

[kiyomi]

The combat was the chief reason I never got into the game, honestly. It just never felt.. satisfying, I guess? Also in comparison to FFXIV I think a lot of the designs for characters/enemies were weaker -- perhaps because I already had a fondness for the 'feel' of an FF game -- and the world was less appealing to me.

 

[Moff]

I played it at launch and did't really love anything about it.

 

[Dunlop]

Removing the "trinity" made combat unfulfilling for me. Just a bunch of people running around and spamming abilities when their cooldowns were up.

 

[fluffydelusions]

Removing the "trinity" made combat unfulfilling for me. Just a bunch of people running around and spamming abilities when their cooldowns were up.

Same here.

 

[Philippo]

I greatly enjoyed it, but i had no real life friends to play it so i dropped it.
I hoped they'do a PS4 version, i would have played the hell out of it.

 

[hohoXD123]

Because it destroyed a bit of the following it had with the move to the Open World MMO and decided to be a WoW clone.

It's not a bad game, I had lot's of fun with it, but for me, Guild Wars 1 is where the real charm was.

This. Guild Wars 1 was fantastic, a shame they changed so much

 

[Blam]

I played it till lvl30 and dropped it. I don't know what that game did wrong that I couldn't get into it.

But Black Desert clicked instantly.

 

[sh1fty]

I was super excited about GW2, so much so that I went back to GW1 in order to play as much as possible to earn a bunch of of the carry forward benefits (hall of momuments I think it was called).

What I really liked about GW2 was the size and interactivity of the various zones... however what eventually made me move on was the lack of dedicated tank and healing classes. I know that was likely intentional to differentiate itself from WoW but it became frustrating to have to manage your own healing while not being able to take on more than a few mobs at once.

 

[Nemesis121]

The game doesn't have the Holy Trinity, this is a hard concept for many players to get pass, I love it, I can't go back to holy trinity..

 

[Haeleos]

Didn't build on the strengths of the first Guild Wars and just felt like another me-too streamlined MMO.

 

[Quonny]

The game doesn't have the Holy Trinity, this is a hard concept for many players to get pass, I love it, I can't go back to holy trinity..

The issue isn't the lack of the holy trinity, it's the lack of anything good in place of it. Other games don't have the holy trinity and are fine.

 

[Orayn]

People who bounced off it at/near launch really need to try it with the action camera. It's a game-changer.

 

[Krosia]

Bad WoW clone while Guild Wars 1 was nothing close to WoW or GW2.

GW1 was the counter-strike of mmos. God knows where it would be right now if they had followed that path. MMOs could actually be an esport right now.

 

[Hojaho]

The game doesn't have the Holy Trinity, this is a hard concept for many players to get pass, I love it, I can't go back to holy trinity..

Yep, I hate Holy trinity as well now.

 

[Stallion Dan]

PC only, if comparing to FFXIV.

 

[TemplaerDude]

I gave it a good few hours but it was an MMO-ass MMO and I just couldn't do it, which is a shame because I did put more than a couple dozen hours into the original.

 

[MrHoot]

I was personally bored a lot by it in a short time.

I don't mind the open world, but the removal of the system that made me like guild wars 1 (a much more flexible multi classing) into a more streamlined class system made me balk. Hell, The Secret World managed to actually take the GW1 system and improve on it massively.

That and i thought the story was bad, the voice acting was bad, I felt little involvement in it very fast and it just felt like a massive amusement park with checklists everywhere and no organic flow

 

[Daeoc]

Nothing in the game pulled me in.

 

[Kyougar]

as a 2-decade playing healer, I was not happy about the lack of holy trinity.
The questing and areas was fun but Group play lacked tremendously. Some day i just... never logged on anymore.

 

[Phamit]

I gave up after 10-15 Hours, because it was boring to be honest

 

[Nowy]

I played this game at launch and was disappointed Their big 'thing' was no more trinity (tank, healer, dps), but group combat was very clunky without it. Removing the trinity is an interesting twist but they replaced it with something less tactical and interesting.

Also the game is supposed to be a sequel to Guild Wars, a game that was a pseudo MMO-Diablo loot game. I would've loved an iteration on Guild Wars, but instead they tried to go full MMO with it, which didn't appeal to Guild Wars players and as an full blown MMO, failed to stand up to the juggernaut WoW.

 

[Cracklox]

I don't like the combat and the crafting is done needlessly messy. So many different mats packaged in other mats needing other mats to combine into mats.

That's about where I was at after a hundred or two hours pre HoT. Exploring the map was cool though, and some of the big world events could be quite the thing.

But at the end of the day, I didn't love the combat, and fuck me that crafting system. In my time with the game I never properly figured it out. And that was with the help of wikis and other people. God I felt dumb, cos that sort of stuff usually isn't too hard to work out in these sorts of games

 

[pretty done]

Gameplay is really boring is why my group stopped

Same reason we stopped FFXIV fwiw

 

[Aeana]

I like healing, and GW2 doesn't let me be a healer.

 

[5il3nc3r]

Many of my fellow guild mates dropped the game after the release of Heart of Thorn. This was a very divisive expansion especially if you have have little interest in raiding.

 

[Sky87]

Not sure how people can compare it to WoW, when it doesn't come close to doing anything similar to that game.

There is no holy trinity, no quests, no raids (at least not when i played), PvP was balanced separately with no gear advantage for anyone and no reputation grinds.

FFXIV is a much bigger WoW clone, yet it's popular despite of that. So using ''WoW clone'' as a reason doesn't make much sense.

 

[Grudy]

I was a huge fan of the game until Heart of Thorns. After 3k hours and HoT, I have simply lost all faith I had in Anet in delivering a good story and being able to build on their interesting lore and world and so did many of my friends :l. While I love the new maps they added in HoT and season 3 has been a drastic improvement ever since Colin (previous game director) left the company, I will not be buying another expansion, especially since technically they still have not delivered on all the promised features from HoT with only about half or so of the gen 2 legendary weapons released, and not the most interesting ones at that (that freaking torch and shield...come on).

It's the MMO I still suggest to new players because honestly there's not an MMO like it out there; with their focus on horizontal progression and light holy trinity play style. I find the combat in this game much more interesting than WoW or FFXIV simply because of movement and fluidity. Unfortunately, I always believed the reason many did not find it enjoyable was the extremely poor enemy design which persisted for a long time after launch. Plus they still did not implement build templates which is just mind boggling for how essential that feature is to this game.

I am playing the LS3 story chapters but most of my friends and guildies have already quit the game and I find little reason to play honestly. I left the game for 2 years and I can count the number of new armor pieces on my hands which is silly when the entire end game of GW2 is cosmetic. But anyway, I have to point out that Anet does very little proper marketing with this game and their trailers are always terrible. Like honestly some of the worst in the business. I still have no idea what that launch trailer for GW2 was supposed to be.

Not sure how people can compare it to WoW, when it doesn't come close to doing anything similar to that game.

There is no holy trinity, no quests, no raids (at least not when i played), PvP was balanced separately with no gear advantage for anyone and no reputation grinds.

FFXIV is a much bigger WoW clone, yet it's popular despite of that. So using ''WoW clone'' as a reason doesn't make much sense.

True, WoW and GW2 are extremely different but some of that blame rests on Anet too. The way they talked about the game pre-launch was nothing like how the game turned out. They spoke of a "soft trinity" of control-support-damage when technically everyone just ran dps for 3-4 years. They always spoke in a best case scenario type of way regarding their dungeons and world events that really heightened people's expectations and the results were pretty different. I still remember how people complained about "quiet maps" during launch because no one ever talked to anybody even when the maps were full lol

 

[Shanlei91]

Most people couldn't dodge.

The lack of a trinity called for more creative and twitch-based combat that's not really seen in genre. (i.e. you could enter a run with enemies flailing around, or a Mesmer could teleport ahead, a second before the spawn triggers, cause a blackhole curtain thingy that yanks the enemies into a corner, then plop the reflective sphere over them causing the entire fight to be a cakewalk) But a lot of players were just on autopilot and didn't care.

The combat alienated fans of the genre, the revamp of the game's mechanics (also moving away from PvP match focus) alienated players of the original game and the evolution of the end-game meta alienated dedicated players who fell in love with the dungeons. They tried to do so many things to appease different people but couldn't settle on what the game was.

I loved the game, put an ungodly amount of time into it. It does a lot of things other games in the genre don't do and was focused a lot on just having fun. The amount of care that went into the easter eggs was also the best I've ever seen. (NPCs singing parody songs of obscure broadways plays, etc.) It was all very charming. Unfortunately, I wasn't really feeling Heart of Thorns and stopped there.

 

[Finaj]

The removal of the holy trinity did it for some people. If you only enjoy being a healer or tank, GW2 will not scratch that itch.

Also it means that bosses are made with weak mechanics because you can only heal yourself and there's no aggro mitigation.

 

[WaterAstro]

Combat is boring as shit. Questing is super uninteresting.

I'm speaking from launch, but I don't expect it to be any different now than before.

 

[Xiaoki]

Theres a lot of reasons why GW2 initially didnt catch on but recently its been the Heart of Thorns expansion (outright terrible expansion and a dramatic departure from the core GW2 gameplay), what seems to be a complete disdain for PvP players and making things more grindy for the sake of being more grindy.

GW2 has become the model for an MMO brought down by self sabotage. ArenaNet keeps making the game worse every new update and it seems they wont be satisfied until NCSoft cancels it.

 

[Arkanius]

Bad WoW clone while Guild Wars 1 was nothing close to WoW or GW2.

GW1 was the counter-strike of mmos. God knows where it would be right now if they had followed that path. MMOs could actually be an esport right now.

So much this. I played the PvP DAILY with my team. Guild Vs Guild was amazing.
Hall of Heroes with the tournament style was such an inovation back then.

The PvP skill was tight, fantastically balanced and FAIR.

 

[Monkeyball]

No roles and weird end game ruined it for me.

 

[Kade]

For me, it deviated too much from the original Guild Wars for my liking and deviated too much from traditional MMORPGs to appeal to a lot of that crowd. I admire their attempt to switch things up by removing the classic MMORPG class trinity and replacing it with their own bu one of the consequences, whether it was intentional or not, was that it turned a lot of encounters into boring DPS fests. I had my fun with the game but it wasn't fun or interesting enough for me to stick with it plus I was extremely disappointed with how much different it was from Guild Wars. A lot of the CCG inspired build-/theory-craft that drew me to the first game and made it stand out from its competition was mostly gone. The ability to do goofy ass shit like 55 Monk, 55 Necro, Knockdown Spam Hammer Elementalist/Warrior was amazing. Guild Wars 2 still remains my biggest gaming disappointment to this day.

I tried it again recently and got an Elementalist to 80 and was shocked to see all the currencies and bloat they added since I had last played. I've yet to check out Heart of Thorns since it was expensive as shit for a standard edition of an expansion when it came out but it looks like its cheaper now. Might give it another chance in the future.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

I played it for ~200h at launch in 2012 and it was good for about 30 of those and got progressively worse. The game was ridiculously front-loaded back then. Honestly, it's probably not more popular because the game at release was B-tier at best.

 

[charpunk]

Removing the trinity killed all interest I had with this game. I tried to really get into it, but it just didn't do anything for me.

 

[Azriell]

I've only played GW1. It seemed like the perfect game to bring to consoles (iirc it only used like 10 buttons on the hot bar, which easily fits on a controller; no subscription model; everything instanced so no massive zones with high populations except for town). I didn't play a ton, but it seems to be fairly similar to something like Destiny. I suspect the series would have a lot more visibility on console where there are fewer options for MMOs.

For me, it's a big bummer. I thought GW1 was really cool, but most of my friends are only on console, and the few friends I have who play a lot on PC and are interested in this style of game are already pretty happy with just playing WoW intermittently.

 

[XaosWolf]

I stopped once my Elementalist stopped being able to slide into battle and explode. =(

From that point on it was just chip damage and DOTs and became just as boring as WoW was to me.