This is going to be one of those posts that is of more interest to my future self than to my current audience, so unless you’re really interested in how my mind works and how I excel at self-sabotage, you might want to read something more interesting! Like the phone book. If phone books were still a thing.
Anyway, I’ve been REALLY enjoying Guild Wars 2 for the past month or so. I’d started a new character and had been leveling her up and doing the basic “My Story” questline, while learning how to play the game. It had been going really well and I’d been looking forward to that part of the day when I could sit down and play, and I NEVER felt like I had as much time to play as I wanted. Last night was no exception. I couldn’t wait to log in!
Then, like a light switch being thrown, everything changed. I was playing through the story quests and realized I was feeling bored and started feeling the itch to play something else. It was the eve of a new expansion launch when a lot of folks in my circles were back to being hyped about Guild Wars 2. So why was I suddenly not? So me being me, I turned my gaze inward and tried to figure out why.
First theory was just me being contrary. Everyone else liked GW2 so I was going to not like it. I discarded this theory pretty quickly because the hype around the expansion wasn’t at the kind of levels that would trigger that reaction, and I’ve more or less grown out of that mentality anyway. Y’know the “I liked them before they were popular, so now that they are popular I’ll go find something else to like” mindset. We invented that mindset in record stores in the late 60s and early 70s, I think.
Second theory was the lack of dopamine. I’d hit the level cap of 80. For a good while I was pretty sure this was the issue. I LOVE leveling characters and that rush when you get that level up DING! That part of the GW2 journey was over for me. But the more I thought about it, the less I thought this was what was bothering me, for two reasons. First is that I’ve been playing a LOT of Fallout 76 way, way after hitting the level cap of 50 and I really think FO76 has taught me to love the end game. Plus, as in FO76, you do keep earning experience in Guild Wars 2 after 80, it just isn’t used for levels any more. But I hadn’t really been filling the experience bar anyway so even if the level cap had been 90, nothing really would have been different.
So finally I came up with theory number three, and its the one I’m sticking with. I wasn’t pacing myself and the game wasn’t pacing me. In case you’ve never played, in vanilla Guild Wars 2 your story quests unlock based on your level. So you get the first part at level 10, the next part at level 20, and so on. Between those unlocks you have to go out and do random things to earn levels to get to where you unlock the next quest. That forces you to vary your gameplay. Once I hit 80 there was nothing forcing me to mix things up and I was just going from story quest to story quest and doing nothing else. I was determined to finish it and I felt like the ending was close, so I was going to focus 100% on these quests. And THAT was my mistake and what ‘broke’ the game for me.
It’s not that the story quests are bad or anything, but variety is what tends to keep me interested in things. I didn’t stop to go do crafting, or to go explore new regions. Prior to level 80 I was making it a point to walk from place to place just to see what adventures and events I’d come across. Now I was teleporting, as much as possible, to the next story quest marker as efficiently as possible. I was making a point of going AROUND events rather than jumping in! And THAT was why I was getting bored.
What I need to do is stop trying to rush the story and just mix things up and enjoy ALL that the game has to offer. I’m pretty sure if I do that, the fun will return. There’s a ton of things to do in this game and to focus on just one is frankly kind of silly. So yeah, I gotta mix things up, relax and enjoy the journey. And also figure out how to get better gear. I kind of thought that would be from doing the story but so far that hasn’t been the case. But that’s a whole other topic. One that I’ve now watched YouTube videos about!
Tonight’s gaming time will probably be occupied by watching a replay of Gamescom Opening Night since my silly job expects me to work and attend meetings while that show is live. So that might be a nice break, and tomorrow, I hope, I can return to Guild Wars 2 refreshed and with a new outlook. I’m going back to exploring and taking part in open world events and slowing down on the story quests.
See? Told you it was going to be a boring post!
My brother from another mother. There’s something about the upward climb that I think _is_ the game for people like us; reaching a plateau — any plateau — is how it looks: nothing from that point on but attempts to maintain the momentum when the need for effort to make that climb is gone. For me, it’s the “newness”. Once there’s not a lot of “new” in a game I start losing interest, and sadly new zones and new gear doesn’t count. I wish I had the ability to be goal oriented, especially in GW2 since I only have a few mounts, and have never crafted any of the Legendary items or anything like that. While I still love GW2, I only tend to play when there’s new content in the hopes it has some new learning to be done.
Now that you mention it, when I got to level 300 in Fallout 76 I unlocked the last Legendary Perk slot and since then I’ve made almost no more levels. I log in, do the dailies, and log off, and I tend to try to get them done as quickly as possible. Maybe the writing is on the wall for FO76 for me!
I was lightly amused by the ‘related posts’ down at the bottom of this post from 2024. One is from 2014. Another is from 2022 – and they all say almost the same thing as this post, but in different words. When it comes to my own lack of stickiness with GW2 I’ve decided the ‘why’ doesn’t even matter, even when I think I have it figured out and try to ‘fix’ it, I still end up moving on. Which is fine, it’s just how I play. As long as you’re enjoying yourself, the ‘what game’ part of it doesn’t matter.
LOL, I hadn’t even noticed that, but you are of course correct. I guess I’m being true to myself, anyway!! And yup, as long as I’m having fun I guess it doesn’t matter.
GW2 is the epitome of horizontal progression. At launch ANet promised there’d never be any more levels and there haven’t been. Why they bothered with levels at all is the mystery. They also almost said there’d be no gear upgrades either but they fudged that slightly and added the Ascended tier within a few months then claimed they’d always meant to do that. Despite the eventual growth of the Legendary tier to incorporate armor and accessories as well as weapons, there’s no actual increase in power between Ascended and Legendary, only of convenience, so there really haven’t been any upgrades to gear in the way the term is usually understood since the first twelve months.
On the other hand, the Mastery system has sprawled out to become an alternative leveling ladder of a kind, even though much of what it gets you is very context-specific. It makes for a kind of vertical progression but only in a very limited way.
It’s always interesting to hear people pondering on the lack of direction in GW2. The original vision had far, far less and was momentarily much better for it but it proved commercially unsustainable and the whole game was retro-fitted with a huge amount of linear content. Personally, I think having any linear narrative at all was a mistake just like having levels. That Personal Story, even with the level breaks, gave people the idea they ought to be doing a specific thing at a specific time, whereas the original idea was for a dynamic world where stuff happened around you and you got swept up in it. It was a noble idea but the MMO audience wasn’t ready for it. And now we have Stars Reach to look forward to!