After playing here for a couple weeks here are my thoughts:
- WvW is terrible, awful, and bad. The worst part is that it could be amazing, but they choose not to make it that way.
You came in at an odd point; SBI is on the decline for the second time since launch. Originally SBI was one of the best servers in the game, but frequent harassment (especially racial harassment directed at Korean players who represented the majority of our overnight coverage) and the underhanded politics / spying / glitching just proved too annoying for the community at large and a lot of people just stopped playing. SBI started to slip, but once they announced free server transfers were ending, everyone was suddenly pressured to pick a server "for real" and there was more or less an exodus from the server which lead to SBI falling to the middle tiers.
At some point, a few SBI players tried to recruit players to the server, and for a time they were relatively successful in getting 'good fight' WvWers (i.e. people who don't care about the points, but just want to run around killing people). This made headway for the people who
did care about points, so SBI rebounded slightly in time for the first WvW season. We did fairly well (placing third in silver league after some Yak's Bend shenanigans bumped us completely out of second place), but interest waned (Personally, I attribute a large part of this to the attitude of specific commanders who were more than happy to rant and rave publicly about how terrible everyone around them was).
The final nail in the coffin, more or less, was the release of Edge of the Mists; it's a nice place for the 'good fights' crew, it has a lower population and a map layout that disincentivizes zergs, and doesn't have the server vs. server politics / bullshit. It has all the benefits of WvW with almost none of the negatives, so it's no surprise that most people have gone there and abandoned WvW with the exception of the top tier servers who, for them, WvW is all they care about.
Whew. That said, WvW is always in a state of flux (it's much different from where it started, even the maps have changed in some pretty big ways), and EotM is designed to test new WvW concepts quickly so they can be put into WvW proper.
So... the short version is, you started playing at the worst possible time to see what WvW is really like, at least on SBI.
As to the rest of your points;
Gearing seems pointless. Having to replace gear over time makes sense in a game where leveling and zones are linear and do not scale. However, when I scale to the level of where I am playing I just find the constant need to replace gear kind of stupid.
That's kind of the point of GW2; once you're geared at max level, you're done. Players (and gear) scale down, but only scale up in WvW and Living Story areas. This will stop being an issue once you reach 80. A good rule of thumb is to just replace your gear if you're more than 8 levels higher than your gear.
Cooking (That is all)
Cooking was intended as a more complex crafting system, because it actually sticks pretty closely to real-world cooking principles. It can be really confusing at first, but it does work as advertised. If you just want to power level it, I'd go here;
http://gw2crafts.net/
No one shows up for group events outside of starting zones which takes away one of the big advantages of the questing system. Maybe this changes at high levels though.
This is more of an "MMO Problem" than a "GW2 Problem": players all rush to where the content is new and optimally rewarding, so the lower level zones are more or less left for new players and alts, at least when they aren't involved in the Living Story. It's definitely something you will see less and less at max level.
Zones that I have experiences thus far are all kid of boring and samey.
Try a different zone at or around your level. I found some zones (Brisban, most of the Norn areas) to be kind of boring, while the lower Shiverpeaks (Lornar's Pass, Timberline Falls, etc.) and Ascalon are my absolute favorite. Unless you're going for a Legendary, there's no reason to go for 100% world completion, so play where you like.
Trains are stupid and the spawn times on events should be randomized to make them impossible. Tell me "then don't do them" all you want, but I am a lover of efficiency.... and it is by far the most efficient way to level. Incentivizing not actually playing the game is poor design.
They're not the most efficient way to level (that would be power-leveling via crafting, which can kick you to 80 in a matter of hours). I'm not even sure they're the most efficient way to get loot (at least, the Queensdale one isn't, the Frostgorge train seems both faster and more rewarding). The trains are
easy.
And their days are numbered.
Different abilities based on the weapon I hold. It seems kind of arbitrary and stupid.... I don't get why it exists or why it makes the game better. That said it isn't really bad, just perplexing.
You mentioned that you "like that you have a limited number of skills at any one time.", but this is a part of that system; by tying skills to specific weapons, weapons become a sort of 'sub-class' where all the skills you need for a task are built in. For example, a Warrior can toss on a shield and become much more defensive, not because he has higher stats from the shield, but because he can stun enemies and block attacks.
Your weapon-based abilities are there to provide you with a specific set of tools; when the situation demands a different approach, use a different weapon. Since there's no weapon proficiency levels to raise and maintaining a full set of gear isn't terribly expensive, there's no reason not to carry one of every weapon you can equip. Don't think of weapons as a variety of hammers for hitting things, think of them as a collection of tools to use as the situation demands.
Crafting, while engaging, is pointless. There should be some advantage to making your own stuff rather that buying it on trading post. A slight stat buff or something (WoW is worse though)
This is sort of the reason Ascended gear was added; it gave crafting value and a way to generate money that it was severely lacking before. That said, you'll get no argument from me that crafting needs an overhaul.
I am a healer at heart, and I miss it.
Shout Warrior, Water Ele, Symbol Guardian, Bomb/Elixir Gun Engineer are all strong 'support' builds, but if you're looking to be the guy standing at the back of the group spamming abilities to keep people topped off, that's never going to happen in this game (it's pretty much one of the first big distinctions they made when the game was first being revealed; no trinity).
ifferent abilities on different weapons means more options that are strait forward to decide on. Great sword plays a lot differently than an axe.
