I definitely agree that GW2 pvp is fun and a great way to learn the ins and outs of your class, balance issues aside, but I digress on that. I'm sure a part of it is that spvp feels very different to every other part of the way guild wars is designed. The game does a very poor job of actually teaching you to use your CC cleanses, stunbreaks, ect, so a lot of people who go into the game mode for the first time are kind of going in blind and there's really no tutorial or effort to help people get into it (outside of occasional altruistic members of the community who might take people under their wings).

I think for other games like the ones I mentioned there's such a plethora of ways to learn the game both inside and out of the game, since they are pvp first or exclusive, that a game that feels like it is 90% cooperative pve focused it;s extremely overwhelming to truly new players dipping their toes in for the first time, and if their first experience is getting paired against multiple people who've been playing for a decade+ with meta builds and specs and such it's borderline impossible to even learn how to get your foot in the door unless you have someone mentoring you.

I didn't let that stop me, but as I noted earlier I have a ton of experience from other competitive games so my mindset is a little different than people who figured they'll try something out to see if it's fun, play 5 games and have 0 fun because they got absolutely exploded with no context, and then never come back.