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Which period of the game did you enjoy the most?


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Dear all,

By adding this poll, I am interesting in which period of the game you appreciated the most Guild Wars 2. I am not talking about a specific point, such as the story or the introduction of a new feature (e.g. raids, masteries, jumping puzzles, ...). Each Living World or Expansion has profoundly changed something in the game, for the best or the worst, creating new adventures, new challenges, new events, and precious memories!

So tell me, since 2012, what was/is the best period of the game for you?

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My favorite part was Path of Fire. It was a combination of good storytelling, great story instances, very low grind, nice maps, good game mechanics, good difficulty level, only few grieving aspects. It was pleasant in every aspect. The other periods had more grieving aspects.

Base game had bad game mechanics, many grieving and frustrating (the early years).LS1 was one-shot only and bad storytelling (you learned much too late what this was all about, got not even a hint early)LS2 is my 2nd favorite. It is topped by PoF due to PoF being larger in every aspect.Heart of Thorns destroyed the game for me with the introduction of excessive grind and raids. The start of me becoming alienated by the game.LS3 introduced completely overengineered fractals I didn't like at all.Path of Fire: Great! Never had that much fun in whole GW2 before!LS4: grind x10 again and maps with always the same grind mechanics. Another horribly overengineered fractal. I stopped playing GW2 halfway through the Palawa Joko story line.

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Vanilla for me.

Even though the expansions added in addition stat types, it feels like E-Specs powercreep has created a far larger rift between optimized and suboptimal builds that stifles diversity (These days you can have a fun, supoptimal build that does like 5k DPS and then an optimized build that does 40k DPS...)

It also felt like there was more emphasis on playing the maps you found fun and less sightseeing to tick off Dailies... With a greater variety of zones and events/hearts in areas.

With instanced content, i.e. Dungeons and later Fractals, feeling more relevant and less like zerg/skip fests (It still happened, but felt much less common)

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I think 'Vanilla' and 'Season One' are pretty much the same period.

For the most part I agree; there's only about three months' gap between release and the Lost Shores coming out. However, that period was when WvW was most enjoyable for me, as it started to nosedive very shortly after release; thus I'm happy to pick that option.

If I was just rating the PvE section of the game I'd say LS2. Content-wise LS4E4 onwards has been the best so far in my view, but nearly everyone from my guilds has gone so I can't rate it as enjoyable as the older stuff.

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All before HoT, while the necro was ok to play, and so much new was there to explore.HoT had terrible maps, and I try to avoid every visit there (especially that tangled map. Never again).PoF was quite ok then after HoT, but I am only there for the dailys.

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@Ben K.6238 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I think 'Vanilla' and 'Season One' are pretty much the same period.

For the most part I agree; there's only about three months' gap between release and the Lost Shores coming out. However, that period was when WvW was most enjoyable for me, as it started to nosedive very shortly after release; thus I'm happy to pick that option.

If I was just rating the PvE section of the game I'd say LS2. Content-wise LS4E4 onwards has been the best so far in my view, but nearly everyone from my guilds has gone so I can't rate it as enjoyable as the older stuff.

Actually, there was only six weeks between launch and The Lost Shores (Nov. 15th, 2012). And only 4 weeks between launch and Shadow of the Mad King (Four Acts) with a festival dungeon, many events throughout maps; none of which is available now, so I would consider it 'Season One' content.

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It's hard for me to decide between Vanilla and HoT, but vanilla edges it for me as it was around the time I'd switched to PC from console and this was the first MMO I decided to really sink hours into after trying a few others. Vanilla was perfect for an MMO newcomer like me, everything felt fresh and new, the way the cutscene artwork was done was lovely, the environments were beautiful, the learning curve was relaxed and unpnuishing, everything felt so fresh and new to me.

But HoT is not far behind as I loved that change of pace and challenge. Vanilla might be where I started playing, but HoT is what taught me how to play, the challenge of it nudged me into properly learning my class, combat mechanics, builds etc, it complely changed the game for me (in a good way). Plus the map metas it brought were fantastic.

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Vanilla pre-LS1 was a great time because it was all new and wonderful. Even the abomination that was LS1 couldn't hurt the rest of the core world. LS1 nearly killed the game stone dead and it was lucky to survive after that mess.

HoT was fantastic at the start until you realised how short it was. It was still a great deal of fun to play though and had a lot of community spirit with the metas and open world groups. I loved the beta testing and the early days of levelling my gliding though. That felt perfect.

PoF I spent 2 weeks just soaking up the ambience before progressing through the campaign which I enjoyed until the last third which again just tailed off. Overall it was a great expac, but it was too solo orientated.

The living world seasons have let the game down. There are some highlights of course, but the jumping around, the way maps never felt part of the main world and truly awful storylines at times have really pulled the game down for me. I think the idea of an episodic MMO was an aim that died pretty much from the offset with this game.

Overall I will vote core - a time where I still had friends in the game and a great Guild rather than being on my own as I watch so many people I knew leave and Guilds break down. The dev/community interaction was strong and it isn't like now where the devs barely want to interact with their communityHoT is a close second.

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Going to be a lil bit controversial, and say Path of Fire : I enjoyed the gorgeous environement, and the elite specs (all of them, which wasn't the case for Heart of Thorns). I also liked the movement freedom that mounts gave us. The armors also looked more appealing to me than the Heart of Thorns ones, and same for subsequent outfits). Lastly, I kind of appreciated the freedom we got from the Pact, felt like I was on vacation, it felt like a clean cut.

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I think 'Vanilla' and 'Season One' are pretty much the same period.

For the most part I agree; there's only about three months' gap between release and the Lost Shores coming out. However, that period was when WvW was most enjoyable for me, as it started to nosedive very shortly after release; thus I'm happy to pick that option.

If I was just rating the PvE section of the game I'd say LS2. Content-wise LS4E4 onwards has been the best so far in my view, but nearly everyone from my guilds has gone so I can't rate it as enjoyable as the older stuff.

Actually, there was only six weeks between launch and The Lost Shores (Nov. 15th, 2012). And only 4 weeks between launch and Shadow of the Mad King (Four Acts) with a festival dungeon, many events throughout maps; none of which is available now, so I would consider it 'Season One' content.

Launch was Aug 28th. Lost Shores was Nov 15th. That is longer than 6 weeks

Launch - Mad King was approx. 7 weeks, not 4

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LS4 for me. The story was a perfect follow up on the path of fire story. Path of fire was too short for me. It felt rushed. For me it always felt like PoF and LS4 was one complete story.LS4 really got me, the tale of aurene, the new stuff they did it completely made sense.

LS1 I only did half of it.LS2 + HoT was somewhat meh for me, i didnt like the Mordremoth dragon, as in my opinion it didnt feel like a dragon until you played the dragon's stand map (which should have been a part of the story)

One thing that I did find amazing and which is not on this list is "Knight of the Thorn" side story. This should be a part of Story Journal

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The game is much better now than it was on release, has way more content, more QOL features, more specs, build choices, gear and so on. But since the question is which period I enjoyed the most I think I'll go with vanilla. The reason is very simple: Guild Wars 2 was the best game on offer at the time, I was going from game to game, returning to Guild Wars 1 for a while after each failure, so when I tried Guild Wars 2 in the beta it was a wonderful and unique experience. I tried many other beta events during 2012, Secret World and Star Wars The Old Republic come to mind, but the Guild Wars 2 beta was by far my favorite so naturally I bought this game and loved every minute of playing it. It was by far the best mmorpg out at the time, and I've tried a LOT of what was on offer in 2012, current and upcoming ones.

Time flies and nowadays Guild Wars 2 has much harsher competition than it used to have back in 2012, when for me it was the CLEAR winner. There are games out there with far superior and engaging combat systems, far superior graphics and performance, better and more mature /interesting story, more variety and build choices for players, better monetization systems, better PVP, more varied and exciting instanced content and so on. But to this day I haven't played one that is superior to Guild Wars 2 on all of the above, or even a majority. I just play more games (and far less time!) to enjoy what they do better than Guild Wars 2, then come back to Guild Wars 2 to be reminded of what they do worse, then back again.

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As a PvE player for the most part, Season 3 really brought the game to a new level. Loved getting a map with every release and all the content within. It was such a refreshing change from Season 1 and 2. I was so glad when they moved away from esports and really started focusing on the main game. I recognize that WvW and PvP mains have a very different journey than me but I have absolutely loved this game since Season 3 began. Played since GW1 if that matters.

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The one where you could go to Istan and didn't have to worry about wether or not there is a farmtrain going on. Now I don't like Istan as a map but I really liked how you didn't have to play for like an hour to get a pay off. I take Palawadan over SW / DF farming any day of the week and GH is / was probably my favorite meta in the game (which TBH is not saying much).

But that aside I've enjoyed everything else about equally since nothing I really care about ever improved in a substantial way.

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Vanilla/LS1 (except it would be better with today's condi damage changes)I feel the classes had more value back then and there was more party composition synergy options then today. Today, classes seem more homogenized; there are few exceptions but there is less making classes unique now.

While I agree about the criticism that LS1 was poor writing (in technique rather than story) I loved that the maps could change and that history was real. I had stories to tell people who joined later. The real reward was participating. Had megaservers been a thing then, it would have been slightly better.

Nothing has recaptured those feelings for me. Flying mounts come close, old maps look new again from the sky. But the darker stories , ubiquitous npc deaths, the addition of noticeable grind and divisive content in the game have only served to make me wary of the story lately. Ie: who will die this time? What will they show us that will be almost unobtainable this time? How depressing will the story be today?

I never had those thoughts until HOT onward.

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Definitely Vanilla. The LS maps, well it's not the same quality at all. 3 months, for just that? I'm no fan of the story that at least to me seems really really really inferior and overwhelming when compared with personal story! I mean, there were ambition, there were daring in the story behind the personal story and the leveling to 80, also the maps are very full of hidden Easter eggs, jumping puzzles, taking in account what happens if an event fail! Even the story in the dungeons, yeah, here me, dungeons is better than the whole plot of LS4! About LS3, only liked Lake Doric and Draconis Mons. What happened to the map designers, what happened to the writers? It is all about cheap reuse of assets even if they aren't fitting for the map or very cliche story.

The LS episodes just feel rushed and separated from each other, each one with what I would define its little story within a story, a story that have to been rapidly ended and rushed before the next episode! (See Kourna, 2 meta path scrapped, nothing happens if vine wall is destroyed or if the cannons shoot on the pact camp... will pass the cheap reuse of the exterminator golem as boss + killing Joko before becoming a threat) I mean we have taimi saying in E2 her disease is getting worse then no news, you know, like woosh Inquest hasn't heard anything or saw anything, why gorrik still hasn't a bounty on its head or assassinated?? God take a look again on the personnal story!... one of the newly met character killed a few episode after... and aurene killed but resurrected with a very convenient plot, because we need more of her bad writing in the future to continue the story, was me, boom undead aurene with tentacles like zhaithan woops! Have to kill her.. or better, Joko explode her belly: Wooohhhhh i'm back!!! . Sorry but Aurene wasn't needed in the prologue of icebrood saga, bangar didn't needed to see her to become insane... But let's take another big forgotten plot: in ls4, in jahai the poor awakened are free and have to rebuild, same for olmakhans, and what, we use them as gunpowder? Without speaking of them since all or nothing?!!! LS have been a joke since the start with only goal of killing beloved characters like, Almorra Soulkeeper, Palawa Ignicious Joko, or to me Blish. What's next? You gonna kill Smodur? Also, was nice to meet bangar, another villain that die 6 episodes later.The more LS episodes, more my interest disappear, kinda like that graph shown the other day decreasing each LS episode. At the prologue I was really like "Awesome!! Ow god a beautiful map! They returned designing them like diessa plateau or iron marches?" And then bjora arrived, boring, copy pasted events everywhere, not that much to explore in map. Then drizzlewood, a nice map, that start to be infuriating after farming too much legion commendation... Was really interested by Jormag, but now I don't really care anymore, anything can happens. "Meh, in few months another map, after one well known festival, story will end stupidly like using taimi, aurene or by the power of words".

(Mini parenthesis) I liked both EXPACS, really, but, for the exploration, the plot and the quality of events: HoT is better. PoF has good places, but really feel like a dead desert. Hated the Glint Lair. Forged and Awakened were really interesting. And the big pro is to me the specs and mounts.

At this point I just laugh at persons saying LS1 was bad. At least it was impressive, daring with all its big events like the Marionette, the assault on Lion's Arch, the nightmare tower, aetherblade attacks around Tyria maps, the Breachmaker battle! THAT was the apogee of content. You're happy, now, fighting against reused bosses like a death branded shatterer, and soon, an ice enhanced Claw of jormag? Really? After fighting what became drakkar? There was a lot to do, and sure Scarlet wasn't a perfect character; but that period were most than great. What followed, LS2, was just bad. LS3 brought the level back to a good level, LS4 was meh (first half good, after, bad), and LS5 seems to be mitigated. And today, i'm still sad to not being able to fight the marionette or having a battle on LA/breachmaker fractal.

I expect a lot from that "3rd" expansion, but don't have much hopes what is happening lately: Episode achievement requiring to do a million times the same thing, requiring strikes, requiring to craft weapons or collect stuffs that sit at 200g on TP, weapons requiring expensive mats... Tonics sitting at a rocket price on TP, a TONIC!!!Me just wanting more accessible armors and tonics.. you don't show a good picture of the game. What's the point of putting that runic armor behind never looted items and just insane amount of crystals? If you have a cup of respect, turn it into a sellable armor on TP that way, at least, I can have it! (BTW can say the same about the triumphant armor, forcing me to pvp whereas I will not put a feet in it. Stop locking armors away from your casual playerbases: It's the same with all those exclusive armors and backpack of black lion chest; can't they be sold on tp?????? I can't even have those steampunk wings!!

It is very sad to say, but I only do the last maps for the gh decos now. What to explore? You ruined exploration, you scrapped fun. Each new LS map, it's what, 2 hours max of fun? You do the achievs, the 20 mins story and woop, forgotten. That's why I made a recent post about how empty Rata Sum is empty, when you have nothing to do, you want to explore, find rp spots or whatever, there is nothing. And a cube city that forbid you 60% of its perimeter by teleporting you in jail is not rewarding. I would really enjoy hanging in cities... but the one I loved the more, Lion's arch, you butchered it into LOBSTER LAND.

Also, my Engie used to have perfectly working turrets, 3200 Armor, 3200 Power, 75% crit chance, 180% crit damage. What I have now??? The balance is a so big piece of mess right now! God! Definitely prefer the time where everything was smooth. It's a nice thing to add specs, but another thing to balance them. Specs so powerful compared to core like it has been made on purpose to buy expac! My engie is bad without holo! And definitely think my ele would be weak without weaver.

TLDR, only one advice, map designers, maps events and dialogues writers: Inspire yourself more with the core maps, really, after things like dry top, silverwastes, metrica province, brisban wildlands, caledon forest.. how can you end with horrid maps like kourna? like bjora? like thunderhead? or haha my favorite (most detested) bitterfrost!I know that I would feel ashamed to deliver such content after 3 months. I'm really sad for all of you, talented persons.

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@Randulf.7614 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I think 'Vanilla' and 'Season One' are pretty much the same period.

For the most part I agree; there's only about three months' gap between release and the Lost Shores coming out. However, that period was when WvW was most enjoyable for me, as it started to nosedive very shortly after release; thus I'm happy to pick that option.

If I was just rating the PvE section of the game I'd say LS2. Content-wise LS4E4 onwards has been the best so far in my view, but nearly everyone from my guilds has gone so I can't rate it as enjoyable as the older stuff.

Actually, there was only six weeks between launch and The Lost Shores (Nov. 15th, 2012). And only 4 weeks between launch and Shadow of the Mad King (Four Acts) with a festival dungeon, many events throughout maps; none of which is available now, so I would consider it 'Season One' content.

Launch was Aug 28th. Lost Shores was Nov 15th. That is longer than 6 weeks

Launch - Mad King was approx. 7 weeks, not 4

You are right, somehow I left out September.So, 10 weeks for The Lost Shores, and 7 weeks (it started a week before Halloween) for Shadow of the Mad King.

Still, not a lot of time before Living World Season One began.

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I really preferred Vanilla. The story was built then. We had characters and factions showing up, the world expanded as we adventured and everything felt real and new.

Now most of those characters are dead. I'm stuck with an "invulnerable" secondary cast whose hobbies consist of complaining, not being useful, or talking down to the one character bothering to do stuff. (later cub) and that crazy Charr and Asura pair from the Personal Story are dead. A story that leans on killing characters for stakes doesn't work when the most visible members of the secondary cast can't. die. Not to be a pill, but someone should have noticed that years ago.

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