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Which period of the game did you enjoy the most?


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Heart of Thorns, and the living world preluding HoT.Mostly because the hostile mobs began to use different builds, rather than the core hostile mob build of "high HP, low armor, low damage, no boons, no conditions, no control effects, has a charging attack that deals abit more damage but nothing else" which is Berserker Bait from beginning to end.

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I've been enjoying the game so far and always managed to get things working out for me. There is always plenty of stuff to do, personal goals to reach, an engaging story, great maps and huge attention to detail. I am not all happy with the current state of the game and certain parts of the community really grind my gears. But it has always been light and shadows. If it is too shiny, you easily get bored. And the problems we face, motivate us to think outside the box, to find different solutions. Each era had its ups and downs.

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As a new player, as far as content its a mixed bag. What i mean is ive enjoyed everything ive done so far. The starter stuff was great, POF i did first and i was reallly loving it.... the maps of HOT are very confusing but as i learn them i appreciate them, i feel like they are really creative. I love how diverse the game is

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I personally enjoyed the game a lot more once HoT came out. For me, the addition of Especs and masteries, particularly gliding, just made the game feel a lot better. Though I'm probably one of the few that didn't mind the "grind" for the masteries all that much. I found it a bit annoying to require certain ones for the story, but it did keep me playing and having things to work toward for weeks unlike PoF which I completely finished within the span of a few days. Including the griffin.But overall I enjoy pretty much every new update to the game. I like having more story to play through and more achievements to work on.

My only real grievance that I can think of atm is I wish that masteries more frequently provided some upgrade to your characters that's useful on more than the map you unlock it on. That's getting kinda old and I'd love to have more masteries like gliding, mounts, the mount utility skills, and the waystations. Like, why can't I use the gliding skills I unlocked in Bloodstone Fen on any other map? Stuff like that.

Edit: thought about it for a second but....those gliding skills aren't even masteries are they? Whoops. But still, I think y'all will get what I mean with how they introduce these masteries to unlock which are only useful in very niche situations on certain maps. Would prefer to see more things that can be universally useful.

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I started playing right after LWS1 ended. I enjoyed the game back then. But HoT really got me addicted. Elite specs were so much fun. I also enjoyed the challenging map exploration and meta content, let alone sinking so many hours into raids. PvP/WvW balance was a bit off but towards end of HoT era, it was actually not bad and quite fun.

PoF is fine in its quality but I feel there is just nothing exciting for me anymore(except for mounts). Lack of attention in PvP/WvW also leaves the content not aging well.

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As much as I begrudge many of the design choices Anet makes (cough paid build templates cough), gameplay-wise I believe GW2's present era is the best. I love the playstyle of Weaver, the current story surrounding the Charr is pretty interesting in my opinion, and I love my mounts.

I absolutely loved Vanilla GW2 as well, but in hindsight that was primarily because it was new, and no one knew what was good or bad. Dungeons were absolutely brutal before people optimized the fun out of them, many of the hidden secrets/gems in the maps had yet to be found, and the world was dangerous (also because we hadn't yet optimized our classes).

Power creep or no, it was inevitable that the world became a pushover. Such is the way with MMOs. See: Classic WoW.

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Beta, vanilla.

FF to PoF

I think beta and early vanilla was the most fun I had in the game. GW1 is still the best in my opinion regarding lore, and skills, but GW2 early days was something different. Then, the more they added the LS, the less interested I've become. Dry Top was killing my dream. I hated a barren depressing map, and dry top, then SW is exactly like that. I just gave up. Took a long break. HoT came out, story started out very depressing, which I like. But sadly even in GW1, I hated maguuma in general, and I always skip it on my way to lvl 20. So to have maguuma as the main background for the whole expansion was really a bad deal for me. Skipped without ever finishing the story. Took years of break again. Until finally I saw an advert that PoF is coming, and we're back to Crystal Desert. A place really close to me because of my constant Griffon farm in GW1. I decided to go back, and enjoyed the mounts and maps. Except the story sucked IMO, and I left it after finishing the story and craft a new legendary.

FF to now, I am back again with a new spirit, which is to try everything the game have to offer, and judge it myself... nah thats a lie.I came back just because I saw Cantha being hinted as the future expansion. So I am preparing myself now for its release. Cantha, just talking abt it making me want to go back to GW1 again. Love the whole campaign, and villain.From the ugly slum, first time got through the dark sewer to see the beautiful Maishang Hills, then go to the Gothic Echovald forest, then moving to the beautiful jade sea of Cavalon area.. Then back to the imperial sanctum.. what a beautiful beautiful place and setting.

So yea, vanilla, and PoF. Although I just started icebrood saga, and the beginning where everyone is mysteriously died in Jora's keep, shaping it to be one of my favorite beginning of a story.

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I think that this poll is going to have trouble being accurate for a couple of reason. The Vanilla period was 3.5 years. HoT was 9 months before Season 3 launched. Unless you're counting Vanilla as the time before Season 1 launched, which was only a couple of months....makes it hard to really get to know what people think.

On top of that Vanilla was 8 years ago and still had that new car smell. It was all new and exciting back then. Cracks in the game don't appear as much, and people dcon't remember as much.

Without gliding and mounts, without a wardrobe, without a looking for group tool, without the ability to preview the trading post, with a good percentage of the events in Orr bugged, with constantly bugged hero points, vanilla was a bit of a nightmare. But it was new and exciting and you never recapture that.

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@Vayne.8563 said:I think that this poll is going to have trouble being accurate for a couple of reason. The Vanilla period was 3.5 years. HoT was 9 months before Season 3 launched. Unless you're counting Vanilla as the time before Season 1 launched, which was only a couple of months....makes it hard to really get to know what people think.

On top of that Vanilla was 8 years ago and still had that new car smell. It was all new and exciting back then. Cracks in the game don't appear as much, and people dcon't remember as much.

Without gliding and mounts, without a wardrobe, without a looking for group tool, without the ability to preview the trading post, with a good percentage of the events in Orr bugged, with constantly bugged hero points, vanilla was a bit of a nightmare. But it was new and exciting and you never recapture that.

orr doesnt count, its end game, so its gonna suck anyway. forging the pact was the breaking point for many playersand it STILL isnt stable, i tried it in my last stint, and it bugged out on the last boss...AGAIN

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:I think that this poll is going to have trouble being accurate for a couple of reason. The Vanilla period was 3.5 years. HoT was 9 months before Season 3 launched. Unless you're counting Vanilla as the time before Season 1 launched, which was only a couple of months....makes it hard to really get to know what people think.

On top of that Vanilla was 8 years ago and still had that new car smell. It was all new and exciting back then. Cracks in the game don't appear as much, and people dcon't remember as much.

Without gliding and mounts, without a wardrobe, without a looking for group tool, without the ability to preview the trading post, with a good percentage of the events in Orr bugged, with constantly bugged hero points, vanilla was a bit of a nightmare. But it was new and exciting and you never recapture that.

orr doesnt count, its end game, so its gonna suck anyway. forging the pact was the breaking point for many playersand it STILL isnt stable, i tried it in my last stint, and it bugged out on the last boss...AGAIN

End game doesn't disqualify a period of the game, certainly not for me. It's not a condition of the poll. There are tons of bugged events through the game. There are escorts that got stuck, low level hero points that wandered too far from where they started (including a popular one to complain about in Wayfarer Foothills), which took ages to get fixed...you're making it sound like it was just Orr...but it wasn't. It was simply the most memorable example for most people because it was end game.

Furthermore, I liked Orr a lot and so did a bunch of other people. I know I wasn't running the plinx chain solo.

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I enjoyed vanilla the most since it's hard to beat playing a fresh MMO on launch day/closed beta, with everything new to explore and figure out at your feet - especially in a franchise I played and loved since years before.

More objectively, in terms of game quality, content diversity, difficulty/engagement and support, I would say HoT was the peak for the game though (the following content drought aside) and I was definitely tired of vanilla content at that point already - so that gets my vote as best time for the game, launch/fresh player nostalgia aside.

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Tough call.

On the one hand, playing the game for the first time from launch through the first year or so is an experience that literally cannot be repeated. Regardless of how enjoyable, engaging, or expansive new specializations, maps, masteries, features, and lore has been, it just can't compare to playing through it the first time and learning about GW2's take on Tyria and what the world has to offer. Even taking the things I like the best from a LW season or an expansion, I would have to say that it could not have happened without building on the foundation already put in place (and tweaked here and there).

On the other hand, it's been an evolving and growing world that I've had a lot of fun experiencing, in all of its forms, each time I step into one of my characters. It's a little difficult to say one set chunk of time has been the "best", unless maybe we went deep into mechanics/balance discussions? Even then, that would be tough across all classes. While "vanilla" may have "hit" the best by being first, I wouldn't go back and give up gliding, mounts, new specializations, and the many skins, stat combinations, and character customizations available now. Here's to many more.

Maybe this is a cop-out answer as a result.

That's through the lense of primarily PvE, though, a little WvW. If I were most heavily focused on sPvP and WvW I expect I'd have a different take.

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Obviously i can only vote one thing, but that is quite restricting. My favorite time: Vanilla, LS3, Pof, part of LS4. (havent played the whole season) My least favorite: Hot, Icebrood saga, LS1. Why i dont like them, they feel (felt) Like a mapwide repetitive grind hamster wheel. Havent played enough of LS2, so cant answer that.

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Simply - Vanilla, as it was was new and refreshing after years of gw1.I love the 'One Time Event' with Karkas when most of the people there got their first precursosr. It was total fun (despite the lagfest).I really miss the advertised changes in the world that suppose to be inpactful.Also the game did not have the raids/fractals and the hardest part of it was Arah dungeon.

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I voted Vanilla game.I just loved the game at the start and all the new experiences and things to discover. Also all the majority of weapons and armor were more simple and less flashy, which I liked. I personally dislike seeing shiny balls of light running around, it makes me feel like everyone is an OP God.The other period I really enjoy is Icebrood Saga because it reminds me of EotN.

Edit: I also really miss Old LA from Vanilla time period!

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. Hot open world was and is amazing. Tons of hidden places and navigating those maps was amazing. Living world and raids at the same time were real treats and finally gave us something meaty to chew on.

POF maps were not as interesting and navigation was simple. Saving grace of POF was living world and the first two raid wings with hall of chains and the mythright Gambit being the best in the whole game.

I raid more than I play any other part of the Game so POF would be the peak for me. Hot I think is better at the time since the actual maps and content provided were more balanced in quality.

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This is a hard one...1.) Bitter Frost is my favorite zone to group with casual friends and just go at my pace.2.) Dragon Fall is my favorite go-go-go high energy zone3.) I like POF story the best...no replay-ability

I'm going to go with LS4 for the Dragon Fall and the Roller Beetle. My two most use mounts and one of my favorite events/zones.

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HoT for me with Vanilla close second. I loved the maps design ( yes even Tangled Depths ) but especially the meta events that made you feel like you were at war in a hostlie land and generally the mobs, from that point on, seemed to be offering a better challenge. Perhaps not one on one but as a whole.

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@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:I think that this poll is going to have trouble being accurate for a couple of reason. The Vanilla period was 3.5 years. HoT was 9 months before Season 3 launched. Unless you're counting Vanilla as the time before Season 1 launched, which was only a couple of months....makes it hard to really get to know what people think.

On top of that Vanilla was 8 years ago and still had that new car smell. It was all new and exciting back then. Cracks in the game don't appear as much, and people dcon't remember as much.

Without gliding and mounts, without a wardrobe, without a looking for group tool, without the ability to preview the trading post, with a good percentage of the events in Orr bugged, with constantly bugged hero points, vanilla was a bit of a nightmare. But it was new and exciting and you never recapture that.

orr doesnt count, its end game, so its gonna suck anyway. forging the pact was the breaking point for many playersand it STILL isnt stable, i tried it in my last stint, and it bugged out on the last boss...AGAIN

End game doesn't disqualify a period of the game, certainly not for me. It's not a condition of the poll. There are tons of bugged events through the game. There are escorts that got stuck, low level hero points that wandered too far from where they started (including a popular one to complain about in Wayfarer Foothills), which took ages to get fixed...you're making it sound like it was just Orr...but it wasn't. It was simply the most memorable example for most people because it was end game.

Furthermore, I liked Orr a lot and so did a bunch of other people. I know I wasn't running the plinx chain solo.

end game is basically the same in all mmos, just harder and slower versions of the usual content. orr was pretty much unplayable at launch, just as hot was. do you see a pattern here?how many mobs did they remove from orr? ½ of them? 1/3? it will never be a normal zone, but at least they made it playable for the normalplayers. it is ugly,and it has annoying sounds instead of music. it feels like a part from another game. and it leads up to one of the most disappointing bosses EVERif zhaitan actually DID some of the things, they claim it could do, then the fight should already be lost.

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@"Vayne.8563" said:I think that this poll is going to have trouble being accurate for a couple of reason. The Vanilla period was 3.5 years. HoT was 9 months before Season 3 launched. Unless you're counting Vanilla as the time before Season 1 launched, which was only a couple of months....makes it hard to really get to know what people think.

On top of that Vanilla was 8 years ago and still had that new car smell. It was all new and exciting back then. Cracks in the game don't appear as much, and people dcon't remember as much.

Without gliding and mounts, without a wardrobe, without a looking for group tool, without the ability to preview the trading post, with a good percentage of the events in Orr bugged, with constantly bugged hero points, vanilla was a bit of a nightmare. But it was new and exciting and you never recapture that.

Yes, you are right. There is a natural bias in this poll due to the nature of the "Vanilla era" itself, as you described it. The accuracy is therefore low.However, I am aware of the fact that this poll may not be used to exactly determine which period was the best for all players. It is a very subjective question and I am satisfied with people sharing what they liked.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:I think that this poll is going to have trouble being accurate for a couple of reason. The Vanilla period was 3.5 years. HoT was 9 months before Season 3 launched. Unless you're counting Vanilla as the time before Season 1 launched, which was only a couple of months....makes it hard to really get to know what people think.

On top of that Vanilla was 8 years ago and still had that new car smell. It was all new and exciting back then. Cracks in the game don't appear as much, and people dcon't remember as much.

Without gliding and mounts, without a wardrobe, without a looking for group tool, without the ability to preview the trading post, with a good percentage of the events in Orr bugged, with constantly bugged hero points, vanilla was a bit of a nightmare. But it was new and exciting and you never recapture that.

orr doesnt count, its end game, so its gonna suck anyway. forging the pact was the breaking point for many playersand it STILL isnt stable, i tried it in my last stint, and it bugged out on the last boss...AGAIN

End game doesn't disqualify a period of the game, certainly not for me. It's not a condition of the poll. There are tons of bugged events through the game. There are escorts that got stuck, low level hero points that wandered too far from where they started (including a popular one to complain about in Wayfarer Foothills), which took ages to get fixed...you're making it sound like it was just Orr...but it wasn't. It was simply the most memorable example for most people because it was end game.

Furthermore, I liked Orr a lot and so did a bunch of other people. I know I wasn't running the plinx chain solo.

end game is basically the same in all mmos, just harder and slower versions of the usual content. orr was pretty much unplayable at launch, just as hot was. do you see a pattern here?how many mobs did they remove from orr? ½ of them? 1/3? it will never be a normal zone, but at least they made it playable for the normalplayers. it is ugly,and it has annoying sounds instead of music. it feels like a part from another game. and it leads up to one of the most disappointing bosses EVERif zhaitan actually DID some of the things, they claim it could do, then the fight should already be lost.

Except in this game end game isn't the same, because you have meta events as end game, and collections. You can get bis gear in this game without ever setting foot in a raid, or even a dungeon, now at least. Saying end game is the same in every MMO is not true. I can tell you this because I've walked away from other MMO's end game, because I didn't want to raid and here I don't feel like I have to.

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Hot for me. I actually didn't like it at first, but once you get masteries, learn the maps and the culture-shock of the far deadlier mobs wore off, it's become my go-to place for when I want to kill time by playing gw2 with a podcast or something in the background.

The things that stick out for me with it:The minimap is a disaster on some maps (Looking at you Tangled Depths)The 'living world' metas advertised pre-launch for gw2 and only really appearing towards the end of vanilla gw2 in Orr were brought to the front. I find this far more enjoyable, especially because of how it feeds into the 'big event' at the end of the map: when you help that rally point in Verdant Brink, it's not just a bit of xp and gets reset if you don't stay around to fight the 'reset' event: that rally point is activated for nightfall, you've made a difference for every player on the entire map.

PoF definitely built on some things and improved some thing: mastery ranks in hot took a whopping 2 million xp to unlock roughly, while hot is about 500k iirc. There are 'gated' areas but they'll usually be a 'You can't get there yet' rather than the "Ha, you die now" ones. Bosses that need specific masteries were reigned in so if you didn't have a mastery you could still contribute, or vanished entirely. All things I appreciated.

I genuinely hope Cantha is more like HoT than PoF however.

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