[Kinda weird legendary accessory effects]

It's a different effect based on how many legendary trinkets you have on. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_trinket#Visual_effects

[Hard Mode, a GW1 throwback with endless possibilities.]

Decade's Devoted, I recently started a fresh playthrough of the core story and am currently working through Heart of Thorns.

 

Core Tyria is, understandably, fairly trivial in terms of difficulty, especially on subsequent playthroughs. HoT ramps up the difficulty a bit, but has largely been neutered in difficulty across the board (this is also understandable, I'm aware of the content being designed with ascended-geared players in mind and tuned later).  It's still easily steamrolled by anyone with a remotely coherent build. I see no problem with this, the main story should be accessible to even the most casual gamer. But for veterans on subsequent playthroughs, a lot of it feels like a chore or a slog. Spoilers for HoT story:

 

Spoiler

For example, in Buried Insight we come across a lab overrun by Chakk who have presumably overwhelmed and eaten the labs previous inhabitants. Our companions are struck in awesome terror at the ravenous insects, only for it in reality to be about 12  adolescent Chakk scattered about the room. We then spend 5 minutes helping Taimi create a superweapon to save the day from these infantile Chakk left behind at daycare, all the while massacring them left and right with a sideways glance or curt nod. Meanwhile our companions are screaming their heads off and exclaiming as if this is some grand battle. The climax upon finishing the weapon? It may as well have been a white flag with the word "BANG" on it compared to the wholesale, instant death I've been delivering this entire time.

I'm not upset because I've played the content before and so this is all just for my own narrative benefit anyway, but this in particular stood out as jarring because last mission I had a blast spending about 10 minutes wading through an actual horde of Chakk for a bonus achievement.

 

My suggestion , Hard Mode, isn't even new to ArenaNet, we had it in Guild Wars 1

 

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hard_mode

 

We have YEARS of story content that exists solely to be played once, and put on a shelf never to be touched again. Some missions are short talk-tos, but a lot of them feel like they could be fleshed out as dungeons essentially (and even were, in the form of Fractals) This content can be given a new life by upping the mob density and difficulty and attaching worthwhile rewards, possibly adding another route to legendary armor, etc. The first tier of difficulty would be about that of a T1 Fractal. Easily cleared by a group but still possible to solo. From there if it's popular you can explore adding effects like instabilities, CMs, you name it.

 

I noticed another thread suggesting something along similar lines, but their idea seemed more like a rework of the entire game, this would be story missions only.