I am considering returning. But first, some questions.

[Matty Ice.1832]

I haven't played GW2 since the base game. I think I completed living world season 2. 

If I were to return, do I need to buy all 4 expansions or can I pick up where I left off with SOTO?

Has the game been fun throughout my hiatus?

TIA

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

Personally, i would get heart of thorns first. Game is very big so starting from the end of it makes no sense. 

[Matty Ice.1832]

1 minute ago, xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678 said:

Personally, i would get heart of thorns first. Game is very big so starting from the end of it makes no sense. 

From what I read, it's a completely separate storyline

[TonySu.7942]

Hello! Yes it has been loads of fun! Yes I also stopped playing after season 2 and came back only after seeing ads for EOD. I’ve been very pleasantly wow’d rediscovering the game, eventually got all the expacs and have not stopped playing since. The Expacs they all offer a lot of unique features and special in all their own ways and all very worth it. The Pof has amazing depths on mount masteries and a great story. They are all very worth picking up! And the playing through them didn’t feel like catching up. I felt like going through it at my own pace, there is so much content available to us! 
As for the story, Soto is a stand alone story so it’s perfect to pick it up at this time. If playing the story in sequence is important to you, Soto is a story arc by itself, not requiring knowledge of the previous stories. Also the other expacs offer great elite specs which are all well worth it plus numerous maps to add to your exploration etc too many amazing things to list them all here.  Welcome back and see you in game!

Edited August 22, 2023 by TonySu.7942

[Danikat.8537]

6 minutes ago, Matty Ice.1832 said:

I haven't played GW2 since the base game. I think I completed living world season 2. 

If I were to return, do I need to buy all 4 expansions or can I pick up where I left off with SOTO?

Has the game been fun throughout my hiatus?

TIA

You can play SotO as soon as you get to level 80 and don't have to have completed anything before then.

It's a new overall storyline, which isn't part of the 'Elder Dragon Saga' so the main events will be new but there will be some reoccurring characters (we know Zojja is back for example) and that might include some you haven't met before, who will still act like they know your character. There will probably be references to some of the events of previous storylines as well, which may not make sense if you haven't played them. So it depends on how much the lore and narrative matters to you. If you want to understand everything you need to play it in order, if you don't care about the details and just want to start with the newest stuff the game will let you do that and you won't be required to clear anything older to progress.

Whether the game has been fun or not is highly subjective (although I assume anyone here thinks it's fun enough that they haven't given up on it completely). It's hard to say whether you would think it's fun without knowing what you enjoy doing, but I'd say the new stuff that's been added isn't fundamentally different to what came before and I assume you remembered liking what you played previously, otherwise you wouldn't have come back.

[Matty Ice.1832]

Great responses. Thank you both. I remember the game being fun. I just felt like I ran out of things to do. I wanted to hop back in with HoT but life got in the way. Then each expansion that came after, I felt I was too far behind to catch up. I realize now I can play at my own pace & probably not have to worry about grinding for the most rare gear all the time.

I think I'll pick up the expansions and start with HoT

[Danikat.8537]

17 minutes ago, Matty Ice.1832 said:

 I realize now I can play at my own pace & probably not have to worry about grinding for the most rare gear all the time.

You definitely don't have to worry about that. They haven't added new tiers since ascended was introduced before HoT was released and even that is optional.

You might find you want to change to a new stat combination at some point, but you can do that as and when you feel like it. As long as you've got level 80 exotic equipment it would be very difficult to have something so bad it makes the game unplayable, even in newer areas.

[dmone.5631]

If you pick up the expansions don't forget to also purchase the Living World additions, which adds to the story. Honestly the Elder Dragon Complete Edition in the GW2 store is really a great deal to get everything. 

[Randulf.7614]

51 minutes ago, Matty Ice.1832 said:

From what I read, it's a completely separate storyline

There are no sep storylines. It’s one big story from core, through living world seasons through the expacs. SoTo is sort of an exception as it’s the start of the smaller storylines dealing with the aftermath, but hot directly follows season 2 from the second it finishes 

Yes, it was fun. There are some awful bits too as to be expected, but mostly it’s been an excellent decade

[Knighthonor.4061]

1 hour ago, Matty Ice.1832 said:

I haven't played GW2 since the base game. I think I completed living world season 2. 

If I were to return, do I need to buy all 4 expansions or can I pick up where I left off with SOTO?

Has the game been fun throughout my hiatus?

TIA

Yes, but get HoT for Revenant if you want all classes 

[Danikat.8537]

24 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

There are no sep storylines. It’s one big story from core, through living world seasons through the expacs. SoTo is sort of an exception as it’s the start of the smaller storylines dealing with the aftermath, but hot directly follows season 2 from the second it finishes 

Yes, it was fun. There are some awful bits too as to be expected, but mostly it’s been an excellent decade

I think it depends on what the person asking means by seperate. In some games the story is mechanically continuous as well as narratively continuous. If GW2 worked like that seperate releases would be locked until you'd played the preceding one, like story steps within an expansion. So someone buying the game today and wanting to play SotO would have to play everything from the start of the personal story to the end of What Lies Within before they could start the new expansions story. (There's others which aren't quite as strict but still require you to get to some point in the story before the new stuff becomes available.)

Whereas GW2 will let you play it in any order you want (except within an expansion storyline) and leaves it up to you to decide if it's a problem that you won't understand the narrative and may get spoilers for other parts of the story.

[Randulf.7614]

Just now, Danikat.8537 said:

I think it depends on what the person asking means by seperate. In some games the story is mechanically continuous as well as narratively continuous. If GW2 worked like that seperate releases would be locked until you'd played the preceding one, like story steps within an expansion. So someone buying the game today and wanting to play SotO would have to play everything from the start of the personal story to the end of What Lies Within before they could start the new expansions story. (There's others which aren't quite as strict but still require you to get to some point in the story before the new stuff becomes available.)

Whereas GW2 will let you play it in any order you want (except within an expansion storyline) and leaves it up to you to decide if it's a problem that you won't understand the narrative and may get spoilers for other parts of the story.

Perhaps, everything prior to SoTo is still entirely one single story in GW2's case. HoT - the expansion specifically raised by the poster -  being perhaps the least separate storyline of them all given how it is the culmination of Seaosn 1 and Season 2. 

[quake.9023]

continue where u left off