New Players and Story Lovers - only buy expansions you have reached

[Mistwraithe.3106]

With the current Black Friday sales, now is a topical time to remind all new players and anyone who is going through the GW2 story in order for the first time: ONLY buy expansions when you are ready to start the expansion content.

This is because the Wizard's Vault, which is a major source of gameplay rewards for new players, gives out daily and weekly missions based on the expansions you own rather than the ones you have reached in your playing. So, if you are playing through HoT or PoF and buy EoD you will suddenly start getting missions which are in the EoD maps. Similarly for SOTO. If you don't want to spoil the story by skipping ahead to those maps (and getting major story reveals) then you will find it much harder to get the daily or weekly chest, and sometimes it will be impossible.

This matters because the Wizard's Vault rewards are heavily skewed towards getting that big daily or weekly chest. A player who does 5 weekly missions (and hence misses on the chest) gets 250AA to spend, while a player who does 6 weekly missions (and hence gets the chest) gets 750AA to spend. That one extra mission triples the amount of AA you get so if you don't achieve it you only get 1/3rd the rewards. (Cue for vets who play 30 hours a week to reply saying they have so much money that the WV rewards are worthless, or they do every single daily and weekly and hence have so much AA that they can't spend it all, but that's not who this post is targeted at, I am talking to newer and/or more casual players who are enjoying working their way through the story).

So if you are doing the story in order then don't buy the expansions until you reach them. You will regret it if you do!

Note that I live in hope Anet will fix this and change how the Wizard's Vault works so that it only gives you missions in expansions you have actually started (easy to do - just have an achievement which is triggered when you visit a map in the expansion then look at that). It seems silly that players get penalized for buying expansions before they are ready to play the content but it is what it is currently.

[Donari.5237]

For those that want to take advantage of the massive sales, a workaround might be to buy them but not apply the codes to the account.  This means being organized enough to keep the codes safely findable at whatever point in the future one wants to begin the expansion, and assumes that the codes don't go "stale" and can't be hacked/stolen.  (I personally apply codes the moment I have them out of fear someone else will somehow get hold of and use them, so this is just a brainstorm suggestion on possible ways to get the low price without Wizards Vault mucking things up for you).

[Linken.6345]

37 minutes ago, Donari.5237 said:

For those that want to take advantage of the massive sales, a workaround might be to buy them but not apply the codes to the account.  This means being organized enough to keep the codes safely findable at whatever point in the future one wants to begin the expansion, and assumes that the codes don't go "stale" and can't be hacked/stolen.  (I personally apply codes the moment I have them out of fear someone else will somehow get hold of and use them, so this is just a brainstorm suggestion on possible ways to get the low price without Wizards Vault mucking things up for you).

Well the problem with that is if you buy a collection its just one code right?

[Luthan.5236]

I'd still buy it. You never know then the next sale is or when you are in the mood to play the next story parts. And another sale (especially like this one) - might take some time. Though I also mainly got the thing in certain steps - not everything at once. But I still slowly worked myself through S2 achievements when I already had bought HoT and the old dailies had HoT in them.

A workaround here - where you don't even need to miss stuff: Using the WvW and/or PvP selection for the vault. For people that are willing to play that game mode. Other than that: It was not uncommon to see recommendations for people getting the raptor and doing the PoF first story step first. (Back then - now I think we have other ways for the raptor or auto unlock at a certain level?) For moving faster around.

Should be possible to access the expansion areas that way. (Though the map might give more spoilers than the little story parts you have to play to access it.) Aside from the first map I think the others can be reached normally (portal connecting the maps).

Focusing on story first - going for a full playthrough ... might also be an option. Should not take that much time. (Personally I played slowly doing most map and story achievement before moving to the next map. That can take like forever though.)

[Linken.6345]

5 hours ago, Luthan.5236 said:

I'd still buy it. You never know then the next sale is or when you are in the mood to play the next story parts. And another sale (especially like this one) - might take some time. Though I also mainly got the thing in certain steps - not everything at once. But I still slowly worked myself through S2 achievements when I already had bought HoT and the old dailies had HoT in them.

A workaround here - where you don't even need to miss stuff: Using the WvW and/or PvP selection for the vault. For people that are willing to play that game mode. Other than that: It was not uncommon to see recommendations for people getting the raptor and doing the PoF first story step first. (Back then - now I think we have other ways for the raptor or auto unlock at a certain level?) For moving faster around.

Should be possible to access the expansion areas that way. (Though the map might give more spoilers than the little story parts you have to play to access it.) Aside from the first map I think the others can be reached normally (portal connecting the maps).

Focusing on story first - going for a full playthrough ... might also be an option. Should not take that much time. (Personally I played slowly doing most map and story achievement before moving to the next map. That can take like forever though.)

Nah you have to do first mission in both hot and pof, unless your guild got guild halls in either expansion.

So you have to find a hot and pof guild hall guild to not get spoiled.

[vares.8457]

You can just change your vault to WvW or PvP 

[Mistwraithe.3106]

7 hours ago, vares.8457 said:

You can just change your vault to WvW or PvP 

Sure, if you like WvW and PvP and are happy playing a moderate amount of it every week to get the weeklies that's a great plan. I like WvW so that's what I do and it makes getting the daily and weekly chests easy (if I hadn't then I would be irate as I own all expansions but am only half way through LWS3 in the story so I would be unable to get the daily and weekly chest a lot of the time).

If you do NOT like WvW and PvP then it's a terrible plan. My wife, sister and friends who I've introduced to GW2 all have no interest in WvW or PvP. My two kids play a bit of WvW with me (both have just got their warclaw) but not enough that they would realistically be able to get the weekly chest. So for all of them it wouldn't work.

We have a small friends and family guild (9 of us) and when my sister asked yesterday about whether she (or others in the guild) should buy EoD in this sale my answer was no, not yet. The rest of them (after 6 months playing) are even further behind in the story than me (half way through Verdant Brink in HoT) so we're not going to reach the EoD story for ages yet - I suggested that perhaps next year's Black Friday sale would be the time to buy it. It surprises me that Anet won't fix the issue so people like us can't just buy the expansions now but I presume they have their reasons.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Mistwraithe.3106

[Linken.6345]

10 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Sure, if you like WvW and PvP and are happy playing a moderate amount of it every week to get the weeklies that's a great plan. I like WvW so that's what I do and it makes getting the daily and weekly chests easy (if I hadn't then I would be irate as I own all expansions but am only half way through LWS3 in the story so I would be unable to get the daily and weekly chest a lot of the time).

If you do NOT like WvW and PvP then it's a terrible plan. My wife, sister and friends who I've introduced to GW2 all have no interest in WvW or PvP. My two kids play a bit of WvW with me (both have just got their warclaw) but not enough that they would realistically be able to get the weekly chest. So for all of them it wouldn't work.

We have a small friends and family guild (9 of us) and when my sister asked yesterday about whether she (or others in the guild) should buy EoD in this sale my answer was no, not yet. The rest of them (after 6 months playing) are even further behind in the story than me (half way through Verdant Brink in HoT) so we're not going to reach the EoD story for ages yet - I suggested that perhaps next year's Black Friday sale would be the time to buy it. It surprises me that Anet won't fix the issue so people like us can't just buy the expansions now but I presume they have their reasons.

You can just dont apply the key and dont buy it in game since it get automaticly applied.

[Ashen.2907]

Agreed.

The Wizard's Vault system seems designed in such a way that it would a good idea for people seeking to complete dailies/weeklies without spoilers to avoid buying expacs until they are ready to play through them.

And, to be clear, I like the new system, but the downsides dont really impact me.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Ashen.2907