Huge Praises

[Blur.3465]

I can't praise this expansion enough.
As someone who plays games to relax, enjoy, immerse with the world...this expansion finally delivered what I've been expecting from GW2 since it released.

JW offers a sense of exploration, danger, living and breathing world.
I have great desire to explore every nook and crevice in the maps.
The maps are insanely well done, they feel so alive and gorgeous!
The tone of the maps is exactly where it should be -- it's dark in some parts which makes you take the threat/danger seriously.

And...MUSIC. 
Music has never EVER been better. I loved GW2 OST, but you guys have surpassed yourselves. Hands down probably the best OST yet!

On top of that, I want to say...
I finally feel like I am playing an RPG.
Playing this expansion feels like going through Witcher 3 and those amazing single player RPG games, but filled with other players in. 

I have no complaints, at all.
10/10 from me.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

I've only gotten to listen to the soundtrack, and it makes me feel the same feels I had with the Dragon Age games (which is a good thing because I liked those games)! Made going to work feel a little bit epic the other day. :>

[Zoid.2568]

I like the Witcher vibes of one of the soundtracks.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

I've only been through the first map so far, doing random events.  But it's been great.  The map is very well designed, and everything is very pretty. The place even feels lived in.

[Tamur.6503]

Also 100% positive here. I see the many complaints about pacing and better this and that, and it helps me understand that many people have a different preferred play style. I'm loving exploring in detail, being amazed with the land and the music, enjoying the care with which the story interweaves multiple pieces, and of course taking far too long to arrange my kitchen area. 本当に楽しく味わっている🥰

[Dean Calaway.9718]

Here's a top tip:

For years I've been playing max FoV and the camera at max distance, there's even a Blish HUD module that'll always pull the camera to max distance automatically. I suspect many people play the game like this as well.

Recently I narrowed the FoV to 2/3 and have been playing with the camera closer, more akin to something like Witcher 3 and it has improved my immersion by leaps and bounds.

I'd advise people to try it and resist the immediate urge to put it back, just roll with it for a few days.

[Willow.7210]

Everything has a positive and negative side, and it's not all positive.  I have been in this game for around 10k hours and I find this expansion doesn't have enough content.  It used to be we would get an expansion with roughly 4-5 maps and the continuing story after was the Living World with another 5-6.  We are now, since SoTo, getting 3 maps out the gate, and now just two for this one.  The first map is beautiful, I can see the work they put into it, but the 2nd map is not nearly up to the same level as Lowland and feels very unfinished.  The Meta has been extremely buggy as well as some of the events.

So yes, the first map is impressive, but they should have had a lot more for what they are calling an expansion.  It has gone from having an expansion and follow-up living world with a total of 9-11 maps to us now getting 3-4?  I do not look forward to getting 1/3 of a map at a time as part of story.  I expected a lot more out of this because they set the bar higher years ago.  I long for the days of a story with better character development and an expansion that has explorations across many maps, easter eggs like the griffon and duel seater turtle etc.  There were no surprises here, nothing to look forward to outside of what we saw in the previews.

Giving a 10/10 here means you aren't expecting them to even live up to their capabilities.  It could have been truly glorious and for me, it fell short.  I am glad for those that are enjoying it but I really do wonder if they experienced how great the content was back around 2017-2018.

Hope what they have planned after this lives up the potential, but I am not holding my breath.

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

My honest opinion:

Lowland shores map :

 pros: landscape , graphics, events(almost all events are extraordinary) and creature models are nicely done and super cool

cons: dont think theres anything negative about this map

Janthir Syntri map :

pros: boss fight feels a little bit satisfying (nice boss attack graphics, even though boss is standing in a single spot, it moves its limbs and uses some attack mechanics)

cons: feels so empty, terrain looks meh, events are a bit more boring , heart contribution takes way too long

 

Quests and collections and side stories:(example: cryptid chaser, zizl quest, fallingstar quest,... more)

nicely done and I loved those... hope upcoming releases has more of these.. keeps the game fresh and interesting to play

 

Story: I like the story.. could rate the story 7 out of 10..

 

Homestead: I noticed a large aquarium in one of the npc houses basement floor... I like that... I believe we can use those decorations too.. but Im not sure if we can place the legendary fishes we caught throughout tyria into those aquariums(example : genshin impact serenity pot - aquarium decorations)

 

Fights, duels, enemy encounters and mechanics :  love all enemy fights in events, especially the fights in "Sleuth Brawlfields" in lowland shores.. especially when barbed vale grabs a player and slams them on the ground.. love more content like that

[fourhim.3584]

And I want to add a thank you for more waypoints 🙂

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Thank you so much for sharing this--reading the comments in this thread about what you're enjoying was one of the highlights of my Friday!

[Mistwraithe.3106]

On 8/24/2024 at 1:38 AM, Willow.7210 said:

Everything has a positive and negative side, and it's not all positive.  I have been in this game for around 10k hours and I find this expansion doesn't have enough content.  It used to be we would get an expansion with roughly 4-5 maps and the continuing story after was the Living World with another 5-6.  We are now, since SoTo, getting 3 maps out the gate, and now just two for this one.  The first map is beautiful, I can see the work they put into it, but the 2nd map is not nearly up to the same level as Lowland and feels very unfinished.  The Meta has been extremely buggy as well as some of the events.

So yes, the first map is impressive, but they should have had a lot more for what they are calling an expansion.  It has gone from having an expansion and follow-up living world with a total of 9-11 maps to us now getting 3-4?  I do not look forward to getting 1/3 of a map at a time as part of story.  I expected a lot more out of this because they set the bar higher years ago.  I long for the days of a story with better character development and an expansion that has explorations across many maps, easter eggs like the griffon and duel seater turtle etc.  There were no surprises here, nothing to look forward to outside of what we saw in the previews.

Giving a 10/10 here means you aren't expecting them to even live up to their capabilities.  It could have been truly glorious and for me, it fell short.  I am glad for those that are enjoying it but I really do wonder if they experienced how great the content was back around 2017-2018.

Hope what they have planned after this lives up the potential, but I am not holding my breath.

It’s fair to give your criticism but I don’t think you are comparing the past with the present fairly.

Specifically, your count of maps seems to ignore timescale. SOTO and JW deliver their 3/4 maps on an annual cycle. Historically we have received roughly 30 maps between HOT and EOD inclusive over about 8 years. That is 3.5 maps per year which is exactly the same as the average for SOTO and JW. 

Sure, around POF they did deliver maps at a higher rate, but conversely maps were at a much slower rate pre HOT and around LWS5/IBS/EOD.

IMO Anet are doing a good job and showing signs of improving how well they deliver on their new annual cadence. They have also hit their last 5 expansion drop release dates which is not that that common in game dev. Think you have to give them some credit !

Edited August 24 by Mistwraithe.3106

[Kurrilino.2706]

I am speechless...............

 

What a masterpiece of an expansion.

I found the last one meh because of the setting and monsters. Not a big fan of demons and other realms.

Seeing the dwarfs back was nice though.

 

But man, this one is everything i love, from medieval forests with rain and fog over native species with lore and then the music and ambience.

To call the homestead a home run would be understating.

Being able to craft magic, green shining items to build a fantasy hut and all this medieval stuff is epic, not to mention standing on my own bridge over a creek, fishing.

I didn't even make it through map 2 but i crave for map 3 and 4. How the hell do you do all that for $25?

 

Bravo, Bravo, Bravo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

[Mungrul.9358]

I whole-heartedly agree!

I came back to the game for this expansion after giving it a break for a year, and for SotO to be "finished."

I played through the SotO story 2 weeks ago, then last week, with my week off, I played through this first part of Janthir Wilds, and the difference was night and day.
SotO felt like a confusing mess, with a story I couldn't really feel invested in and a parade of new characters I couldn't bring myself to care for (Mabon's death in particular barely registered.)
In addition, it carried on a trend that started with End of Dragons, and that I despised there, in that every single reward seemed to be somehow related to crafting legendary gear.

Janthir Wilds, by contrast, has felt far more relaxed and chill.
The environment, music, voice-acting and overall experience are MUCH improved, and I don't feel like I'm being funnelled into a legendary production grind.
Tying so many masteries to interesting and varied activities that also aren't the usual egregious ANet grind has been welcome too. I have positively relished doing everything I possibly could in each of the two areas currently available to us.

Of those two, Lowland Shores is most certainly the more impressive, and feels significantly more polished.

Janthir Syntri can initially feel unfinished; one of the first adventures I attempted there last week still had placeholder text for the NPC for example, and the whole north-west quadrant is particualarly bereft of actual content. And as many people have previously pointed out, there are problems with the speed of activities filling hearts. One particularly problematic event type actually promotes more typical antisocial MMO behaviour; the various "Gather" events. Because the meat drops aren't instanced per player, and you get more heart progress from donating meat than anything else, the end result is a frustrating compitetive bum-rush that feels completely out of place in GW2.

But those complaints aside, it grew on me, and those three other quadrants all have a wonderful feel, that as noted by others, has a distinct Witcher 3 influence, in particular reminding me a lot of Skellige.

I am not sure how I feel about tiered hearts at the moment. But I suppose once done, they're done, so I don't mind them too much.

But for those bits I love:
What you did with the Lowland Kodan, giving them a Brown Bear feeling of dormant power, that is distinct from the Polar Bear type Kodan we have previously met. Stoic Alder in particular is a stand-out for me, with every sonorous word underlining the inherent power at rest in the character; sure, he may look big and cuddly, but there's the threat of a face-ripping implied if you do him wrong.

The revamp of the Warclaw for PvE, and the new skin. This also gives the whole mount line some much-needed lore development, and is very welcome; on top of which, you decided not to waste players' time and gave the basic mount to them straight away. This is very much appreciated, and hopefully a sign of things to come. I had already unlocked my Warclaw through WvWvW, but I don't begrudge anyone having an easier time with acquisition.
I can only hope that you go back and similarly revamp the older mounts. I would argue that three of the core 4 now need significant revamps to keep them relevant, those being Raptor, Springer and Jackal. At the very least, I hope ANet retrofit the ability to mount in combat onto all mounts other than just the Skyscale and Warclaw. In addition, both the Warclaw and Skyscale now have ways to attack that don't involve dismounting, something that would be welcome for the other mounts too.
Ideas:
A stack of bleed for leaping a Raptor through mobs.
A launch for a charged-jump among mobs with the Springer (some would say that might be a bit too OP, but Springer needs something OP to bring it back in-line.)
A stack of confusion for all mobs in the line of a Jackal's teleport.

Griffin is still my favourite to actually use in the game, but it is increasingly less practical to use where other mounts would get the job done quicker. Sure, griffin is still the fastest way to explore maps (and I love the verticality of the newer map design), but for everything else, there's the elephant Skyscale in the room.
As to how you fix it, that's really hard without making it OP and in turn, invalidating Skyscale. But I would start with flying low at high-speed knocking down mobs you fly through. It's not something that could be done over and over very quickly, and would require great skill to pull off repeatedly, so I don't think it's unbalanced.

Anyway, I digress.
Janthir Wilds has re-ignited my passion for Guild Wars 2 again. I still feel it leans too heavily on the bad MMO habit of wanting to be the only game its players ever play, with end-game content being needlessly grindy.
But in every other way, I cannot deny that when firing on all cylinders, it's still one of my favourite games ever, and that's in any genre.

Edit:
Oh, and I would also like to praise ANet for the way they're handling new Relic ability unlocks, in that there's nothing stupidly grindy or expensive related to unlocking the new abilities for the Legendary Relic.
It reminds me a little of Skill Hunting in the original game, and in fact, I'd love it if they leaned harder into this idea. Unlocking a relic power by defeating an open-world champion that uses said power would be awesome.

Edited September 2 by Mungrul.9358