Returning player - what to unlock/buy and when?

[Sythian.8062]

I played this game for about half a year back in 2012 and I'm thinking about returning. I'm seeing a couple of expansions since then and what's called the 'Living World', and pretty confused about the path forward.

Right now, I have an 8-year old character at level 80 and 75, and one character that I just started playing yesterday. I don't have any expansions nor purchased any episodes (or living world or season, whatever you call them. Pretty confused already). I heard that you could purchase episodes with gems, which I think you can buy with gold. I have about 60 gold.

My current plan is to hold off on buying the expansions until I try the game out for a couple of weeks and I become pretty sure that I'll be staying around for much longer. But, at the same time, I don't want to miss any early game contents (if any) that are available only through the expansion and/or the 'Living World' thing. I don't want to have played till level 50, then buy the expansion or unlock the seasons, and then find out that I should start all over again because I missed the level 1-50 content in the expansion.

So then what should I do? Can I keep playing now without the expansions until level 30? 50? 80?? When should I buy/unlock the new content?

[Jagblade.4627]

The base game will take you from 1 to 80 and give you plenty more adventures even after the fact. Heart of Thorns expansion introduces the mastery system and Gliders, Path of Fire introduces Mounts. The Living World Seasons are just continuations of the story and a useful means of acquiring mastery XP and new items. They all also include new maps, gatherables, currencies, etc.

So in my opinion? Stay with the base game until you hit level 80, if you are really enjoying yourself, make sure you get both Path of Fire (Heart of Thorns will be included with this for free but make sure to double check) and Living World Season 2 (if you care about the story.) Complete the very beginning of either Path of Fire or Heart of Thorns to unlock the mastery system and then continue doing whatever content suits you. All content in the expansions and living world (story wise) take place after the "end" of the base game, you won't miss anything if you wait. On the contrary, it's designed around that.

Edit: The only thing you and a lot of people will miss is Living Story Season 1, which was designed as an ongoing realtime event. You can't go back and redo it but there is an NPC you'll meet that can recap what happened to you. All the other Seasons and Expansions can be played repeatedly at any time on any character but again, story wise they take place after the base game.

GW2 -> Living World Season 1 (unplayable) -> Living World Season 2 -> Heart of Thorns -> Living World Season 3 -> Path of Fire -> Living World Season 4 -> Icebrood Saga

[Randulf.7614]

Expansions are level 80 content and have no benefit if you lack a level 80 toon to unlock stuff. Expacs do give some benefits like a new class, new specialisations for your level 80 char earnable in the expac and masteries - skills like gliding, mounts and auto loot. There’s no content for ore 80s though to miss out on

Living world is just the name they give to the story and maps that link between expansions. They are essentially mini expacs in chapter form.

Given that the story is continuous, you would need to buy and play them in order to experience the story in the correct way.

If you don’t care about story chronology and spoilers then u can buy what you want. PoF will allow access to mounts through the story so that’s not a bad place to start (but you get spoilers of what has happened before)

Order is;

Core gameSeason 1 (deleted)Season 2HoT expacSeason 3Path of Fire expacSeason 4Icebrood Saga (aka Season 5 and current)

[Danikat.8537]

@Sythian.8062 said:I played this game for about half a year back in 2012 and I'm thinking about returning. I'm seeing a couple of expansions since then and what's called the 'Living World', and pretty confused about the path forward.

Right now, I have an 8-year old character at level 80 and 75, and one character that I just started playing yesterday. I don't have any expansions nor purchased any episodes (or living world or season, whatever you call them. Pretty confused already). I heard that you could purchase episodes with gems, which I think you can buy with gold. I have about 60 gold.

My current plan is to hold off on buying the expansions until I try the game out for a couple of weeks and I become pretty sure that I'll be staying around for much longer. But, at the same time, I don't want to miss any early game contents (if any) that are available only through the expansion and/or the 'Living World' thing. I don't want to have played till level 50, then buy the expansion or unlock the seasons, and then find out that I should start all over again because I missed the level 1-50 content in the expansion.

So then what should I do? Can I keep playing now without the expansions until level 30? 50? 80?? When should I buy/unlock the new content?

There's no low level content in expansions, it's all for level 80 characters, so you don't need to worry about that. :) I think you have a pretty good plan, it's definitely a good idea to take some time to refamiliarise yourself with the game and play through some of the base-game content (there's a lot) before buying the expansions.

The one thing you might want to think about is how important it is for you to play the story in order. If so you'll want to get Season 2 and play that before getting the expansions. The full order goes:

• Personal Story (level 1-80)
• Living World Season 1 (currently unavailable - filled in with a recap video)
• Season 2
• Heart of Thorns
• Season 3
• Path of Fire
• Season 4
• Season 5

The Living World is Anet's name for basically everything added to the game which isn't part of an expansion or a festival. The main updates are episodes, which are like DLC, but grouped into seasons that share a common theme and plot (think of it like a TV show). You can buy episodes individually for 200 gems each from the story menu in the Hero Panel, or you can buy full seasons from the gem store at a slight discount (20% I think).

[Sythian.8062]

Thanks, all! Good to know this information.