Story-focused player wanting to get back into GW2; replay as a new character through the Personal Story or try to continue from where I left off many years ago in the middle of Hearts of Thorn?

[Ellye.9123]

I've played GW2 on and off for years since its release and I've been wanting to get back into it and complete the current available storyline before the next expansion.

 

Currently, my character is somewhere in the middle of HoT. I remember... basically nothing.

 

Like, I remember the main plot points of the overall story (I think), some of the main characters, and that's it. I remember literally nothing that is specific to Hearts of Thorn, except something about an egg that I think Taimi was holding? Or something.

 

Well, long story short, I'm currently downloading the game and just wanted to ask for opnions in the meanwhile - should I try to just read/watch a recap of the story and continue from where I was, or play a new character?

 

Or, to be more straight-forward: is playing through the personal story a second time something that feels too repetitive and long-winded or is it not that much of an effort? I really don't remember how big the story was.

 

Ialso have a vaguely memory that most of our current companions (like Taimi and... the others, that I don't remember the name of any) don't actually appear in the personal story at all, or am I mistaken?

[miraude.2107]

Pretty much everyone mentioned in the personal story disappears after HoT. You see Caithe here and there, Rytlocke pretty much follows like a grumpy cat-puppy and we still STILL don't know how Zoija is doing.

 

If you have an insta 80 token or enough Tomes of Knowledge to hit 80...I think it'd be better off to ignore HoT if you have gliding already unlocked and just go straight into the PoF to get the raptor and other mounts (it makes going back to HoT easier to do having the mounts, unless you are a purist player or something). You don't need to do the story outside of the first mount I think and the others you just need to complete the hearts attached to them? It's been a while so my thinking might be hazy.

 

The coming Tuesday should be the start of Living world season 4 return and honestly I'd start doing the story there. One will be the map will be active again which will help you get masteries/achieves quicker, you'll have a better run down on what just recently happened and after doing the 'return to -----' achieves for that, in the downtime, you can run on back to the previous and work on them. And Two, it'll help you get masteries for the mounts fairly quickly. And finally, two of the lw4 episodes are tied to getting mounts (roller beetle/skyscale) so you'll have an easier time acquiring what you need then trudging through Hot, LW3, and PoF.

 

Edit to add: Starting with LW4 Daybreak, will be spoilery for PoF, however it's not really breaking, so to speak as they do sort of recap you on stuff here and there that let's you know what happened.

Edited August 8, 2021 by miraude.2107

[Naxos.2503]

If you had made a single char, then there is value in redoing it with a different race/origin choices/order choice. I'd say do both, Keep your old char, but create a different fresh one

 

For your old character, you could re-read what you did before, to refresh your memory before continuing the story where you left it. But if you want a fresher experience, restart a character with different choices, and see what changes in the story. As Miraude explains, the story branches will merge after a time before reaching Heart of Thorns, so there will be less value to be found in replaying it there and then.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Naxos.2503

[nosleepdemon.1368]

You could start again, as the personal story is neat minus the Destiny's Edgelord bits. Unfortunately, the Living World episodes up to HoT are atrociously awful, with Taimi and Braham just being utterly obnoxious 100% of the time, and Rox doing absolutely nothing to liven the atmosphere. At least post PoF you get to battle Joko, and Taimi's/Brahams/basically everyone's teenage hissy fit acting is offset by Canuck's excellent wit.

 

I'd skip the Living World nonsense... Unless you want a legendary precursor, in which case you gotta suffer. I just finished Dry Top's drudgery and survived by clicking through the dialogue and muting Taimi's sharktoothed whinging.

Edited August 8, 2021 by nosleepdemon.1368

[ugrakarma.9416]

in history panel theres a "summary", its good to recap.

[decease.3215]

Definitely new character. Thatsvwhat i did

[Jasmine.8195]

I recall last time I quit simply reading through the story history was more than enough to refresh my memory.  Actually, if I remember right you can even replay some of that content as there was "hard mode" achievements or something around some of it.

 

Downloading the game after being gone a while as well... thought I heard ArenaNet was shutting down or pulling resources from GW2, then I hear they're planning another xpac, cool  :)

 

For me, I know I completed up to all the xpac Path of Fire stuff, but any story that has come out since then is going to be new to me

[linkym.2069]

in my point of view the story doesnt really matter. You will certainly forget most of it since its pretty boring.

[Rasimir.6239]

The base game's personal story actually is a collection of several different stories that you will encounter with different characters, based on character race and choices both during character creation and in several story steps. The eventual outcome is the same, but on the way there you will find a wide variety of side stories that dive deeper into characters and topics. If you enjoy playing story, you might actually end up creating a host of alt characters, either permanent or temporary, to check out all of the different story paths (3 per race, 3 orders, 5 lesser races to assist, 3 parallel arcs of the campaign in Orr).

 

There are characters you will meet again in later story parts (for example Shashoo, a quaggan that first makes an appearance in chapter 5 of the personal story, plays a central part in one of the outposts in Verdant Brink, the first map of HoT), but none of the knowledge of previous story steps is crucial to the later stories. Replaying season 2 and HoT will give you better context to the HoT story, as well as a chance to brush up your knowledge of the game's combat, which might pay off if you want to focus on the later stories that generally require more combat experience than the base game.

 

From a technical point of view people often suggest to play the first couple of instances of the PoF story to unlock the first mount. It does help a lot with moving around the maps, but beware that doing so will spoiler the main reveal from Season 3 of living world (which story-wise comes between HoT and PoF).

 

If you like to play stories, go ahead and grab a new character to replay parts of the story. You can always take a break and go back to your old character if it turns out not to be your thing. Your old character should also have access to several birthday gifts that give a level boost to a new character (up to lvl 60 for a 6th year gift), so it would be easy to play the new character to max level and gain access to the living world and expansion storylines even if you don't have a lvl 80 ticket available (you get one of those as bonus if you buy an expansion).

[Ellye.9123]

Thanks, all!

In the end I watched a recap and decided to make a new character as well. Turns out I remember almost nothing of the gameplay either (and, well, a lot of systems changed over time), and a fresh start feels right to get my bearings for now.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Ellye.9123

[Fueki.4753]

I've replied the personal story on all ten of my characters.

I've played each Living World Episode and each expansion story at least three times each.

 

Depending on your choices, you even get access to different backpack collections.

For example, depending on how you choose whether Amnoon stay independent or aligns with either the priesthood of Kormir or Joko's forces, you get access to a different backpack collection each, which reward ascended backpacks with unique skins.

I think that HoT had something similar.

 

Even if just for the extrinsic rewards, replaying the story definitely has value.

But in regards to intrinsic rewards, you are the only one who can decide for yourself, whether it's worth replaying or not.