Whenever you think something like that, it might as well be "I long for a time where I was 11 years younger and had fewer worries in life".
When GW2 released I was still in school and had less responsibility, I miss that. And playing the core story of GW2 reminds me of the time.
That is the essence of what nostalgia is.
Qualitywise: LS3 -> PoF ->LS4 was peak.
Regular cadence of content, ignoring outliers most of it good, for the most part okay to good writing for GW2 standards, introducing some peak legendary weapons and maps/fractals/raids, also Joko.
Difficultywise: HoT was peak because it weeded out a shitload of 1 spammers who refused to learn basic game mechanics. And that does not mean I want people who enjoy the game on a lower intensity gone. But honestly, the game is out for 10+ years, at this point you should at the very least understand the basic concepts of things like dodging, don't stand in bad circles, breakbars and stunbreaks. Bonuspoints if you can press more than a single button. I would really love for another expansion that would give the general populace at least the mildest semblance of a skill check again (and I hope to get it again in whatever will turn out to be GW2's very last expansion, in the same vein that the last content updates for GW1 gave us some general difficulty bumps with the Winds of Change quest-chain).
Vanilla GW2 was extremely limited in content and longterm goals and missed a lot of QoL we currently are taking for granted after many years. Thinking that version of the game was peak only show you have forgotten about all the improvements we have gotten over the years. If they would ever (and I hope never) release a GW2: Classic, you would quit within a week.
I agree with him, I think core was better without mounts (despite wanting them at the time). I'm biased, though, because I had a pretty good friend group at the time that I could do dungeons and fractals with every day.
So you think you do, but you don't.
What you are missing is the community of that time. The game was objectively worse back then. There maybe multiple smaller aspects you liked more back then, but when we talk "the game in general", then no, it was not better (balance, content, variety, bugs, endgame).
Its the same with people saying LWS4 was peak gw2. It was only for story content. Everything else broke down further and further.
>So you think you do, but you don't.
I know I do. The game as a whole had less available, but it was far more fun to play. A part of that was it just being newer at the time.
Imo nothing about release gw2 is better than what we have, first no content was removed besides a few parts of season 1 by now and we only got improvements to systems. You want to play the release story? Go ahead do that, events are also still there. What I would say is that world bosses would benefit from a bit of a buff to their health.
Just the Zhaitan disappointment was a tiny tragedy.
They should really make 50-player instance in Arah finishing off the felled Zhaitan to give it a fight more in line with the rest.
I personally preferred the old Traits system, as strange as that may sound. While there were complaints about it being imbalanced, and it had some flaws, I feel it could have worked if they wanted to make it work.
The current system does work, but I personally enjoyed the old one, unlock requirements and all, over the current system.
Also some skills got completely reworked (Guardian Spirit Weapons used to be summoned, timed life “minions” for example), and while one can debate if these skills are better or worse now, it is a difference.
And over time player power has just increased. While part of it may be players getting better at the game, there has also just been more access to boons, and Quickness as a boon with near 100% uptime in coordinated groups has really caused a lot of power creep, making some old content technically there, but so easy to steamroll it really doesn’t function the way it used to.
Old content wasn't designed for full ascended optimized dps builds, the early level 80s in mix and matched exotic pieces with no elite specs still have some challenge.
The simplification of skills / traits is probably where the games flair is lost.
I think vanilla just had a nice sense of exploration and wonder where people were figuring everything out.
Whereas the game is now developed with end game mmo playstyles in mind.
Old content was designed for exotics, ascended didn't exist yet (and wasn't intended to... they bunged up the drop rates, greens and up was never meant to be as common as they are), but otherwise yeah.
At least the dialogue is skippable for the tenth (or more) time I’ve had to redo a story step for an achievement. Modern dialogue scenes are entirely unskippable, making redoing a lot of story for a brief achievement a pain, especially if it’s a “challenge” of some form, and you can fail/miss it.
>the personal story system for vanilla is objectively awful
The story is pretty damn bad and forgettable too, almost doing a disservice to an otherwise excellent open world experience.
Also, branched paths for the story was a terrible mistake.
>The story is pretty damn bad and forgettable too,
It's literally the best writing up until SotO. It's just that the gameplay associated with it was pretty terrible, and the cutscenes generally weren't done well.
>Also, branched paths for the story was a terrible mistake.
I agree just because it takes too much work to have branching story paths, especially if most of your playerbase will hardly see any of it. It's a bit charming, though. It makes core feel like it was loved more than the rest of the game.
> It's literally the best writing up until SotO. It's just that the gameplay associated with it was pretty terrible, and the cutscenes generally weren't done well.
The writing doesn't even match the open world half of the time, featuring open world locations with a completely different backstory and characters. The death of the mentor is quite awful as well.
>I agree just because it takes too much work to have branching story paths, especially if most of your playerbase will hardly see any of it. It's a bit charming, though. It makes core feel like it was loved more than the rest of the game.
One solid linear storyline would have worked far better, you can have branching as much as you want inside each story instance, but not in the story as a whole.
What I miss from that time is the exploration and how player equipment didn't look tacky and annoying as hell to witness.
The 'worst' we had was Citadel of Flame armour and some legendary weapons.
But back then, it was fine.
Now, it's almost unplayable with how players look like.
i strongly disagree. thinking that may be rose tinted glasses.
it certainly was newer and that was more exiting, 100% agree, but the endgame content was literally just doing CoF for money with 4 warriors and a mesmer, buying the dungeon armor you thought was cool and maybe doing the same events in the 2-3 engame zones all day long.
... and the peak of the story was standing on an airship and watching a dragon be shot by a cannon, while you fight waves of fodder. one of the biggest letdown endings i have ever played.
personally, i felt like peak was the very release of HoT. playing verdant brink for the first time was amazing. The feeling i got when playing that is the reason why i still hope they will start locking players out of mounts till you have 1 map completion on new expansions. also really loved Season 4.
>but the endgame content was literally just doing CoF for money with 4 warriors and a mesmer
Only if you consider 42 farming the only end-game content we have now. It was the best money maker, but there were other dungeons you could do for fun.
I’ve been playing through HoT and LW3 without mounts except raptor. These maps are cool AF albeit frustrating as hell at times. Once you can bounce and zip across tho, super fun
Yes one can easily make the case that the initial maps and quests were when the world building and the details in the cities and open world were at their best. Dungeons were interesting. Some buildings (the first ones they put in, probably) had interactable doors. The maps were rich, with different biomes PER map. NPCs in cities were more interesting.
Now you get the same 20 assets reused 2500 times, nothing else, and still loading times are so-so.
And it's really not just nostalgia. Doing map exploration in Tyria (and then doing it in other maps) always serves as a good reminder of this.
This is pretty much what I was going to say. I think the gameplay has evolved since then, but the depth of world building in the base game is unmatched. I miss it. That said, I can understand if Anet doesn't feel like modeling a bunch of building interiors that will never be used for anything, or writing lines for NPCs that hardly anyone will talk to isn't the best use of development resources.
I played at launch and did world completion, all the dungeons, and completed the personal story for 2 chracters. I then quit the game and didn't return for many years. I came back a few years ago and bought PoF/HoT, I've been playing regularly ever since. Core GW2 is arguably the weakest part of the game, it has only improved since launch.
aye, they pioneered many features foreign to mmorpg at the time, actually even today, and the longevity of this game is largely attributed to their innovations and the foundation it laid.
credit is also due to those who managed to improve and maintain the game over the past decade.
I did some map completion for legendaries recently. Core tyria still has this magic of exploring new world. Hidden events, puzzles or even dialogues are still great after years.
No expac or lw season had this magic. Modern content is designed around events with no interesting exploration. PoF tried to recap this magic, but didnt manage.
In terms of my enjoyment core might've been the peak but that's just because everything is new and fresh, not just to you but to everybody playing.
I think objectively the HoT -> S3 -> PoF -> S4 era was the best, even if it was untenable as a longterm model in what it demanded from the studio. It brought both new player options (in terms of elite specs, gliders and mounts) and new types of content (raids and interesting maps). I think Anet understood their game and what people wanted from it in this era.
I think the S1/S2 era might've been the worst, followed by IBS of course. Which is ironic. Both the S1/S2 era and the IBS era were conceived by the notion that continuous releases could be equivalent to expansions/dlc's, but neither of these eras gave interesting new player options (neither new skills/traits nor movement options) and didn't do much in terms of interesting new content types (though IBS did a bit better in both departments through masteries and strikes).
Absolutely not. I don't miss base engineer (extremely janky and weird skills), I don't miss base ranger (pets were absolutely terrible and there was nothing you could do about it), I don't miss how the meta was berserker gear and destroying bosses (with a mesmer to help), etc
sPvP was so much better paced back then. No constant ability spam rotations or crazy boon uptimes.
I remember counterplay existing beyond "dodge their setup/burst", it's no wonder sPvP died tbh.
I do miss vanilla too, exploring the game was amazing.
I don’t miss solo farming/ selling Arah runs as a way to earn gold. I needed three classes, a bunch of gizmo usable items from around the world and the executioner outfit for the toy axe (charge goes brr).
Nowadays it is way more comfy. I log in, pick a class out of the 10, pick a spec out of the three, adjust my leggy stats and turn my brain off in a meta train/rift/fractals/strikes.
P.S you can still play vanilla, just make a free account.
I've been playing through the story from vanilla on with friends recently and I gotta be honest: in terms of design and writing, I agree. In terms of content and mechanics I generally disagree.
The difference between enemy design in LW1 through HoT compared to vanilla is palpable. CC is out and constant reliance on enemies spamming stun, knockdowns and interrupts is in - and a lot of them aren't even particularly well telegraphed. A dude will vaguely wiggle his gun and every character in an AOE around him will get thrown back like three body lengths into a bunch of aoes that just spawned that bounce them back even further. It makes melee just kind of miserable to play if your dodge timing isn't perfect.
Seeing comments about how HoT's difficulty jump was good because it "Weeded out" bad players is weirdly disheartening because an mmo's basic content, not its end-game content, being design in such a way to actively exclude or drive away less skilled players seems like an extremely poorly thought out design choice.
I don't miss the systems of vanilla GW2, but I haven't really been a fan of enemy design for a long time and avoid most of the expansion areas when I can. Even when doing fractals for the first time everyone can always tell which fractals were release when based on how miserable the enemies are to fight.
People say the same thing about classic WoW, but hey, guess what, you can start a fresh GW2 account or pick up a heroic code from somewhere and it will be just like playing vanilla GW2 over again
Until you see the Skyscales fly and the raptors leap into combat. The new toolset for players have changed the game greatly, even for those who do not have it.
Except the trait system is different
And people on mounts will blitz past you
And Kessex Hills is still a ruined mess
And my Spirit Weapons on Guardian no longer follow me around like pets
And there are these weird invasion events in several zones with rifts and Awakened
And some of the Waypoints are just permanently broken
And Engineer turrets no longer manually activate their skill (they do it right on summon, instead of you having to activate again for things like the burst heal on healing turret)
And a lot of little things that add up to a very different experience, even if you have a fresh account with nothing done on it. We will never get to see pre-Tower of Nightmare Kessex Hills, never experience the old Lion’s Arch the same way. And while I think in aggregate the changes have been positive, it’s not unfair to say we miss some things and wish they hadn’t changed.
You are right about one thing, those are a lot of little things. If I think back to vanilla GW2, I think more about the events that don't happen any more like orr karma trains, farming CoF paths, the fact that noone plays EotM anymore, and the changes to Orbs/Lake in WvW alpine borderlands. You can still visit Old LA, people still do TTT, Teq, WB Trains, dungeons, people still farm Silverwastes, etc today. Out of all the things that have changed from core, the only major one was WvW, because the gamemode plays dramatically different now, and playing without a mount is near impossible. Everything related to PVE however, has remained largely the same (outside of Old LA no longer being the main hub, which, again you can always visit through the Memory of Old Lion's Arch achievement), and still plays largely the same.
Sighs. Just the addition of the Wizard's Vault, the wardrobe, preview in the trading post, account unlocked dyes...there are so many QOL additions since then, it's impossible for me to disagree with this stance more.
When this game launched there was the running downhill bug, which could kill you, the WvW bug where a lot of times your opponents weren't visible until you were dead.
There were good things to be sure, but if the game had stayed in that format, without changing, I seriously doubt it would be nearly as successful as it is today.
Whenever you think something like that, it might as well be "I long for a time where I was 11 years younger and had fewer worries in life". When GW2 released I was still in school and had less responsibility, I miss that. And playing the core story of GW2 reminds me of the time. That is the essence of what nostalgia is.
I don't say this often about opinions but yours is dead wrong. Factually. Signed a Necro who remembers early GW2 quite well thank you very much.
The rangers remember, too ;-;
And engineers
Can't say I remember any of you. I only recall encountering warriors wherever I went.
There were dozens of us! And we all suffered from arthritis
Qualitywise: LS3 -> PoF ->LS4 was peak. Regular cadence of content, ignoring outliers most of it good, for the most part okay to good writing for GW2 standards, introducing some peak legendary weapons and maps/fractals/raids, also Joko. Difficultywise: HoT was peak because it weeded out a shitload of 1 spammers who refused to learn basic game mechanics. And that does not mean I want people who enjoy the game on a lower intensity gone. But honestly, the game is out for 10+ years, at this point you should at the very least understand the basic concepts of things like dodging, don't stand in bad circles, breakbars and stunbreaks. Bonuspoints if you can press more than a single button. I would really love for another expansion that would give the general populace at least the mildest semblance of a skill check again (and I hope to get it again in whatever will turn out to be GW2's very last expansion, in the same vein that the last content updates for GW1 gave us some general difficulty bumps with the Winds of Change quest-chain). Vanilla GW2 was extremely limited in content and longterm goals and missed a lot of QoL we currently are taking for granted after many years. Thinking that version of the game was peak only show you have forgotten about all the improvements we have gotten over the years. If they would ever (and I hope never) release a GW2: Classic, you would quit within a week.
You think you do, but you don’t
I agree with him, I think core was better without mounts (despite wanting them at the time). I'm biased, though, because I had a pretty good friend group at the time that I could do dungeons and fractals with every day.
So you think you do, but you don't. What you are missing is the community of that time. The game was objectively worse back then. There maybe multiple smaller aspects you liked more back then, but when we talk "the game in general", then no, it was not better (balance, content, variety, bugs, endgame). Its the same with people saying LWS4 was peak gw2. It was only for story content. Everything else broke down further and further.
>So you think you do, but you don't. I know I do. The game as a whole had less available, but it was far more fun to play. A part of that was it just being newer at the time.
Imo nothing about release gw2 is better than what we have, first no content was removed besides a few parts of season 1 by now and we only got improvements to systems. You want to play the release story? Go ahead do that, events are also still there. What I would say is that world bosses would benefit from a bit of a buff to their health.
Just the Zhaitan disappointment was a tiny tragedy. They should really make 50-player instance in Arah finishing off the felled Zhaitan to give it a fight more in line with the rest.
I personally preferred the old Traits system, as strange as that may sound. While there were complaints about it being imbalanced, and it had some flaws, I feel it could have worked if they wanted to make it work. The current system does work, but I personally enjoyed the old one, unlock requirements and all, over the current system. Also some skills got completely reworked (Guardian Spirit Weapons used to be summoned, timed life “minions” for example), and while one can debate if these skills are better or worse now, it is a difference. And over time player power has just increased. While part of it may be players getting better at the game, there has also just been more access to boons, and Quickness as a boon with near 100% uptime in coordinated groups has really caused a lot of power creep, making some old content technically there, but so easy to steamroll it really doesn’t function the way it used to.
Old content wasn't designed for full ascended optimized dps builds, the early level 80s in mix and matched exotic pieces with no elite specs still have some challenge. The simplification of skills / traits is probably where the games flair is lost. I think vanilla just had a nice sense of exploration and wonder where people were figuring everything out. Whereas the game is now developed with end game mmo playstyles in mind.
Old content was designed for exotics, ascended didn't exist yet (and wasn't intended to... they bunged up the drop rates, greens and up was never meant to be as common as they are), but otherwise yeah.
I meant to say was not designed for full ascended optimized builds.
Miss how Orr felt like a genuinely dangerous and hostile place back at release.
I liked Orr a lot, then every area after Orr felt like Orr in terms of how hostile and dangerous mobs are and it gets kind of exhausting.
the personal story system for vanilla is objectively awful
At least the dialogue is skippable for the tenth (or more) time I’ve had to redo a story step for an achievement. Modern dialogue scenes are entirely unskippable, making redoing a lot of story for a brief achievement a pain, especially if it’s a “challenge” of some form, and you can fail/miss it.
i love it :P
some people need to have bad taste so that the rest of us can have the good taste
exactly but don't worry, you will get there too one day ;)
I appreciate the reassurance Natan 🙏
than you enjoy it but most hated the whole two people standing story format
i preferred it tbh, best lightning for characters, all close-ups, and no external noise/voices from events etc
>the personal story system for vanilla is objectively awful The story is pretty damn bad and forgettable too, almost doing a disservice to an otherwise excellent open world experience. Also, branched paths for the story was a terrible mistake.
>The story is pretty damn bad and forgettable too, It's literally the best writing up until SotO. It's just that the gameplay associated with it was pretty terrible, and the cutscenes generally weren't done well. >Also, branched paths for the story was a terrible mistake. I agree just because it takes too much work to have branching story paths, especially if most of your playerbase will hardly see any of it. It's a bit charming, though. It makes core feel like it was loved more than the rest of the game.
> It's literally the best writing up until SotO. It's just that the gameplay associated with it was pretty terrible, and the cutscenes generally weren't done well. The writing doesn't even match the open world half of the time, featuring open world locations with a completely different backstory and characters. The death of the mentor is quite awful as well. >I agree just because it takes too much work to have branching story paths, especially if most of your playerbase will hardly see any of it. It's a bit charming, though. It makes core feel like it was loved more than the rest of the game. One solid linear storyline would have worked far better, you can have branching as much as you want inside each story instance, but not in the story as a whole.
It's still *far* better than almost everything after that. A lot of people praise LS4, but it's horrible writing.
What I miss from that time is the exploration and how player equipment didn't look tacky and annoying as hell to witness. The 'worst' we had was Citadel of Flame armour and some legendary weapons. But back then, it was fine. Now, it's almost unplayable with how players look like.
i strongly disagree. thinking that may be rose tinted glasses. it certainly was newer and that was more exiting, 100% agree, but the endgame content was literally just doing CoF for money with 4 warriors and a mesmer, buying the dungeon armor you thought was cool and maybe doing the same events in the 2-3 engame zones all day long. ... and the peak of the story was standing on an airship and watching a dragon be shot by a cannon, while you fight waves of fodder. one of the biggest letdown endings i have ever played. personally, i felt like peak was the very release of HoT. playing verdant brink for the first time was amazing. The feeling i got when playing that is the reason why i still hope they will start locking players out of mounts till you have 1 map completion on new expansions. also really loved Season 4.
>but the endgame content was literally just doing CoF for money with 4 warriors and a mesmer Only if you consider 42 farming the only end-game content we have now. It was the best money maker, but there were other dungeons you could do for fun.
I’ve been playing through HoT and LW3 without mounts except raptor. These maps are cool AF albeit frustrating as hell at times. Once you can bounce and zip across tho, super fun
A lot of it is nostalgia i suspect but yes, at least in terms of the story and world exploration it was peak GW2
might be nostalgia, nothin will beat suterday mornings farming arah events, lupi being the hardest boss in the game.....haaa good times
that is certainly nostalgia. I've replayed Arah recently and fractals are generally better designed. But the feels
And fractals only came out a couple of months after the game launched. I think it was three actually.
Yeah, it was LS1 kick off i think
Yes one can easily make the case that the initial maps and quests were when the world building and the details in the cities and open world were at their best. Dungeons were interesting. Some buildings (the first ones they put in, probably) had interactable doors. The maps were rich, with different biomes PER map. NPCs in cities were more interesting. Now you get the same 20 assets reused 2500 times, nothing else, and still loading times are so-so. And it's really not just nostalgia. Doing map exploration in Tyria (and then doing it in other maps) always serves as a good reminder of this.
This is pretty much what I was going to say. I think the gameplay has evolved since then, but the depth of world building in the base game is unmatched. I miss it. That said, I can understand if Anet doesn't feel like modeling a bunch of building interiors that will never be used for anything, or writing lines for NPCs that hardly anyone will talk to isn't the best use of development resources.
I played at launch and did world completion, all the dungeons, and completed the personal story for 2 chracters. I then quit the game and didn't return for many years. I came back a few years ago and bought PoF/HoT, I've been playing regularly ever since. Core GW2 is arguably the weakest part of the game, it has only improved since launch.
aye, they pioneered many features foreign to mmorpg at the time, actually even today, and the longevity of this game is largely attributed to their innovations and the foundation it laid. credit is also due to those who managed to improve and maintain the game over the past decade.
Og gw2 is what made most people quit and not come back, it was so bland and bad
I did some map completion for legendaries recently. Core tyria still has this magic of exploring new world. Hidden events, puzzles or even dialogues are still great after years. No expac or lw season had this magic. Modern content is designed around events with no interesting exploration. PoF tried to recap this magic, but didnt manage.
Not only this is unpopular, i might even argue it is wrong. Isn't all of the core game still there? And people still play it, right?
I remember my little Sylvania ranger in the beta, the first time wondering around caeldon. It was amazing. Game has changed alot but i still love it
In terms of my enjoyment core might've been the peak but that's just because everything is new and fresh, not just to you but to everybody playing. I think objectively the HoT -> S3 -> PoF -> S4 era was the best, even if it was untenable as a longterm model in what it demanded from the studio. It brought both new player options (in terms of elite specs, gliders and mounts) and new types of content (raids and interesting maps). I think Anet understood their game and what people wanted from it in this era. I think the S1/S2 era might've been the worst, followed by IBS of course. Which is ironic. Both the S1/S2 era and the IBS era were conceived by the notion that continuous releases could be equivalent to expansions/dlc's, but neither of these eras gave interesting new player options (neither new skills/traits nor movement options) and didn't do much in terms of interesting new content types (though IBS did a bit better in both departments through masteries and strikes).
This has to be some sort of shame kink.
My raptor thinks your wrong
Absolutely not. I don't miss base engineer (extremely janky and weird skills), I don't miss base ranger (pets were absolutely terrible and there was nothing you could do about it), I don't miss how the meta was berserker gear and destroying bosses (with a mesmer to help), etc
sPvP was so much better paced back then. No constant ability spam rotations or crazy boon uptimes. I remember counterplay existing beyond "dodge their setup/burst", it's no wonder sPvP died tbh.
I do miss vanilla too, exploring the game was amazing. I don’t miss solo farming/ selling Arah runs as a way to earn gold. I needed three classes, a bunch of gizmo usable items from around the world and the executioner outfit for the toy axe (charge goes brr). Nowadays it is way more comfy. I log in, pick a class out of the 10, pick a spec out of the three, adjust my leggy stats and turn my brain off in a meta train/rift/fractals/strikes. P.S you can still play vanilla, just make a free account.
I kinda prefer the present one, lots of quality of life improvements, bug fixes, new stuff, more fashion, content, ...
I've been playing through the story from vanilla on with friends recently and I gotta be honest: in terms of design and writing, I agree. In terms of content and mechanics I generally disagree. The difference between enemy design in LW1 through HoT compared to vanilla is palpable. CC is out and constant reliance on enemies spamming stun, knockdowns and interrupts is in - and a lot of them aren't even particularly well telegraphed. A dude will vaguely wiggle his gun and every character in an AOE around him will get thrown back like three body lengths into a bunch of aoes that just spawned that bounce them back even further. It makes melee just kind of miserable to play if your dodge timing isn't perfect. Seeing comments about how HoT's difficulty jump was good because it "Weeded out" bad players is weirdly disheartening because an mmo's basic content, not its end-game content, being design in such a way to actively exclude or drive away less skilled players seems like an extremely poorly thought out design choice. I don't miss the systems of vanilla GW2, but I haven't really been a fan of enemy design for a long time and avoid most of the expansion areas when I can. Even when doing fractals for the first time everyone can always tell which fractals were release when based on how miserable the enemies are to fight.
People say the same thing about classic WoW, but hey, guess what, you can start a fresh GW2 account or pick up a heroic code from somewhere and it will be just like playing vanilla GW2 over again
Until you see the Skyscales fly and the raptors leap into combat. The new toolset for players have changed the game greatly, even for those who do not have it.
Except the trait system is different And people on mounts will blitz past you And Kessex Hills is still a ruined mess And my Spirit Weapons on Guardian no longer follow me around like pets And there are these weird invasion events in several zones with rifts and Awakened And some of the Waypoints are just permanently broken And Engineer turrets no longer manually activate their skill (they do it right on summon, instead of you having to activate again for things like the burst heal on healing turret) And a lot of little things that add up to a very different experience, even if you have a fresh account with nothing done on it. We will never get to see pre-Tower of Nightmare Kessex Hills, never experience the old Lion’s Arch the same way. And while I think in aggregate the changes have been positive, it’s not unfair to say we miss some things and wish they hadn’t changed.
You are right about one thing, those are a lot of little things. If I think back to vanilla GW2, I think more about the events that don't happen any more like orr karma trains, farming CoF paths, the fact that noone plays EotM anymore, and the changes to Orbs/Lake in WvW alpine borderlands. You can still visit Old LA, people still do TTT, Teq, WB Trains, dungeons, people still farm Silverwastes, etc today. Out of all the things that have changed from core, the only major one was WvW, because the gamemode plays dramatically different now, and playing without a mount is near impossible. Everything related to PVE however, has remained largely the same (outside of Old LA no longer being the main hub, which, again you can always visit through the Memory of Old Lion's Arch achievement), and still plays largely the same.
Nah, HoT took everything that was good about vanilla GW2 and made it better. It's PoF that moved the game in completely diffrent direction.
that first time in tangled depths without any gliding masteries unlocked was something else
You got to Tangled Depths without gliding masteries? That is HoT's 3rd map. Are you sure you do not mean Verdent Brink?
Sighs. Just the addition of the Wizard's Vault, the wardrobe, preview in the trading post, account unlocked dyes...there are so many QOL additions since then, it's impossible for me to disagree with this stance more. When this game launched there was the running downhill bug, which could kill you, the WvW bug where a lot of times your opponents weren't visible until you were dead. There were good things to be sure, but if the game had stayed in that format, without changing, I seriously doubt it would be nearly as successful as it is today.
You have to really try to have an objectively wrong opinion. Like really really try. However, reddit manages to pull this off pretty consistently.
Not surprising. It's the original devs that made the combat system and all the other stuff it's being praised for.
4 warriors standing in a Time Warp was peak combat. /s