The thing the "trying GW2 in 2023" creators miss out on is that between most episodes in the LW story, there are weeks where we grind the map repeatable content, and that content was the most rewarding thing to do at the time, so it wasn't a big deal for players of that time to play those 20mins waiting for the story conditions to be fulfilled.
As a WoW player, it's easier to stomach/understand the Elder Dragon design if you think of them more as this series' Old Gods rather than something more akin to the Dragon Aspects or your typical fantasy dragon archetype
Yes, but also if he is skipping world bosses he has missing The Shatterer, Tequatl, and Claw of Jormag, which are the BIG DRAGON FIGHTS he's looking for.
HoT was absolutely one of the best "venturing in an unknown, uncharted land" experiences I've ever had in ANY MMO. By far its still my favourite expansion and the zones for the expansion were some of the best designed, with so much verticality and exploration to do
I hope Mike plays through the zones of HoT and does the meta-events as he finishes the story journal. The big zone events tell a big part of the story and have some of the best events in the game.
I personally loved HoT zones! I love challenging overworld content... coming from ESO where everything just dies to your very aura... GW2 has been so refreshing in giving me potential death around every corner :P I absolutely love trying to solo the repeatable hero challenge bosses in HoT zones. The verticality of the zones is amazing too! Although I definitely got frustrated trying to figure out how to navigate to certain places... 100%ing the zone wasn't a smooth experience... but even so... HoT zones have been some of my favorites. Trying to solo those group hero challenges though is giving me the feeling like i'm playing elden ring... but it's an mmo? something like that.... maybe I'm just loving the challenge and throwing myself at it and dying lol..... anyways- Cheers!
@@Jinny-Wa agreed, when it came out the difficulty made people cooparete for all the tasks. They organised groups for metas and HP-s and basically everything and people are still doing it to this date. Exactly because of that reason it felt like you are really fighting for survival and not just running around pressing 1 button to kill everything.
the scritt tunnels are locked by a player triggered event, you don't have to wait, you just go over there, start killing bandits until the boss spawns, kill him, and that unlocks the tunnels. Most people actually don't realize this and think they need to map-hop. the upper right hand corner of the zone is the scritt area and just go there and kill until the boss pops.
@@mattyoung9146 I dunno, FF14 has entire dungeons gating it's story progression at pretty regular intervals, so a rather easy open world boss kill that you just go and do solo if you want doesn't seem that big a deal to me. Now you could make a point that it could be more obvious *what* to do, but the process of doing it is cake relative to other games I've played with storyline gates.
@@arkanaloth2617A dungeon is something you just queue for. That doesn’t really gate anything. Also the story of the dungeon is usually part of the story of the msq. This is more like “to progress this msq, you must complete a fate.” and that fate spawns ona timer or based on killing certain mobs. So you have to wait or go do this arbitrary thing.
@@omegaxtrigun yeah it definitely could be implemented better. There's definitely an expectation that you explore maps and interact with the world as you go, which works great for players like me and helps me feel immersed, but it's not for everyone. Even without removing it, they could at least signpost it better so story focused players would be less confused. I'm kind of dreading how he'll feel about HoT. I already felt the impact of this in his core playthrough, beelining from instance to instance made it feel way different than mine which was interesting. I feel HoT is even worse for this, the story is so short on its own and doing the metas adds so much context. But again, they have this expectation that you WILL be playing the maps, but they don't want to force players to do it or lock progression (like what happened here).
I loved Heart of Thorns too, except for the Tangled Depths. That map and the limitations of the GW2 map made navigating around a nightmare. By far it was my least favorate zone, perhaps in the whole game, so far.
The story hits differently according to your previous experiences. As Mike guessed, Rytlock as well as the statue fight mean more to you when you play a Charr yourself (for those never having played a Charr, the catacomb with the statue is the first tutorial boss fight and where you lose your fist squad who are also all your childhood friends). I for my part was a Sylvary from the beginning, with all the mystery of being a whole race not older than 20years. Revealing their origin in that cave scene was quite impactful to me
I like the tease that the Shadow of Mordremoth is actually the dragon you fight in the Sylvari tutorial. I just wished ANet didn't miss the opportunity to mention that your Wyld Hunt was actually misinterpreted, that instead of killing Zhaitan your Wyld Hunt is you killing Mordremoth and thus freeing the whole Sylvari race.
Heart of Thorns (HoT) is peak GW2 at least in terms of map design. The verticality, complexity, explorability, and jumping-puzzle-ability of HoT maps is just off the charts in HoT. One of the most fun things to do is figure out the hidden ways of getting up into the high forest canopy of the Verdant Brink map (first HoT map). Can’t wait till you get to that and start making vids on it!
Verdant Brink almost broke me. Now that I have a Griffon, I love it, but just gliding and running through mob-infested narrow paths and trying to navigate 3D with a 2D map was crushingly annoying he first time through.
HoT maps are excruciatingly bad if you don't have a chat to guide you through them and no masteries to make your life easier. There's a reason people to this day complain about and want those zones to be redesigned. You have to grind ground events in Verdant Brink, which basically no one does anymore so you get your first few glider masteries. And doing those events SOLO while then barred from actually participating in the rewarding boss fights is just annoying. Or at release remember how many people fell to their deaths in Auric Basin as their glider mastery was too low, but at the time just letting you fall and open the glider in the last minute more often than not resulted in death before ANet actually went and changed the netcode. HoT on release was terrible, and if you're going there now for the first time with a fresh account, without doing other bits to get the mounts first, is still terrible. Edit: keep in mind a new player usually wont have an at least 15k dps build, and even with nerfs a lot of players still die solo in HoT because of it.
Every time those skritt tunnels are inaccessible it means the mission to make them accessible again IS active. There's a spot you have to go to on the map to clear out some bandits. If the tunnels are closed it means the bandits ARE there and as soon as you clear them the tunnels open again. You don't have to wait for anything unless you just want to wait for somebody else to clear the bandits for you.
~ 5:19 without really spoiling (as you already pretty much noticed the theme behind the Elder Dragons), there´s a distinct reason why the Elder Dragons (Note: they´re Elder! Dragons. Not just any Dragons or some kind of Dragon-Like Creatures) are designed that way. The Elder Dragons are all assigned to one specific Domain of Magic that is represented in the Eternal Alchemy (pretty much what scarlet discovered during LWS 1), so you already defeated the Elder Dragon that was assigned to the domain of "death" (aka Zhaitan). Obviously, as you can clearly see from the visuals that represent the eternal alchemy, there are more domains of magic out there, which makes it pretty obvious that there are Elder Dragons sleeping out there in Tyria (as at this point of time, only the destruction of the Ley-Line in Lions Arch, and the death of Zhaitan, the released magic from the "domain of death" woke up Mordremoth, the jungle dragon) As i hear you commenting on how you imagine Dragons: well, that may be true to the "average" dragon, but this is NOT the case for Elder Dragons. Elder Dragons are primordial beings, that are deeply connected to their domain of magic. They´re better described as "natural disasters" that are deeply connected to the world itself (it´s hard to describe without spoiling anything, it will make sense the more you get into the later parts of the lore). 11:26 this is basically what Living World is all about. The biggest thing about Living World is, that it connects each expansion, or rather: it creates the path going from one expansion to the next. This does NOT mean that there won´t be new "villains", and it does ESPECIALLY NOT mean that they´re not important. In fact you can view Living World more as "expansion-like" content, just without new specializations. And they are (story-wise) just as important as Expansions (and as a small teasing hint: we have more Elder Dragons than the game has expansions. I think i don´t have to say more than that). ~14:41 in this case, it often helps to limit the framerate. The engine is over 10 years after all, and there´s still stuff left in the game that is related to the DirecX 9 -compatibility. And while DX9 will be removed, until the process is complete this still indirectly limits the game unfortunately. Once the transition is complete though, we can expect improvements (as ANet won´t have to take care of basically 2 Graphics-engines anymore). What often helps is to actually cap your FPS to 60FPS (you won´t need more than that in an MMO anyway). 17:45 well..... i would not call Living World "optional for story", because (as you already correctly expierienced), it contains important story-relevant stuff. While yes, Living World Season 2 is probably one of the least interesting or important chapters (i personally think that LWS1 is even more important for some context), at this point of time you probably don´t understand the importants of (at least some) the events you witnessed (yet). But i can assure you: it WILL become important later on and i can only encourage you to keep going through the story in order, and not to skip anything. (In fact, you are already taking the first steps towards some essential characters of the latest expansion (End of Dragons). You just don´t really know why, or who i am referencing here, for now). Also, the later Living World episodes will be WAY more on the impactful story-parts than what you expierienced so far.
I'm surprised about all the bugs you've experienced to be honest. I've done the storyline of the game up to the latest expansion (Which I still haven't played) with 3 different characters, and I encountered very few bugs. So it is surprising to me that the community says that there are a lot of bugs.
I have disconnect issues in story instances specifically all the time, none of the fixes really seem to improve it, though playing with a VPN helps reduce it. There's also currently a broken story instance for everyone in LW4 that is impossible to complete without bypassing it with a skyscale. It's been that way for about 3 weeks now.
Season 2 has been repeatedly fixed and then broken by further updates that would bring back those bugs. There's a common bug that kept going in and out in the Tangled Depths Labyrinth instance where your A.I. would break and just follow you when they're supposed to help you with the troll fight in it. This made that instance downright awful back in Core Tyria, pre-expansions, because it basically meant it took way too long, and it has a 20 minute completion achievement.
I've been kicked out of long story instances over and over :( but I fixed this issue by simply having my vpn on when playing gw2... for some reason that fixes it?
there are a lot of bugs, they are just not 100% reproducible. also Anet has a spaghetti code so subsequent updates to the game can easily broke something unrelated in whole different part of the game
Glad to hear you're loving the game. When you jump into HoT be sure to do the Verdant Brink (first zone) night meta event. It's fun and it's a great way to get a full set of exotic stat selectable armor.
It's exciting to hear you're enjoying yourself considering the content you've played, the best is yet to come for sure. Heart of Thorns has some great moments in the story but probably the best part (for me) are the maps, meta events and the introduction of raids. It really takes off from here and I can't wait to see how you feel about the game going forward!
Can't wait for your jurney to HoT. People either loved the expansion or complained about it,it being frustrating and what not, but for me it was the peak of any MMORPG. Truly challenging and interesting open world content. After all, that's the first thing people think about when you say MMO. Big open world, with a lot of people in it, and GW2 took that to another level with HoT.
Your recent look into GW2 encouraged me to come back after 3 years since I'm burnt out from other MMO's, thanks :) Looking forward to trying out many more classes & characters, as well as more content
Mouth of Mordremoth meta fight is so epic. Blew my mind the first time I did it. I just did it a few more times recently for the new legendary weapons and it still hold up really well as an epic fight from 9 years ago. One great thing about horizontal progression is that all these old zones are filled with life and active players. They keep adding optional achievements like legendary skins that gets you to complete collections in older contents and breaths more life to all parts of the game despite of when they came out.
I'm glad you're doing living world seasons. I skipped ahead to expansions and it was actually a really jarring experience. I'm going back and doing living world and it explains so much. It also has a lot of maps and gameplay that you won't experience with the base game.
Rytlock went from being one of those 'so he is a character...' characters in guild wars... To a badass very notable hero from HoT and onwards. I can't wait to see preachs reaction to him in the future. Season 4 is still absolutely stellar, and I'm looking even more forward to that !!
I'm excited to see what he thinks of HoT and LWS4, too! LWS3 and PoF are good too, but MAN, I can't wait for him to see LWS4! That story was like the WotLK of GW2!
nice vid, and what ever some might say, i would 100% encourage you to play through the living world season's to see both the high's and lows but also to get the story they built which is one of the big things in gw2 that keeps me getting back to the game
GW2 made the mistake at the beginning of putting some of its backstory into a novel rather than in the game. It’s not a huge deal since you get a new team of friends later on that are really more your squad than the previous group, but the fact that some of Caithe’s backstory is hidden there doesn’t help here. She and Faolin were an item, and it takes her some time to get past that relationship once she realizes Faolin is lost to the Nightmare. That’s why she turns on the other sylvari rather than hurt her lover.
Nice video. I remember the end of the beta testing. They did a great event where players who died got corrupted and basically came after you, untill you died yourself and joined them hunting the remaining players. This was for us a goodbye to our betta characters, who got deleted afterwards (got corrupted so it makes sense)
Regarding the skritt's tunnels: to open them you just need to go the part of the map where there are a lot bandits taking control of the site and kill them off, not really hard to do tbh, and then the tunnels are opened up. I think the skritts even tell the player something along the lines of "bandits have taken control of important locations so we closed the tunnels" or something like that. Been enjoying your videos btw, nice work!
Whenever he gets around to playing HoT, someone should tell him to experience the meta-events of the maps, specifically the last map. Just playing the story quests is not enough to fully enjoy the expansion.
13:04 yeah... there was a time Guild wars 2 was called Bug wars 2 lol And about that... I heard Teapot say they've tried to fix those bugs but then more bugs were created by that fixing... so they eventually give up :( Thank you for the vid Preach. Loving to listen to your thought ;D And... I'm excited also terrified to wait and see your journey in HoT ;p
I've been following your journey through Tyria, and I can't wait for you to start Heart of Thorns! It has some of my favorite game mechanics and extremely good music.
Yea I definitely had that "get good" moment. I'm happy it happened though as it forced me to learn how to play better, gear up properly and equip useful skills
I've been going through the story of GW2, and if you don't give a damn about the plot I understand the desire to skip LW and get on with it, but there are so much context and character introductions/developments you're missing out on. It's the biggest problem I had with getting my raptor. As soon as I hit 80, hopped into Path of Fire, saw all of these characters I'm supposed to be familiar with, and blitz through the story until I get my Raptor and then turn right back around again to finish off Orr. It was a miserable experience and when I tried to bring it up in chat in Lion's Arch it was nothing but name calling, accusations of being a troll, or dismissals of "why is it a problem? Who cares about the story, lol?" It bothered me so much I set the game aside for months and ended up levelling a new character through the Personal Story to then take through LW, and I had the benefit of my Raptor for the entire way through.
OH! And I actually remember hitting 80 and trying to figure out the mastery system, wanting to avoid wasting XP because my bar was full. For ages I could not find a straight answer online because so many youtube videos and forum posts at the time explained how it worked, sure, but not how to start on it, even Centra Tyria. Until searching for answers in game revealed that I had to take a step into an expansion to unlock masteries for Central Tyria. I don't know what it is about this game and trying to pry straight forward answers out of people. It had been so long I forgot the order of events. Stepped into HoT, unlocked masteries and glider. Stepped into PoF, got the raptor. Voiced my discontent with how that all works, mocked for it, set the game aside for over a year.
you now get the raptor at level 10 or 20, without doing PoF if you have the paid-for version of the game (you get a temporary license otherwise), so this issue should be mitigated. (I had the same issue as you) But y'know, it goes without saying: don't expect too much reasonable commentary from any city-afkers, regardless of the game.
@@Warhammerdude299 I think its really hard for someone who experienced content as it released to understand how that content would look to a new player experiencing it as just a thing you can do in the game and not the most recent thing added. Personally I havent played in years but I played during HoT launch so obviously my account just unlocked the Masteries instantly by doing normal stuff. I would've sworn you just get them on lv80 because that would make sense. Obviously this doesnt excuse people being rude to someone just asking a question.
I like the fact you cant progress unless the meta events are completed although i understand the frustration/confusion. The rat tunnel area mentioned is a endgame event thats still relevant to players today and has 24/7 grps running
I hope you keep doing these. Do the whole story...HoT living world S3, PoF, S4, S5 aka Icebrood, EoD The story is just going to get better and better. Yes..sure..there are some weird moments but overall its great
I think Mike should do the big meta events as he progresses through the HoT story. Get a good group together to give him a slight hand through the process. As a new player going in blind is a bit confusing for the meta events.
7:15 months later, Jory eventually crafted a legendary greatsword and salvaged the sister/sword for crafting materials. Either that or got to PoF and ditched Reaper for Scourge. Rip Belindablade. Edit 8:43 Oh btw, Trehearne is also a necromancer who wields a Greatsword. You could say he was also a hint for the Reaper elite spec.
The really awesome thing with LW2/HoT is how intimately tied to the plot they Sylvari are, and that it directly relates back to you if you play a Sylvari commander. Like, the Shadow of the Dragon? If you haven’t played Sylvari you wouldn’t know, but it’s actually a recurring boss - it was the area boss for the Sylvari starting instance, like the wurm Issormir is for the Norn instance. So if you play “The World Summit” as a Sylvari, the Pale Tree directly calls out that “you know it from your Dream.” And the book that mentions its attack in the “Hidden Arcana” also mentions you by name. And that’s not even getting into all the things in the actual HoT content that are unique to playing a Sylvari commander.
Ye, there is a fair few of small bugs. It's an incredibly complex world system they're using and they have incredible tech (their servers have virtually never been down in the entire game's life) but on the flipside little glitches can be left if it's not related to the immediacy of professions etc.
I was there when HoT was released. We were so full of confidence, we did not have any builds at the time other than full exotic berserker glass cannon DPS. We defeated Zhaitan and Scarlet's armies, and we conquered Orr. We thought there was nothing Maguma jungle could throw at us that we would not be able to just grind down with power DPS spam. We were so very wrong, HoT launch was a massacre of players. We had to rethink the way we played GW2, first tanking builds were created, condition builds became a must. Many players including myself gave up and quit the game.
@@mpales9431 For me as a new player, back in 2017 HoT was absolutely blast along with LW2. When i got to PoF it was a huge disappointment, Core 2.0 and i quit the game for many years
I don't know how you do it Mike, but you've encountered more bugs since you started playing than I have in over ten years now. I think it's a skill you can put on your CV. :D
Firstly, has he not done the OG Shatterer or the claw of Jormag? Second, I'm proud to say i one shot the Shadow dragon in that story instance Preach! Guardian op
The skriit tunnels problem for anyone having that problem as far as i know by experience is related to a single event, related to bandits, the tunnels get closed everytime that event is going, is an event thats accessed by going by the north path and then right to the cave, when you finish that little easy event the tunnels get open again.
The living world episodes are getting even better. You are in for a treat when you reach LW3, and LW4 after the PoF expansion is the peak. Also, do the masteries they are a really fun experience and are eventually required for the Legendary rings.
i hope people see preachs gw2 content and ends up giving it a go i returned to gw2 before seeing this and its rather nice seeing others enjoying it ive played guild wars over brackets of time since the base game i joined guild wars around 2014
A big change prior to HoT that you kind of "had to be there" for was they revamped the way conditions were applied. In the base game, it was never optimal to play a condition build because damaging conditions like bleeds didn't stack, so they only ticked for small amounts of damage. Just before HoT, they added the current condition stacking mechanics and actively incentived players to play condition builds by adding enemies that would resist strike damage, which is why you saw enemies in season 2 with the "Tough Bark" trait
you are correct about the large amount of characters, this gets even larger as you play different races and each of the 3 backgrounds for each race (arenanet learned their leason in the end); some of these characther make sense and are loved , vets know them since we had months to go over the content saldy you wont enjoy the true living world as it evolved over time but you will still see characters youve met during Tyria, some you wont recognize since youi have only done 1 race,1 personal story. dont recommend going back and doing all zones and stories, but I do recommend to keep in mind what you have learned about GW2 vanilla and that others/new forget, each zone tells its story and has their own charaters; moving forward, speacially in HoT, I recommend doing story and before the next chapter takes you in the the next zone for you to do the meta of that zone (nice if you do all events) but meta is sufficient to get a better understanding and if you can, alwayus do the last meta map before the last chapter (not requiered but In a way, you are missing content. ). Later you can see how arenanet tries to re-invent the wheel again. FYI, dont get frustrated with the jungle its great but hard to get GPS signal down there
I hope you're able to stumble upon the pvp . I discovered it about 2 years ago and still really rave about it and believe someone can play just the pvp and enjoy your time (and even gear your player) which is what I did although I did end up finding my way to the story. I would recommend, even if you would like to play with 5 that are also new to pvp, to have 1 veteran player outside of the group to give to tips on setting up ur player and maybe vague tips to help understand the objectives. glad ur enjoying gw2!
It's nice to hear a fresh perspective on this franchise. A lot of us played it since vanilla GW1, and certain opinions are just talking points that were regurgitated for years.
I probably missed a comment about this, but all the living world episodes are free if you are logged in when it comes out for the first time. It then becomes purchasable down the line if you miss the "release date" for each episode. So yes it's optional content, but it's also very accessible because it's initially free.
I kinda wiiiish the game was a bit more clear that the Living World isn't "optional" if you're into the story. They aren't filler to hold you over or whatever. Went to expansions always finding people that seemed very important and always went with no introduction. What do you mean hot milf has a son? And I know him? What happened to you Rytlock? Are you BLIND? Who is this tiny girl with a golem that seems to be 100% my best bud? Well now I know better and plan to come back to all the story in order with a new character but I just think it was a liiiiittle bit odd and confusing at the time. lol
Not sure you'll see this, but something to consider is that the Journal doesn't do all the big bosses and story beats. At the very least, do the "map meta" events on each story block's final maps. Like Dragon's Stand in Heart of Thorns, that has a *real* dragon fight against Mordremoth.
Actually the concept called living world ended after the original run of season one. It was called living story after that because there was no more changing open world elements. Instead it was always a new map plus some story parts. The name living world only returned when Anet started to sell the full package coinciding with the Steam release. The few events that got added to existing open world maps are called "side stories". You can find them under your achievements tab.
In regards to the bugs, you realize after playing something like this how much Blizzards large team helps them get through bugs. I know the Wow community never thinks anything happens fast enough but, when you see a smaller MMO have bugs for years and years, it puts things into perspective a bit.
If you've ever had Smilax in your backyard, you understand the terror of the Mordremoth vines. It's an invasive (at least where I live), thorny vine that grows scarily fast, and can spring up anywhere from an extensive root system. Actually terrifying how fast they grow and how out-of-control they can become in a short period of time. And the thorns on the big ones are no joke. Come to think of it, Smilax is a pretty good name for a dragon.
Your take on GW2 Dragons is breaking my heart. I can't wait for you to experience all of the dragons, they are pretty exciting in general when you understand the lore concepts as to what dragons are for the world.
@@UA-camChillZone Literally every other MMOs out there actually give a fuck about lore. FF14, GW2, ESO, SWTOR, etc... They all put effort into a having a good story and good lore. Stop taking WoW idea of storytelling and thinking that's the standard.
I really hope you get stuck into the map meta events during heart of thorns. They are so much fun and really help tell the story of the zones. I still do Octovine daily because of the loot and map chat banter. Was slightly disappointed you didn't do the silverwastes meta, really fun intro to meta events
When preach said “this is a really good moment”, as he was watching an emotional scene, I was waiting for someone to quip and drop a tone death joke like “well that just happened”. I’ve been conditioned by modern mainstream writers to expect stupid stuff like that, lol.
The frame rate thing is due to a bug that causes respawnable items to keep respawning even when they already exist. They just stack up and overlap and there are like...hundreds of them that the engine is rendering, even though you can't see them all. There was a cave in the base game for a couple years that had this issue with some bombs and it was practically unplayable in there.
The dragons, as an example of why they're so important, are basically the balance of magic in Tyria. Without spoiling too much, the commander actually has to deal with what happens when you kill the magic life of Tyria aka the dragons later on
I'm so happy he made it to HoT, that's where the game really picks up in my opinion. That's where it really cemented for me as I game I'll always like.
If you're impressed now and haven't stepped foot in HoT prepare to be giddy, even though it has some really annoying features it's probably one of the best world experiences out there. 😄
@@chilliewhk cmon, the pocket raptor experience is honestly magical, it wouldnt be the same without tiny raptors tearing you apart in 0.1 seconds, kinda wish they didnt nerf them, they were so much more brutal back in the day
I'm not sure if your chat has tried to clarify this for you or not yet but... When the optional Living World sessions go live they were/are free if you had or do log in while they are "current" the only reason you have had to pay for them is that your account was not logged in while you would have been able to claim it for free on your account. The reason that many were likely trying to get you to skip them was to avoid paying for something that would have been free if you had played years ago that is re-capped in the videos later maybe? On the plus side...even should you not be at the location where any new living world seasons are taking place now...if you have logged in while they are actively "current" they will be free on your account for all characters. Loving this series you are on... your remarks are valid and honest and I honestly hope ANet does take note.
1:35 that's why they originally called it "Living World" because they weren't adding new zones but adding content to old zones instead. Once they made the shift to adding new zones instead of changing old ones, they may as well have ditched the "living world" monicre altogether and just called it DLC.
I'm looking forward to coverage of Preach stumbling his way through the verticality of the HOT maps. the first run though tangled depths usually has this "WTF" moment for a lot of players
Turn on your action camera go to key binds and see what it is bound to makes combat very nice not having to hold right mouse button constantly to turn your character really well worth it you can toggle on and off if you want to go into a menu or something i use it when i fight .
without spoilers mordremoth fight is at the end of the expancion but since its a map event you can go and do it even if you didn't do the story.(is on the last map, im telling you so you don't do it by accident) the fight is much much better but you need a lot of players to do it
Guild Wars 2 has really hammered one lesson for me: that I really suck at GW2. I was doing a scenario quest the other day where I did a series of bosses that just instantly one shot me, so I stayed dead and let the NPCs handle it, which is very, very VERY slow. So after almost 2 hours I got to the last boss, he was at 10% health, jumped on a tiny ledge, got stuck and no one could hit him (including me). Only thing I could do is log out... Logged in and saw I had to start all over again... Yep, haven't logged back in since. I've found the community is amazing, but outside of base game is a horrible solo experience.
For those who don't know, Living World were not off the bat paid content. If you logged in during the time each chapter was released, it was given to you for free, but after a certain point it becomes something you have to pay for. As for what makes you return to the LW maps... not much for LWS1. But 2, 3, 4, and 5 (Icebrood Saga) are exceptionable meta event farmable maps. LWS2 Silverwastes is still one of the most profitable maps in the game to this day. S3 for unbound magic currency, S4 for volatile magic (both of which gets you gold), S5 for eternal ice shards (which can get you more volatile magic or ascended trinkets) - S5/IBS also introduces one of the more profitable maps right now (Drizzlewood Coast). Not to mention the gear drops that are also sellable. LWS4 also introduces 2 additional mounts you can not acquire without playing it. The story ain't too shabby either, esp 3 and 4 (but 2 holds a special place in my heart as someone who plays mostly Sylvari - playing a priory sylvari character through s2-HOT was one of the most rewarding lore experiences I have had in any game ever).
about the bugs : apparently, some of the code in the game is like 25 years old, so basically, it's a mess in there and no one wants to touch it because it's quite hard to fix
Mike dont worry, you will get your big dragon fights later on story, especially after path of fire. BTW explore core Tyria content, it has 3 big dragon fights as open world events. I highly reccomend you to try world bosses on central map. And also you can already start your first legendary journey, it will be painfull first time, but self made legendary item through pain and agony of giga-grind is so delicious, you will wield this item like medieval knight wields his family relic. BTW№2 there is achievment about revisiting old content which gives you legendary precursor for free. Youre anyway going through lws1-4 so check it out, its simple and will give you another motivation to explore old maps, not just for story reasons. Im personally excited for you to do Volcano jp in lws3, it is pure, crystallised suffering)
To add to the discussion of cherished memories in MMO's: When they announced the closed beta test for HoT, they made an event out of it. For only about two weeks, a special trophy item called the Portal to the Heart of Maguuma could drop from any enemy or from any event in the Living World Season 2 maps. Only players who got the drop would be able to take part in the beta. I spent nearly all day, every day running the meta events in Silverwastes over and over and over again. Finally got the drop around two days before the event was over. First and only beta test I've ever taken part in. Happy to say I still have the item in my bank 🥲
One thing you don't seem to be aware of since you mentioned Marvel-style "villains coming out of nowhere" - right from the launch of the game people knew the Elder Dragons. I'm not sure where exactly in game that information was but we knew about the existence of all 6 Elder Dragons and we knew roughly what their elements were. Only the name of one of them was unknown (and Modremoth was also not awakened yet). So Guild Wars 2 had these 6 villains in lore from the start and the devs only wanted to introduce them in some way into the actual game. There was a little bit of villains coming from nowhere for example Scarlet herself kinda came out of nowhere and there were a few others but definitely not all of them and definitely not Modremoth.
Short info, you just have to purchase the Living Story if you didn't play while it was the activ story part. You just need to log in while the current LS part is activ/the newest and you'll get it for free.
And, if ANet follows the same pattern as the last few years, if you missed any of them while they were live the first time, you can wait until the next time ANet opens them up (which I'm assuming will happen at some point). I took a break for a while a few years ago and that's what I did with LW1 and LW2. I was a bit confused about what was happening in the storyline by missing that content, but I just carried on. When they reopened LW1/2 I just made sure I unlocked them and was able to catch up; LW1 was sort of like watching a prequel that's released after the original movie.
The thing the "trying GW2 in 2023" creators miss out on is that between most episodes in the LW story, there are weeks where we grind the map repeatable content, and that content was the most rewarding thing to do at the time, so it wasn't a big deal for players of that time to play those 20mins waiting for the story conditions to be fulfilled.
Never played while living world was live.
Didn't realize it was part of a global event
As a WoW player, it's easier to stomach/understand the Elder Dragon design if you think of them more as this series' Old Gods rather than something more akin to the Dragon Aspects or your typical fantasy dragon archetype
yeah they are more Lovecraftian like Great Old Ones. More akin to C'thon.
As an old WoWhead myself I didn't have the same problem of understanding the elder dragons design as you did Josh
Yes, but also if he is skipping world bosses he has missing The Shatterer, Tequatl, and Claw of Jormag, which are the BIG DRAGON FIGHTS he's looking for.
HoT was absolutely one of the best "venturing in an unknown, uncharted land" experiences I've ever had in ANY MMO. By far its still my favourite expansion and the zones for the expansion were some of the best designed, with so much verticality and exploration to do
The first time you meet a group of mini-raptors is always a magical experience
@@eyrthren
I don't think they're as dangerous now as they were at release. They were nerfed at some point.
@@ianashmore9910 they were, still watch them shred the unaware when they first enter HoT though, hilarious to observe
Still makes me cry thinking about doing HoT without Skyscale or Griffon
@@eyrthrenLmao
I hope Mike plays through the zones of HoT and does the meta-events as he finishes the story journal. The big zone events tell a big part of the story and have some of the best events in the game.
HoT was genuinely one of the worst GW2 experiences for me as a Thief. Those damn leaping dogs would basically one shot me lmao.
@@9186737467 Same. Playing this 1-handed sword build as ranger with the snake movement thing was an awful time
I personally loved HoT zones! I love challenging overworld content... coming from ESO where everything just dies to your very aura... GW2 has been so refreshing in giving me potential death around every corner :P I absolutely love trying to solo the repeatable hero challenge bosses in HoT zones. The verticality of the zones is amazing too! Although I definitely got frustrated trying to figure out how to navigate to certain places... 100%ing the zone wasn't a smooth experience... but even so... HoT zones have been some of my favorites. Trying to solo those group hero challenges though is giving me the feeling like i'm playing elden ring... but it's an mmo? something like that.... maybe I'm just loving the challenge and throwing myself at it and dying lol..... anyways- Cheers!
@@9186737467 HoT was the best GW2 can offer. Really unique
@@Jinny-Wa agreed, when it came out the difficulty made people cooparete for all the tasks. They organised groups for metas and HP-s and basically everything and people are still doing it to this date. Exactly because of that reason it felt like you are really fighting for survival and not just running around pressing 1 button to kill everything.
the scritt tunnels are locked by a player triggered event, you don't have to wait, you just go over there, start killing bandits until the boss spawns, kill him, and that unlocks the tunnels. Most people actually don't realize this and think they need to map-hop.
the upper right hand corner of the zone is the scritt area and just go there and kill until the boss pops.
He knows this. The problem is the game doesn't really present it to your though the quest/story prompt.
That’s still really weird. He’s saying you shouldn’t need to do that to continue the story
@@mattyoung9146 I dunno, FF14 has entire dungeons gating it's story progression at pretty regular intervals, so a rather easy open world boss kill that you just go and do solo if you want doesn't seem that big a deal to me. Now you could make a point that it could be more obvious *what* to do, but the process of doing it is cake relative to other games I've played with storyline gates.
@@arkanaloth2617A dungeon is something you just queue for. That doesn’t really gate anything. Also the story of the dungeon is usually part of the story of the msq.
This is more like “to progress this msq, you must complete a fate.” and that fate spawns ona timer or based on killing certain mobs. So you have to wait or go do this arbitrary thing.
@@omegaxtrigun yeah it definitely could be implemented better. There's definitely an expectation that you explore maps and interact with the world as you go, which works great for players like me and helps me feel immersed, but it's not for everyone. Even without removing it, they could at least signpost it better so story focused players would be less confused.
I'm kind of dreading how he'll feel about HoT. I already felt the impact of this in his core playthrough, beelining from instance to instance made it feel way different than mine which was interesting. I feel HoT is even worse for this, the story is so short on its own and doing the metas adds so much context. But again, they have this expectation that you WILL be playing the maps, but they don't want to force players to do it or lock progression (like what happened here).
Heart of Thorns is what made me fall in love with GW2. I'm excited to see what Preach thinks about it!
Really looking forward to the next adventures
I loved Heart of Thorns too, except for the Tangled Depths. That map and the limitations of the GW2 map made navigating around a nightmare. By far it was my least favorate zone, perhaps in the whole game, so far.
The ripples of Scarlet Briar can be felt throughout the entirety of the gw2 storyline. Don't forget about her. I hope you enjoy HoT :)
The story hits differently according to your previous experiences. As Mike guessed, Rytlock as well as the statue fight mean more to you when you play a Charr yourself (for those never having played a Charr, the catacomb with the statue is the first tutorial boss fight and where you lose your fist squad who are also all your childhood friends). I for my part was a Sylvary from the beginning, with all the mystery of being a whole race not older than 20years. Revealing their origin in that cave scene was quite impactful to me
I like the tease that the Shadow of Mordremoth is actually the dragon you fight in the Sylvari tutorial. I just wished ANet didn't miss the opportunity to mention that your Wyld Hunt was actually misinterpreted, that instead of killing Zhaitan your Wyld Hunt is you killing Mordremoth and thus freeing the whole Sylvari race.
I know that the ministry party with the humans stood out to me because my commander had already experienced a lot of the shady side of the Ministry.
Heart of Thorns (HoT) is peak GW2 at least in terms of map design. The verticality, complexity, explorability, and jumping-puzzle-ability of HoT maps is just off the charts in HoT. One of the most fun things to do is figure out the hidden ways of getting up into the high forest canopy of the Verdant Brink map (first HoT map). Can’t wait till you get to that and start making vids on it!
Verdant Brink almost broke me. Now that I have a Griffon, I love it, but just gliding and running through mob-infested narrow paths and trying to navigate 3D with a 2D map was crushingly annoying he first time through.
HoT maps are excruciatingly bad if you don't have a chat to guide you through them and no masteries to make your life easier. There's a reason people to this day complain about and want those zones to be redesigned. You have to grind ground events in Verdant Brink, which basically no one does anymore so you get your first few glider masteries. And doing those events SOLO while then barred from actually participating in the rewarding boss fights is just annoying. Or at release remember how many people fell to their deaths in Auric Basin as their glider mastery was too low, but at the time just letting you fall and open the glider in the last minute more often than not resulted in death before ANet actually went and changed the netcode.
HoT on release was terrible, and if you're going there now for the first time with a fresh account, without doing other bits to get the mounts first, is still terrible.
Edit: keep in mind a new player usually wont have an at least 15k dps build, and even with nerfs a lot of players still die solo in HoT because of it.
Every time those skritt tunnels are inaccessible it means the mission to make them accessible again IS active. There's a spot you have to go to on the map to clear out some bandits. If the tunnels are closed it means the bandits ARE there and as soon as you clear them the tunnels open again. You don't have to wait for anything unless you just want to wait for somebody else to clear the bandits for you.
~ 5:19 without really spoiling (as you already pretty much noticed the theme behind the Elder Dragons), there´s a distinct reason why the Elder Dragons (Note: they´re Elder! Dragons. Not just any Dragons or some kind of Dragon-Like Creatures) are designed that way. The Elder Dragons are all assigned to one specific Domain of Magic that is represented in the Eternal Alchemy (pretty much what scarlet discovered during LWS 1), so you already defeated the Elder Dragon that was assigned to the domain of "death" (aka Zhaitan). Obviously, as you can clearly see from the visuals that represent the eternal alchemy, there are more domains of magic out there, which makes it pretty obvious that there are Elder Dragons sleeping out there in Tyria (as at this point of time, only the destruction of the Ley-Line in Lions Arch, and the death of Zhaitan, the released magic from the "domain of death" woke up Mordremoth, the jungle dragon)
As i hear you commenting on how you imagine Dragons: well, that may be true to the "average" dragon, but this is NOT the case for Elder Dragons. Elder Dragons are primordial beings, that are deeply connected to their domain of magic. They´re better described as "natural disasters" that are deeply connected to the world itself (it´s hard to describe without spoiling anything, it will make sense the more you get into the later parts of the lore).
11:26 this is basically what Living World is all about. The biggest thing about Living World is, that it connects each expansion, or rather: it creates the path going from one expansion to the next. This does NOT mean that there won´t be new "villains", and it does ESPECIALLY NOT mean that they´re not important. In fact you can view Living World more as "expansion-like" content, just without new specializations. And they are (story-wise) just as important as Expansions (and as a small teasing hint: we have more Elder Dragons than the game has expansions. I think i don´t have to say more than that).
~14:41 in this case, it often helps to limit the framerate. The engine is over 10 years after all, and there´s still stuff left in the game that is related to the DirecX 9 -compatibility. And while DX9 will be removed, until the process is complete this still indirectly limits the game unfortunately. Once the transition is complete though, we can expect improvements (as ANet won´t have to take care of basically 2 Graphics-engines anymore). What often helps is to actually cap your FPS to 60FPS (you won´t need more than that in an MMO anyway).
17:45 well..... i would not call Living World "optional for story", because (as you already correctly expierienced), it contains important story-relevant stuff. While yes, Living World Season 2 is probably one of the least interesting or important chapters (i personally think that LWS1 is even more important for some context), at this point of time you probably don´t understand the importants of (at least some) the events you witnessed (yet). But i can assure you: it WILL become important later on and i can only encourage you to keep going through the story in order, and not to skip anything. (In fact, you are already taking the first steps towards some essential characters of the latest expansion (End of Dragons). You just don´t really know why, or who i am referencing here, for now). Also, the later Living World episodes will be WAY more on the impactful story-parts than what you expierienced so far.
I'm surprised about all the bugs you've experienced to be honest. I've done the storyline of the game up to the latest expansion (Which I still haven't played) with 3 different characters, and I encountered very few bugs. So it is surprising to me that the community says that there are a lot of bugs.
I only ever get visual bugs with low graphics settings.
I have disconnect issues in story instances specifically all the time, none of the fixes really seem to improve it, though playing with a VPN helps reduce it. There's also currently a broken story instance for everyone in LW4 that is impossible to complete without bypassing it with a skyscale. It's been that way for about 3 weeks now.
Season 2 has been repeatedly fixed and then broken by further updates that would bring back those bugs. There's a common bug that kept going in and out in the Tangled Depths Labyrinth instance where your A.I. would break and just follow you when they're supposed to help you with the troll fight in it. This made that instance downright awful back in Core Tyria, pre-expansions, because it basically meant it took way too long, and it has a 20 minute completion achievement.
I've been kicked out of long story instances over and over :( but I fixed this issue by simply having my vpn on when playing gw2... for some reason that fixes it?
there are a lot of bugs, they are just not 100% reproducible. also Anet has a spaghetti code so subsequent updates to the game can easily broke something unrelated in whole different part of the game
Glad to hear you're loving the game. When you jump into HoT be sure to do the Verdant Brink (first zone) night meta event. It's fun and it's a great way to get a full set of exotic stat selectable armor.
It's exciting to hear you're enjoying yourself considering the content you've played, the best is yet to come for sure. Heart of Thorns has some great moments in the story but probably the best part (for me) are the maps, meta events and the introduction of raids. It really takes off from here and I can't wait to see how you feel about the game going forward!
Can't wait for your jurney to HoT. People either loved the expansion or complained about it,it being frustrating and what not, but for me it was the peak of any MMORPG. Truly challenging and interesting open world content. After all, that's the first thing people think about when you say MMO. Big open world, with a lot of people in it, and GW2 took that to another level with HoT.
Your recent look into GW2 encouraged me to come back after 3 years since I'm burnt out from other MMO's, thanks :) Looking forward to trying out many more classes & characters, as well as more content
Mouth of Mordremoth meta fight is so epic. Blew my mind the first time I did it. I just did it a few more times recently for the new legendary weapons and it still hold up really well as an epic fight from 9 years ago. One great thing about horizontal progression is that all these old zones are filled with life and active players.
They keep adding optional achievements like legendary skins that gets you to complete collections in older contents and breaths more life to all parts of the game despite of when they came out.
I'm glad you're doing living world seasons. I skipped ahead to expansions and it was actually a really jarring experience. I'm going back and doing living world and it explains so much. It also has a lot of maps and gameplay that you won't experience with the base game.
Rytlock went from being one of those 'so he is a character...' characters in guild wars...
To a badass very notable hero from HoT and onwards.
I can't wait to see preachs reaction to him in the future.
Season 4 is still absolutely stellar, and I'm looking even more forward to that !!
I'm excited to see what he thinks of HoT and LWS4, too! LWS3 and PoF are good too, but MAN, I can't wait for him to see LWS4! That story was like the WotLK of GW2!
Praise Joko
nice vid, and what ever some might say, i would 100% encourage you to play through the living world season's to see both the high's and lows but also to get the story they built which is one of the big things in gw2 that keeps me getting back to the game
GW2 made the mistake at the beginning of putting some of its backstory into a novel rather than in the game. It’s not a huge deal since you get a new team of friends later on that are really more your squad than the previous group, but the fact that some of Caithe’s backstory is hidden there doesn’t help here. She and Faolin were an item, and it takes her some time to get past that relationship once she realizes Faolin is lost to the Nightmare. That’s why she turns on the other sylvari rather than hurt her lover.
Nice video. I remember the end of the beta testing. They did a great event where players who died got corrupted and basically came after you, untill you died yourself and joined them hunting the remaining players. This was for us a goodbye to our betta characters, who got deleted afterwards (got corrupted so it makes sense)
Regarding the skritt's tunnels: to open them you just need to go the part of the map where there are a lot bandits taking control of the site and kill them off, not really hard to do tbh, and then the tunnels are opened up. I think the skritts even tell the player something along the lines of "bandits have taken control of important locations so we closed the tunnels" or something like that. Been enjoying your videos btw, nice work!
Sometimes it takes quite time for that event to fire.
There are Easter eggs you're going to miss if you don't play Heart of Thorns as a Sylvari.
I’ll second this, but add that it can be worth play twice (once as Sylvari and once not) to get both sides of the experience.
@@Naim_less There is even a ton of order specific dialogue
@@RedNuii I didn’t know that! I’ve only ever played it as Order of Whispers (Tybalt is the GOAT).
And the sylvari lady voice is so much better than the norn lady voice.
@@The_Conundrum_Crew Jennifer Hale is one of my absolute favourite voice actors. Fem!Shep is the best Shepard.
Whenever he gets around to playing HoT, someone should tell him to experience the meta-events of the maps, specifically the last map. Just playing the story quests is not enough to fully enjoy the expansion.
13:04 yeah... there was a time Guild wars 2 was called Bug wars 2 lol And about that... I heard Teapot say they've tried to fix those bugs but then more bugs were created by that fixing... so they eventually give up :(
Thank you for the vid Preach. Loving to listen to your thought ;D
And... I'm excited also terrified to wait and see your journey in HoT ;p
I've been following your journey through Tyria, and I can't wait for you to start Heart of Thorns! It has some of my favorite game mechanics and extremely good music.
Can't wait to see preach get put in the dirt by HoT's difficulty spike
Yea I definitely had that "get good" moment. I'm happy it happened though as it forced me to learn how to play better, gear up properly and equip useful skills
I've been going through the story of GW2, and if you don't give a damn about the plot I understand the desire to skip LW and get on with it, but there are so much context and character introductions/developments you're missing out on. It's the biggest problem I had with getting my raptor. As soon as I hit 80, hopped into Path of Fire, saw all of these characters I'm supposed to be familiar with, and blitz through the story until I get my Raptor and then turn right back around again to finish off Orr. It was a miserable experience and when I tried to bring it up in chat in Lion's Arch it was nothing but name calling, accusations of being a troll, or dismissals of "why is it a problem? Who cares about the story, lol?" It bothered me so much I set the game aside for months and ended up levelling a new character through the Personal Story to then take through LW, and I had the benefit of my Raptor for the entire way through.
OH! And I actually remember hitting 80 and trying to figure out the mastery system, wanting to avoid wasting XP because my bar was full. For ages I could not find a straight answer online because so many youtube videos and forum posts at the time explained how it worked, sure, but not how to start on it, even Centra Tyria. Until searching for answers in game revealed that I had to take a step into an expansion to unlock masteries for Central Tyria. I don't know what it is about this game and trying to pry straight forward answers out of people. It had been so long I forgot the order of events. Stepped into HoT, unlocked masteries and glider. Stepped into PoF, got the raptor. Voiced my discontent with how that all works, mocked for it, set the game aside for over a year.
you now get the raptor at level 10 or 20, without doing PoF if you have the paid-for version of the game (you get a temporary license otherwise), so this issue should be mitigated. (I had the same issue as you)
But y'know, it goes without saying: don't expect too much reasonable commentary from any city-afkers, regardless of the game.
@@Warhammerdude299 I think its really hard for someone who experienced content as it released to understand how that content would look to a new player experiencing it as just a thing you can do in the game and not the most recent thing added.
Personally I havent played in years but I played during HoT launch so obviously my account just unlocked the Masteries instantly by doing normal stuff.
I would've sworn you just get them on lv80 because that would make sense.
Obviously this doesnt excuse people being rude to someone just asking a question.
Now the raptor is automatic at level 10 if you have the POF exp. I think. Is better now.
@@Mecanotech I'm glad, that is a much better change. Unless you do the 80 boost to go get it that is so many hours of just running around on foot.
I like the fact you cant progress unless the meta events are completed although i understand the frustration/confusion. The rat tunnel area mentioned is a endgame event thats still relevant to players today and has 24/7 grps running
It's worth noting you can force the event to spawn by going over there and killing bandits.
I hope you keep doing these. Do the whole story...HoT living world S3, PoF, S4, S5 aka Icebrood, EoD
The story is just going to get better and better. Yes..sure..there are some weird moments but overall its great
You want a f*cking dragon fight? Just wait till season 4 😍😍😍😍
just wait for dragon stand
I think Mike should do the big meta events as he progresses through the HoT story. Get a good group together to give him a slight hand through the process. As a new player going in blind is a bit confusing for the meta events.
loving the series so far! Happy to tag along the journey, since I enjoyed GW2 a lot
7:15 months later, Jory eventually crafted a legendary greatsword and salvaged the sister/sword for crafting materials. Either that or got to PoF and ditched Reaper for Scourge. Rip Belindablade.
Edit
8:43 Oh btw, Trehearne is also a necromancer who wields a Greatsword. You could say he was also a hint for the Reaper elite spec.
There's lots of new players in the comments so I won't say what outright, but the Belinda angle and briefly the sword does come back.
The really awesome thing with LW2/HoT is how intimately tied to the plot they Sylvari are, and that it directly relates back to you if you play a Sylvari commander. Like, the Shadow of the Dragon? If you haven’t played Sylvari you wouldn’t know, but it’s actually a recurring boss - it was the area boss for the Sylvari starting instance, like the wurm Issormir is for the Norn instance. So if you play “The World Summit” as a Sylvari, the Pale Tree directly calls out that “you know it from your Dream.” And the book that mentions its attack in the “Hidden Arcana” also mentions you by name. And that’s not even getting into all the things in the actual HoT content that are unique to playing a Sylvari commander.
Hey i just ended it today! It was amazing! The last shadow deagon boss was a pain but I had a blast
Ye, there is a fair few of small bugs. It's an incredibly complex world system they're using and they have incredible tech (their servers have virtually never been down in the entire game's life) but on the flipside little glitches can be left if it's not related to the immediacy of professions etc.
I was there when HoT was released. We were so full of confidence, we did not have any builds at the time other than full exotic berserker glass cannon DPS. We defeated Zhaitan and Scarlet's armies, and we conquered Orr. We thought there was nothing Maguma jungle could throw at us that we would not be able to just grind down with power DPS spam. We were so very wrong, HoT launch was a massacre of players. We had to rethink the way we played GW2, first tanking builds were created, condition builds became a must. Many players including myself gave up and quit the game.
I heard they nerfed HoT since then but it still feels miserable as a new player. I can see the appeal from veterans tho
@@mpales9431 For me as a new player, back in 2017 HoT was absolutely blast along with LW2. When i got to PoF it was a huge disappointment, Core 2.0 and i quit the game for many years
talking about revamps in HoT, i believe the defiancebar mechnic was introduced in HoT and replaced to old defiance
The /wiki command is in the game to help you.
The /wiki is your friend.
I don't know how you do it Mike, but you've encountered more bugs since you started playing than I have in over ten years now. I think it's a skill you can put on your CV. :D
Firstly, has he not done the OG Shatterer or the claw of Jormag? Second, I'm proud to say i one shot the Shadow dragon in that story instance Preach! Guardian op
The skriit tunnels problem for anyone having that problem as far as i know by experience is related to a single event, related to bandits, the tunnels get closed everytime that event is going, is an event thats accessed by going by the north path and then right to the cave, when you finish that little easy event the tunnels get open again.
I look forward to these videos more than any others! Buddy Heart of Thorns story, meta events, fractals, and raids will blow you away.
The living world episodes are getting even better. You are in for a treat when you reach LW3, and LW4 after the PoF expansion is the peak.
Also, do the masteries they are a really fun experience and are eventually required for the Legendary rings.
Really loving these videos. It’s making me want to start GW2 again.
i hope people see preachs gw2 content and ends up giving it a go i returned to gw2 before seeing this and its rather nice seeing others enjoying it ive played guild wars over brackets of time since the base game i joined guild wars around 2014
A big change prior to HoT that you kind of "had to be there" for was they revamped the way conditions were applied. In the base game, it was never optimal to play a condition build because damaging conditions like bleeds didn't stack, so they only ticked for small amounts of damage. Just before HoT, they added the current condition stacking mechanics and actively incentived players to play condition builds by adding enemies that would resist strike damage, which is why you saw enemies in season 2 with the "Tough Bark" trait
you are correct about the large amount of characters, this gets even larger as you play different races and each of the 3 backgrounds for each race (arenanet learned their leason in the end); some of these characther make sense and are loved , vets know them since we had months to go over the content saldy you wont enjoy the true living world as it evolved over time but you will still see characters youve met during Tyria, some you wont recognize since youi have only done 1 race,1 personal story. dont recommend going back and doing all zones and stories, but I do recommend to keep in mind what you have learned about GW2 vanilla and that others/new forget, each zone tells its story and has their own charaters; moving forward, speacially in HoT, I recommend doing story and before the next chapter takes you in the the next zone for you to do the meta of that zone (nice if you do all events) but meta is sufficient to get a better understanding and if you can, alwayus do the last meta map before the last chapter (not requiered but In a way, you are missing content. ). Later you can see how arenanet tries to re-invent the wheel again. FYI, dont get frustrated with the jungle its great but hard to get GPS signal down there
I hope you're able to stumble upon the pvp . I discovered it about 2 years ago and still really rave about it and believe someone can play just the pvp and enjoy your time (and even gear your player) which is what I did although I did end up finding my way to the story. I would recommend, even if you would like to play with 5 that are also new to pvp, to have 1 veteran player outside of the group to give to tips on setting up ur player and maybe vague tips to help understand the objectives. glad ur enjoying gw2!
It's nice to hear a fresh perspective on this franchise. A lot of us played it since vanilla GW1, and certain opinions are just talking points that were regurgitated for years.
LWS2 bosses underrated by the GW2 community imo. I'd love to see them go back and revamp some of them into strikes, I absolutely think it could work.
I probably missed a comment about this, but all the living world episodes are free if you are logged in when it comes out for the first time. It then becomes purchasable down the line if you miss the "release date" for each episode. So yes it's optional content, but it's also very accessible because it's initially free.
I kinda wiiiish the game was a bit more clear that the Living World isn't "optional" if you're into the story. They aren't filler to hold you over or whatever. Went to expansions always finding people that seemed very important and always went with no introduction.
What do you mean hot milf has a son? And I know him?
What happened to you Rytlock? Are you BLIND?
Who is this tiny girl with a golem that seems to be 100% my best bud?
Well now I know better and plan to come back to all the story in order with a new character but I just think it was a liiiiittle bit odd and confusing at the time. lol
Not sure you'll see this, but something to consider is that the Journal doesn't do all the big bosses and story beats. At the very least, do the "map meta" events on each story block's final maps. Like Dragon's Stand in Heart of Thorns, that has a *real* dragon fight against Mordremoth.
Actually the concept called living world ended after the original run of season one. It was called living story after that because there was no more changing open world elements. Instead it was always a new map plus some story parts. The name living world only returned when Anet started to sell the full package coinciding with the Steam release. The few events that got added to existing open world maps are called "side stories". You can find them under your achievements tab.
In regards to the bugs, you realize after playing something like this how much Blizzards large team helps them get through bugs. I know the Wow community never thinks anything happens fast enough but, when you see a smaller MMO have bugs for years and years, it puts things into perspective a bit.
"Masively overpowered dragons" ... According to lore. An elder dragon from GW2 could bitch slap deathwing into another dimension.
If we didnt have entire armies weakening the elderdragons over weeks of time, they would bitchslap us too when we fight them.
If you've ever had Smilax in your backyard, you understand the terror of the Mordremoth vines. It's an invasive (at least where I live), thorny vine that grows scarily fast, and can spring up anywhere from an extensive root system. Actually terrifying how fast they grow and how out-of-control they can become in a short period of time. And the thorns on the big ones are no joke. Come to think of it, Smilax is a pretty good name for a dragon.
Your take on GW2 Dragons is breaking my heart. I can't wait for you to experience all of the dragons, they are pretty exciting in general when you understand the lore concepts as to what dragons are for the world.
In an MMO, lore isn't as important as gameplay
@@UA-camChillZone This concept is why WoWs Lore fucking sucks now.
@@UA-camChillZone Literally every other MMOs out there actually give a fuck about lore.
FF14, GW2, ESO, SWTOR, etc...
They all put effort into a having a good story and good lore.
Stop taking WoW idea of storytelling and thinking that's the standard.
@@UA-camChillZone I agree for WoW since WoW lore was fucking awful out the gate. However other MMOs are not WoW.
I really hope you get stuck into the map meta events during heart of thorns. They are so much fun and really help tell the story of the zones. I still do Octovine daily because of the loot and map chat banter. Was slightly disappointed you didn't do the silverwastes meta, really fun intro to meta events
When preach said “this is a really good moment”, as he was watching an emotional scene, I was waiting for someone to quip and drop a tone death joke like “well that just happened”.
I’ve been conditioned by modern mainstream writers to expect stupid stuff like that, lol.
Josh Weeden irreverent dialog.
THE HYPE!!! I can't wait for your next video!
The frame rate thing is due to a bug that causes respawnable items to keep respawning even when they already exist. They just stack up and overlap and there are like...hundreds of them that the engine is rendering, even though you can't see them all. There was a cave in the base game for a couple years that had this issue with some bombs and it was practically unplayable in there.
The dragons, as an example of why they're so important, are basically the balance of magic in Tyria. Without spoiling too much, the commander actually has to deal with what happens when you kill the magic life of Tyria aka the dragons later on
I'm so happy he made it to HoT, that's where the game really picks up in my opinion. That's where it really cemented for me as I game I'll always like.
so thrilling to listen to Mike experience all of this. GW2 is a wonderful game that more should immerse themselves into.
If you're impressed now and haven't stepped foot in HoT prepare to be giddy, even though it has some really annoying features it's probably one of the best world experiences out there. 😄
Flaming pocket raptor PTSD
"Aaaww adorable little din... RUN AWAAAY!"
@@Gr_ywind 25 stacks of burning in 1 second 🥲
@@chilliewhk cmon, the pocket raptor experience is honestly magical, it wouldnt be the same without tiny raptors tearing you apart in 0.1 seconds, kinda wish they didnt nerf them, they were so much more brutal back in the day
I'm not sure if your chat has tried to clarify this for you or not yet but... When the optional Living World sessions go live they were/are free if you had or do log in while they are "current" the only reason you have had to pay for them is that your account was not logged in while you would have been able to claim it for free on your account. The reason that many were likely trying to get you to skip them was to avoid paying for something that would have been free if you had played years ago that is re-capped in the videos later maybe? On the plus side...even should you not be at the location where any new living world seasons are taking place now...if you have logged in while they are actively "current" they will be free on your account for all characters. Loving this series you are on... your remarks are valid and honest and I honestly hope ANet does take note.
I wonder if the difficulty spike that's about to happen in heart of thorns is going to be seen as welcome or unwelcome. It's pretty big.
1:35 that's why they originally called it "Living World" because they weren't adding new zones but adding content to old zones instead. Once they made the shift to adding new zones instead of changing old ones, they may as well have ditched the "living world" monicre altogether and just called it DLC.
Oooh boi you are in for a treat. Heart of Thorns will blow your mind. Please do consider joining the meta events as it is really good in every way.
Loving this series of vids for sure!
I'm glad you're enjoying Season 2 because imo the story there is the slowest of all the seasons 😁
I'm looking forward to coverage of Preach stumbling his way through the verticality of the HOT maps. the first run though tangled depths usually has this "WTF" moment for a lot of players
cant wait for preach jaw droppin when he start heart of thorns later to fight a big dragon
As someone who played through that at its launch, the big kicker was the pale tree, not the dragon fight
Turn on your action camera go to key binds and see what it is bound to makes combat very nice not having to hold right mouse button constantly to turn your character really well worth it you can toggle on and off if you want to go into a menu or something i use it when i fight .
God can not wait for you to play the next few releases
without spoilers mordremoth fight is at the end of the expancion but since its a map event you can go and do it even if you didn't do the story.(is on the last map, im telling you so you don't do it by accident) the fight is much much better but you need a lot of players to do it
Im about to start living world content too. The main story was a little bland, but the ending was fckn awesome. Im very exited for living world 😁
HOT is a great expansion. The maps are wild. You'll love it
"It's the plant dragon!" Oh Mike has NO idea.
Guild Wars 2 has really hammered one lesson for me: that I really suck at GW2. I was doing a scenario quest the other day where I did a series of bosses that just instantly one shot me, so I stayed dead and let the NPCs handle it, which is very, very VERY slow. So after almost 2 hours I got to the last boss, he was at 10% health, jumped on a tiny ledge, got stuck and no one could hit him (including me). Only thing I could do is log out... Logged in and saw I had to start all over again... Yep, haven't logged back in since. I've found the community is amazing, but outside of base game is a horrible solo experience.
Have you not done any of the core world bosses Preach? Tequatl the Sunless, Shatter, Claw of Jornag, Triple Trouble Wurma
Our ally characters getting elite specs always felt really nice and fun, wish they did it a bit more but it's always quite fun
GW2 and WOW vet here, currently trying ff14. Gosh does this bring back some memories, glad you are enjoying the game i think GW2 is under-rated
For those who don't know, Living World were not off the bat paid content. If you logged in during the time each chapter was released, it was given to you for free, but after a certain point it becomes something you have to pay for. As for what makes you return to the LW maps... not much for LWS1. But 2, 3, 4, and 5 (Icebrood Saga) are exceptionable meta event farmable maps. LWS2 Silverwastes is still one of the most profitable maps in the game to this day. S3 for unbound magic currency, S4 for volatile magic (both of which gets you gold), S5 for eternal ice shards (which can get you more volatile magic or ascended trinkets) - S5/IBS also introduces one of the more profitable maps right now (Drizzlewood Coast). Not to mention the gear drops that are also sellable. LWS4 also introduces 2 additional mounts you can not acquire without playing it. The story ain't too shabby either, esp 3 and 4 (but 2 holds a special place in my heart as someone who plays mostly Sylvari - playing a priory sylvari character through s2-HOT was one of the most rewarding lore experiences I have had in any game ever).
about the bugs : apparently, some of the code in the game is like 25 years old, so basically, it's a mess in there and no one wants to touch it because it's quite hard to fix
Mike dont worry, you will get your big dragon fights later on story, especially after path of fire.
BTW explore core Tyria content, it has 3 big dragon fights as open world events. I highly reccomend you to try world bosses on central map.
And also you can already start your first legendary journey, it will be painfull first time, but self made legendary item through pain and agony of giga-grind is so delicious, you will wield this item like medieval knight wields his family relic.
BTW№2 there is achievment about revisiting old content which gives you legendary precursor for free. Youre anyway going through lws1-4 so check it out, its simple and will give you another motivation to explore old maps, not just for story reasons.
Im personally excited for you to do Volcano jp in lws3, it is pure, crystallised suffering)
loving the GW2 content guys, I've not played since first expac but I might have to re-install!
Did you know that marjory’s greatsword wasn’t a hint to the reaper. Anet stated that themselves but it’s a nice headcannon
To add to the discussion of cherished memories in MMO's: When they announced the closed beta test for HoT, they made an event out of it. For only about two weeks, a special trophy item called the Portal to the Heart of Maguuma could drop from any enemy or from any event in the Living World Season 2 maps. Only players who got the drop would be able to take part in the beta. I spent nearly all day, every day running the meta events in Silverwastes over and over and over again. Finally got the drop around two days before the event was over. First and only beta test I've ever taken part in. Happy to say I still have the item in my bank 🥲
Either way, please don't leave before the 28. of this month, something cool coming back to the game 😁
Holy crap you've begun playing GW2?! Subscribed.
One thing you don't seem to be aware of since you mentioned Marvel-style "villains coming out of nowhere" - right from the launch of the game people knew the Elder Dragons. I'm not sure where exactly in game that information was but we knew about the existence of all 6 Elder Dragons and we knew roughly what their elements were. Only the name of one of them was unknown (and Modremoth was also not awakened yet). So Guild Wars 2 had these 6 villains in lore from the start and the devs only wanted to introduce them in some way into the actual game.
There was a little bit of villains coming from nowhere for example Scarlet herself kinda came out of nowhere and there were a few others but definitely not all of them and definitely not Modremoth.
Oh man he likes S2, jusr wait for 3 and 4
Short info, you just have to purchase the Living Story if you didn't play while it was the activ story part. You just need to log in while the current LS part is activ/the newest and you'll get it for free.
And, if ANet follows the same pattern as the last few years, if you missed any of them while they were live the first time, you can wait until the next time ANet opens them up (which I'm assuming will happen at some point). I took a break for a while a few years ago and that's what I did with LW1 and LW2. I was a bit confused about what was happening in the storyline by missing that content, but I just carried on. When they reopened LW1/2 I just made sure I unlocked them and was able to catch up; LW1 was sort of like watching a prequel that's released after the original movie.