Returning player help :)

[Barrages.7352]

Hello! So, I started playing GW2 on the release and played pretty consistently until about 2013/14, but the legendary grind and having a hard time progressing due to RNG really left a bad taste in my mouth. Due to a real lack of any other options other than WoW (no ty), and ESO (which I'm taking a break from), I'm considering coming back to GW2. Have things improved since 2014? I've heard a lot of no-so-good rumblings over on Reddit, and it seems like the community for this game has kind of withered away. My questions are:

1)Is the legendary weapon system still the same?

2)How's the community? Is it dead or still somewhat active?

3)I've read that people don't really run dungeons or raids much anymore, is this true?

4)Is it possible to catch up on the LW or did I just miss all that content?

 

Thanks!

[Goettel.4389]

Legendaries are as grindy (or more) than ever, there's a thriving community, both guilded and casual, dungeons are pretty much dead but have been replaced by fractals, which are doing good, as are raids (find a guild), and yes you can catch up with LW except for season 1 - the others can be had for gems.

Like you, I dropped out of GW2 around 2014, and I initially skipped HoT because I had no idea how absolutely GREAT it is (if you like meta events with big groups, no other MMO comes even close). PoF has a much more casual pacing, but looks, sounds and feels (best mounts anywhere) great too, even if I haven't touched it much after completing the zones because HoT is just so addictive (unless you hate exploring, it's a real maze).

Frankly, anyone claiming it's "withered away"is lying. Game is better than ever, and so is the population.

Why not just install and come try? No silly subs :)

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Barrages.7352" said:

> Hello! So, I started playing GW2 on the release and played pretty consistently until about 2013/14, but the legendary grind and having a hard time progressing due to RNG really left a bad taste in my mouth. Due to a real lack of any other options other than WoW (no ty), and ESO (which I'm taking a break from), I'm considering coming back to GW2. Have things improved since 2014? I've heard a lot of no-so-good rumblings over on Reddit, and it seems like the community for this game has kind of withered away. My questions are:

> 1)Is the legendary weapon system still the same?

> 2)How's the community? Is it dead or still somewhat active?

> 3)I've read that people don't really run dungeons or raids much anymore, is this true?

> 4)Is it possible to catch up on the LW or did I just miss all that content?

>

> Thanks!

 

Hi!

 

Legendary weapons from HoT onward have a bit more in the way of requirements than the first generation of legendaries. So if that was problematic for you before, it probably still will be.

 

We just saw the release of the latest expansion (Path of Fire) a few months ago and, anecdotally, I'm seeing tons of posts like yours from returning players as well as new players. I've also been meeting new and returning players trying out the expansions for the first time even now, months after release. Based upon that, I'm optimistic that we're experiencing a resurgence in population (although it wasn't "dead" before either!). So I think we're good on that score, but the population still probably isn't what it used to be.

 

People will still run dungeons for various reasons, but I believe the fractal system has more or less replaced dungeons.

 

The only season that you can't actually play through is season 1. We're currently up to season 4, but if you didn't receive the earlier seasons by logging into the game while they were live, you will have to purchase them with gems to catch up.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"Barrages.7352" said:

> Hello! So, I started playing GW2 on the release and played pretty consistently until about 2013/14, but the legendary grind and having a hard time progressing due to RNG really left a bad taste in my mouth. Due to a real lack of any other options other than WoW (no ty), and ESO (which I'm taking a break from), I'm considering coming back to GW2. Have things improved since 2014? I've heard a lot of no-so-good rumblings over on Reddit, and it seems like the community for this game has kind of withered away. My questions are:

> 1)Is the legendary weapon system still the same?

> 2)How's the community? Is it dead or still somewhat active?

> 3)I've read that people don't really run dungeons or raids much anymore, is this true?

> 4)Is it possible to catch up on the LW or did I just miss all that content?

>

> Thanks!

 

1) No. Now you can "craft" your own precursor. On the flip side it's a little bit more expensive to do. But not by much. I did the latest Legendary in a month give or take. I started when it released (mid November), but paused it during Wintersday. I farmed the precursor entirely (which was the longest part), then two weeks of doing stuff in HoT maps for currencies, and after spending a couple hundred laurels i was done ^_^

Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of new Legendaries as well!! Not just weapons. There's two trinkets (give you a Aura), 3 backpieces, 1 proper set of Legendary Armor (it transforms when you draw your weapon) for each weight class obtainable mostly through Raids, and then two sets of "demi" Legendary armor (don't have the transformation thing) from PvP and WvW respectively.

 

2) Very active. Especially in PvE, and the latest maps. PvP and WvW still have a decent community, but it's not as good as it was at it's peak (slightly before HoT for PvP, and the 2014 Spring and Autumn tournaments for WvW imo)

 

3) Not even close. Dungeons are still done, but not nearly as much as at Launch, since now there's new end-game content. Fractals. Fractals replaced Dungeons for the most part. But offer a more dynamic progression (there's 100 levels of Fractal Dificulty, so you need to get progressively better at the mechanics, and obtain accompanying gear - ascended items to infuse with Agony Resistance).

Raids are a different beast, they are high difficulty, mechanical intensive content for 10 people, that kind of necessitates a fixed group. This drives away a lot of people that grew ingrained to the 5 man easily PUGable content, so they have a smaller community, due to it's niche nature.

 

4) After Living World Season 1, all subsequent story is repeatable. You unlock it by being online during the time period between it's release and the next one. If you missed those periods, you'll need to buy either individual chapters or the whole season with gems.

 

Welcome back! Enjoy this awesome cool game!

[Danikat.8537]

**1)** Legendary weapons themselves are still the same - they have the same stats as ascended weapons and the process for making them hasn't changed. But the precursors are not available through a series of collection achievements, as well as via (extremely rare) drops or from the Mystic Forge.This isn't quick or cheap and requires a variety of content some people don't like doing such as dungeons and Fractals, but it's a 100% guaranteed option.

 

It also affected the price of precursors on the Trading Post. When you left they were some of the most expensive items in the game, after legendaries, and considered a safe investment because the price just kept going up. When crafting was announced the price for all of them dropped and has since stabalised to slightly _less_ than the cost of crafting them. It still varies but it goes down as well as up, roughly following the cost of the materials.

 

Oh, there's also 'Generation 2' legendaries which require either Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire to make and are account bound so they can't be sold. They aren't cheaper or easier to make, but the process is a bit different so some people prefer them.

 

**2)** Still active. If you have the game installed or are willing to install it you can log in yourself and see, or you can go by the number of people talking about it here, on Reddit and elsewhere. Some people say certain parts of the game, or the game as a whole, is dead but that seems to be largely based on what they and their friends are interested in. You'll have a hard time finding areas of the game with no other players in them.

 

**3)** Dungeons are not as popular as they used to be, but largely because they're no longer one of the best ways of making gold so you don't get the gold farming crowd doing endless speedruns on the popular paths any more. If you make a LFG listing it fills up pretty quickly or you can find guilds who organise regular dungeon runs. As far as I know raids are still as popular as they ever were. They were always (intentionally) niche content that only people looking for more difficult 'end-game' PvE would play, but lots of people still do them on a regular basis.

 

**4)** It is (mostly) possible, but you'll have to pay for it. Season 1, which ran until March 2014 was designed as temporary content and once it was removed it was gone forever. That sadly hasn't changed. But Season 2 and 3 were designed to be permanent and repeatable. If you logged in during each episodes release window (the time between its release and the next episode) you got it unlocked for free, if you missed it you have the option to buy it for 200 gems, or you can buy a bundle of all the episodes you're missing for a 20% discount (the price scales up or down depending on how many episodes you're buying.) (Reminder: gems can be bought with gold, 200 gems is currently about 50g - so you can get the episodes for free if you're willing to save up and/or farm gold.)

 

Season 4 has just started so if you log in you'll get Episode 4 for free and if you keep track of when they come out you'll be able to get the future episodes free too. The release window for each episode is about 2 months long, so for most people it's fairly easy to find time to unlock it.

 

However you get them once you've unlocked an episode it's permanently available for all of your characters to play whenever you want (and in any order you want) the only restriction is that the character has to be level 80.

[Barrages.7352]

Thanks for the replies :)