Guild Wars 2

yes of course, old content was still there so there you go.

A lot of stuff from the core game have been nerfed, seemingly to “encourage” people to buy HoT.

Guild upgrades, for example (particularly WvW: you have lost all access to WvW upgrades). Dungeon gold was also heavily nerfed (66% less now). Fractals: you can’t get some of the dailies unless you have HoT.

So your experience may be degraded from what you saw before you quit.

Depending on when you last played, much has been added to Core Tyria, as well. There are still many playing the core game.

Good luck.

You will feel the difference in sPvP, where vanilla specs are often less powerful than the HoT specs. However you can still play PvP and win a fair amount of your matches with practice and smart gameplay.

If you like to solo roam in WvW with your vanilla character, you may encounter the same problem; i.e., you’re dueling a HoT player that simply has a more powerful build than what you can achieve as a vanilla game owner.

Having said this, I do not own HoT and still play vanilla game and enjoy it. And some vanilla builds are still pretty powerful.

Honestly the extra content added by HoT is meh in my opinion, which is why I haven’t bought it to begin with. Vanilla game is fine unless you’re obsessed with playing ranked sPvP and winning a lot of matches with the new meta.

I think a lot of it depends on what you liked to do in the core game. There are some new maps to explore, though I haven’t been to them since the launch of the expansion, so I don’t know if they’re still populated- and the maps rely on map-wide events.

I think it’s worth downloading to at least look in and see what still appeals to you. Good luck and enjoy if you do come back!

There’s so much to do and explore in core Tyria, I’d totally recommend it Except the problems outlined above with some power creep in the new specs, the old classes are very fun to play, still lots of options. (If Anet is reading: yes yes we do want new classes )

Disclaimer: I’m poor in-game and just play for fun, never grind and almost never make any gold.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Dungeon gold was also heavily nerfed (66% less now). Fractals: you can’t get some of the dailies unless you have HoT.

So your experience may be degraded from what you saw before you quit.

I read that over and over again… what is so important about that? Yesterday, I reached the mark of two months playtime and I accumulated enough gold to buy enough gems on the tp to afford Living Story Chapter 2 and thanks to people who don’t run dungeons any more, because “it isn’t worth it any more”, I haven’t yet had the chance to see a single dungeon from the inside.

Falanu.4289:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Dungeon gold was also heavily nerfed (66% less now). Fractals: you can’t get some of the dailies unless you have HoT.

So your experience may be degraded from what you saw before you quit.

I read that over and over again… what is so important about that? Yesterday, I reached the mark of two months playtime and I accumulated enough gold to buy enough gems on the tp to afford Living Story Chapter 2 and thanks to people who don’t run dungeons any more, because “it isn’t worth it any more”, I haven’t yet had the chance to see a single dungeon from the inside.

I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. You don’t understand why people don’t run dungeons anymore? You don’t think the reduction in gold and experience should matter?

Two things motivate people to play content: Interesting design, and rewards. Better examples of both those things can be found elsewhere, as you’ve already experienced with the gold reward.

If you don’t understand why the rewards were nerfed, it’s because ANET made a deliberate decision to make sure people were less motivated to play dungeons. Dungeons are unsupported content. They want people in Heart of Thorns and fractals and e-sports. (There’s an interview on Dulfy from a few weeks ago that verifies this, if you don’t believe me.)

I have no motivation to play core stuffs at all… since I capped mastery… there’s like no motivation to do Tyria activities :/

Everything is nerfed to death (fracs, WvW, dungeons). The only thing I do in Tyria is try to gather 2800 soft woods for Nevermore.

I’d still play GW2 ( and 1 ) without HoT. Still, the Elite specs do enrich the game. This last is especially true for a Mesmer main like myself.

As to dungeons. I used to make a habit of running CM daily for shopping money and others as the mood took me.

With the reward nerf on dungeons, it’s hard to find an all 80 or well experienced group. So, each path has become significantly longer, harder and less rewarding.

Mostly, I run paths now for the “pleasure” of teaching new folks. Truthfully dungeon running as a major activity seems comatose.

I think it was a purely cynical move. With the major source of gold gone from in game, more people need to buy gems to get those high-end end game items. Ergo, ANET makes more money.

Personally i don’t like the new areas and i still only play in the old areas ..
so the only thing i would be missing from HoT is Dragonhunter, Reaper and Revenant.
Oh .. and autoloot

Guhracie.3419:

You don’t think the reduction in gold and experience should matter?

It’s this. How could we run the missions in GW1 over and over, because of the sheer entertainment for various guild members, characters and so on and not get the idea that they’re not worth it. This is a game, nothing you can monetize that has any value other than being bits and bytes.
The mentality of a considerable portion of players is what might keep me from playing if I had to decide again, but thank god there is still enough soloable content left.

Falanu.4289:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Dungeon gold was also heavily nerfed (66% less now). Fractals: you can’t get some of the dailies unless you have HoT.

So your experience may be degraded from what you saw before you quit.

I read that over and over again… what is so important about that? Yesterday, I reached the mark of two months playtime and I accumulated enough gold to buy enough gems on the tp to afford Living Story Chapter 2 and thanks to people who don’t run dungeons any more, because “it isn’t worth it any more”, I haven’t yet had the chance to see a single dungeon from the inside.

People will play really fun content even if it has little rewards (see pre-HoT WvW). People will grind really awful content if it has really good rewards (see SW, or HoT in general).

Dungeons are at a point where the amount of fun provided does not make up for the severe lack of rewards.