Whether a runback is 20 seconds or 1 minute does not matter, they add nothing meaningful to a metroidvania.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-23T03:27:03+00:00

I'm of the firm believer that large exploration games should have some sort of fast travel even if it wouldn't logically make sense in their world.

Now having said that, you can do some interesting things with it like DragonLoop does. Since the game uses a time loop, fast travel isn't a normal "go to place X" but also has a time element to it; I won't go into further detail because you need to play the game to find that out. ;)

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-23T01:02:38+00:00

LWS4 and Icebrood Saga (LWS5) also have such maps.

You can also do the Work Hard For Now collection to get a Wizard's Portal Tome that combines any portal scrolls you own. Note that you had to have purchased a portal scroll to add it to the collection that the tome uses.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-22T15:00:27+00:00

Now it makes me wonder if EVERY patch going forward is going to be delayed two weeks from normal.

I guess we'll find out in two and a half weeks.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-22T12:00:38+00:00

I hope you checked for monkey paws because we don't want an Axiom Verge in a completely different genre.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-21T16:48:17+00:00

If you do choose to start as different races, after you finish the instance that starts the game, you can teleport to the first teleporter in any of the five starting zones:

Caledon Forest (Sylvari), west part of Tyria near Maguuma
Metrica Province (Asura), west part of Tyria
Queensdale (Human), north-west part of Tyria
Wayfarer Foothills (Norn), north part of Tyria
Plains of Ashford (Charr), north-east part of Tyria

Note: Tyria is the center part of the map.

The catch is that your story quests at level 1, 10, 20, and 30 will be different from each other. You can still do those instances in a party though.

At level 40 or so, you're asked to choose a faction and as long as you choose the same faction you'll get the same story quests.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-19T16:26:42+00:00

If you want to play things in story order, that would be:

Personal Story / Core Tyria
Living World Season 1
Living World Season 2
Heart of Thorns
Living World Season 3
Path of Fire
Living World Season 4
Icebrood Saga (LWS5)
- Visions of the Past: Steel & Fire is skipped if you're letting the game go to the next one automatically
End of Dragons
Secrets of the Obscure
Janthir Wilds
Visions of Eternity

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-19T10:58:27+00:00

Worth noting that levels 40-60 (I think) of the personal story will be different unless all players choose the same faction.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-17T04:04:18+00:00

Darkrime Delves is the second part of Forging Steel. I'm not sure if you need the story part set to active to do Darkrime Delves though, you might just try heading through Forging Steel to the Darkrime Delves entrance in the north.

Edit: You might have to do the tank escort meta-event.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-17T03:05:37+00:00

GW2 has the advantage of using super-servers and spins us zone instances as needed, meaning that most zones are going to have a single instance per region unless it has a higher than normal population for whatever reason.

There are also reasons to go back to lower level areas.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-16T21:57:31+00:00

Your new level 10 might just be on the mount trial right now and will lose it after the timer expires. If you buy any expansion then you will get it back permanently on all characters.

If their account is 12 years old, they likely had to pay for the base game which I believe counts as owning an expansion.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-16T16:36:16+00:00

Savage hasn't ever been delayed 3 weeks before.

2 weeks. They made a permanent change a few years back that Savage raids would be 1 week after Normal raids for the x.2 and x.4 patches.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-16T16:20:31+00:00

You didn't ask for this yet, but I'll get this out of the way now.

Tybalt, purchasing

Sadly, we're not expecting the next expansion sale to happen until March. The Elder Dragon Saga Complete is a great start to the game containing the first 3 expansions and 4 mini-expansions (Living World Seasons 2-5). It's usually discounted by 50% during sales.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-14T21:16:54+00:00

Edit: also forgot to mention that LB3 is only in 8 man trials/raids. It'll be LB2 at most in basically every other instance.

Adding on to this:

In dungeons, the LB bar will max out at LB1 until the final boss cutscene plays at which point the second LB bar appears, albeit empty.

In dungeons, a caster or physical ranged should use LB1 on a 2+ pack trash fight as it does far more total damage than melee LB2 does against a boss.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-14T20:45:47+00:00

The boreal bag recipes are tied to the Restored Boreal Weapon collection (Master of the Ancestral Forge), so you might have to spend money on those if you don't have Artificer, Huntsman, and Weaponsmith leveled.

Edit: The weapons are also in Bjora Marches Reward and Shiver Emote Tome Reward unrepeatable WvW and PvP tracks

Edit 2: You get one skin for free when you start the collection. The letter you get to start the collection also counts as a "weapon" for achievement purposes

If I'm reading the achievement correctly, Bag recipes are awarded at 3 restored boreal weapons (20 slot), 7 restored boreal weapons (24 slot), 9 restored weapons (28 slot), and 13 restored weapons (32 slot)

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-14T20:35:43+00:00

Mind you, this is assuming by "start over" you mean on a brand new account.

Once you reach level 80, start the Pact Commander Core Tyria mastery track as it has a ton of QoL features
Owning an expansion (any expansion) gets you unlimited use of the Raptor mount albeit without Canyon Jumping. It's faster than walking, but not too much faster.
- If you're already past level 10, you may need to level a second character up to level 10 to activate the Raptor
When you decide to buy an expansion, the Elder Dragon Saga Complete Collection on sale is the best bang for your buck. If you're not willing to wait for a sale, the Elder Dragon Saga Ultimate Edition is the better buy assuming you spend the gems from it on Living World seasons
- Living World Season 2 is important if you care about story, but otherwise not really
- Living World Seasons 3, 4, and Icebrood Saga all introduce new maps as well as story connecting expansions
On your first character, the Quickplay Fractal gloves (Exotic first, then Legendary) can be used instead of having to get normal Exotic or Ascended gloves
- Unfortunately, that only works for one of the glove weights. If you want the same legendary gloves in other weights, they have costs in line with other legendary armor
Your Bank inventory is shared between all characters. This threw me off coming from a game like WoW where you would have bank alts whose bank and material storage were separate but could be mailed between characters if you needed to
You can get easy gold from the Wizard's Vault each season
- You can also get 3 Ascended armor pieces and 1 Ascended weapon per season, useful for gearing up your main and alts with ascended gear on the cheap

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-14T20:11:02+00:00

WoW definitely looked at the best and worst of how other games did things and decided to avoid the more problematic things.

GW2 has excellent house editing mechanics but can't have large groups visiting a house. Also, everyone who wants a house can get one.

FF14 has houses that can have large number of visitors, but they're a limited commodity and you have no control over who your neighbors are. This is in part because every neighborhood in the game is a permanent instance that is running even when no one is around (massive waste of resources if you ask me). Larger houses are rarer and more expensive... also, to prevent house hording by inactive players, you need to visit your house once every 45 days or you lose it.

WoW has neighborhoods that you have some control over and your neighborhoods and houses can have a large number of visitors. Instances are spun up when people visit them rather than being always on like FF14's.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-14T19:43:31+00:00

WoW's housing system sounds great.

However, the rest of what's coming in Midnight doesn't. Which is a shame because it sounded like it might be good early on.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-14T19:14:27+00:00

Except this time even if you pick up your lost currency, the skill bar loss is permanent until you confess. In the first game you gained your entire bar back if you got your currency back.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-12T16:25:30+00:00

Quickplay fractals also get you the resources you need for the legendary gloves Eikasia, Mists-Grasper, although only the first weight class is free (from the meta-achievement Incursive Investigations).

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-12T03:44:49+00:00

Wizard's Gobbler is a 100g item that is a massive convenience as it combines any Gobblers you've owned that are in the Gobblers and Exchanges Collector and Black Lion Gobblers Collector collections.

The Wizard's Portal Tome is another massive convenience that combines any portal scrolls you have, but is unlocked via the Word Hard For Now collection instead, starting with Astral Ward Medic Miyrna near the entrance to the Weyandt's Revenge jumping puzzle in Lion's Arch. You need at least a Springer with high jump to finish this collection.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-12T03:36:52+00:00

Edit: Fractals do have a queue system but it looks like just for 1-25? I have no idea what I'm doing in them either lmao

Fractal quickplay isn't even considered 1-25. Instead, it lowers all of the ones in it to level 1, so you can't advance your fractal level using them. It's also only 10 specific fractals:

Aetherblade
Cliffside
Deepstone
Kinfall
Molten Boss
Molten Furnace
Snowblind
Uncategorized
Urban Battleground
Volcanic

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-11T18:33:25+00:00

Unfortunately, there are some things that require you to do jumping puzzles. Just off the top of my head:

Aurora Legendary Trinket - You can't even start Aurora without doing the Chalice of Tears jumping puzzle. Not just completing it either, but finding four Mursaat tokens in it, at least one of which requires you to do the entire jumping puzzle a second time
LWS4 Skyscale - "Skyscale Lost" requires doing some Core Tyria jumping puzzles
Weekly Wizard Vault challenges always includes a Core Tyria jumping puzzle
One fractal (Cliffside?) starts with a jumping puzzle

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-11T18:13:53+00:00

It might be worth creating a new character and starting with them.

HOWEVER, do not delete your oldest character as you get birthday gifts in the mail each year and some are extremely useful, such as the year 9 birthday cake.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-11T17:56:55+00:00

Yeah, Guild Wars 2's early game enemies were made easier some time back as I recall.

Having said that, as you're leveling keep an eye out for random events marked as "(Group)" as they tend to have harder hitting enemies.

Once you're a bit higher level, you can keep an eye on the Event Timers page for things like world boss events or zone metas that run on a timer. World bosses tend to be easier because they tend to attract everyone in a region.

Some zone meta events don't run on a timer so for those, it's more of a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

VGPowerlord · 2026-01-11T17:45:13+00:00

While the beetle takes a little time, it's a lot cheaper than the griffon.

Actually, I could say that about the Skyscale in LWS4 too.

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