I recently dusted off my old Guild Wars 2 account after YouTube recommend some videos of it.
I was a huge fan of Guild Wars 1, I especially loved its skill system. You had hundreds of skills available but you could only equip 8 at a time. This forced you to think carefully and craft builds, which was half the fun. There were some skills that were only available once you defeated some hard elite enemies, which was also a fun challenge.
When GW2 released I bought the game on the first week, but the skill system was very underwhelming for me. A huge part of why I loved GW1 was not there in the sequel, so I quickly stopped playing.
Around 10 years later I logged in again and created a new character. I'm aware that there were tons of changes made to the game but the very early game stayed pretty much the same (as far as I remember). However, the way I experienced it was very different.
It no longer bothered me that you only have a fraction of the skills available. I'm 10 years older than I was when I first played it and I have much less time. This means that I appreciate not having to spend days to craft a character, I can just go out and enjoy the game.
The story is also pretty good, I've heard that GW2 is one of the few MMOs where the early game is also as much fun as the late game, and it seems to be true. I don't feel like I have to rush to max level to have fun.
Have you ever had a similar experience?
The thing about GW2 is that it's a good game in its own right, but you really need to not think of it as a GW1 sequel in its game mechanics.
Also, I actually got put off by the story in GW2, it was so very child of destiny, chosen one style. The writing for the side quests is so much better and way more interesting.
Yeah it gets much better after the personal story leveling stuff. It's an eleven year old game, and unfortunately the content that new players see first is the most dated. They originally leaned more into a more generic RPG story that just happens to be set in an mmo. Heart of Thorns is markedly better, and it just improves from there. By the time of Path of Fire, the story, characters, maps, and mechanics all feel interesting and meaningful imo.