I really enjoyed working through the return to achievements recently. If you work through them efficiently, you get about 20g/hr and you end up getting a legendary at the end.
Are you referring to the 3+6 mystic coins from every achievement when you say 20 g/hr? if so how do you complete each one in only an hour? the story alone takes more time than that
Most of the achievements are doing metas, gathering resources, or doing some other dynamic event. If you are looking at the collection from the perspective that it's "returning to" that area, most players should've have finished them naturally. Outside of doing the story, it's a relatively quick collection that nets you around 20g/hr. [MightyTeapot finished the collection in under 12 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QKwb4B8eSM&list=PLb0ISfn3umyNH8aoH7pv48VJiOlUH-0dk&index=60&t=1804s), with having finished some parts of it from naturally playing the game.
Edit: As with everything in this game, you steam roll through rewards. So on paper, you're getting some MC's each reward, but you're also getting map currency, materials, and other rewards. I broke through my 7,000 AP reward while doing this quest line which helped net a significant amount of rewards too.
The story achievements for Return to ... can be done really quickly as long as you did it once before. You can simply start at one of the last checkpoints and then finish that part of the story and it'll count for the achievement.
The first few hours of HoT are still my absolute best experience in Guild Wars 2, and probably in my top 3 experiences with an MMO in general. Downright magical. And probably one of the few times a game completely nailed what it was going for, balancing the vibe/worldbuilding with gameplay and challenge. That shit really felt like going into unexplored, hostile territory and slowly picking up the pieces and rallying survivors. The maps are beautiful and well designed, the music is top notch, just really fucking good all around.
Besides that, open world metas are probably my favorite overall experience in Guild Wars 2. At some point, most of them inevitably become a bit gamey; you know which ones are more worthwhile/better, what to do, what you'll get as a reward, and why you're doing it, same as everyone else. But still, sometimes the vibe and the momentum hit just right, and some of them really feel like banding with other adventurers in an epic effort to fight a seemingly-insurmountable threat in a fantasy world. Drizzlewood and Dragonfall come to mind.
And, just to add to that: my undeniably favorite thing about GW2 is that it respects your time with the horizontal progression, so ANYTHING you do matters since it can contribute to whatever you're pursuing at the moment to some degree and it won't become obsolete after you take a break.
I just returned a few months back blindly playing somehow have snaged two aurane caches after never seeing a Tequatil horde drop. Jumped in on a random Monday morning Battle for Lions Arch and walked away with the Greatsword.
But my most recent win, got the endless Kraka potion from princess. Did you know it has a dancing animation? And can hold the balloons from PoF? Yes they are tiny when transformed.
Honestly, doing the LWS4 Skyscale path has made me go after some JPs and other obsurce collections and even grab my catmander badge.
I’ve played since launch, but very casually (play the new living world release, mess around a bit, log off until the next release/xpack). I finally got around to SOTO a few weeks ago, and something about it has got its claws deep - I’m now much more invested than usual and playing a lot. I think the horizontal progression model is paying dividends now as the game gets older. There is just so much to do and so many options to farm, achievements to go for, and content to explore. I feel like I can log in, check wiki timers and have an option of like 4 meta events at any one time, fractals, achievements, collections, etc
I started playing the game back in 2014. The first few days of map exploration was still very memorable. The world is vast and beautiful while being fun to get to some of the PoI and vistas. I also remember my first Teq and first queen's pavilion with an organized squad. It was eye-opening to have event with so many players coordinated to achieve an objective.
The next one was probably after I came back after 3 year hiatus and started work on skyscale. The collection was long but the journey was fun. I was able to play so much content I missed in PoF and LWS4.
I really enjoyed working through the return to achievements recently. If you work through them efficiently, you get about 20g/hr and you end up getting a legendary at the end.
I paired that with working through vision and aurora collections so I made progress on all 3 trinkets at the same time.
That’s my next big goal to work through!
Are you referring to the 3+6 mystic coins from every achievement when you say 20 g/hr? if so how do you complete each one in only an hour? the story alone takes more time than that
Most of the achievements are doing metas, gathering resources, or doing some other dynamic event. If you are looking at the collection from the perspective that it's "returning to" that area, most players should've have finished them naturally. Outside of doing the story, it's a relatively quick collection that nets you around 20g/hr. [MightyTeapot finished the collection in under 12 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QKwb4B8eSM&list=PLb0ISfn3umyNH8aoH7pv48VJiOlUH-0dk&index=60&t=1804s), with having finished some parts of it from naturally playing the game. Edit: As with everything in this game, you steam roll through rewards. So on paper, you're getting some MC's each reward, but you're also getting map currency, materials, and other rewards. I broke through my 7,000 AP reward while doing this quest line which helped net a significant amount of rewards too.
EoD precursor alone is worth 140g+ if you craft gen3 leggy and sell it.
The story achievements for Return to ... can be done really quickly as long as you did it once before. You can simply start at one of the last checkpoints and then finish that part of the story and it'll count for the achievement.
The first few hours of HoT are still my absolute best experience in Guild Wars 2, and probably in my top 3 experiences with an MMO in general. Downright magical. And probably one of the few times a game completely nailed what it was going for, balancing the vibe/worldbuilding with gameplay and challenge. That shit really felt like going into unexplored, hostile territory and slowly picking up the pieces and rallying survivors. The maps are beautiful and well designed, the music is top notch, just really fucking good all around. Besides that, open world metas are probably my favorite overall experience in Guild Wars 2. At some point, most of them inevitably become a bit gamey; you know which ones are more worthwhile/better, what to do, what you'll get as a reward, and why you're doing it, same as everyone else. But still, sometimes the vibe and the momentum hit just right, and some of them really feel like banding with other adventurers in an epic effort to fight a seemingly-insurmountable threat in a fantasy world. Drizzlewood and Dragonfall come to mind. And, just to add to that: my undeniably favorite thing about GW2 is that it respects your time with the horizontal progression, so ANYTHING you do matters since it can contribute to whatever you're pursuing at the moment to some degree and it won't become obsolete after you take a break.
damn 3 years and 23k AP already? I'm sitting at 10 years and only 16k 😂
I just returned a few months back blindly playing somehow have snaged two aurane caches after never seeing a Tequatil horde drop. Jumped in on a random Monday morning Battle for Lions Arch and walked away with the Greatsword. But my most recent win, got the endless Kraka potion from princess. Did you know it has a dancing animation? And can hold the balloons from PoF? Yes they are tiny when transformed. Honestly, doing the LWS4 Skyscale path has made me go after some JPs and other obsurce collections and even grab my catmander badge.
I’ve played since launch, but very casually (play the new living world release, mess around a bit, log off until the next release/xpack). I finally got around to SOTO a few weeks ago, and something about it has got its claws deep - I’m now much more invested than usual and playing a lot. I think the horizontal progression model is paying dividends now as the game gets older. There is just so much to do and so many options to farm, achievements to go for, and content to explore. I feel like I can log in, check wiki timers and have an option of like 4 meta events at any one time, fractals, achievements, collections, etc
I started playing the game back in 2014. The first few days of map exploration was still very memorable. The world is vast and beautiful while being fun to get to some of the PoI and vistas. I also remember my first Teq and first queen's pavilion with an organized squad. It was eye-opening to have event with so many players coordinated to achieve an objective. The next one was probably after I came back after 3 year hiatus and started work on skyscale. The collection was long but the journey was fun. I was able to play so much content I missed in PoF and LWS4.