After 3 years break: Some questions!

[DrWho2010]

* First of all, I want to do some killing where I left of as Blackmage, and I do not want to waste any EXP - but then several questions came to my mind. Is my level tied to the ingame story? I tell you right out: I have not advanced much in the story. I think I've stopped right after the credits of ARR. Now I'd like to buy the expansions, but then: Is there anything that prevents me from advancing as Blackmage? Let's say there is a quest giver in the new expansion area, and I am like 100 hours of gameplay away from that, I do not need to buy any expansion yet. But it'd like to advance with my profession(s), even if that's just in ARR areal.

First of all welcome back! Your progress in the MSQ is gated behind level once you start getting into Heavensward 3.0 MSQ. If you don't buy the expansions and stay with just ARR you will be locked at level 50. So if you have any plans to advance you should buy them. I believe you just missed a sale on them though.

* Also, I see I just can buy the complete package - with ARR, HW and SB. It says PC download and such, but how does it work? Is there a setup.exe and then it checks and downloads the stuff by itself? It looks odd that I can not purchase HW alone.

Once you buy the expansion, the launcher will do the rest of the downloading for you. HW is now included with SB. You don't need to buy them separately anymore.

* Another thing I loved about GW2 is: Consistency. There is no gear treadmill (which also turns the game a bit stale, everything's the same numbers..), but at least my looks were always the same (in a good way). Just like the gentleman waiting for the train at the same time in the same, clean clothes, I also wish to keep my clothes.

This game as you should know is a vertical progression system. You will not and should not keep the same gear as you progress. You can however glamor pieces so you will be able to keep the same look all the time. It used to be you couldn't unlock glamor until level 50, it's now been moved to level 15.

Before I put my Lalafell on retirement, I finished the Evenstar set and put a screenshot of it on my Windows7 loginscreen (it's the signature in fullscreen). My mom visited me in my appartment and was like "Who's that? He's cute" and since then not only me and my mom share the love for cute, pointy-eared midgets, but also one wish: I never have to change my Evenstar set. It grow on me from 2014 to 2018, now it's on my Win10 loginscreen. It's just "me".

In GW2 they have a wardrobe. Here it seems to be also a wardrobe - the one in the inn room. Glamour, eh? How does it work? As far as I understood, I can later (the quest is not done yet) "destroy" items in order to sacrifice them for a "skin" that can be put on as many upcoming items. That's exactly what I am looking for. I mean, my current equipment is original May 2015 - Evenstar set, Atma Stardust. But I love that, and I'd like to look like that despite I upgrade my gear. Could someone explain that to me?

You can either glamor pieces individually with prisms or you can create a glamor plate using the dresser in the inn rooms. Right now if you put stuff in it you can't get it back, but that will be changing very soon with the next patch. Glamor plates are basically glamor gear presets. You can't change glamor plates wherever you want tho I think, and I don't personally use the dresser/plates myself i just glamor prism everything.

* I know this question is very odd, but coming from GW2, with all the dodging, I felt ashamed that I got hit by so many mobs. Yes, I do understand we have the trinity here, so if everyone can avoid getting hit, we would not need tanks and healers. But every hit by a Level 1 enemy (that gang up on you, I mean, Gridania is dangerous!!) was an insult to me and I was like "Man, is that normal?". I just can't remember in the open world that it's totally normal to get hit until your enemy (or you) die. Maybe it was like that all the time, but it feels so odd. You know, in GW2, it's more like "Don't get hit at all, that's noob", here is it like "I can get hit and when my enemies are down, just replenish health later and keep going".

As long as you're 10+ levels ahead of the enemies they won't even bother looking at you in open world stuff.

* I wish I could dye a certain set of equipment. In this case the Acolyth set from Level 15 or something. However, it's undyable. But I think I can remember seeing a white Evenstar hat - how is that possible? Aren't both undyable or was it a different item?

Some pieces of equipment are undyeable yes, usually green dungeon gear (with some exceptions). The old soldiery equipment you are referring to is the Evenstar set. It starts out as "Weathered" and you can upgrade it to being dyeable with items you can now buy with poetics (sands of time for body left side pieces).

* Okay, that's not a question, but I feel a bit of anxiety raising up. I am not used to be "forced" to play with others again, I could do Solo in GW2 a lot. Hope that goes away soon...^^

MSQ is meant to be done solo, but you will have to party up with people to complete dungeons and other instanced content. But most people are friendly. Enjoy your return to Eorzea.