Guild Wars 2

Underwhelming

That’s the word that best describes the Flame & Frost Living Story. I feel it could have been something really fun and special, but in the end really didn’t amount to much.

Scavengering around two maps and gathering lost items from a group of redshirt refugees that you don’t care about (and never will) is not the least bit enjoyable.
The “dead drop” communications were only slightly more interesting, as they at least tried to frame the context of the subsequent story.
The instanced fights with Rox and Braham were decent enough and made you feel like you were a part of the action. This was decent.

The final dungeon was, and is, fairly well put together with a good end boss mechanic. However, the rewards in the dungeon are BAD. Just bad.

After completing everything, the final reward is: a pair of ugly gauntlets. Very underwhelming. In retrospect, had I known the gloves would have been as ugly as they are (I’m speaking about the light gauntlets, since I haven’t seen the others), I never would have bothered with any of the questline, and ultimately I don’t think it would have made a difference.

While I liked the dungeon and a couple of the bits of this story, the overall saga was very clunky and uninteresting with rewards that left something to be desired.

Sad to hear you didn’t enjoy F&F. Personally I enjoyed it very much, as I know my guildies did (not all of them, granted).

Here’s what I feel: Gathering lost items added some body to the story. It showed that it’s not all about battling foes, and that whatever was happening affected civilians.
The MF dungeon was fun. Enough of a challenge, to the point of slightly annoying at times, but all in all: Fun. I liked how the bosses craved some strategy and minding your surroundings. I especially liked what came after defeating those bosses. It gave a feeling of fulfillment.
I agree that the gauntlets are ugly, and I will probably not use them at all. BUT. Is it really all about the rewards? Surely having a good time is very rewarding in itself (this is a general statement, as some people do enjoy the game and still whine about the bad reward).

The Living Story contained a lot of different quests/events, which in my book makes it very rich. If this is not your cup of tea, and you are only in for the reward; Why would you play the game at all?

Breanna.7401:

If this is not your cup of tea, and you are only in for the reward; Why would you play the game at all?

I think you’ll find you answered your own question.

Breanna.7401:

I agree that the gauntlets are ugly, and I will probably not use them at all. BUT. Is it really all about the rewards? Surely having a good time is very rewarding in itself (this is a general statement, as some people do enjoy the game and still whine about the bad reward).

The game is not just about the rewards. It’s about engaging gameplay. The lost and found story did nothing to make the gameplay engaging, nor did it really immerse you in the story. It was a boring diversion. It stunk.

Breanna.7401:

The Living Story contained a lot of different quests/events, which in my book makes it very rich. If this is not your cup of tea, and you are only in for the reward; Why would you play the game at all?

It is my cup of tea, but I don’t think this particular cup of tea was brewed well at all. Let’s take an example from another game. Rift was an MMO that had a few “epic” quest lines. These quest lines had few voiced parts, but they:
1) were extremely lengthy (20-30 sub quests is probably the norm)
2) tied into the storyline of the game well
3) made you feel like you were either the central focus or a very active participant in the goings-on
4) included a mix of solo and group play
5) provided a nice (not BiS) reward(s) and some nice cosmetic items

Frankly I think that GW2 would be better served with their Living Story if they focused less on “Refugee Steve and Missing Agent Fupa” and did more to make my character feel like he/she is changing the Living world through his/her actions. Also, there should be a nice reward for it!

So you not liking the rewards (the gloves are pretty cool in my opinion) makes F&F automatically suck? I’m sorry but you have your opinion and I have mine, and mine is that F&F is (was?) an enjoyable piece of content.

Personally I enjoyed it. I feel like the story unfolding slowly and focusing so much on the ‘minor’ characters actually gave it more of an impact because when we finally got to fight the bad guys we knew in detail what they’d done to their victims and what these people had lost because of them, instead of just charging in to help because someone said we should.

I agree the gauntlets are a bad reward, I’m not sure I’ll ever use mine. But it only bothers me because I wish I could pick the mini instead. I’d still have done the content and still enjoyed it even if there was no reward at the end at all.

Wolfheart.1938:

So you not liking the rewards (the gloves are pretty cool in my opinion) makes F&F automatically suck? I’m sorry but you have your opinion and I have mine, and mine is that F&F is (was?) an enjoyable piece of content.

Personally (pun intended, since the major problem with F&F is the same problem with the end of the ‘Personal’ Story), F&F could have a lot better, if Anet had provided more and more varied options to allow you to ‘complete’ the content over all and earn a final reward. It seems like they were basically only providing tasks for one play style at a time, and the only choice you have is to play all of them—particularly the ones you loathe. To be honest, they needed to have a collection task and an open-world-event task (like the Molten Invader) and a dungeon at each stage of the content, not just one, and then another, and then the third, especially in a way that roadblocks players who simply can’t stand that content type—instead of being fun for most of the people, it ended disappointing, aggravating, and/or angering most of the people at one stage or another.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Scavengering around two maps and gathering lost items from a group of redshirt refugees that you don’t care about (and never will) is not the least bit enjoyable.
The “dead drop” communications were only slightly more interesting, as they at least tried to frame the context of the subsequent story.
The instanced fights with Rox and Braham were decent enough and made you feel like you were a part of the action. This was decent.

I… really agree with this.

I find that Lost and found missions (normally just filler in open world games) to be some of the most uninspired and boring game content I ever have to play through. It artificially extends play time and is usually very tedious. The fact that most people just use guides to do these is very telling. I only ever consider these missions acceptable when you get them for areas you haven’t explored yet (encouraging exploration), not for areas I’ve explored completely on several characters. The fact that the story attached to these is minimal doesn’t help either.

Needless to say, I almost always skip this content, but now I’m forced to complete it if I want to be rewarded for all the other living story content I’ve done.

If I were to summarize all the qualms I have with the lost and found (and dead drops) missions its the following:

-Lost and found game content is a filler for actual game content. It artificially inflates a game’s playtime in a very tedious and uninspiring way.
-The story attached to these missions was so minimal that it reduced the activity to looking things up on the web and just trying locations (which aren’t always the same, so it becomes even more tedious).
-The maps chosen for this content are maps that anyone who’s played the game for more than a few weeks has explored completelly, sometimes with multiple characters. This adds to the tedium as we are forced through the same maps over and over again for months.
-Forcing players to do tedious, boring and uninspired content to receive rewards for other missions is a sure fire way to get players to resent your game.
-Bugs. The fact that these quests are bugged in most servers adds to the frustration.

All in all, I really enjoyed the Braham and Rox missions. I found these very pleasant quests, sort of like mini-dungeons. They had story problems as usual (something this game has a lot of unfortunately) but they were still moderately interesting, even if Rox was a little one-dimensional. I would enjoy more of these in the future as opposed to more lost and found quests.

I think Flame and Frost was a good first test run. I am sure Anet is seeing what works and what didn’t work. I think that the living story would be much better if content was added weekly instead of monthly. Slowly adding new things will make the world feel more alive rather than waiting for the new month’s patch

Overall Flame and Frost was quite good——once all the content became available. The teaser content at the beginning with the refugees worked in the sense that it gave players a sense of progress and change over time which is nice because we have been asking for this for some time now. The danger escalates till the Molten Alliance’s troops can be found all over the two maps. If possible, it might help to shorten the time between ‘stages’ or updates so that players won’t be left waiting so long to do new content.

Other than that, the entire sequence of events and activities were quite fun. The bugs were annoying, but aside from that I only have one small criticism regarding the Lost and Found segment. It was generally difficult to locate items without seeking an outside reference, while the scavenger hunt with the mysterious devices made it possible to locate everything in a reasonable amount of time.

Small updates like this are fine and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to those poor refugees moving to Southsun Cove. Though I have to admit that larger expansions are more preferable since there is so much of the map left to be uncovered. Larger updates would probably appease people who have become impatient with any perceived lack of content available as well.

Generally though I was pleasantly surprised with how fun the content was, though I only got around to doing the bulk of it today. The story was decent too and the characters were likable. I also enjoyed the cut-scenes and was happy with the detail put into animating the lipflaps as well being able to watch the dialogue in context with the environment around. The dungeon was pretty epic and the environments were well designed.

Honestly, my biggest issue with it in the end is that the story just felt far too abbreviated and uninteresting.
“Hey, I’m some random Charr, come with me!”
“Oh no! They destroyed the hatchery and took some dudes!”
“Hey, I’m Eir’s son (that totally makes me instantly important and worth caring about, right?), come with me to help save my village!”
“Oh no! The village has been burned down and they took my bros!”

And then we get a dungeon where we rescue said dudes and bros.

There was not enough build-up to make me care about these characters, nor were their stories deep enough to engage me. Add to that how lazy the side-bits to F&F seemed, especially since they were just shoved into the existing maps rather than changing them (Why are these refugees walking right past a lodge with a bunch of Norn getting drunk and acting oblivious to their existence?) and the whole thing feels like a lazy push to try and just throw some content into the game rather than an actual effort to make something compelling.

I liked this event and the buildup. The dungeon was fun and with a decent group is fairly quick to complete.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Underwhelming

That’s the word that best describes the Flame & Frost Living Story. I feel it could have been something really fun and special, but in the end really didn’t amount to much.

~snip~

The final dungeon was, and is, fairly well put together with a good end boss mechanic. However, the rewards in the dungeon are BAD. Just bad.

After completing everything, the final reward is: a pair of ugly gauntlets. Very underwhelming. In retrospect, had I known the gloves would have been as ugly as they are (I’m speaking about the light gauntlets, since I haven’t seen the others), I never would have bothered with any of the questline, and ultimately I don’t think it would have made a difference.

The F&F Living Story seems to follow the Personal Story template — long and tedious quests that doesn’t really change anything; and end it with a dungeon and crappy reward.

While I liked the dungeon and a couple of the bits of this story, the overall saga was very clunky and uninteresting with rewards that left something to be desired.

One thing I hate the most is grinding for the items I want. After getting burned out from running Fractals for my first and only Ascended item, I am not going to a grindfest to get the jetpack. I rather do something else or play some other game.

Besides, I think Rox’s quiver is way better looking anyway.

Wolfheart.1938:

So you not liking the rewards (the gloves are pretty cool in my opinion) makes F&F automatically suck? I’m sorry but you have your opinion and I have mine, and mine is that F&F is (was?) an enjoyable piece of content.

The rewards were one of the problems I mentioned. You seem to want to focus on that one thing and discard the other salient points I made.

Put simply, large parts of the story are not much fun. The fun parts are the minority in this story. The dungeon, while fun the first few times, gets tiresome and the rewards for running it are not very good. The final reward for finishing the quest, the gloves, are quite unsightly.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this could have been much better, and I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say it could have been accomplished easily. Here’s a thought on how it could have been done differently:

- Start a quest that leads you to search for clues on what’s happening in Shiverpeaks.
– When you are there you run into a makeshift medic tent and you help to provide triage to wounded/dying refugees.
– You heal Braham and he asks you to go with him to Hoelbrak to talk to seek aid.
– Rejected, you and he try Black Citadel. Encounter Rok.
– 3 of you take back Craigstead: reward – F&F theme armor skin
– 3 of you then go do the hatchery: reward – F&F theme armor skin
– some clue from the hatchery sends you to go rescue character “X”, who will then inform you about what’s going on and the weapon’s facilities
– go rescue character “X”
– run MWF: reward – one piece of F&F themed gear, one guaranteed rare drop a day
– finish the quest line – reward: F&F theme armor skin and 1 random exotic weapon
– end of F&F (when the big baddie is revealed) reward: F&F theme weapon skin

There are two basic differences here:
1) The focus is changed and the player is now, continuously an active participant in all stages of the story
2) more, and better, rewards

I have really enjoyed the F&F content tremendously and can not wait to see what is next for the summer. I will say that the whole retro console game thing that was thrown in there was a little odd and I personally would have liked to see something that corresponded with F&F be thrown in. It distracted from the whole plight of the refugees and took some time away from me grinding the F7F content like I should have kept all attention on. I LOVE ALL that the game has and will be and it gets old seeing all the cut downs and insults towards these people hard work. I apologize to the creators and developers and I Thank you for all you do. Keep it coming I will continue to shell out my money for the game every week faithfully.