Guild Wars 2

First let me say that I have played in groups and have enjoyed it, but I mostly play solo or in a team of two. I will help out any player who is down or appears to be in trouble, I respond to any questions in the chat window that I know the answer to, and I really enjoy the helpful nature of this community and I try to give back. I don’t think I have ever refused an invite to join a group but I do prefer to play in a team of 2 or to play solo. This does not make me anti-community or anti-social.

Having said this, I don’t like being forced to switch from solo play to a group of five in order to complete the personal story line. It almost feels a bit like I’ve been lied to. “You can do this solo, … you can do this solo ….you can do this solo ……. Not!! … We were just kidding, you need a group!” … It feels like a hook to get me playing in groups.

Having to group to complete dungeons was one thing, I can accept that. But having to group to complete your “personal” story line sends a clear message, solo play or team play is not valued nearly as much as group play. That message from the developers has been received loud and clear. I do not like it, but I got the message. I’m just not sure what I’ll do next.

I think it is bad design for any game that allows the majority of the story driven content to be played solo, to suddenly put up an artificial barrier around it that forces you to team up to see its continuation or conclusion. In my opinion, any story content that can be started solo must also be allowed to be finished solo too; the central story of Guild Wars 2 should be no exception.

Before someone hops in here and admonishes you for playing a “Social Game” solo, allow me to support your position. I am still astounded that you can “play the game your way” for 99% of the ‘Personal’ Storyline and in the last 1% needed for completion, you are required to NOT play the game your way.

So now I have 3 × 80s all whose personal story line stops at varying points in the 70s of the Personal Storyline, because I got that far and found out I had to do a dungeon to complete it. When I found that out I thought, you have got to be kidding me. I have to join a party and do a dungeon to complete MY Personal Storyline? Progress halted on all characters…Next.

How do you do Dungeons and Fractal for all that easy money you may ask?
Simple, never did a dungeon or fractal, nor do I care to.
Sure I got hosed for the first 6 months of Monthly Achievements because of that and when they took those requirements OUT of the monthly’s for March, I finished it in 4 days.
What about sPvP thou?
Nope, have not done that either.
Ok, but what about WvW?
Well yeah I do WvW, but only to get the last 5 POIs I need to complete the Blue map which we have not occupied for 8weeks now.

So will this hurtle change in a future update?
I don’t see how.

My advice, it’s a really great game with a few really big flaws…hey, nobody’s perfect. Just go on playing the way you want within the parameters of the system and have as much fun as you can, without getting arrested.

The reward that you get for completing that LAST 80 storyline, is just not worth worrying about.

Moving on…

Personally, I understand the story reason for team play. Taking down Zhaitan is not supposed to be an easy task.

However, you lose the personal part of it. Unless you are the leader, you’re not in the cinematics.

I would have preferred to see all 5 classes in the cinematics and interacting. They are 5 heroes who have all come together. The 5 commanders of the Pact together with Destiny’s Edge.

The problem is, it doesn’t make sense as is story wise. We are all the same person teaming up together. Maybe we are 1 person with schizophrenia?

I just wish it was written so that it made sense that we were together as a team. I also wish the end battle would have been more epic and required great team work between Destiny’s Edge and the 5 players.

This could have been that the 5 Destiny’s Edge characters were left on the ship and using it to keep Zhaitan down. Then the 5 Commanders jump down to fight it head on. In it’s current state, it’s weak enough to battle, but still strong enough to be a challenge. You then need to capitalize on all of the combat mechanics learned earlier in the game. Dodge rolling, avoiding red circles, crowd controlling adds, cross class combos etc etc.

What kills me is that you can get completion for your personal story and never appear in the cutscenes for Arah because of how the dungeon group story works. It’s even worse because Arah follows the story of the dungeons, which aren’t needed up until then for the personal story, so I barely knew what was going on with Destiny’s Edge because I had only done three story mode dungeons. It really makes the Zhaitan fight feel a lot less epic than it should be. It doesn’t help that most of fighting him is just sitting in a cannon, slowly picking away at his health. It fit the story, yeah, but it didn’t make him feel much like a threat.

While WoW is hardly the best example for story, I was kinda expecting something along the lines of the Deathwing encounter. (Very similar to Arah in how the raid is set up, you fight his minions, get on an airship, shoot him out of the air, and then you fight him.) You knock the great beast out of the sky, now get down there and try not to die!

I also was disappointed to find that finishing my personal story required dungeon completion. The PS has been a really fun…sometimes challenging…experience and it was really building in a cool way with those last few segments. Now…hmmm…well, I guess I just move on to something else. While I enjoy playing out in the world with people…and there are incredible opportunities for that, six + years of Blizzard has left me a bit down on organized dungeon groups…so I just avoid them.

That said, I respect that this is a decision made by the developers and I expect that it was vetted and discussed rather rigorously before doing this. I don’t like it…but I understand and accept that I do no have to like everything. I also understand and accept that by refusing to do dungeons, I am foregoing a good bit of content. The decision is up to me and the consequences of that decision accrue to me…so be it. But…and this is a really big but…you might have warned us ahead of time.

I have spent considerable time on the PS…only to drop it now before the end. The one saving grace is that I know better than to start it when I begin my new character. This is, again, a decision that will remove one more piece of content for me. But the implications go beyond that. We now have the Living Story…which seems cool enough and something to get excited about. Is this going to end up in a dungeon as well? Based on what I have experienced with the Personal Story and the lack of any information to the contrary, I am concluding that it probably will involve a dungeon and will now just stop bothering with those snow and dirt covered objects.

My desire isn’t that they change the arrangement now…probably not practical. I just hope that they recognize that not everyone plays dungeons (even though they may well enjoy playing with lots of players out in the world) and giving us a heads up on activity lines that will end up in dungeons will help us make better decisions about allocating our play time.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s hard to explain, and impossible to exaggerate, just how cheated I felt when I realised that, after working solo so far through “my” story, I was being robbed of any chance of doing so through the end content. Because I’ve cracked every PS instance so far with my own sweat and toil, and I most definitely don’t want, say, to watch the very personal climax of all my effort as a de facto passenger (while some over-powered, over-equipped group of complete strangers sweep all before them and hand me the result on a platter). Sorry – I’m supposed to be the hero, it’s supposed to be my story, and by the end of the PS I believe I’ve earned the right to the satisfaction of finishing it for myself. There are times for grouping – but forcing it on the end of the PS is not one of them.

Gonna go ahead and agree with OP here, disappointed I returned to the game from level 62 and played to 80 and through the story to the last bit and it’s like boom: need a group. I have never done a dungeon on GW2 so I’m not even sure what to do, I have asked for groups but no one is interested/knows what I’m on about.

So there it is: a brick wall.

Ba air.1372:

What kills me is that you can get completion for your personal story and never appear in the cutscenes for Arah because of how the dungeon group story works. It’s even worse because Arah follows the story of the dungeons, which aren’t needed up until then for the personal story, so I barely knew what was going on with Destiny’s Edge because I had only done three story mode dungeons. It really makes the Zhaitan fight feel a lot less epic than it should be. It doesn’t help that most of fighting him is just sitting in a cannon, slowly picking away at his health. It fit the story, yeah, but it didn’t make him feel much like a threat.

While WoW is hardly the best example for story, I was kinda expecting something along the lines of the Deathwing encounter. (Very similar to Arah in how the raid is set up, you fight his minions, get on an airship, shoot him out of the air, and then you fight him.) You knock the great beast out of the sky, now get down there and try not to die!

Agree with the OP and even more so with this: Arah following the Destiny’s Edge story more than the Trahearne/Pact/Personal story was almost as silly and disappointing as taking Zhaitan down from behind a cannon.

I would love to see this final quest redone to be solo-friendly and involve Trahearne over Destiny’s Edge—even though I don’t much care for Trahearne, it’s more logical for him to be there leading the Pact than Logan et al—and to allow us the pleasure of taking Zhaitan down face-to-face.

Even more ridiculous is that the Zhaitan fight itself is nothing you couldn’t solo but you still have to get through the dungeon to reach it.