Guild Wars 2

Something else I’d like to add is that Arenanet crafted the perfect world for endless expansion with the awesome and innovative level scaling mechanics that only gate content forward, never backward, ensuring that old content is never totally trivialized by new content.

In light of that, choosing to do this ‘living’ world concept where the focus is more on changing the existing world rather than constantly adding to it is a total shot in the foot that makes even less sense than it would in another game. They should be capitalizing on this – they could still easily find ways to drive and/or concentrate the player population if that’s something they’re concerned about.

So to start this off im a big guild wars fan read all of the books and every back story on all the characters played guild wars 1 for 3years and overall just love the atmosphere of the world created. However i am rather disappointed at honestly and simply put the devs not listening to the overall player base. It seems that they are quick to say the players are wrong and deal with rather then be open minded and understanding. im talking about the time gated events that have been going on for over a year and have left us with no new content to change the game since day 1 other then southsun and fractals. now most people say well its only a year how long did wows first expansion take… well that was in the early 2000s and honestly games move alot faster and can become outdated alot faster….. ur player base is telling you they dont like the new changes to classes, the entire living world system (which imho just looks like a way for u to bring people back every 2 weeks and get them to sink gems and $$ into skins only obtained via gems….. thats fine but how but some new skins from dungeons to balance), wvw is a joke and unbalanced 1v1v1 their will always be alliances, look at how bg and jq double teamed sor, server transfers in mid season????!?! i mean it looked like sor was going to beat BG finally (50k points over em) and then they went to recruiting….., the unbalanced pvp, all of these big issues that u refuse to address…… sorry but on that note and no disrespect but……

Wildstar…… the Devs are listening

Shriketalon.1937:

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

It’s a quote from a ways back, but it’s the best way to frame my response. I hope you don’t mind.

A good show must find a balance between building lore, establishing characters, indulging in instant gratification, and setting up long term investment. In many ways, a television show is an apt comparison to MMOs. They require an initial hook to get the player interested combined with long term reasons to get committed to regular viewing. In addition, they cater to many different individual’s personal tastes; viewers will get attached to certain characters, become invested in the plot, or simply enjoy the wit and banter to bring them back again and again. At the moment, however, the Living Story feels like a poor spinoff due to the overemphasis on the Saga of Scarlet. In order to achieve a solid viewing audience, the Living Story needs to find balance.

I have a thread over yonder where I go into more details, but here is a simple example of a Living Story arrangement designed to appeal to a wide audience. The idea is to reserve long term campaigns that take months of content for the most important things going on in Tyria (which are dragons, not redheaded Sylvari reverse engineering bloodstones). These fit into the January-to-May block very easily, since there are no holidays during that time frame. Meanwhile, the rest of the year is devoted to creature features, lore delves, one shot stories, and the introduction of new races in order to indulge a diverse audience. The combination of hardcore campaigns and whimsical/wonderful oneshots should satisfy the audience and keep them entertained for years to come.

If it is not to presumptuous, here is a hypothetical TV Guide To Tyria to demonstrate what the Living Story could be.

Reading through all of these events they look awesome. It feels like the story moves and uses lore and great story telling. Your list is how LS should work, it moves along opening stories for new events and even if 1 month is dedicated to a small minor character like the ghost ship (2016 November) for example (which i love the idea of that event) it only lasts 1 month and LS moves on. Scarlet might have been fun if she was a 1 month enemy and defeated. Starting at Queens Jubilee and ending in TA (killed or not) where her secret base could have been 1 1/2 months would have been great and moved on to another enemy. 9 months is just too long to spend on Scarlet. Scarlet is more along that of Lady Glaive, she should not of had this much lime light.

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

Scarlet is more along that of Lady Glaive, she should not of had this much lime light.

Lady Glaive was mentioned very briefly in NF, very briefly in EOTN, and pops up in a GW1 skill description.

That’s a tiny amount of lime light! She never even appears!

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

Scarlet is more along that of Lady Glaive, she should not of had this much lime light.

Lady Glaive was mentioned very briefly in NF, very briefly in EOTN, and pops up in a GW1 skill description.

That’s a tiny amount of lime light! She never even appears!

Talking about Scarlet having too much lime light, not Lady Glaive.

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

Talking about Scarlet having too much lime like not Lady Glaive.

Oh! My mistake, sorry.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

Talking about Scarlet having too much lime like not Lady Glaive.

Oh! My mistake, sorry.

:) It’s cool. But I feel like Scarlet should be about at the same level. They really need to find ways to trim down on how much time it takes to tell the story of one character. I read that we still don’t fully understand Scarlet O_o, which means we will see more of her. I don’t think any of the community views Scarlet as a major character along level of Elder Dragons and those dragons are just about the only characters that could warrant such a long drawn out story.

After almost two weeks, I figure I might take a stab at posting my thoughts on the Living Story:

What I expected upon it’s announcement:

1. New full sized explorable areas with renown hearts, dynamic events and collectors.
2. Much more exploration of Tyria’s background lore. I want to explore Janthir darn it!
3. More uses for karma.
4. Full armor sets as rewards for completing things (such as Living Story events).
5. More cinematic in-game cutscenes.

Reasons why I expected these things:

1. Guild Wars 2 has a rich lore thanks to Guild Wars 1. The fact that we rarely have any GW1 lore touched by the Living Story and only get a few references here and there on release made it feel very unsatisfying. The (assumed) cutting of various areas out of the final release (such as a broken bridge to an entrance that leads to possibly another explorable area in NW Brisban Wildlands) makes the current game feel really small. There’s only so much I can take upon re-exploring the same area for the 7th time.
2. Guild Wars 1 built the foundations of the lore that GW2’s events and NPCs would be based on. Why aren’t there deeper explorations and revelations?
3. Karma was touted as an alternative to grinding for gear and items. Well, that’s great, but there is so little gear that we can acquire and even then, it’s 1 single set of armor art for each armor class. Also, why can’t we exchange karma for weapons, combat consumables, and mini pets?
4. While I know that no sub fees means having to get revenue from other sources, constantly placing entire armor sets in the gem-store makes me feel like the game is stagnating in the armor set rewards section. GW2 != GW1, I get it, but one of the main points that drew me to GW1 was that there was such a large variety of armor art as rewards.
5. I was very shocked to see that GW2’s personal storyline cutscenes were basically in the style of a play; a backdrop, and two NPCs standing on two sides talking to each other instead of standing in 3D space and feeling animated. All we got with the personal storyline cutscenes was the occasional arm movement.

What I hope to see in the future of the Living Story:

Like a TV show, I hope to see a deeper investment in the lore and the backgrounds of the characters that are a part of it. I want to be able to find out more about them in game. TV shows also tend to have a narrative payoff: something big or shocking is revealed or mysteries are solved. As for GW2, more armor sets as in game rewards would be nice.

The TV shows I’ve seen don’t tell backstories or relay various bits of lore through other means such as websites and such, they tell the backstories by taking time in an episode or devoting hour long specials to explain things in greater detail (The most recent example I can think of is The Legend of Korra where they detailed the origins of the first Avatar).

Going back to the topic of having events that lead to reinforcing NPCs, so that said NPCs have more chance of surviving events that pop up while PCs are not around:

I was running around northern Sparkfly, and I found a perfect example of a missed opportunity: If Fort Cadence is in the hands of the Vigil, there’s an event where a group of asura researchers descend into the haunted citadel in order to recruit the ghost pirates to fight the Risen. The process was apparently successful, extracting a ghost pirate captain from the citadel – but when I accompanied the ghost and researchers out looking forward to the payoff, the ghost captain just kinda disappeared and the event reset.

Instead of just resetting, a more interesting path this could have taken would be for friendly ghost pirates to spread out across the Fort Cadence area in order to assist in its defense, including reinforcements and ghost cannons on the beach to help defend against the Ash Horizon. If the Vigil was to get really ambitious, the event could also involve moving into the citadel proper now the ghosts have joined them, requiring an extra level of failure before the Vigil is removed from the citadel entirely.

BobbyStein.2315:

Chris decided to extend the deadline to allow more people to add to this particular discussion. If anyone has more to say on this topic, please post your comments.

Kinda meta-discussion, but hearing:

• What you have taken from what has been said (there are a lot of posts here, it would be nice to see a summary of what you feel are the important, good or recurring suggestions).
• What you initially plan to do about what players have said.
• If you want to be super-transparent: on-going posts about the ideas you are throwing around the office that stemmed from this thread. The player-base has repeatedly burnt you and punished you in the past when you have been transparent, I wouldn’t be surprised if you skipped this one – we don’t deserve it.
• Remind us, when you make the changes, that we asked for them by citing the suggestions in this thread.

Would be nice.

I think one of the big things I like with recent Living Story patches, are the little teasers we’re seeing in game. Things as simple as Kessex’s forest being chopped down or the tent in DR for construction of the pavillion are great little goodies for what happens next, it really makes the world feel like it’s changing.

At the same time, however, I think the stories just need more oomph to them. We get a little story, a bunch of achievements to do, maybe a tiny bit more story after, and a lot of questions left on our plates. If there was a bit more guidance, a gradual trickle of the story via these achievements, it’d be better. (Someone recently posted unused sound clips on Reddit for some of the LSs past, please put this stuff in, or try to fit it in, we need the story, we need interaction, silence leaves too many things unaswered.)
As a bad example, the 2013 Halloween. We get the story, meet Tassi and then the Bloody Prince leaves. Then the only thing we get from then until the next ounce of story is achievements to hunt for a candy corn ele. I know his name was wiped from history, but maybe Tassi sends us on a hunt to try and learn more about the prince, only for us to learn his name was wiped from history (maybe we find some strange history books that had pages torn, or writing erased via magic, you know?).
I’m going to use the entire arc of F&F as an good example, albeit it was paced out far too long. We start learning that people are being displaced from their homes, we help the refugees find shelter. There are strange steam vents in the zones in questions. Next, we continue efforts, now there’s portals and we’re starting to see who is responsible. Third, we meet the heroes and now we find the Molten Alliance is getting more aggresive, we attempt to protect two towns from the threats. Last we have the grand finale where we find our enemy and take the fight to them.
Just as F&F had this gradual constant story with a lot of its achievements, we need to have similar for what’s been going on now. As a fix to the current Kessex LS:
Maybe just before we revealed the tower, there have been reports of sickness in nearby cities. You are sent to investigate there first, eventually pinpointing the cause to Kessex Hills. As you get out there, the scene suddenly cuts to the tower magically becoming visible, you are approached by a guard and they give you the story — Marjory and Kasmeer were out here investigating and then this mess happened, cue the story instance and helping save them. Once that is out of the way, the PC can talk to the NPCs and be given multiple leads — finding obelisk shards**, checking/culling infected wildlife, etc.
Perhaps some of these said leads add to small trickles of information, maybe you find a Toxic Alliance member in the act and manage to spy on them, giving you some inside information. Maybe you overhear some krait talking about the shards they have been given and they talk about Scarlet. Or perhaps there are additional story instances that can be unlocked — such as capturing an enemy and getting information from them. We need little bits of the story here and there with these achievements, to answer at least some of the questions.
**Also, please give some direction to where fetch achievements are. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to use an outside source because there’s dragon tooth hidden in some grass on a random mountain top. Maybe Marjory mails a note with possible areas, or the device you’re using can contact the NPC and give you hints.

Other things:
A mix of temporary and permanent content. Maybe people do miss out on a good story, but they need something they can come back to. If there’s nothing new for them to do, why would they bother coming back? Zones, jumpings puzzles, pvp maps, wvw stuff, more guild missions, dungeons, you know.
A decent mix of the current arc and just for fun arcs. I think this is sort of in-game, or starting to become a thing. Do tell the main story, but have some breaks, maybe we need to help Destiny’s Edge one time while the big bad from the main arc is pushed back and in hiding, or maybe a dragon minion is growing stronger.
Return to Elder Dragon’s at some point. Please.

an idea:

• you already have the content, tons of interesting events
• no need to rebuild that stuff, but people should get incentives for finding them.

example: unique collectibles which are the reward for events. Imagine having a few big puzzles for each enemy race. If you complete an event where that race is involved, you’ll get a specific piece of one of that puzzles as event-reward. The pieces of that puzzle can be spread over the whole world, everywhere you have that race active.

example: 6 components of a centaur-hide bag (22 slots) which can be combined for the bag but NOT traded. 12 parts of an exotic centaur spalta, a unique looking weapon for the best adventurers.

The rewards should all be for the level 80 player.

An unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on who you’re talking to) result of the current LS design is zergs. If you release temporary content in a concentrated location, you will inevitably have zergs mobbing the zone. Examples: Scarlet Invasions, Mad King Labyrinth, Grand Pavilion, Toxic Offshoots in Kessex.

New LS releases need to figure out a way to not discourage zergs so much as promote small groups spread out. The Scarlet Invasions were a step to that end, creating multiple rifts throughout the map simultaneously. But of course, they were exploited and eventually zergs just mapped from one champ location to the next for max loots.

Chained events need to happen more often. Ideally, with multiple branches. Complete a Toxic Offshoot event and then the zerg has to disperse to accomplish 2-3 separate events simultaneously. Something would need to be done to prevent zergs from just bouncing from to one to the other, but rather split up.

personally I find the way the new healing skill (new kind of reward, great) was introduced horrible. You spend 50 skillpoints and get it. I have more than enough skillpoints of one of my characters already, so it was the most boring way to unlock this skill.

I don’t know how this could happen. We have skill points and karma which are pretty much useless because you can’t buy anything really interesting with those. How hard can it be to make one of the gemstore-armorsets purchaseable with karma only. A prestige armor which costs tons of karma. Suddenly people would have a goal to work towards again, and have something which only few people can afford. Add a few rare components from specific events and you’d get people out in the world again.

The new skill could have been the reward for a scavenger hunt type of content. Gather certain parts for it all over the world (SPECIFIC mini-dungeons, jumping puzzles, dungeons, hidden npcs, wandering guild mission npcs,…). Why going the generic way with 50 skillpoints?

I wonder: is there a plan for currencies like karma and skillpoints?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

The new skill could have been the reward for a scavenger hunt type of content.

You can also unlock it with 50 (Marjory shop unlock) + 250 (Marjory shop cost) pristine spore samples. That qualifies as a scavenger hunt of sorts (although a very weak-mind-numbingly-brainless-badly-designed-lazy scavenger hunt, your concept of finding the parts is far more interesting).

I assume the skillpoint stuff was there for people who either didn’t want to do the toxic events, or, people who wanted to use the spore samples for something else. Furthermore from the perspective of an altaholic I appreciate the 25 skill point unlock route (it’s not 50). It also caters to the players who join the game after this part of the LS is removed (or if they don’t remove it, when players stop doing it in general and the toxic events become impossible).

I agree that more interesting content could have been done for the grind unlock; the rest of your complaint is ill informed though.

zamalek.2154:

I agree that more interesting content could have been done for the grind unlock; the rest of your complaint is ill informed though.

can you elaborate, please?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I wonder: is there a plan for currencies like karma and skillpoints?

Karma desperately, desperately needs more uses in the game, and I think the recent nerf on karma gains was too harsh by far. It would be great to see it be more useful in the Living World.

On the topic of reward acquisition in the LW, I think the matter of convenience as a general design principle needs to be considered more heavily in LW implementation.

An example of recent unnecessary inconvenience: You need an obelisk transcriber in order to interact with the obelisks in the scavenger hunt.

Although I realise sometimes this type of mechanic is enforced by gameplay limitations, in this case, I really don’t understand why the transcriber item was needed. Problems it imposes:

• It’s more junk in your inventory that actually does nothing in gameplay terms
• It reduces the interchangeability of alts because said item is soulbound, meaning you need to go back and reacquire it from an NPC if you want to switch to a character who e.g. might have the required area already mapped
• It means that if you actually stumble across an obelisk in the wild instead of using guides, you might not have the right tools to do anything with it
• It slows down group efforts. Last night I was helping a friend with the obelisks. A second friend logged in, started to join in with us, then realised they had to go through the rigmarole of heading to Kessex Hills, doing the forced starting cutscene, talking to an NPC to get the arbitrary item, then coming back to meet us before they could participate.

I think it’s important to remember the core awesome principles of dynamic events over standard quest chains when you guys are implementing stuff like this. Dynamic events just happen around you – you don’t need to go and talk to an NPC to participate. Keeping everything easily accessible in this way will reduce the amount of inconvenience in the LW achievements.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

can you elaborate, please?

zamalek.2154:

You can also unlock it with 50 (Marjory shop unlock) + 250 (Marjory shop cost) pristine spore samples. That qualifies as a scavenger hunt of sorts (although a very weak-mind-numbingly-brainless-badly-designed-lazy scavenger hunt, your concept of finding the parts is far more interesting).

Currency.

We have a wallet because all of the various currencies became unweildy.

Yet with every living story update a new ‘currency’ is added. Not currency in the traditional sense but a collectable as currency.

Watchwork sprokets, ugly wool things, kite fortunes, various snowflakes, Zhaitaffy, pristine toxic spores etc. All of these need to be collected in large quantities and used at a vendor.

Any item subtracted from your inventory in exchange for an item from a vendor is a currency. No matter whether it goes into our collectable tab or the wallet, it is still a currency. It’s currency. No matter where we store it. Items spent at a vendor are currency.

I know there is a new item to exhcange every time so that people can’t just buy everything with what they have stored up but enough already.

Karma would be exceptionally useful to replace all of the collectable currencies. You help with the event? You gain karma. Use karma to buy the living story stuff. Need a special item for a crafting recipe? Buy it from a LS vendor appropriate to the content, Majory for example in ToN.

This gives added value to Karma, adds more karma sinks to the game and stops adding more items that are effectively currency.

zamalek.2154:

You can also unlock it with 50 (Marjory shop unlock) + 250 (Marjory shop cost) pristine spore samples. That qualifies as a scavenger hunt of sorts (although a very weak-mind-numbingly-brainless-badly-designed-lazy scavenger hunt, your concept of finding the parts is far more interesting).

[/quote]

Well I knew that, but it doesn’t really matter since it’s much easier to simply just buy it for 20 (?!) skillpoints. They could introduce the most fun scavenger hunt ever and it would be bad since you probably have enough skillpoints for months to buy it in an instant. Sure, new players won’t, but let’s be honest: most of the players play the game for months now and there isn’t really an interesting skillpoint-sink.

Xar.6185:

Karma would be exceptionally useful to replace all of the collectable currencies. You help with the event? You gain karma. Use karma to buy the living story stuff. Need a special item for a crafting recipe? Buy it from a LS vendor appropriate to the content, Majory for example in ToN.

This gives added value to Karma, adds more karma sinks to the game and stops adding more items that are effectively currency.

I think this is a fantastic idea, especially for those of us who would like to participate in the Living Story content but sometimes get busy and can’t log in much during a particular cycle.

Xar.6185:

Currency.
Karma would be exceptionally useful to replace all of the collectable currencies. You help with the event? You gain karma. Use karma to buy the living story stuff. Need a special item for a crafting recipe? Buy it from a LS vendor appropriate to the content, Majory for example in ToN.

This gives added value to Karma, adds more karma sinks to the game and stops adding more items that are effectively currency.

I disagree. I don’t think the game needs more generic things. You get (mostly) generic loot all the time. You get generic rewards for events (karma, xp, gold instead of interesting loot). A lot of things in the game are generic. (sure, there are some awesome skins like the new weapons in the champion loot bags, but you can trade those (I don’t like that personally) and the droprate is more than poor. Also, you don’t have to be skilled to run with the champion-train. Risk-reward: non-existent.)

positive: you can do a lot of different things to get the things you desire
negative: it completely takes out the character of the rewards

“Hey, awesome, you killed that huge “generic name” champion. What did you get?!"
“Hey, I got this… karma, lootbag with mostly generic greens which I probably vendor or salvage for generic luck-consumables in order to increase a luck-stat.”

compare this to:

“Hey, awesome, you killed Gormash, the Slayer. What did you get?!”
“Hey, I got this awesome 2hander called Spalta, which he used to kill every single Centaur in the Slavash-war. It’s said that sometimes, you’ll hear the poor souls of the massacre hunt the wielder”

I loved the kite fortunes which could be combined to that nice warhelm. I wished they had included a bit of lore to make the helmets more epic (like the ascended items at the laurel-vendor).

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Xar.6185:

Currency.
Karma would be exceptionally useful to replace all of the collectable currencies. You help with the event? You gain karma. Use karma to buy the living story stuff. Need a special item for a crafting recipe? Buy it from a LS vendor appropriate to the content, Majory for example in ToN.

This gives added value to Karma, adds more karma sinks to the game and stops adding more items that are effectively currency.

“Hey, awesome, you killed Gormash, the Slayer. What did you get?!”
“Hey, I got this awesome 2hander called Spalta, which he used to kill every single Centaur in the Slavash-war. It’s said that sometimes, you’ll hear the poor souls of the massacre hunt the wielder”

This is not what we are currently getting. Its more like
“Hey, awesome, you killed Gormash, the Slayer. What did you get?!”
“Hey, I got this ummm… I dont know what I got… I depostied collecables.. have to go to my bank and check”
or
“Hey, I got this <TotallyEventSpecificCollectable> that if I gather enough of I can exchange them at a vendor for something”

Unique skins are still a reward option. Like what they added to the champion bags. But adding a collectable for every single LS update. Is that what you want to continue?

By this time next year, if the pattern continues, they will have added 8 more collectables.

Oh and I forgot baubles and bauble bubbles plus I’m sure I forgot some more too.

Karma is the currency used at heart vendors. It would be a really good fit here I believe.

Xar.6185:

This is not what we are currently getting. Its more like
“Hey, awesome, you killed Gormash, the Slayer. What did you get?!”
“Hey, I got this ummm… I dont know what I got… I depostied collecables.. have to go to my bank and check”
or
“Hey, I got this <TotallyEventSpecificCollectable> that if I gather enough of I can exchange them at a vendor for something”

Unique skins are still a reward option. Like what they added to the champion bags. But adding a collectable for every single LS update. Is that what you want to continue?

By this time next year, if the pattern continues, they will have added 8 more collectables.

Oh and I forgot baubles and bauble bubbles plus I’m sure I forgot some more too.

Karma is the currency used at heart vendors. It would be a really good fit here I believe.

Karma would be interesting, if heart vendors would sell lv.80 equipment (exotic) for huge amounts of karma, so that you had a karma-sink again. The karma-skins in major cities were an awesome first step and I don’t get why this hasn’t been continued. They could also sell practical things for huge amounts of karma (like 22-slot bags, a permanent portal-stone to one totally random waypoint so that you won’t have to pay a waypoint fee for porting there anymore etc etc.)

Well we at least agree that loot isn’t very interesting in this game. The interesting loot is far too rare and buying it on the trading post is not very exciting imho. I’d make droprates higher but souldbound on find.

I also agree that the temporary nature of the collectibles isn’t very fun. Imho they could add these collectibles permanently to the loottable of specific enemies. Then decrease the droprate after the LS-chapter. This way you could get these cool LS-items even after the event (and not by buying black lion chests for a random chance of tickets). What do you think?

About the over-abudance of generic drops, that’s why I would like to see more flavorful rewards tied to each event.

If an event wants me to kill a drake, then by all means, may the event’s reward be 3x scales. Depending on the zone and your level, that could go from Tiny Scales to Armored Scales.

If an event wants me to defeat a knight in battle, then by all means, may the event’s reward be a mh sword or a shield of any tier, with a cool sigil that fits within that event’s theme, or a cool skill that would be uncommon to find otherwise.

If an event wants me to protect somebody’s house from an assault, by all means, may the event’s reward be a meal (=consumible buff or for crafting) that the house’s owner would offer me after the battle.

Those little details can make each event far more unique and improve world immersion. It would also make players hunt specific events for the stuff they need. “Hey, I want to gather some scales for crafting. Is there any drake broodmother event around here?” and “Hey, I would like to get an unique sword skin, and I’ve heard I can get it by slaying the black knight in that event over there!”

In addition to making each event stand out more, and improving world immersion, this would also make world exploration a lot more enjoyable. Every event could be a source of a skin, a consumible buff, a crafting material, or something else, and finding and doing events one by one would be exciting to find out what they would offer at the end.

I’m personally bored of all the generic rewards as well. This reminds me of how in GW1 there were specific skill quests full of flavor, like a necromancer getting new skills in the catacombs and a ranger getting new skills while exploring the wilds, and in GW2, all skill quests are just generic fights for a generic skill point.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Well we at least agree that loot isn’t very interesting in this game. The interesting loot is far too rare and buying it on the trading post is not very exciting imho. I’d make droprates higher but souldbound on find.

FFXI actually did this pretty well. The rare drop was not bound at all, but the exact same item, only account bound, had roughly a 3 times higher drop rate. Best of both worlds in my opinion. Allows players to farm that lucky drop and profit, while allowing those that just want the item to get it without using the TP.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I also agree that the temporary nature of the collectibles isn’t very fun. Imho they could add these collectibles permanently to the loottable of specific enemies. Then decrease the droprate after the LS-chapter. This way you could get these cool LS-items even after the event (and not by buying black lion chests for a random chance of tickets). What do you think?

Firstly, I abhor the gating of skins behind black lion RNG.

Secondly, even if they added them permanently to the drop tables, they are still adding more ‘currencies’ while Karma sits mostly unused except by those that are going for a legendary. Even thats been diminished since you can get obsidian shards for fractal relics or laurels now. Karma is also an established currency that functions roughly the same way in the standard open world as it would in the LS. It adds consistency across the board.

Lastly, I guess my main point is that they cleaned up and made all of the various currencies more user friendly with the addition of the wallet while they are slowly putting themselve back into the exact same position with all of the collectable currency they keep adding.

wow I just read Jakens post on the last page. I love these ideas.

I imagine these events as player started (much like guild missions) where other players can participate. I love the crosscountry-run, imagine if other players could help you by providing you with speed boosts and keep new enemies away from you. Just like a guild-rush but for one person while others can participate.

So the orders would give you a mission, you go out there on that mission and by doing this you spawn new events which are there for you and other players to participate.

I also would like to see much more of personal story related events which spawn for players who’ve done a specific personal story path. There is already at least one of those in the game and it feels awesome and VERY personal. It would be like small spin-off stories to your personal story which expand the story and maybe make it feel much more rewarding.

Colin, I’m collecting ideas for new types of rewards here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1qdrv2/lets_create_new_rewardtypes_for_gw2_one_idea_per/

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I also would like to see much more of personal story related events which spawn for players who’ve done a specific personal story path. There is already at least one of those in the game and it feels awesome and VERY personal. It would be like small spin-off stories to your personal story which expand the story and maybe make it feel much more rewarding.

I know a lot of people are tired of the sylvari taking the spotlight, but I’d personally love to see the sylvari twins get some love, if we tease more PS characters to the surface. I thought they were awesome, and totally underutilised.

My experience of the LS can be summed up with: Everything feels random and meaningless. Events and villains come out of nowhere and then vanish into the ether. You don’t get time to get to know a character before they turn up so I literally don’t care about them, their life or their story.
They don’t linger either after the update so I feel no inclination to involve myself emotionally with the LS.
2 weeks is too short. Sometime I plan ahead and think “It’s ok I have a week left to complete a few more achievements.” But then one night I have to work late, or I get ill or some other real life obstacle occurs and even though I only had 2 more achievements left in that section of living story it’s just gone forever. The only reason I really play the living story is for achievement points so I can work toward the achiever title: the equivalent of the God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals achievement from gw1.

It saddens me that none of the existing lore is really built upon: The orders, the elder dragons, the anti –organizations for each race (Inquisition, Nightmare court etc..) Why are you making totally random villains and events when you have so much to play with already?

It probably has been though about, but if you’re intending to continue with the LS for several years to come, the story of it needs to be though about in a soap opera like manner. There should be a greater story arch (the rise and fall of another elder dragon) with many smaller overlapping story arches. It should feel continuous and coherent rather than disjointed and jumpy.
There are aspects of the LS that work but instead of just thinking from month to month the team really needs to ask “Where exactly is this going in the long run?” You have the opportunity to tell some truly epic stories that players can participate in but so far we’ve only experienced annoying bosses and unthreatening threats. (I believe the threats are perceived as unthreatening because even if every single gw2 player didn’t log in and do something about the threat for 1 month, it would still magically disappear.) Wars, battles and invasions leave scars on the people and the land, but going along with the TV references, at the moment the LS is like a series of Simpsons episodes: Everything just magically resets between episodes as though nothing happened. It makes Tyria feel shallow.

I don’t think the LS doesn’t need to be as wacky as it currently is. Do not be afraid to actually change the world you’ve built. Make a meteor hit that leaves a crater, move mountains, create a landslide, make Mount Maelstrom actually erupt. Change or remove existing events, make new ones. Allow players to participate in what will become Tyrian history by making the living story affect the players and the players affect the living story.

As well as everything that Lonami said, the LS and the PvE world need to react to each other, rather than one just laying on top of the other. I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories” for a dissertation but this quote from it seems appropriate:

“The inner consistency of reality is more difficult to reproduce, the more unlike the images and rearrangements of the primary material to the actual arrangements of the primary world.”

He was talking about Fantasy in general, but this also works in terms of a game. As outlined by other players the Alternate world of Tyria is a rearrangement of real world material. Tolkien goes on to talk about that when the human mind finds an inconsistency in the alternate world, it begins to question it, until everything else starts to unravel into nothing. The game as a whole is full of more inconsistencies then I could ever list, but in regards to the living story the inconsistencies (The quaggans of moogaloo, humans and centaurs still fighting over a bridge, passive creatures not running from LS mobs.. etc.) The inconsistencies between the greater world and the LS leave the game feeling hollow, shallow and slightly confused.

I have to agree with the previous posters who have expressed wanting to revisit past LS sections. Aside from the holiday LS (Wintersday, Halloween, The Dragon bash festival…) It would be awesome to have a books case with the History of Tyria it and each LS section adds a new book. With this, players would be able to complete the story quests and instanced parts of the LS, but would not be able to re-experience the parts of the LS that affected the world as a whole. As an explorer type gamer I find the lack of permanent content disappointing. Why do you spend so much time creating wonderful new skins and dungeons only to remove them? What use are they locked away in the Arenanet office when so many people want to enjoy them?

After reading some of the latest posts, i think adding the gw2 version of polymock could really help the living world. You could add polymock pieces as Dynamic Event rewards and could have polymock skills people unlock with skill points. Also diferent areas/DES should drop different pieces like maybe the dragons can drop RARE polymock pieces of them as loot and maybe all the orr events drop polymock pieces of risen enemies.

riddleguy.9738:

After reading some of the latest posts, i think adding the gw2 version of polymock could really help the living world. You could add polymock pieces as Dynamic Event rewards and could have polymock skills people unlock with skill points. Also diferent areas/DES should drop different pieces like maybe the dragons can drop RARE polymock pieces of them as loot and maybe all the orr events drop polymock pieces of risen enemies.

I’m all for the return of Polymock, but as somebody who still hasn’t collected all the Belcher’s Bluff special moves, I see it as Just Another Mini Game I Will Soon Ignore Completely.

Given the choice between that and new Dynamic Events, new zones, new dungeons, new skins – really, new basically-anything-else – I’ll take the anything else.

Maybe it is out of the topic but I will post it anyway
here is what I think of new way to develop the character
the system is imagined around no levels

- weapon skills become stronger the more you are using the respective weapon. they will be maxed out in power when you have reached that weapon’s mastery achievement.

- utility skills will have their own system of achievements similar to the weapon mastery

- as there is no levels for the character, there are no trait points either. instead, the “trait skills” I II III IV, etc will be all placed in a grid which will be unlocked with skill points earned by scrolls of knowledge or skill challenges. The trait skills can be powered up more using more skill points into them up to a max

- weapons will not have a level requirement but their basic stats will increase depending on what experience you have accumulated with that weapon type in the weapon mastery account achievement. Weapons may still have inscriptions on them for various auxiliary stats

- armors will get better defense through reinforcement. This will be done in the repair NPC using the skill points. The armors which you will equip will have their defense rate higher with an armory mastery achievement similar to weapon mastery.

- skill points once open will be account bound

- once a player has got all the weapon/armory mastery maxed out, all the alts he will create will benefit from this making the system very alt friendly

Using skill points to increase armor, skills and trait skills will give a very high importance for the skill points. To avoid exploits of this system – aka making new characters and get the starter zones skill points – I suggest the skill challenges are account bound too meaning once a skill point is aquired is unlocked for all account.

Ronah.2869:

Maybe it is out of the topic but I will post it anyway
here is what I think of new way to develop the character
the system is imagined around no levels

- weapon skills become stronger the more you are using the respective weapon. they will be maxed out in power when you have reached that weapon’s mastery achievement.

- utility skills will have their own system of achievements similar to the weapon mastery

- as there is no levels for the character, there are no trait points either. instead, the “trait skills” I II III IV, etc will be all placed in a grid which will be unlocked with skill points earned by scrolls of knowledge or skill challenges. The trait skills can be powered up more using more skill points into them up to a max

- weapons will not have a level requirement but their basic stats will increase depending on what experience you have accumulated with that weapon type in the weapon mastery account achievement. Weapons may still have inscriptions on them for various auxiliary stats

- armors will get better defense through reinforcement. This will be done in the repair NPC using the skill points. The armors which you will equip will have their defense rate higher with an armory mastery achievement similar to weapon mastery.

- skill points once open will be account bound

- once a player has got all the weapon/armory mastery maxed out, all the alts he will create will benefit from this making the system very alt friendly

Using skill points to increase armor, skills and trait skills will give a very high importance for the skill points. To avoid exploits of this system – aka making new characters and get the starter zones skill points – I suggest the skill challenges are account bound too meaning once a skill point is aquired is unlocked for all account.

I think this is a bad idea…i think the level system is good and necessary. The problem lies in leveling up alts .. that should be more fun. What i liked about gw1 is there was multiple campaigns so i could raise one character to max playing prophecies and another playing NF. The personal story doesnt have enough unique paths because while the variety is nice early on …not much variety in the later levels for personal story.

Nothing would make me more excited than a fleshing out of more GW1 lore. Right now, there are so many places in Tyria that we can’t access – The Maguuma Wastes, the Crystal Desert, the Dominion of Winds. GW1 players have attachments to these places and want to see what has changed in 250 years. I’d love to help the ghosts of Augury Rock fight branded. I’d love to revisit the Maguuma Bloodstone or the Ring of Fire. I’d love to finally see what Janthir is like, or delve deep into the earth to get back to the Central Transfer Chamber to study the spot where Primordius awakened, or find stone dwarven sentinels.

I don’t hate Scarlet, or the Aetherblades, and I can even reconcile myself with the weird canon-bending alliances between races that should never be allied (I’m looking at you, Molten and Toxic alliances), but I want to feel like the world I’m living in is very much the same world from GW1. Why reinvent the wheel when you have a perfectly good wheel sitting right there?

What I want from the living story is not new, inconsequential new mysteries to solve in two weeks. I want to work to solve some of Guild Wars’ oldest mysteries, of which there are MANY. Wizard’s Tower, anyone?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So we done everyone nearly every part of this discussion has been represented in meetings in the office! In my next post i will do a brief summary of our discussion.

Chris

I have posted about the communications that your company puts forth to the community needing to be proofed by an expert in communications. Please hire a communications director to help you.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

Reruns.

ColinJohanson.2394:
So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?
_______________________

I play the game, I don’t have time for TV.

Thanks for answering Chris, however as you mwntioned it is mostly copy and paste which ocoured throughout the last few days.
Could you give a quick overview what has changed in between the posts you copied and how our reaction to them at that time have influenced your current assessment?
Since you posted each of these parts allready at some point, we allready discussed them.
So yeah, the summary is nice, but could we get a them a reworked version of them, with our feedback to your previous statement included and maybe a revisited opinion of you? (if it is not allready in and i overlooked it)

btw. appearently your fix of the zerg (aka Clockwork Chaos) and our perception of “fix” doesn`t match (several people were disagreeing with your statement there). While you said that it is your opinion, i would like to hear some other devs chime in on some statements. Nothing against your opinion, but i don`t want to think that your statement is taken as representative for the whole team, as it does clash with some people do percive (aka Clockwork Chaos was as grindy as every other content. Even more through the fact that you were forced to them if you wanted to continue the LS).

Furthermore: You mentioned a reward program and mentioned one member of the comunity by name allready, for his idea. Of course his (Nike of course) idea got a lot of buzz and sticked with you.
however, will you revisit the thread and pick out other member who contributed in the same way or passion. With some great ideas which sparked your interest.
Will you mention them somwehere, or message them with a little present of some kind?

You know with everything I’ve learned over the course of 2013 and all the “future plans” hints for 2014. I can safely say that I have hope that next year will be better than this year. The general theme for 2013’s releases and story for me have been “eh, it was okay” (the least interesting, least strong of positive reactions is what I mean). With a couple exceptions of course.

One thing about TV Shows: when it is a show my friends or family love, I enjoy the excitement gathering around and waiting for the show to begin.

Maybe hyping up each “episode” by delaying the actual story progression until a specific time (5pm pacific or something), so people can gather and form the groups with their friends to begin the story.

I also enjoy more serious shows, so I agree that the writing can be a little silly at times in the story

Figured I’d just pop in here last minute before the deadline and give my two cents. I’ve been following the thread since its creation and I’m glad to see a number of good ideas being thrown around.

From my perspective, the Living Story has had a bumpy first year, but is, at least I hope, starting to hit its stride. Part of what of what I hope to see in the future is Tyria’s horizontal expansion (not necessarily to be confused with an actual expansion) along with its vertical (building on existing space). Let me explain. The Living Story has, up until now, focused mostly on building stories in already existing space, which is fine; the world doesn’t stand still (Examples: “Flame and Frost” and “Tower of Nightmares”). However, it is my greatest desire to see the world spread outwards. We’ve already seen this in the form of Southsun and the Labyrinthine Cliffs (now somewhere in Tyrian limbo).

When I think about the things I love about the game, it was walking into a new zone and thinking “This zone is massive; it will take forever to explore.” Wanderlust is one of those feelings I crave for in MMOs, but it’s something the Living Story hasn’t really been able to do. Southsun Cove is about the same size as the Lion’s Arch, half the size of a normal zone (still a nice size), and has about less than half of the activities too if you don’t count the Karka Queen meta events that often go untouched. The Labyrinthine Cliffs, for being a temproray zone, makes up a for its lack of size with vertical exploration and its unique movement magic. If such a thing were expanded into a full zone, it would have a lot of potential. What I want most is for the Living Story to lead us into new areas on the map, and I also want Renown Hearts to make a return. A few of them would drag on from time to time, but I liked how they brought an overall flavor to an area of a zone, and how dynamic events would interact within the space to help to complete the “Heart Meter”. It was certainly more interactive than always having to check the achievement panel to see how much of “X” I still had to collect/kill.

My fear is that the Living Story doesn’t have the resources/time to bring back big zones into the picture, and that we’ll be (for a good amount of time) grounded to the already existing zones until an actual expansion occurs. I’m hoping the Living Story teams prove me wrong.