Guild Wars 2

I think one (of the many) flaws in GW2 is the terrible way the lore is delivered. You’re doing “hearts” not quests, most of the time i had no idea why i was killing ten rats or collecting carrots for a npc. As a result “questing” is extremely bland and repetitive.

One of the things i loved most was the DE system. Not all of them are great of course. The gathering events especially i avoid all the time. But the ones with fighting, defending, escorting and killing a boss are fun imo. This + the fact the the dynamic combat system is very well done = good times.

So my opinion is gw2 should focus on its strength instead of delivering a terrible “living word/story” every 2 weeks which is shallow, grindy, and worst of all temporary.

I had a few suggestions :

1) introduce every new zone you step in with a cinematic and some dramatic voice-over to tell you what’s going on in the area. Maybe your character could also have a journal in which he writes down his deeds and once you get done with all the hearts you got anther video showing you how life in the area has improved since you came ?

The idea behind this one is literally everyone i know that tried gw2 left after 2-3 weeks because they were bored to death with “questing” and “hearts”. So this is a suggestion to make the player feel like he’s making a difference in the world.

2) Introduce new DEs on a regular basis and make sure that every time you complete one you also advance on a nearby heart. It’s a very satisfying feeling when you level to get done with a heart while you were actually having fun with a DE.

They should be waaaay more rewarding that they are know (and rewards should scale with level) in term of karma/gold/XP. They should have a chance to drop things like a zone based skin or something. And of course there should be a system that you get the reward for a certain event only once a day so that it’s not farm-able.

3) Introduce DEs in racial cities to introduce a new life in them. It could be about finding clues around the city, arresting thieves, fighting back a skritt invasion from the sewers, insure the security of an important person as he traverls through town etc… I think Hoebrack (spelling) and Divinity Reach for exemple are very beautiful but empty and it makes me sad :’(

Anyways that’s my 2c.

I agree. There should be new DE’s with these living world events.
I was really disappointed when I realized that cities and home instances had no events. That made the cities feel dead and empty.

many of the DE chains have nice little stories — much better than the garbage that the LS has been churning out. What happened to those writers?

Why do you feel the LS is garbage?

its not bad at all, easily on par with most DE stories. Especially if take the time to talk to the different NPCs involved and read the lore short stories released with every update there is plenty of goodies to be had story wise in my opinion.

I think people are being a bit too kitten LS here.

Galen Grey.4709:

Why do you feel the LS is garbage?

its not bad at all, easily on par with most DE stories. Especially if take the time to talk to the different NPCs involved and read the lore short stories released with every update there is plenty of goodies to be had story wise in my opinion.

I think people are being a bit too kitten LS here.

There are a lot of reasons why living story is bad. Personally, my beef is that every two weeks anet focuses most of its playerbase on a singular content. God help if that’s instanced but if it’s not it clearly shows why open world pve should be called afk pve.

Namely, zergs. Anet could replace all of their LS bosses with dummies and no one would notice a single difference with gameplay. All of the design hard work goes to trash because of the “everyone gets rewarded so let’s zerg”.

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

Why do you feel the LS is garbage?

its not bad at all, easily on par with most DE stories. Especially if take the time to talk to the different NPCs involved and read the lore short stories released with every update there is plenty of goodies to be had story wise in my opinion.

I think people are being a bit too kitten LS here.

There are a lot of reasons why living story is bad. Personally, my beef is that every two weeks anet focuses most of its playerbase on a singular content. God help if that’s instanced but if it’s not it clearly shows why open world pve should be called afk pve.

Namely, zergs. Anet could replace all of their LS bosses with dummies and no one would notice a single difference with gameplay. All of the design hard work goes to trash because of the “everyone gets rewarded so let’s zerg”.

Thats got nothing to do with the story though.

Regarding you issue specifically, whats wrong with the instanced versions of the living story we got? MF, AR, Scarlets funhouse, The cragstead instance, Nolan Hatchery as well as the new path in TA are all instanced and they were all pretty good.

As for the open world stuff, well LS didnt give much of that, some dynamic events during the Molten Alliance, Some DE during the secrets of southsun and the invasions. The only one you could AFK is the invasion, if you killed a few mobs then went to hide in some safe spot and left the game running for an hour. Not sure what the advantage of that would be but sure you could do that.

Galen Grey.4709:

Thats got nothing to do with the story though.

Regarding you issue specifically, whats wrong with the instanced versions of the living story we got? MF, AR, Scarlets funhouse, The cragstead instance, Nolan Hatchery as well as the new path in TA are all instanced and they were all pretty good.

Because my problem is not with the childish story but how it is being told. Zerging dynamic events gets boring after a while (personally it is less than 5 minutes for me).

As for the open world stuff, well LS didnt give much of that, some dynamic events during the Molten Alliance, Some DE during the secrets of southsun and the invasions. The only one you could AFK is the invasion, if you killed a few mobs then went to hide in some safe spot and left the game running for an hour. Not sure what the advantage of that would be but sure you could do that.

That is exactly how I did invasions. I did one portal event and went afk. The advantage? Some players have a strong opinion that you should play for fun and I do not see how zerging and auto-attacking dummies could be considered fun.

1) Cinematics are expensive and time consuming, and that’s just the animation. Adding voice acting makes it more expensive yet. While I enjoy cinematics myself, I can understand them not being able to do a bunch of them all the time. We have gotten more of these, but I don’t expect them to do one for everything like you’re suggesting. There are other ways of presenting us information that are just as decent. I found the conversations with Tassi’s golem enjoyable (I bet most people didn’t talk to it more than once, maybe twice). I enjoyed listened to Tassi ramble too, when I was in the Halloween instances, but again, take into consideration how much work goes into that voice over acting. Making a game isn’t any less expensive than say, making an animated movie. There is only so much money in the budget.

2) I wouldn’t mind more DE’s, and along with them more cute and funny open world npc dialog. I’m still coming across random npc conversations that make me pause to listen, or fall out of my chair laughing. Things I missed because I didn’t really take my time in the area, I just sort of blazed through it.

I agree that DE’s could use better rewards. Hopefully this is coming. 15 minutes of DEs should be as rewarding as say, 15 minutes of champ farming. This way people have more options in what they would like to do, without feeling like they are missing out.

3) I don’t want DE’s in racial capitol cities. Racial cities are the only ‘truly safe’ place you can park a character and walk away without having to worry if some event is going to roll through and kill you while you use the bathroom or grab some food. While it’s true that some DE’s would fit in the city environment, you sacrifice that safety to do so.

That said, I also enjoy the bi-weekly living story updates. I don’t mind talking to the npcs, listening to them chatter, and exploring a bit to get some of the lore being presented. A lot of people don’t do this, and as such miss out on a lot and then go on to complain that there is no story, or that the pieces don’t mesh. Some of the lore and backstory could be presented in a more forthright manner, with this I don’t disagree. The little stories featured on the website also need to be presented in game, and we’ve had 2 or 3 devs tell us they are working on this (recently, like in the Halloween threads). Hopefully when they get these things implemented in, there will be fewer people griping there is no story, when there actually is. Sadly, they’ve never been the best at presenting their story, but hopefully with time this will get better.

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

Thats got nothing to do with the story though.

Regarding you issue specifically, whats wrong with the instanced versions of the living story we got? MF, AR, Scarlets funhouse, The cragstead instance, Nolan Hatchery as well as the new path in TA are all instanced and they were all pretty good.

Because my problem is not with the childish story but how it is being told. Zerging dynamic events gets boring after a while (personally it is less than 5 minutes for me).

As for the open world stuff, well LS didnt give much of that, some dynamic events during the Molten Alliance, Some DE during the secrets of southsun and the invasions. The only one you could AFK is the invasion, if you killed a few mobs then went to hide in some safe spot and left the game running for an hour. Not sure what the advantage of that would be but sure you could do that.

That is exactly how I did invasions. I did one portal event and went afk. The advantage? Some players have a strong opinion that you should play for fun and I do not see how zerging and auto-attacking dummies could be considered fun.

How is the story childish? Going mad after seeing the secrets of the universe doesnt sound like a childish storyline. Assassination as a means of getting political power isnt childish either. Taking advantage of people in need to further your agenda, Displacing people by burning their homes down, kidnapping royalty, corrupting other people’s work. None of them are childish and all have been part of the LS.

can you explain to me why you did that? You spend 5 mins playing and at least 55 mins afk for what? 2000 karma and 50s ? Playing anything else you enjoy would have been more profitable and you’d actually have fun doing it so why did you choose to do this?

Galen Grey.4709:

Why do you feel the LS is garbage?

its not bad at all, easily on par with most DE stories. Especially if take the time to talk to the different NPCs involved and read the lore short stories released with every update there is plenty of goodies to be had story wise in my opinion.

I think people are being a bit too kitten LS here.

There is some instanced stuff which makes up for 1% of the LS, and there is grinding which takes up 99% of the LS.

I like the 1%, I just don’t like the 99%.

runeblade.7514:

Galen Grey.4709:

Why do you feel the LS is garbage?

its not bad at all, easily on par with most DE stories. Especially if take the time to talk to the different NPCs involved and read the lore short stories released with every update there is plenty of goodies to be had story wise in my opinion.

I think people are being a bit too kitten LS here.

There is some instanced stuff which makes up for 1% of the LS, and there is grinding which takes up 99% of the LS.

I like the 1%, I just don’t like the 99%.

Granted there is grinding for those who want the grinding but lets differentiate what makes up a LS update.

You got the story + the supporting content making up that story. You got the achievements. You got the rewards. And you got additional content bundled in that release.
The meat is in the story and supporting content. The bulk of the busy time is in the achievements and acquiring the rewards. Additional content varies.

Personally if you have an achievement that says I dont know close 50 Halloween doors I dont consider that 50 times the content of doing a single halloween door event. Repetition isnt content, its just keeping you busy. If you dont like the content you’re repeating my suggestion would be dont and focus on what you enjoy. AP are infinite not getting every single one in a release will not mean the end of the world. Rewards are a bit trickier. If there is something you want it might be hard to let it go. Luckly simply reaching the meta for the reward isnt that bad especially now that they did dailies that count for the meta.

Galen Grey.4709:

How is the story childish? Going mad after seeing the secrets of the universe doesnt sound like a childish storyline. Assassination as a means of getting political power isnt childish either. Taking advantage of people in need to further your agenda, Displacing people by burning their homes down, kidnapping royalty, corrupting other people’s work. None of them are childish and all have been part of the LS.

You’re right, story deserves screenplay oscar.

can you explain to me why you did that? You spend 5 mins playing and at least 55 mins afk for what? 2000 karma and 50s ? Playing anything else you enjoy would have been more profitable and you’d actually have fun doing it so why did you choose to do this?

Because I could have got free money and did something productive at the same time. Plus, that never was 55 minutes afk, we’re definitely playing different games.

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

How is the story childish? Going mad after seeing the secrets of the universe doesnt sound like a childish storyline. Assassination as a means of getting political power isnt childish either. Taking advantage of people in need to further your agenda, Displacing people by burning their homes down, kidnapping royalty, corrupting other people’s work. None of them are childish and all have been part of the LS.

You’re right, story deserves screenplay oscar.

can you explain to me why you did that? You spend 5 mins playing and at least 55 mins afk for what? 2000 karma and 50s ? Playing anything else you enjoy would have been more profitable and you’d actually have fun doing it so why did you choose to do this?

Because I could have got free money and did something productive at the same time. Plus, that never was 55 minutes afk, we’re definitely playing different games.

why do you take life just at the extremes? When you talk about ascended gear in relation to fractals missing a single piece you implied you’re tied to fractal level 1 and now in relation to LS its either childish or worthy of prestigious awards. There are shades of grey in life. Is the LS the best story I ever heard? no. Is it childish and rubbish Niether. Its a good story which to be fair we cannot even fully judge yet because it hasnt fully played out yet.

Just cause its not the best story in the world doesnt automatically make it rubbish though.

It must be cause event lasted an hour so if like you said you just did one event which wouldnt have taken more the 5 minutes and then akitten it means u let the game run for 55 mins without doing anything. Thats what you said. Quoting "That is exactly how I did invasions. I did one portal event and went afk. " Now if you’re using miss direction to purposefully make stuff look worst then it really is for whatever reason I have no way of knowing that but dont blame me. You said you did one portal and went afk that means you played for a couple of minutes and let the game run untouched for about an hour.

Galen Grey.4709:

why do you take life just at the extremes? When you talk about ascended gear in relation to fractals missing a single piece you implied you’re tied to fractal level 1 and now in relation to LS its either childish or worthy of prestigious awards. There are shades of grey in life. Is the LS the best story I ever heard? no. Is it childish and rubbish Niether. Its a good story which to be fair we cannot even fully judge yet because it hasnt fully played out yet.

Just cause its not the best story in the world doesnt automatically make it rubbish though.

Even the people who have almost exactly opposite views on certain game mechanics say same thing.

It must be cause event lasted an hour so if like you said you just did one event which wouldnt have taken more the 5 minutes and then akitten it means u let the game run for 55 mins without doing anything. Thats what you said. Quoting "That is exactly how I did invasions. I did one portal event and went afk. " Now if you’re using miss direction to purposefully make stuff look worst then it really is for whatever reason I have no way of knowing that but dont blame me. You said you did one portal and went afk that means you played for a couple of minutes and let the game run untouched for about an hour.

Event lasted 45 minutes tops if I recall correctly and most often it was finished at 20-30 minute mark.

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

why do you take life just at the extremes? When you talk about ascended gear in relation to fractals missing a single piece you implied you’re tied to fractal level 1 and now in relation to LS its either childish or worthy of prestigious awards. There are shades of grey in life. Is the LS the best story I ever heard? no. Is it childish and rubbish Niether. Its a good story which to be fair we cannot even fully judge yet because it hasnt fully played out yet.

Just cause its not the best story in the world doesnt automatically make it rubbish though.

Even the people who have almost exactly opposite views on certain game mechanics say same thing.

It must be cause event lasted an hour so if like you said you just did one event which wouldnt have taken more the 5 minutes and then akitten it means u let the game run for 55 mins without doing anything. Thats what you said. Quoting "That is exactly how I did invasions. I did one portal event and went afk. " Now if you’re using miss direction to purposefully make stuff look worst then it really is for whatever reason I have no way of knowing that but dont blame me. You said you did one portal and went afk that means you played for a couple of minutes and let the game run untouched for about an hour.

Event lasted 45 minutes tops if I recall correctly and most often it was finished at 20-30 minute mark.

whats the link between story quality and game mechanics now? There are people who like scarlet as a villain as well. Not everyone has to put everything into stereotype containers. Example in that same page you linked who have Afya who says “I like Scarlet. She has more character than all other NPC we met. I hope more about her will be revealed in the future” and Inculpatus cedo who said " I enjoy the Living Story updates (usually), and I like Scarlet."

You were right, my mistake I checked and invasions took 45 mins not 60. That being said they never ended after 20 – 30 mins. in fact most of them failed which means they took all the 45 mins and those that succeeded at least the ones I participated it won by only a couple of minutes.

Galen Grey.4709:

whats the link between story quality and game mechanics now? There are people who like scarlet as a villain as well. Not everyone has to put everything into stereotype containers. Example in that same page you linked who have Afya who says “I like Scarlet. She has more character than all other NPC we met. I hope more about her will be revealed in the future” and Inculpatus cedo who said " I enjoy the Living Story updates (usually), and I like Scarlet."

What are you babbling about? I’m saying that people who are in complete opposition of me regarding game mechanics (kinda like you) have exactly same opinion on the story.

You were right, my mistake I checked and invasions took 45 mins not 60. That being said they never ended after 20 – 30 mins. in fact most of them failed which means they took all the 45 mins and those that succeeded at least the ones I participated it won by only a couple of minutes.

I’m sure you have a source for that. You couldn’t possibly get this data out of your Maximus Gluteus.

I wouldn’t mind a journal or something in the home instance that tells you about the lore. Important key words could be highlighted and clickable for further reading.

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

whats the link between story quality and game mechanics now? There are people who like scarlet as a villain as well. Not everyone has to put everything into stereotype containers. Example in that same page you linked who have Afya who says “I like Scarlet. She has more character than all other NPC we met. I hope more about her will be revealed in the future” and Inculpatus cedo who said " I enjoy the Living Story updates (usually), and I like Scarlet."

What are you babbling about? I’m saying that people who are in complete opposition of me regarding game mechanics (kinda like you) have exactly same opinion on the story.

I am sure some people who think like you with regards to game mechancis like scarlet as a villian and i am sure people who think like me like scarlet too.

So what does it all prove exactly? nothing cause there is no link between game mechanics and story.

You were right, my mistake I checked and invasions took 45 mins not 60. That being said they never ended after 20 – 30 mins. in fact most of them failed which means they took all the 45 mins and those that succeeded at least the ones I participated it won by only a couple of minutes.

I’m sure you have a source for that. You couldn’t possibly get this data out of your Maximus Gluteus.[/quote]

Yes I do:
massive thread on reddit by people complaining they cant finish the event for the achievement
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1kxja7/anyone_else_getting_stuck_with_invasions/

and this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/speech/Scarlet-events-ppl-failing-it-to-farm-champs/first

But even going without data per-se. It was a ton more profitable to farm the event then win it so thats what most people did. Not only that but the event was designed to take longer if you zerged and what do most people do? zerg. So much so they ended up nerfing the events to try to make them less profitable but that still didnt help cause the whole event rewarded you

Actually though I have a question so you said you Akitten invasions yet you’d move to do other things the moment the invasion finished. So you Akitten staring at the monitor waiting for the event to complete? what possible reason could you have for that. Its definitely not more fun then getting in and farm the events themselves during the event and you’d get many times the reward too doing it. at the end the invasion gave you 26s+5 boxes max and thats like what you get killing maybe 5-10 champions which a single sky pirate event during the invasion would supply you in one go.

Well, they did, but nobody liked it. The october update brought us 1. Halloween and 2. a bunch of new events, mini dungeons, JP’s, but nobody seemed to like these, and prefered content like Shadow of the Mad King, tadaa, we chose LS over the addition of mor eDE, and I have to agree, while those events are nice and all, LS is a lot more IMO, LS and mor e Mini-dungeons/JP’s/events would be the best, though

I like the story, as well. =)

If you’re going to answer everything people say, and drive their views into the ground with pointless arguing, you should start your own thread for that. Loved the ideas OP, be sure to post them in the collaborative too so the devs read it.

Galen Grey.4709:

Yes I do:
massive thread on reddit by people complaining they cant finish the event for the achievement
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1kxja7/anyone_else_getting_stuck_with_invasions/

and this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/speech/Scarlet-events-ppl-failing-it-to-farm-champs/first

But even going without data per-se. It was a ton more profitable to farm the event then win it so thats what most people did. Not only that but the event was designed to take longer if you zerged and what do most people do? zerg. So much so they ended up nerfing the events to try to make them less profitable but that still didnt help cause the whole event rewarded you

So if we go by linking to reddit threads we might as well confirm that ascended gear should be deleted because there is an outrage there and even on this forum. Good that we are on the same page.

Nice hyperbole on using word ‘massive’.

Actually though I have a question so you said you Akitten invasions yet you’d move to do other things the moment the invasion finished. So you Akitten staring at the monitor waiting for the event to complete? what possible reason could you have for that. Its definitely not more fun then getting in and farm the events themselves during the event and you’d get many times the reward too doing it. at the end the invasion gave you 26s+5 boxes max and thats like what you get killing maybe 5-10 champions which a single sky pirate event during the invasion would supply you in one go.

Have you heard about this key combination alt-tab? Allows you to do something else like watching a movie or even playing different game while getting full reward in gw2.

What the OP is asking for is more content, with less grind. What the OP isn’t going to get is enough content to satisify, and less grind. That’s because no matter how much Anet adds to the game, it will never be enough to stop people from basically burning through it and suddenly needing more grind…or people run out of stuff to do.

And you know, there are a lot of people, like me, who don’t need stuff to do. I’m perfectly happy banging around, enjoying the world and making my own stuff to do. The problem is, I seem to be in a minority and Anet can’t make a game just for me and players like me.

So they offer different things to different people.

There will never be enough story for a guy like me. Not ever. Take a single player game like Skyrim or Dragon Age. I might get 50 hours out of a game like that. I might get 100. What I won’t get is thousands of hours, which is what MMOs are expected you to get. I mean the amount of development time and cost is much higher with an MMO than with any single player game, so you have to keep players for longer.

I think Anet thought if they made a good game, they’d keep people playing, just on the basis of it being a good game..and the OP seems to be suggesting if they add more of the stuff he likes, then people will stay.

But I don’t believe the OP in correct in this. I believe the OP might very well stay…and I’d probably stay. And people like us, they’d probably stay.

But I don’t think there’s enough people like us to support continued development. And then there’d be no new DE’s, no new content, no advancement, because at the end of the day, MMOs are expensive to run.

As long as Anet’s focus is in keeping the game running at a sustainable level, compromises will have to be made.

haviz.1340:

Galen Grey.4709:

Yes I do:
massive thread on reddit by people complaining they cant finish the event for the achievement
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1kxja7/anyone_else_getting_stuck_with_invasions/

and this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/speech/Scarlet-events-ppl-failing-it-to-farm-champs/first

But even going without data per-se. It was a ton more profitable to farm the event then win it so thats what most people did. Not only that but the event was designed to take longer if you zerged and what do most people do? zerg. So much so they ended up nerfing the events to try to make them less profitable but that still didnt help cause the whole event rewarded you

So if we go by linking to reddit threads we might as well confirm that ascended gear should be deleted because there is an outrage there and even on this forum. Good that we are on the same page.

Nice hyperbole on using word ‘massive’.

Actually though I have a question so you said you Akitten invasions yet you’d move to do other things the moment the invasion finished. So you Akitten staring at the monitor waiting for the event to complete? what possible reason could you have for that. Its definitely not more fun then getting in and farm the events themselves during the event and you’d get many times the reward too doing it. at the end the invasion gave you 26s+5 boxes max and thats like what you get killing maybe 5-10 champions which a single sky pirate event during the invasion would supply you in one go.

Have you heard about this key combination alt-tab? Allows you to do something else like watching a movie or even playing different game while getting full reward in gw2.

Just search for your self on google for people complaining that they’re unable to finish the event because people are purposefully failing them for profit and see for yourself.

Full reward? you’re kidding right? AFKing the event will give you 50s most of the time perhaps 1g if you get good drops of the 5 chests.

Playing the invasion rather then staying afk gave you a lot more then 1g. again dont take my word for it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/speech/Clockwork-Chaos-will-cause-great-inflation/first#post2703392

Galen Grey.4709:

Just search for your self on google for people complaining that they’re unable to finish the event because people are purposefully failing them for profit and see for yourself.

Again, complains on forum are not valid because only a minority comes and whines. It is one of the reason why Anet oft does not listen to players’ feedback here but uses their own metrics. Fans of this game should be aware of that.

Full reward? you’re kidding right? AFKing the event will give you 50s most of the time perhaps 1g if you get good drops of the 5 chests.

Playing the invasion rather then staying afk gave you a lot more then 1g. again dont take my word for it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/speech/Clockwork-Chaos-will-cause-great-inflation/first#post2703392

You can get similar rewards for zerging different chain events, it just happens less frequent, hence the dramatic thread.

but that would cost them money, and the lack of attention to important things while placing it on gemstore toys indicate they are after a different goal.