Guild Wars 2

I had an extremely frustrating experience in the final chapter of “The Dragon’s Reach: Part 2” due to the design having contradictory playstyle components. You cannot simultaneously solo and team play the content, but it’s designed so either playstyle chosen is frustrated. This has not been limited to just this episode, but came to a head when I actually considered rage quitting the franchise after 2,600 hours of game time.

In order to enjoy the richness and full extent of the material requires real life luck equivalent to a daily precursor drop. I.e., you need a team that’s always available, patient enough to listen to all dialog, explore every corner, read every document, and push every combination of button. They must have perfect TeamSpeak etiquette so they don’t talk over the dialog or engage in immersion-breaking talk.

Consequently, I prefer to experience the content solo so I can enjoy the material fully and at my own pace. But the end-fights have grown to such insane difficulty, that it’s no longer enjoyable. Having expert content for expert players is understandable (e.g., the skill and dedication to grind out Mawdrey II). But Living Story is mainstream content and should be approachable and enjoyable by mainstream players without contradictory playstyle requirements.

One possible solution is to break apart the exploratory aspects of the content from the combat content. “The World Summit” chapter, for example would be broken into three pieces: solo the preface, full team the battle, and solo the denouement.

Or run it both ways, as appears to be intended….

I joined a pickup group last night that was after one of the achievements in the last part (kill the final enemy without dying three times). Other than a few warnings beforehand on which enemies to focus, the mission went off without a hitch and without voice chat or much communication at all. I struggled with the fight when I ran it solo (my main is a bit too glassy), but as a group we did quite well, even with light organization.

Xangxa.6428:

In order to enjoy the richness and full extent of the material requires real life luck equivalent to a daily precursor drop. I.e., you need a team that’s always available, patient enough to listen to all dialog, explore every corner, read every document, and push every combination of button. They must have perfect TeamSpeak etiquette so they don’t talk over the dialog or engage in immersion-breaking talk.

What are you even talking about right now? Am I the only one who thinks this entire paragraph is completely absurd? Sounds like a severe case of self-imposed restrictions.

He entire living story is easy including the related achievements for the instances. You want to be able to steamroll through it like the personal story? You’re greatly exaggerating the difficulty of the living story instances.