Guild Wars 2

So after the new content update, I was psyched to go use my flamethrower wielding lvl 51 engi and continue my story quest. My story quest required lvl 48 and i’m 51 ( I got a bit lazy ) but now…I can’t see where I am in the story progress. I remember I had to go back to talk to the Durman priory, but the objective disapeared, and there’s nothing on this next part in my journal, and I need to be lvl 60 for my next part… did I miss something or now I will never know what happened in this part of the story ?

You are locked from the story till you hit the level the system think is right for you to continue with it.

In my opinion I think they should remove this lock because it’s not needed.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It will unlock at L60. No progress has been lost. The L48 step used to be the start of a storyline that ran from L48-L59, but they’re all now part of the L60 chapter unlock, so you don’t have to level up between every step.

You never had to level up between every step. With the new gates, you have to level up before you can see the next part of the story. This is a step forward?

yeah it kinda sucks…having a story quest every 2 lvls or so had a great flow to it and kept things interesting, now it feels like a grind…
so every 10 lvls I get like, 5 story missions since they are not every 2 or 3 lvls anymore ?

Andrephi.5692:

yeah it kinda sucks…having a story quest every 2 lvls or so had a great flow to it and kept things interesting, now it feels like a grind…
so every 10 lvls I get like, 5 story missions since they are not every 2 or 3 lvls anymore ?

Exactly… I’m so sick of this idea of locking content behind a level cap… Forcing players to play the level you want to…

So much for playing the games content as and when we wanted to. Level 20 and want to do level 40 story with party? Yeah no chance now.

It was said this was to make it flow better…but uh…you break it up doing this in an unnecessary way. It’s stupid and more people don’t like this implementation than do.

Zakurai.7290:

It’s stupid and more people don’t like this …

Working as intended!!!

While it sounds sensible, I’m really not sure what problem the story chunks revision actually solves. Now instead of unlocking a story every couple of levels, I unlock a story every ten levels?

Now it just sounds like I have to over-prepare for every mission before I have the option to play it. That might keep the chunks from being interrupted, but it sounds like it does just the opposite to the experience as a whole.

I made a new toon yesterday, and left them at level 6, one step away from completing the PS. All progress was lost.

I’m not sure if this is a bug or not, but it seems that when they bundle up the personal story, they also took out alot of it. For example, my friend and i were doing his personal story at Forging the Pact (in which we have to travel to Concordia and save some research team), when we finished with that part, his next step is the battle for fort Trinity, completely bypass the part where he need to help Tonn. After we done with the Battle for Fort Trinity, we go straight to cathedral of silence, and now is the Source of Orr, which is the last story before Zaitan. Is this only happen to us or everyone else seem to be skipping several steps?

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

you don’t have to level up between every step.

… Wait…………………………………. What? WHAAAT? What do you mean??? THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO NOW!!!

Unlike the ridiculous locking of skills, the changes on the personal story is one I can understand.

I remember finding it very annoying back during the beta week-ends and at launch to have leveling break the flow of the story, and this was made even worse by the fact that unlike the living story missions, personal story missions are usually very short.

With that new design, players can do the whole story arch in one go, uninterrupted. I feel that doing an entire chapter in one go is the best way to enjoy the personal story, and that is what I was doing anyway.

I have to agree that level 10 is kind of high though. I understand that you have to be high level enough to be able to travel through the maps where the personal story takes place, but that sounds excessive, especially since you get a very large amount of XP for completing personal story. I’d strongly suggest changing the story to unlock at level 5, 15, 25, … then the XP from completing the earlier missions should be enough to level the player for 2 or 3 levels and being able to travel through the map.

Guhracie.3419:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It will unlock at L60. No progress has been lost. The L48 step used to be the start of a storyline that ran from L48-L59, but they’re all now part of the L60 chapter unlock, so you don’t have to level up between every step.

You never had to level up between every step. With the new gates, you have to level up before you can see the next part of the story. This is a step forward?

Honestly, it works because the story outpaced level progression a lot previously. So what a lot of people did (myself included) leveled up to 80 and then went back to do the story. Nothing has changed, more or less, because the pacing problem exists both pre and post patch. The system we have now seems more arbitrary and restrictive than the old system, and it doesn’t fix anything.

sigh I just leveled up to Lvl 47 – which is what I needed for the next part of my story. I was looking forward to it… NOW, I have to do ANOTHER thirteen levels of experience to continue? I’m not really happy with that.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

From the update notes:

Chapter 7 is now focused on helping Trahearne cleanse Orr.
Chapter 8 is now focused on defeating Zhaitan.

The story steps that were in Ch8 that involved helping Trahearne with his wyld hunt have been moved to Ch7.

So by “Focus” you mean “Completly cut out the Tonn/Apatia/Syska plot and moving the final parts of Trahearne’s story to where they don’t make any scene?”

I mean, I get the idea, but why the heck would a level 70 mission send you to a level 80 zone??? and then you spend the rest of the personal story fighting your way back to that exact same part of Orr.

Andrephi.5692:

yeah it kinda sucks…having a story quest every 2 lvls or so had a great flow to it and kept things interesting, now it feels like a grind…
so every 10 lvls I get like, 5 story missions since they are not every 2 or 3 lvls anymore ?

The flow was actually pretty terrible at low levels as you’d often be a couple levels shy after a while if you focused on the story, which resulted in people leveling up in the open world then focusing on the story in big chunks. It’s those people’s actions which apparently influenced this part of the update.

Ideally, I wouldn’t mind. The issue however is that the personal story was designed and written with a continuous flow in mind. Now you have “visit me when you get well” (human storyline) but you don’t – you wait until you get level 10 to visit (it’s not so bad for asura, sylvari, and norn, but charr it’s just as bad with your warband recently deceased – no need to report in soldier! Go do some training out in the field first! >.>). Another bad part being the Racial sympathies – the end of the now-level 40 arc ends with you picking a racial sympathy, but then you have to get to level 50 to continue it, and it’s only once you hit level 60 that you see the race’s speaker (Gara, etc.) with your Order head. The other splits aren’t so bad with the time gap.

I personally don’t mind the time gap, except for those cases.

Oh, and how about how we get AC unlocked at level 30 – but in the level 40 PS is when Eir gets the idea of retrieving Magdaer and heads off to the Ascalon Catacombs. So now you’re doing dungeons 10+ levels before they should happen in accordance to the Personal Story! Logic!

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

From the update notes:

Chapter 7 is now focused on helping Trahearne cleanse Orr.
Chapter 8 is now focused on defeating Zhaitan.

The story steps that were in Ch8 that involved helping Trahearne with his wyld hunt have been moved to Ch7.

Can you please explain this decision? I made a thread here about it, because it makes no sense.

As I point out in said thread you:

• Fight the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan, which has been long designed to be a climatic battle where your defended by your allies throughout your trials in Orr.
• Then you go to the Temple of the Forgotten God, where you meet first of said allies, and encounter a lesser Eye of Zhaitan.
• Then you kill said lesser Eye of Zhaitan. Where you meet second said ally/allies.
• Then you fight out the revelation that there’s more than one Eye of Zhaitan…. but we… killed… two… now…
• Then it’s the mouth, more allies, then risen supplies, more allies, then it’s invasion into Cursed Shore… where we already were for the cleansing of Orr storyline – which I should add, begins with a series of Pact troops in Cursed Shore! Seems like we invaded it already, when we invade it later now.

Unless that is, there has been a dialogue – both spoken and text – change throughout all of these steps to ensure they flow better. But if that’s the case, and you spent time and money “fixing” the personal story, why not spend this time and money making a better Season 2 or making Season 1 permanent content?

So, again, please explain this design decision. Because it makes no freaking sense.

I bet in the Chinese version it makes more sense.

What was loosened?

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It will unlock at L60. No progress has been lost. The L48 step used to be the start of a storyline that ran from L48-L59, but they’re all now part of the L60 chapter unlock, so you don’t have to level up between every step.

Uhh…right after I leave the introductory story I have to wait until hitting lvl 10 before continuing, and after I finish a chapter I have to wait until level x0 before starting the next one. So yes, I absolutely do “have to level up between every step.”

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It will unlock at L60. No progress has been lost. The L48 step used to be the start of a storyline that ran from L48-L59, but they’re all now part of the L60 chapter unlock, so you don’t have to level up between every step.

Can you confirm us if all the Great Fears chapter were included in the actual level 60 chapter or any other chapter?

I would be deeply disappointed in Arenanets common sense if they removed the “fear” story part. I very much enjoyed that part because a) it’s the first time I felt some sort of emotional bond with my character since he kittened up, was put into a position of shame and had to get his honor back…and b) it felt a cut above the disney-level storytelling that is afflicting the rest of the personal story.

Why did they have to remove it? And the shuffling around of the orr-part makes no freaking sense. Koenig already beautifully pointed out all the inconsistencies you created in the process.

Aren’t you guys “developers”? Go develop something instead of removing the things we enjoy. This really feels like changing for the sake of changing.

I have lost my story progression. When I logged off the other day the story had me meeting in the LA sewers to find out what was going on. I just logged on and it is not there. I have an icon saying something about “New challenges await you in Gendarran Fields.” What is going on?

I like how the staff member completely ignored all questions regarding the need for this change then disappeared. So much for communication.

and look, no more dev response, they realized we have brains and realized we didn’t have to level up to do our stories before. and if konig’s right, the PS is screwy too. i loved having the epic fight against the legendary eye before going off to beat up zhaitain (or shoot at him with confetti cannons from a mile away -_-). if thats how it works now, don’t see a reason to even do the PS on any toon, any enjoyment i would get out of it is out the window. literally nobody likes these changes in their entirety

The story change is fine.

This way makes much more sense and gives the story in chapters rather than 5 minute segments every 1-2 hours.

The gating of skills and functionality until level 40 on the other hand…THAT makes no sense.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

and look, no more dev response, they realized we have brains and realized we didn’t have to level up to do our stories before. and if konig’s right, the PS is screwy too. i loved having the epic fight against the legendary eye before going off to beat up zhaitain (or shoot at him with confetti cannons from a mile away -_-). if thats how it works now, don’t see a reason to even do the PS on any toon, any enjoyment i would get out of it is out the window. literally nobody likes these changes in their entirety

Statements like this is why they don’t respond in the first place.

Vorch.2985:

The story change is fine.

This way makes much more sense and gives the story in chapters rather than 5 minute segments every 1-2 hours.

The gating of skills and functionality until level 40 on the other hand…THAT makes no sense.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

and look, no more dev response, they realized we have brains and realized we didn’t have to level up to do our stories before. and if konig’s right, the PS is screwy too. i loved having the epic fight against the legendary eye before going off to beat up zhaitain (or shoot at him with confetti cannons from a mile away -_-). if thats how it works now, don’t see a reason to even do the PS on any toon, any enjoyment i would get out of it is out the window. literally nobody likes these changes in their entirety

Statements like this is why they don’t respond in the first place.

i’d prefer a response in the way of removing this stuff and putting the old game back anyway. and if i didn’t say something about the dev, somebody else would’ve anyway

Vorch.2985:

The story change is fine.

This way makes much more sense and gives the story in chapters rather than 5 minute segments every 1-2 hours.

You missed the point. It’s not about clustering the personal story mission into big chunks.

It’s about the removal of several story missions for no reason, which is not fine.

It’s about changing the order of the orr-missions in an inconvenient and logically inconsistent way, which is not fine.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

From the update notes:

Chapter 7 is now focused on helping Trahearne cleanse Orr.
Chapter 8 is now focused on defeating Zhaitan.

The story steps that were in Ch8 that involved helping Trahearne with his wyld hunt have been moved to Ch7.

This is a really terrible change. Please consider changing it back.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It will unlock at L60. No progress has been lost. The L48 step used to be the start of a storyline that ran from L48-L59, but they’re all now part of the L60 chapter unlock, so you don’t have to level up between every step.

Sorry to break it to you. Before the patch, you don’t need to level between every step.

I would like to have had an explanation as to why this happened. It really upset me to log on expecting to do the warmaster and sewer quest to have it completely gone with no in game mail explaining what happened. The storyline is the main reason I play the game. I though it was bad enough to fight my guild on WvW due to them being on a different server.

Just a correction: lose is the word you want, not loose.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It will unlock at L60. No progress has been lost. The L48 step used to be the start of a storyline that ran from L48-L59, but they’re all now part of the L60 chapter unlock, so you don’t have to level up between every step.

Bad design, plain and simple. I was having fun (re-read that part HAVING FUN) by giving myself the challenge of playing story steps well above my level to see how well i could survive. It was making leveling my toon engaging and interesting and this patch has stolen that from me because Anet has decided to dictate how I should play the game. You know, the thing that you all said you wouldn’t do.

If there was ever a bait and switch this is a big one.

It is taking all of my self control to not be nasty on the forums right now, but lord knows Anet deserves to hear it as harshly as possible after this update.