Guild Wars 2

So I just finished Arah Story mode and then went into the end game Personal Story and here are my thoughts on these two things.

Arah

I enjoyed the story but this whole “dungeon” is immersive breaking. This whole time I’ve been working with Trahearne and it’s been myself or him as the center of this, then suddenly I’m forced to group with 4 other people to finish my “Personal Story”. Worse yet I’m not even in the cutscenes as the one who brought destiny’s edge back together and did all the earlier legwork, which my “Personal Story” has shown to be the case for 80 levels. This is poorly done ArenaNet and detracts from the overall gameplay.

The idea of redoing that mission over and over in exploration mode is even worse. What Zhaitan puts itself back together and we get to blow it up again and again and again?

Arah Mission has issues too. Far too difficult to target the dragons with the guns. Hitting T to assist a party member who had one targeted did nothing. Hitting tab to target the only enemy on the screen (the dragons) did nothing. Clicking on the dragon randomly all over it’s body worked about 10% of the time. Frustrating!

Reward

At the end of it all I get 3 loot bags and a blueprint I will never ever use and can’t sell and what is my loot? 3 crappy greens that I can get from mobs outside in Orr anytime. Pure junk and a huge letdown. I was hoping for an upgrade not vendor fodder. The 44s was mediocre too but at least it was something. It’ll cover repair bills for the mission at least.

The 1k scroll for a guild is great if you have a guild, which I do, so I did appreciate that and thought that was fantastic.

Suggested Fixes

• Cutscene: Either make each person’s character the center of all the cutscenes during story mode or Redo the mission as a Solo Mission. It’s pretty foolish that I need to bring 4 other players to finish my “Personal Story”.

• Rewards: Nothing less then at least 1 rare should be awarded for finishing the game and 1 gold. Perhaps an option of the blueprint or extra money equaling 1g total (end mission money + reward money).

Final Thoughts

Thought the story was interesting enough and I liked how it all played out until the very end which was very disappointing and really let me down. I’ve seen the stories ArenaNet can write and expect top quality stuff from you (Anet) at all times. That’s how good of a Game Company I think Anet is in general.

Please consider another revamp to this end game story to really have it make an impact in all forms.

Thank You
Imaginos

p.s. I really liked the painterly cutout animated end montages. They were fantastic!

On a related note 2 of the doorways into missions were right on top of monster spawns, which invariably lead to repair bills on exiting the mission. These were Grenth temple and one that was 2 or so before that one.

VERY Uncool when the items gained in the mission didn’t even add up to 3s.

EDIT:

Random Disconnects during your personal story SUCK!. Being forced to redo a whole mission again and again due to some random disconnect is really frustrating. Why isn’t there a rejoin instance feature like in gw1 where if I get disconnected I can reenter my personal story where I left off as an option….all mobs killed still dead etc..

I’d like to point out they said they’re improving the end rewards significantly and that everyone who’s already completed it will be able to get the better rewards

Dra Keln.2015:

I’d like to point out they said they’re improving the end rewards significantly and that everyone who’s already completed it will be able to get the better rewards

They already did that. The bags went from 5 down to 3….my 3 still stank worse then a rotten quaggan corpse.

Would like to see a developer response to this. Are these things going to be looked at and fixed/updated?

Is this correct? You are forced to join up with others for your end of story in a dungeon?

I am nearing the end of my personal story and was planning on logging on for a few hours later to complete it. Now I have no motivation to do so.

I didnt enjoy my one and only experience in a dungeon as it is, joined a group to do story mode, but i ended up in a group where the rest had already did and learnt this dungeon, so while i was sitting watching the cutscenes as i never seen them before (and i did point out to the group this was my first visit and i be doing this), once cutscenes were over the rest of the group were already ploughing through the dungeon on a speedrun, it took me several minutes to find them and catch up to them, not knowing the routes it took me some time to find them, and by time i did they already more or less cleared the dungeon.

I am really disheartened that part of my Personal Story, especially the important ending part taking place in a dungeon where i am forced to join up with others. Been loving the going through the story so far and was looking forward to doing that last couple chapters, now i just feel like I dont want to bother if all I got to look forward to is a dungeon i am forced to party with others just so i can complete it.

I love GW2, but starting to think this “play it the way you want” policy has never been incorporated, if its forcing players, especially through the main storyline, to do party dungeons. God i miss my heroes.

Snix Spoonman.3871:

Is this correct? You are forced to join up with others for your end of story in a dungeon?

I am nearing the end of my personal story and was planning on logging on for a few hours later to complete it. Now I have no motivation to do so.

I didnt enjoy my one and only experience in a dungeon as it is, joined a group to do story mode, but i ended up in a group where the rest had already did and learnt this dungeon, so while i was sitting watching the cutscenes as i never seen them before (and i did point out to the group this was my first visit and i be doing this), once cutscenes were over the rest of the group were already ploughing through the dungeon on a speedrun, it took me several minutes to find them and catch up to them, not knowing the routes it took me some time to find them, and by time i did they already more or less cleared the dungeon.

I am really disheartened that part of my Personal Story, especially the important ending part taking place in a dungeon where i am forced to join up with others. Been loving the going through the story so far and was looking forward to doing that last couple chapters, now i just feel like I dont want to bother if all I got to look forward to is a dungeon i am forced to party with others just so i can complete it.

I love GW2, but starting to think this “play it the way you want” policy has never been incorporated, if its forcing players, especially through the main storyline, to do party dungeons. God i miss my heroes.

Yes it’s correct. I hit a specific part of my story where it just stops. Then I had to go get a Arah dungeon group to finish the story which no longer was “My Personal Story” as I wasn’t in any part of the decision making process or in any of the cutscenes. After the dungeon I was then able to do the very last celebratory mission and get my Personal Story rewards.

The rewards were terrible I’m sorry to say. Stuff I couldn’t sell, stuff that was no better then some random mob drop and not even useable by my class/profession. Lackluster and Disappointing for ending the whole game story that you can only do once. You get better rewards for completing any L60+zone and that’s just wrong.

I have struggled with a ton of content when I have been on across every zone because of a lack of interested players, imagine my reaction when I am confronted with the no choice you have to party to finish the personal story dungeon. I stood outside of the dungeon for nearly an hour spamming LFM/LFG before I got 1 person to join and an additional 30-45 minutes before the party eventually filled out. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the dungeon with the exception of the end boss fight which was disappointing in another fashion but the requirement to party for it should not have been in there and it perhaps should have followed the structure of the previous missions where you do not have to rely on a full party of players just to do the content. My query is what happens to players who make it to the end of the story late? Players who are in the wrong timezone? Never mind the lacklustre junk we got at the end we are barely two months out from release and struggling to find a party to simply complete story mode is not on.

psy.5437:

I have struggled with a ton of content when I have been on across every zone because of a lack of interested players, imagine my reaction when I am confronted with the no choice you have to party to finish the personal story dungeon. I stood outside of the dungeon for nearly an hour spamming LFM/LFG before I got 1 person to join and an additional 30-45 minutes before the party eventually filled out. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the dungeon with the exception of the end boss fight which was disappointing in another fashion but the requirement to party for it should not have been in there and it perhaps should have followed the structure of the previous missions where you do not have to rely on a full party of players just to do the content. My query is what happens to players who make it to the end of the story late? Players who are in the wrong timezone? Never mind the lacklustre junk we got at the end we are barely two months out from release and struggling to find a party to simply complete story mode is not on.

That is a valid point too. I was on during a busy time and it took me about 35 minutes to get in a story mode party. Something I’d rather not be forced to do.

I agree fully with the OP’s criticisms and suggestions.

I’ve gotten used to the lackluster rewards from the personal story instances and so my expectations for a reward at the end were low, but I still wanted to complete the story just to see the ending.

So imagine my surprise when after 80 levels and countless hours of solo instances I’m suddenly forced to group up with 4 other people and complete a dungeon in order to finish what is supposed to be MY story.

sigh

Beyond not making any sense, it’s also the return of my pet peeve “forced grouping” – I really don’t like being shoehorned into content I don’t want to do because I’ve been through enough of that in other MMO’s. I was really expecting better from a game like GW2, which prides itself on choice and “play the way you want to play”.

I really hope that Arenanet will reconsider their design choices here and add a soloable option for this step of the story in the future. As people have pointed out being able to complete this dungeon and thus the personal storyline is heavily dependant on the availability of other players and population decline in the future will not make this any easier.