Guild Wars 2

Hi there,

I am/was a very dedicated player to this game previously, however i realized i really wanted/needed to get my partner into this game if i was to keep playing. However it did not manage to hold her interest, and while this is her personal experience, i think it does represent a group of casual/casual gamers that might have similar experiences that result in them falling short of getting into this game.

Pro’s

She liked the character customization.
She liked the various activities revolving around the ‘hearts’/events on the map.
She thought the monster/map variation was great.

Cons…
In her own words, ’ the story was so boring, i didn’t feel any reason to lvl up to find out what happens next, and therefore i had no attachment.’

— longer analysis: It’s hard to explain what makes a great storyline for the game, and i don’t doubt there are moments in gw2 where the story does become very interesting, but at the start it does seem a bit bland. Especially, say it’s over 3-4 days of lvling to reach the next story chapter because she has been busy with rl, she has suddenly forgotten all about the story.

Having said that, she did reach lvl 40, but by then i think the enjoyment she was getting out of doing the ‘heart’ events to lvl up was diminishing fast and becoming a bit tedious.

I know it’s hard for more dedicated players to imagine her position from a ‘blank state,’ but it does seem gw2 revolves around end-game content, and when we make alts we know in the long term the fun activities we will be using them for, but for new players like my gf she obviously cant get excited to grind through the bland beginning for end game content she has no experience of and therefore no excitement for.

Tl:DR – I guess the major issue is: what’s different from lvl 1-39 that grows the new player’s attachment from the game from lvl 40-79?

If this question had a great answer i think more players could be drawn to this game.

Just a detail: which character class story was she playing?

The main campaign is not very good, although depending on the race you picked you will have a good time in the first 20-25. Norn and sylvari have extra boring starter quests where as charr and asuras have very enjoyable ones. Humans are sort of in the middle.

But in all cases, the fact that they tried to have branching missions meant that they had to split their efforts in many missions instead of focusing on a single mission, and make it great. This is by far my biggest issue with the main campaign. Missions rarely last more than 10 minutes because they had to make soooo many missions. The LS seasons fix that by culling the unnecessary branching.

It’s when you’re doing the LW seasons that it get really good, but you have to do main story first. In essence, this game has the same problem as FFXIV: story starts out boring and gets very, very good later, you just have to tough the boring part. At least GW2 let you skip the main campaign once you hit level 80 (I think) but on the flip side you have to buy it with gems.

Djinn.9245:

Just a detail: which character class story was she playing?

She had a human/mesmer – can’t remember what specifics she chose about the story.

She didn’t have a problem with the skills, (loved the zaap from the GS).

Your gf could skip the Story in-game until Season Two (purchasable), HoT and Season 3 (purchasable) available for L80 characters and just read the Wiki’s offerings on the Personal Story.

But, if she is bored already with leveling, I’m not sure it would be a solution. There’s a heck of a lot more other gameplay compared to story in the game.

Good luck.

The human stories are dull I found the human stories to be dull. I think the most interesting are:

• The charr ones — more interesting NPCs, tasks, and more creative sort of quests.
• The asura ones — the asura are just fun: fun voice actors, crazy situations, and interesting dilemmas (although the tasks are pretty standard).
• The sylvari — the most “alien” of the races imo. And it’s especially interesting in retrospect, once you go through the Living World stories.

edit: rephrased to clarify this is my opinion; your mileage may vary (void where prohibited, etc)

Never had any expectations for the story nor any reason to care. Same can be said for every LS episode too.

She doesn’t have to do the personal story. I haven’t finished it on any char (partly because boring but mostly because you used to have to get a group together to do the final section, and then the rewards for finishing were/are not good). So she can skip all that. However if she’s finding leveling itself boring then this possibly isn’t the game for her as level 80 PvE content is more events. Maybe she would prefer sPvP or WvW?

People play this game for fashion, wvw and pvp. Have you showed her any of that xD?

Episcopos.5206:

Having said that, she did reach lvl 40, but by then i think the enjoyment she was getting out of doing the ‘heart’ events to lvl up was diminishing fast and becoming a bit tedious.

Well it’s a good thing they brought them back now, in repeatable. Because the clear feedback given by the community was that the reason hearts were eh was because they just didn’t feel grindy enough.

So hey, someone had an awesome idea, and made them daily repeatable. Now everything is better. Also it allowed firing a few event designers because less need for event chains.

Maybe have her start with a class that levels faster. Mesmer is painfully slow. I started with Thief and maxed a Mesmer next. I only had crap armor and weapons when I played my first character, but levelling the Thief was fun anyway. Then I decided to build my Chronomancer up and played her. At level 30 I decided to learn two crafts to help levelling, which gave me about 24 levels. Then I went out for xp again, in pretty good gear for that level because now I had the means to get it. It was still painfully slow compared to my undergeared Thief when she was at that stage. I had even issues doing the hero point challenges in Tyria. My Mesmer almost never died though, everything just takes ages. You can grind down a champ safely for 10 minutes, but with a dps class, you can do it in 2 or 3. The latter is much more fun for me, despite getting downed/dying a lot more.

Even now, the Chronomancer with ascended gear, is less fun roaming than my Thief. This changes when you play in a team though, where others take care of dps and you make them stronger.

btw, I used Tomes of Knowledge from level 60 or so because I couldn’t stand grinding xp with Mesmer anymore. It’s a cool class, but for new players, discouraging.

Episcopos.5206:

Having said that, she did reach lvl 40, but by then i think the enjoyment she was getting out of doing the ‘heart’ events to lvl up was diminishing fast and becoming a bit tedious.

No no no no no! Why would you let her continue on this path? Heart quests are ment to guide people to different areas to experience the game. They are in no way ment to have people grind them for leveling. Please, if you do get her to continue playing the game, make sure you establish a gaming habbit in which she does things she enjoys. Those will get you levels just as well in GW2. My personal favorites:

- uncovering maps and just running around taking in the beatiful game world (still one of my favorit ways of leveling characters when I get burned out. tomes kind of took away this aspect though)

- stoping here and there to join one of the events that pop up left and right

- do some of the skill point quests to unlock more stuff

- crafting and gathering the materials for said crafting

- story missions every 10 levels (granted if she did not enjoy the story a race change might work or some other background picks during character creationg.)

That being said, mesmer is definately the toughest pick for someone new to the game. I’d recommend going with warrior, ranger, necromancer or thief. Especially ranger and necromancer might be intesring with their pet mechanics (and in case of ranger the mini game of finding your pets makes exploring the world more interesting).

tl;dr: heart quests are not the only way of leveling. make sure you explore all the options the game offers. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience

I remember playing the game quite vividly at low level. For some reason, it was a lot more enjoyable in beta, probably because of the impermanence of everything. It felt like an achievement to discover a new map, because in a few hours, everything would be reset.

The 40 zone was definitely difficult to get through, and I don’t think your partner’s experience is unique. ANet did try to improve the new player experience of the years, but as you said with the hearts – there is precious little there in the way of story.

Your enjoyment of the game hinges, story wise, on the personal story. Unfortunately if I recall, that does begin to taper off inspite of a strong start, and doesn’t really pick up again until the attempted attack on Lion’s Arch around level 50.

I would encourage you both to give the game another shot, perhaps in a different game mode. I would also really suggest just wondering around Tyria. I remember that the most fun I had in this game was trying to go to places I wasn’t supposed to, or discovering jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons.

If she got bored during the main campaign, she would have completely fallen off afterward. She would have had to buy Season 2 (for gems or gold) to get disappointing cringe and agonizing wait times. Then, into HoT zones and through Season 3, the story is very hit-and-miss. And it’s mostly miss.

Sorry your GF wasn’t having fun with it and can’t join you in game. I know the feeling. My beau doesn’t like the GW2 experience, and that’s sad for me, but he comes from the WoW era of “tanks get to be special” and where said tanks don’t have to try hard at all to survive. Face-tanking just isn’t possible in GW2, and the combat-encounter designers really hate melee characters.

The best solution for her is to slightly change perspective. The story is not great for some people and that is fine, you don’t need it for anything except personal goals. She likes maps but not hearts, great. The hearts where an afterthought because people needed more direction. The real exp comes from events that happen everywhere on all maps. You can talk to a large number of NPCs (many not marked just have a talk option) that will trigger a local event. You also have event chains that lead to a map wide event.
So in short just do the things you like, experience is easy and fast even if it does not feel like it.

Let her play some F2p asian MMO..I bet you shes gonna change her mind real quick after that.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The human stories are dull. I think the most interesting are:

• The charr ones — more interesting NPCs, tasks, and more creative sort of quests.
• The asura ones — the asura are just fun: fun voice actors, crazy situations, and interesting dilemmas (although the tasks are pretty standard).
• The sylvari — the most “alien” of the races imo. And it’s especially interesting in retrospect, once you go through the Living World stories.

I have to second this. I found the Asura ones especially engaging. They had the right combination of good story and lots of humor.

hmmm, gw2 isnt that compelling in the beginning, from a story stand point. Id say the 10 level story gaps didnt help. I think they spread too little story through to many levels. The mid game, from say 40-70 begins to feel pretty repetitive. Orr is where you start to feel a greater sense of urgency.

mostly the desire to level up and get greater power is what pushes most people through the boring middle part.

the game probably would have worked better with a lot less levels, and less focus on heart completion as the main way of progressing your charachter. There are a lot of interesting side stories, but theres also a lot of non interesting ones.

the game works better when you play it more freely, I think when game launched, i usually did story missions way ahead of reccomended levels. Some were pretty hard because of this, but it felt less boring

these ships have sailed though, the game is old, and 1-80 wont change much, unless they, in future expansions create an alternate low to high level experience, like gw1 its a wrap.

I finished the story only once, and yes the story and the final mission is nothing to write home about. But still I managed to get 12 or so chars to max level. From all of them I enjoyed mesmer the least, was slow and boring. But I loved doing map completions and was easy to get them all to 80 for the living story content/farming and WvW.
No idea how WvW nowadays is, perhaps she could give that or pvp a go.

Or perhaps it’s not her game :/

Bearhugger.4326:

The main campaign is not very good, although depending on the race you picked you will have a good time in the first 20-25. Norn and sylvari have extra boring starter quests where as charr and asuras have very enjoyable ones. Humans are sort of in the middle.

But in all cases, the fact that they tried to have branching missions meant that they had to split their efforts in many missions instead of focusing on a single mission, and make it great. This is by far my biggest issue with the main campaign. Missions rarely last more than 10 minutes because they had to make soooo many missions. The LS seasons fix that by culling the unnecessary branching.

It’s when you’re doing the LW seasons that it get really good, but you have to do main story first. In essence, this game has the same problem as FFXIV: story starts out boring and gets very, very good later, you just have to tough the boring part. At least GW2 let you skip the main campaign once you hit level 80 (I think) but on the flip side you have to buy it with gems.

Regarding tje sylvari and asura; that’s subjective. ArenaNet paid the sylvari extra attention and some of their instances are actually quite interesting and smart. The same goes for the asura. While some of their instances can be quite fun, the “Infinity Ball” is probably the worst Racial Instance of the entire game.

It’s true about the story … it’s pretty predictable and linear. You never fail, you never lose. It’s the big thing that Anet got wrong for their market. Even casual players like good stories.

I’m not really surprised to hear that she couldn’t get into the human story. I found it quite dull and lacking in flavor. Faren is fun, but that’s about where it ends.

Perhaps she’ll find the Sylvari more interesting. Despite my pre-release disinterest in them, they ended up being my favorite race when I played them through. Unfortunately, their story gives way to the main campaign eventually and the continuation of the Malyck story was left on the cutting room floor of Heart of Thorns. RIP the only plot thread I was interested in.

Saying this is probably going to rub some people the wrong way, but GW2’s story doesn’t have very good hooks. After playing GW1 from beta all the way up to GW2 release, the world’s lore had to be butchered for the sake of the game’s direction. This leaves GW2 to be built on a shaky foundation of retcons, omissions, and direction shifts. If she’s a lover of stories in her games, this isn’t going to have what she craves.

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost. The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

My personal experience was that this game had an EXTREMELY unfriendly new-player experience. I’ve never played an MMO before where it was so hard to find basic information about things. I finally found most of my answers, and made my characters very strong and well equipped. But I have a really autistic sort of persistence that a lot of people don’t. So, yea… I hear you. I tried to introduce two people to this game. and they both called it quit after a few weeks.

Episcopos.5206:

Hi there,

I am/was a very dedicated player to this game previously, however i realized i really wanted/needed to get my partner into this game if i was to keep playing. However it did not manage to hold her interest, and while this is her personal experience, i think it does represent a group of casual/casual gamers that might have similar experiences that result in them falling short of getting into this game.

Pro’s

She liked the character customization.
She liked the various activities revolving around the ‘hearts’/events on the map.
She thought the monster/map variation was great.

Cons…
In her own words, ’ the story was so boring, i didn’t feel any reason to lvl up to find out what happens next, and therefore i had no attachment.’

— longer analysis: It’s hard to explain what makes a great storyline for the game, and i don’t doubt there are moments in gw2 where the story does become very interesting, but at the start it does seem a bit bland. Especially, say it’s over 3-4 days of lvling to reach the next story chapter because she has been busy with rl, she has suddenly forgotten all about the story.

Having said that, she did reach lvl 40, but by then i think the enjoyment she was getting out of doing the ‘heart’ events to lvl up was diminishing fast and becoming a bit tedious.

I know it’s hard for more dedicated players to imagine her position from a ‘blank state,’ but it does seem gw2 revolves around end-game content, and when we make alts we know in the long term the fun activities we will be using them for, but for new players like my gf she obviously cant get excited to grind through the bland beginning for end game content she has no experience of and therefore no excitement for.

Tl:DR – I guess the major issue is: what’s different from lvl 1-39 that grows the new player’s attachment from the game from lvl 40-79?

If this question had a great answer i think more players could be drawn to this game.

I never consider story as a very important part of the game, it is afterall a mmorpg. If people want story rich game, single player rpg is the best place to get those. You should explain to her that this is mmo and mmo is about the people you playing with, not about the story.

Also, comparing to all the mmos I have played, gw2 is casual. One can reach 80 easily within a week or two while hardcore players will reach it within a few days. One can get full ascended gears within two or three months while hardcore players will get it within a month. Exotic can be gotten easily within a week or two while hardcores will take a few days. If your gf can’t handle the leveling rate, I guess your gf is not suitable for a casual mmorpg. I guess she’s the FPS type of player that want to jump into actions immediately.

Fallesafe.5932:

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost.

Compared to other MMOs, GW2 has barely any level-up worth process mentioning. Try hitting cap level in any other mainstream current MMO in a shorter time than GW2, I dare you (that’s not counting tomes or crafting or other shenanigans which let you hit level 80 in minutes).

Fallesafe.5932:

The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

Not really, Ascalon story mode is level 35 (and quite rough for inexperienced players), ascalon exporable modes (meaning path 1-3 which 99% of the players do) are level 80. This does not get very well explained ingame though so I get how people still make this mistake.

Cyninja.2954:

Fallesafe.5932:

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost.

Compared to other MMOs, GW2 has barely any level-up worth process mentioning. Try hitting cap level in any other mainstream current MMO in a shorter time than GW2, I dare you (that’s not counting tomes or crafting or other shenanigans which let you hit level 80 in minutes).

Fallesafe.5932:

The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

Not really, Ascalon story mode is level 35 (and quite rough for inexperienced players), ascalon exporable modes (meaning path 1-3 which 99% of the players do) are level 80. This does not get very well explained ingame though so I get how people still make this mistake.

I’m afraid you may be mistaken.

Ascalonian Catacombs (story) – Required Level 30
Ascalonian Catacombs (explorable) – Required Level 35

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs

I believe Arah (Story and Explorable), Crucible of Eternity (Explorable), and Honor of the Waves (Explorable) are the L80 Dungeons.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Cyninja.2954:

Fallesafe.5932:

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost.

Compared to other MMOs, GW2 has barely any level-up worth process mentioning. Try hitting cap level in any other mainstream current MMO in a shorter time than GW2, I dare you (that’s not counting tomes or crafting or other shenanigans which let you hit level 80 in minutes).

Fallesafe.5932:

The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

Not really, Ascalon story mode is level 35 (and quite rough for inexperienced players), ascalon exporable modes (meaning path 1-3 which 99% of the players do) are level 80. This does not get very well explained ingame though so I get how people still make this mistake.

I’m afraid you may be mistaken.

Ascalonian Catacombs (story) – Required Level 30
Ascalonian Catacombs (explorable) – Required Level 35

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs

I believe Arah (Story and Explorable), Crucible of Eternity (Explorable), and Honor of the Waves (Explorable) are the L80 Dungeons.

Ah I stand corrected. It’s been to long I guess.

Bearhugger.4326:

The main campaign is not very good, although depending on the race you picked you will have a good time in the first 20-25. Norn and sylvari have extra boring starter quests where as charr and asuras have very enjoyable ones. Humans are sort of in the middle.

Disagree about norn quest being boring. You literally get drunk and steal a tank. You can fist fight for honor.

Sylvari eh….not my race of choice so i cannot speak to it.

The rest of the races all have selling points as well, but the writing is generic so as to get people to have some enjoyment but allow for a now defunct branching choice/emotion system.

Fallesafe.5932:

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost. The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

My personal experience was that this game had an EXTREMELY unfriendly new-player experience. I’ve never played an MMO before where it was so hard to find basic information about things. I finally found most of my answers, and made my characters very strong and well equipped. But I have a really autistic sort of persistence that a lot of people don’t. So, yea… I hear you. I tried to introduce two people to this game. and they both called it quit after a few weeks.

I think you missed the OP’s point … it wasn’t the level up that made his GF quit, it was the simple storyline. To be frank, the level up experience in this game is comparatively simple and fast. I can’t imagine anyone truly complaining about GW2 that has any sort of experience with other MMO’s. In truth, there are few MMO’s that have significant content outside of leveling below their max level ranges; there is a perfectly good reason for that …. because you don’t do it again once you have leveled. It’s the nature of the genre. GW2 actually does a better job of that than most with the downscaling.

idk did you tell her to make a salad thief or something i hear chick dig that quite abit :/

Nice acount name btw @OP

I think you missed the OP’s point … it wasn’t the level up that made his GF quit, it was the simple storyline. To be frank, the level up experience in this game is comparatively simple and fast. I can’t imagine anyone truly complaining about GW2 that has any sort of experience with other MMO’s. In truth, there are few MMO’s that have significant content outside of leveling below their max level ranges; there is a perfectly good reason for that …. because you don’t do it again once you have leveled. It’s the nature of the genre. GW2 actually does a better job of that than most with the downscaling.

No, I understand the OP’s point (that the story is uninspiring). And I’m afraid I didn’t express myself very well in response. I’m not saying that the level-up is difficult or long. I was an EverQuest player; and I KNOW what a long and sadistic level-up is like. What I’m saying is that there’s absolutely nothing to have fun with in the GW2 level-up (and learning procerss). You can hardly even find groups for your own-level content that people don’t want to kick you out of. And I lost two people I tried to bring into the game because, by the time they hit 80, and (one of them) ground out their Ascended armor, they had a view of the game that it was totally lame and mechanistic.

I also made the observation that it’s very hard for a new player to find solid info on really fundamental stuff about this game. I only figured out a month ago how fields and finishers interacted with each other. I played three MMO’s before this, and they had infinitely better documentation online. In a lot of ways, you really just need to grit your teeth and want to get over the hump. Because you’re jumping into an environment (thanks to level 80 boosts) where everybody is doing something else and nobody is doing what you’re trying to do. Then, when you hit 80, you’re joining groups where everybody already knows the mechanics of the content and wants to insta-kick anyone who doesn’t.

Episcopos.5206:

In her own words, ’ the story was so boring, i didn’t feel any reason to lvl up to find out what happens next, and therefore i had no attachment.’

— longer analysis: It’s hard to explain what makes a great storyline for the game

I need to point this out: I think, especially with the human race, I have played through all variations (all three heritage options and all three Orders, all the races we can help and win over for the final battle), and the level of excitement has varied extremely between those.

Some paths chosen (like playing a noble and chosing the Order of Whispers) are holding much better strorylines than others, which felt like a boring chore to play through. The same goes for some of the Norn paths (Romke’s horn and dueling our adversary were both fun storylines, for instance, while many others lacked any depth and innovation).

If you get lucky as a newbie to pick the “right” ones, you will be rewarded with diversity and excitement. If you pick the wrong ones, you will be bored to death.

That said, this fact goes for much of GW2’s content. You can feel that there are too many cooks involved in preparing the meal, and therefore you get very different results in quality.

Yup, the story is pretty bad overall, I don’t blame her.
The core game is also really mediocre. If you can get past all the flaws, it’s an okay-ish time sink.

Mavis.1463:

Yup, the story is pretty bad overall, I don’t blame her.
The core game is also really mediocre. If you can get past all the flaws, it’s an okay-ish time sink.

Well said.

Keep things in perspective, the game is essentially free beyond the initial purchase. That’s quite different from most MMORPGs, which either cost monthly or are sold to you piece by piece via microtransactions.

Fallesafe.5932:

I think you missed the OP’s point … it wasn’t the level up that made his GF quit, it was the simple storyline. To be frank, the level up experience in this game is comparatively simple and fast. I can’t imagine anyone truly complaining about GW2 that has any sort of experience with other MMO’s. In truth, there are few MMO’s that have significant content outside of leveling below their max level ranges; there is a perfectly good reason for that …. because you don’t do it again once you have leveled. It’s the nature of the genre. GW2 actually does a better job of that than most with the downscaling.

No, I understand the OP’s point (that the story is uninspiring). And I’m afraid I didn’t express myself very well in response. I’m not saying that the level-up is difficult or long. I was an EverQuest player; and I KNOW what a long and sadistic level-up is like. What I’m saying is that there’s absolutely nothing to have fun with in the GW2 level-up (and learning procerss). You can hardly even find groups for your own-level content that people don’t want to kick you out of. And I lost two people I tried to bring into the game because, by the time they hit 80, and (one of them) ground out their Ascended armor, they had a view of the game that it was totally lame and mechanistic.

I also made the observation that it’s very hard for a new player to find solid info on really fundamental stuff about this game. I only figured out a month ago how fields and finishers interacted with each other. I played three MMO’s before this, and they had infinitely better documentation online. In a lot of ways, you really just need to grit your teeth and want to get over the hump. Because you’re jumping into an environment (thanks to level 80 boosts) where everybody is doing something else and nobody is doing what you’re trying to do. Then, when you hit 80, you’re joining groups where everybody already knows the mechanics of the content and wants to insta-kick anyone who doesn’t.

i think the OP said the story was eh, and the leveling up was monotonous and boring. Which i think is pretty accurate if you level up via map completion and hearts.

You just have to do so much of it, that doesnt really feel different from like 30-65. Its kind of good if you like meandering, or you mix it up with pvp/wvw. But if you are strictly pve, it really feels kind of objectiveless and repetitive.

now, i have done it many times, i have like 8 or 9 charachters, but i generally figured out how to get around the midgame pve method, whether by crafting, mixing in some WvW, or just using massive exp boosters/kill streak and hunting for places with good bonus exp.

the game works best when you get some good dynamic event chains, but many zones dont have people doing it, or have weak/boring chains.

I enjoyed the Asura stories more than all the others. And, before the Asura starting area was gutted as part of the New Player Experience I played in it just for fun. There are some nice pieces i the other stories, but nothing that I consistently enjoyed like the Asura.

As others have said, it is best to mix things up. It is good to do the personal story at least once to get Mastery points. But you don’t have to do it straight through or at level. You also don’t have to level up straight through. I worked on my crafting. Then there were Living Story Episodes every now and then. Then a Holiday, etc.

The other problem with following the Story strictly is that you stay in the same region. If you are tired of the story, go to the same level zone in another racial area.

First, Mesmer is an incredibly dull class to level up, and every heart will have her twice as much to level up. Let her know she’s leveling a support class which role since launch has never been damage.

Second… Please keep her away from human story, and away from the race in general, I am tired of seeing human with wings and shiny armors.

Sylvari are pretty much the protagonists of the first two parts of the game. I mained a sylvari thief and the story is much more engaging and understandable that way, and right now on the new episodes asura are shining.

It’s so weird that many people don’t like the personal story. And then there’s me, sometimes I start new characters just to replay the story missions. GW2 is the first game in which I actually watch / read the cinematics, lol. I guess I’m weird. Anyway, tell your gf to try other things to level up: WvW/EotM/PvP for Tomes, she might like them and/or mix all that with PvE exploring!

(Edited typos).

Playing this game from 2012 and I don’t know the story at all. Started doing and finished main story (remember only fight with big dragon in some flying ship in front of arah or something long time ago) but this living seasons are borring, I started them all on 1st episode and never come back. After wow story I just cant get into any mmorpg story.

Tell your GF to start doing fashion wars and wvw.

this game is missing crafter shop, maybe she likes to have her own dress shop?

As someone who plays multiple mmos I have to agree with her. It’s not as bad as other titles like Rift but it is pretty bad.

The main storyline is not consistant throughout, it doesn’t have holes in it but it does have alot of missing content in that voice overs and the interface where two people standing next to each other is boring.

The story for Elder Scrolls Online had a much better take. It had full on dialogue as does HoT and it had events within the story that happened immediately after the character made a decision or as the character was conversing (emergencies).

Any new players I can see having an issue with it because it gets boring watching two people talk about things side by side.

It’s worth pointing out that games throughout history have had to go back and make major changes to the original story. Star Trek online changed it’s original first time player series of quests their events and added career specific options to the events. They’ve done this twice now.