Guild Wars 2

I loved the first chapter of living season 3, it was fun and entertaining. the bad side? most people beat it in a few hours at most. and then months of just waiting. would you guys prefer if there was an artificial way to slow down progress to make our adventures last longer? they could use masteries for it, that way alts can make it much faster.
I know artificial slowing down is a cheap way, but still I think it works. I was playing the DLC of another MMO where they did it, and it made the adventure last much longer, and I could play a bit each day.
What are your opinions on it? yay or nay?

If I wanted a game that artificially slows down the story progression I wouldn’t be playing GW2…

The prefer the story to not be gated by masteries. I enjoy them and would like to beat them at my own pace. If I finish it too fast then the content is lacking. But to slow down the progression by artificial means rather than increase quantity and quality is just cheapens the Guild Wars brand in my opinion and I would most likely quit the game if that becomes the trend. I get annoyed having to stop doing the story content I enjoy to do something else I don’t want to do, even if that something else was designed to be fun to do, the fact that I had to stop my story just to do it would kill it for me… It’s like having to go to a site but so many pop ups happen and instead of enjoying the content of the site, you have to close the pop-up advertizments that get in the way which would leave you with 2 options: Quit or continue the annoyance just to enjoy the content the site provides.

I want to enjoy the content I choose to play, not be told I should stop to do something else to slow down my enjoyment of content I am consuming. I can play other games non-MMO if that comes to be the case. That’s my take on it.

tldr: I disagree with OP… Don’t cheapen the Guild Wars brand with artificial content gating… Just add higher quantity and quality content that would keep our interest.

I hated, and I mean absolutely HATED being artificially gated by masteries for the HoT story. you can’t even believe how angry I got for being kicked from my immersion in the story by a mastery that wasn’t even NEEDED in the story step. it was arbitrary and pointless, and lessened my experience of it. it took me nearly a year (as in I played it the second time through a month or so ago) to want to replay the HoT story, that’s how much I hated it (thoroughly enjoyed it the second time, and the third).
if they did anything like that again (mastery requirement, but in no way used in the story at all, ever) I would not play anymore. at least not the story part.

how they did the first LS3 was perfect in my opinion. the story was a nice length, the map was amazing, and the mastery required was used within the story itself. a brilliant combination.

I preferred GW1 Prophecies over Factions, because I could go nearly everywhere without doing the story. Even in Nightfall, we had more freedom to do story or not.

Plus, it doesn’t really work to artificially slow people down. The extreme-PvErs will still grind through ASAP, the dedicated will grind through quickly enough, and so there won’t be all that many more people ‘available’. Better for ANet to spend time finding ways to keep adding new people to the game, so there’s a steady stream of fresh blood and those who like to mentor can help.

I really enjoy doing the story and I would have liked more of it but I don’t think gating it to drag the same amount of story over a longer time period is a good solution.

It doesn’t add anything for people who enjoy the story and will frustrate those who just want to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

If you want to spend longer on the story my advice would be to do it yourself. Spend time exploring the map in between, especially now we’re getting new ones regularly, and exploring the instances (did you check out the upper deck of the Dragon Lab?)

Or even take breaks to do other things entirely and come back to the story when you’re ready.

That’s the upside of it being permanent content, you can do it as and when you want. You could even wait until all the episodes are released and then play them all in one go.

nottsgman.8206:

I hated, and I mean absolutely HATED being artificially gated by masteries for the HoT story. you can’t even believe how angry I got for being kicked from my immersion in the story by a mastery that wasn’t even NEEDED in the story step. it was arbitrary and pointless, and lessened my experience of it. it took me nearly a year (as in I played it the second time through a month or so ago) to want to replay the HoT story, that’s how much I hated it (thoroughly enjoyed it the second time, and the third).
if they did anything like that again (mastery requirement, but in no way used in the story at all, ever) I would not play anymore. at least not the story part.

how they did the first LS3 was perfect in my opinion. the story was a nice length, the map was amazing, and the mastery required was used within the story itself. a brilliant combination.

I didn’t appreciate the HoT story gating, either. Working my way to the green star only to find that I could go no further until I went somewhere else and did something else was not fun. At all.

It’s like you’re reading a story by a favorite author, and suddenly the author’s editor’s boy scout leader appears and says, “Woa, slow down there, pardner! That’s enough story for now! Go wash dishes or mow the lawn or whatever and when you’ve earned the appropriate merit badge, I’ll let you go on to the next page!”

Thank you, but no. If I can’t read the story at my own pace, I’ll go read stories by some author whose editor’s boy scout leader doesn’t impose such pointlessly pointless and arbitrarily arbitrary restrictions.

So, I say no to any further mastery gating of the story. If gates are an inescapable evil in video games (like death and taxes in the Real World), and it seems they are, let the gates (I prefer the term ‘speed bumps’) apply to collections or fancy gear or titles or whatever. Not the story.

Never the story.

But the original Personal Story was gated by level too.

I can’t expect that a game developer puts in a linear progression system to then not use that system. That defeats the point of it.
You can’t expect Masteries to not be used in the story because it gates it, the whole levelling system was a gate too.

exactly, imagine if all personal story was not level gated and people could do it all in one day and then all the rest of the leveling just be done by hearts with nothing in between. It gets boring quickly.
I know we CAN play it at our own pace, but like Haleydawn mentioned, it’s one of the most used ways to make content last longer. I was kind of strange that we could play all of episode 1 from the get go, and then all we can do is grind and grind in the new map waiting for the next one.

Not really any different than Living World Season Two. One could play all Chapters from each Episode in Season Two, as well. I suppose the ‘gating’ is the time between the release of each Episode in a Season.

hmm but with months of distance, each chapter might be an antire DLC in other games.

? As much as I enjoyed Episode One, I don’t think it was paid DLC-worthy.

I’m not sure what the exact suggestion is here. You want the Chapters released once every week or two? I’m sure there would be just as many lamentation, if not waaay more, than there are about it not being ‘gated’.

I thought the two months passed more quickly than I had thought they would. We did have the ‘time-gated’ Current Event that lead us to the new map, as well.

re: But the original Personal Story was gated by level too. – It is now, but it wasn’t originally. You used to be able to play it at your own pace. Which (IMO) is far better.

re: imagine if all personal story was not level gated and people could do it all in one day – I don’t have to imagine it. That’s how it originally was. And IMO it was a far better way. People could play at their own pace- fast, slow, or in between. It was the players’ choice. As it should be.

IMO, it really takes away from the flow of the story, when you have to stop and go do something that takes you out of the story(and may have nothing to do with the story) to be able to progress.

Please limit the gating as much as possible. Please let people play at their own pace as much as possible.

Personal Story: One could only, previously, finish it all in one day if one’s character was near or at L80. Almost exactly the same today.

It’s not like a L2, or even a L40 could finish the PS all in one go; it was gated by level, just as now.

One of the main reasons (stated by the Devs) the Personal Story was changed to Level Arcs, was to remove the ‘stop and go do something that takes you out of the story (by needing to level up to progress)’ and making the arcs all one level.

No to artificial slowing. If you want it done fast do it fast. If you want it done slowly there are plenty of natural break points.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

re: But the original Personal Story was gated by level too. – It is now, but it wasn’t originally. You used to be able to play it at your own pace. Which (IMO) is far better.

re: imagine if all personal story was not level gated and people could do it all in one day – I don’t have to imagine it. That’s how it originally was. And IMO it was a far better way. People could play at their own pace- fast, slow, or in between. It was the players’ choice. As it should be.

IMO, it really takes away from the flow of the story, when you have to stop and go do something that takes you out of the story(and may have nothing to do with the story) to be able to progress.

Please limit the gating as much as possible. Please let people play at their own pace as much as possible.

No they could not do the personal story at their own pace. The personal story level went up with each part. Eventually players would have to stop and level. Pretty obvious when the Orr parts are level 80 and the personal story doesn’t give you anywhere close to enough experience to reach that level.

Ayrilana.1396:

Elden Arnaas.4870:

re: But the original Personal Story was gated by level too. – It is now, but it wasn’t originally. You used to be able to play it at your own pace. Which (IMO) is far better.

re: imagine if all personal story was not level gated and people could do it all in one day – I don’t have to imagine it. That’s how it originally was. And IMO it was a far better way. People could play at their own pace- fast, slow, or in between. It was the players’ choice. As it should be.

IMO, it really takes away from the flow of the story, when you have to stop and go do something that takes you out of the story(and may have nothing to do with the story) to be able to progress.

Please limit the gating as much as possible. Please let people play at their own pace as much as possible.

No they could not do the personal story at their own pace. The personal story level went up with each part. Eventually players would have to stop and level. Pretty obvious when the Orr parts are level 80 and the personal story doesn’t give you anywhere close to enough experience to reach that level.

Agreed.

Yes you could enter the story instances at any level (if you had completed the ones before) and at the lower levels it was possible, with practice and the right build, to complete ones way above your level. For example key runners would save a full set of the best equipment they could wear right away so they could complete the level 10 story at level 2.

But that was an exception. In most cases you could not complete story instances that were far above your level any more than you could explore a high level map on a low level character and hope to survive.

Which means you couldn’t make a brand new character and play through the entire story, right up to defeating Zhaitan, without doing anything else in between. It didn’t give enough XP on it’s own to keep up with the level increases so sooner or later you had to go and do something else to level up.

Nope leave it alone. Getting to level 80 and completing your PS is all that is needed progression wise.

Everything else on top of that is “bonus” stuff that we can do at “our” leisure/pace.
I have all 9 classes made with all stories and maps complete. Each time a new story chapter comes I have to run them all through it. If artificial padding was added to drag that out I would not be happy.

Yes maybe I do spend too much time here but that’s not to say that everyone else should be punished simply because another person rushes through the content and then has nothing else to do. I would say to those people to try an extra alt or 2. Work on achievements and such. Or heaven forbid take a break and play something else or a while.

But whatever you do, don’t force stuff on other players simply because YOU run out of things to do. Learn some self restraint or use your initiative. Anet already does too much hand holding here, the last thing we need is more of that.

but masteries are account wide and alt friendly. even if you have 9 or 50 alts you would have to train them only once.
if we’re supposed to play the way we want, why even have masteries in the first place? let’s just ask the devs to give us all the completed masteries once we reach 80?

So, what exactly is your suggestion? The OP says artificially gate the Episodes to slow them down, but to use Masteries (as the gate) so they are sped up for alts.

I’m confused.

Haleydawn.3764:

But the original Personal Story was gated by level too.

The original personal story was not gated by level — I used to finish the L10 story, for example, at ~L4 (since there was simply no way not to gain a few levels along the way). You weren’t required to be L80 to the L80 story parts; it was just exceptionally difficult.

Even now, you can join dungeons and even fractals without being L80

Haleydawn.3764:

I can’t expect that a game developer puts in a linear progression system to then not use that system. That defeats the point of it.

I don’t agree that it defeats the purpose of the system. I think they gated the story behind masteries to encourage people to gain some minimum ranks to try them out.

Haleydawn.3764:

You can’t expect Masteries to not be used in the story because it gates it, the whole levelling system was a gate too.

There’s a difference between making things difficult and making them impossible. ANet’s chosen to be paternalistic by making it impossible to do the personal story without leveling and the HoT story without artificially-chosen masteries that bear no direct connection to the content.

So it’s not so much that I expect that they won’t use Masteries in the story as that I don’t want them to tell us we have to — I want the content to speak for itself and let me choose.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Haleydawn.3764:

But the original Personal Story was gated by level too.

The original personal story was not gated by level — I used to finish the L10 story, for example, at ~L4 (since there was simply no way not to gain a few levels along the way). You weren’t required to be L80 to the L80 story parts; it was just exceptionally difficult.

Even now, you can join dungeons and even fractals without being L80

Haleydawn.3764:

I can’t expect that a game developer puts in a linear progression system to then not use that system. That defeats the point of it.

I don’t agree that it defeats the purpose of the system. I think they gated the story behind masteries to encourage people to gain some minimum ranks to try them out.

Haleydawn.3764:

You can’t expect Masteries to not be used in the story because it gates it, the whole levelling system was a gate too.

There’s a difference between making things difficult and making them impossible. ANet’s chosen to be paternalistic by making it impossible to do the personal story without leveling and the HoT story without artificially-chosen masteries that bear no direct connection to the content.

So it’s not so much that I expect that they won’t use Masteries in the story as that I don’t want them to tell us we have to — I want the content to speak for itself and let me choose.

Agreed, it did used to be a ‘Recommended’ requirement, but the fact remains the same, you couldn’t do the 80 story on a level 30. Dungeons however were never level 80 required, AC starts at 30, 35 for explorable with the other dungeons coming into play in 5 level increments iirc. So that arguement is self defeating. It is still gated with a minimum requirement although can be bypassed by having someone else open it.

Now, the story is a fixed cap every 10 levels. Meaning players do the story, then go and do more open world stuff to level up for the next (unless you use tomes, skipping the natural leveling system), which is exactly how the HoT story is (minus the fact you can’t use tomes to level masteries, encouraging active playing).

Now looking at mastery requirements for the HoT story none of them are the high tier masteries that are required (gliding 1 and 2 , Itzel 1, Exalted 1 and Nuhoch 1) Obtaining all these Masteries will require a total of 6 Maguuma Mastery Points and 3,048,000 Maguuma Mastery experience. Now add on the Counter Magic mastery in Ancient Magics, which is 508,000 XP and 1 Mastery point. That’s not a lot either.
Bearing in mind it takes 4.6 million XP for level 79-80, those masteries are a pretty shallow requirement.

But now the argument is having to stop/start the story because of this shallow requirement. Even though that is how the story is from level 1. That’s probably why the begining of the story arcs in HoT aren’t instanced, to get you past active events that have context to the parts you’re on. The story and area events are hand in hand, you’re just trying to rush past it.

So what is it? Require specific minimum masteries to progress the story, or change it to require a minimum mastery level? Eitherway it’s an attempt to make content last longer because there are players who steam roll the first few days and complain they have nothing to do (Season 2 leading upto HoT) Sure they could do a multitude of things to achieve the same effect, but they already have a system to do that for them.
One hopes the new map with repeatable hearts has a similar effect.

Almost all I can see in this thread is “I don’t want to have to do Masteries. I want to just do the story then log out ASAP so I can catch Pokemon”. Ok, I may have exaggerated, but jeez, guys.

Gating story behind Masteries enhances the experience, so long as those Masteries are thematically appropriate. I completely disagree with ArenaNet’s decision to remove the original HoT Masteries from gating the story not least because you only had to earn the Mastery once.

Thinking back to Guild Wars 1 both Factions and Nightfall gated the story behind an equivalent to Masteries; either Kurzick / Luxon Faction or Sunspear Promotion Points. This annoyed people at the time but it undeniably added depth. It made you do other stuff to give your main story more context and background.

ArenaNet feel some weird need to constantly hack out the padding in the game because Players keep parroting this out-of-context phrase of “play how you want”. As someone else pointed out – the main Personal Story is gated at levels, and even before the NPE you physically couldn’t complete story missions which were too high a level for you; you’d get wrecked. Masteries are the way you progress your character post-80 and should be treated the same as pre-80 levels.

Sarie.1630:

Players keep parroting this out-of-context phrase of “play how you want”.

One of my biggest peeves about these forums.

If ArenaNet wanted to slow you down just for the sake of it, they could have simply raised the level cap, but without actually raising it. Think masteries, but also affecting combat, which would work much like scaled events with level 81+ enemies. VB could have been (HoT mastery) level 1-20 for example (basically scaled 81-100), which would have forced you to level through the content. Much like the original leveling experience, this would also mean facing stronger enemies while pushing forward, but having an easier time going back. Instead of masteries, they could have just been level up rewards (for the core masteries) while some could have been through achievements or whatever. If they really wanted to extended it, they could have gone the whole reputation route, requiring you to gain reputation through the completion of events, opening up new vendors. Exalted Acceptance for example and all those types of masteries are an obvious reputation line, where Gathering could have been from a reputation trainer.

Ayrilana.1396:

So a level 10 player could solo the level 80 personal story parts in Orr? If you cannot solo those level 80 enemies as a level 10 player, wouldn’t the personal story thus be gated by levels?

I guess you could call it soft gating or whatever, but hard gating is to require something before you can even try. Nothing was actually stopping you from running through the entire story at the earliest levels, and it was possible by simply bringing help.

No, i like to play unforced. Remember Hot at release? Glad they they fixed/polished that grind/timegate debacle. This game should be accessible for normal players, who play normal hours. Just like playing a quality single player game.
There are already more then enough unhealty grind mmo’s. And no, grinding is not an accomplishment, not gameplay, its just a waste of precious rl time.

i never said it should requie a huge amount of masteries either. just some first ir second level ones to prevent people doing all story in 2 hours and then complain about nothing else to do in months