Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure how this new method of blocking together chunks of the personal story and locking them behind a level barrier makes any sense at all. As it is, the recommended levels increase slowly, and it’s a very natural progression to level along with the story. You can easily meet the level requirement by doing hearts and events on the way to your next step star. In fact, I have several friends who just started playing, and that’s how I recommended they play. The personal story helps lead you first around your starting zone, then out into other level appropriate zones. In my opinion it worked incredibly well.

Now it’s going to be a grind to unlock the next chunk. Assuming they want you to “be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline,” this means the chapter has to unlock at what would be the level recommendation of the final step in that chapter.

So rather than have some minor “awkward starts and stops”—which really equate to a level or two that can be gained in no time and isn’t actually awkward in the least—we’re going to get approximately TEN LEVEL LONG GAPS of no story, no guidance, no nothing. By the time the story is supposed to be leading you to a new area, you’ll now be well past the level range of that zone when you unlock that step. This seems infinitely more awkward to me than the current system.

This also makes it seem like since they’re effectively removing what was a very natural way to guide players to where they should be, we’re now getting a little arrow in the corner of the screen as a replacement. I would MUCH rather be shown around the world by an expanding story than by a UI.

tldr: The level gap lockout between these blocks of story is going to be more “awkward” than the current implementation ever could be. It also completely destroys the ability of the story to guide you to level appropriate content and push you into new areas of the world. It does not make sense with what anet claimed its reasons for implementing such a change was, and in fact seems to actively contradict them.

You know why it doesn’t make sense? Because we don’t have all the information. Granted, it still might not make sense afterwards, but there’s no way of knowing until it’s implemented.

For every person who says it’s a natural progression, there are posts of people who complain that they can’t do the next story because they’re not leveling fast enough to keep up with it. This prevents that.

Edit: Not to mention doing something at level 3, being told to do something and then having to wait 2 levels to do it breaks immersion for me.

if it works as OP says…the biggest problem would be if they lock you out of PS until level 10+………since PS missions are excellent ways to level and get lvl-appropriate gear for new characters.

if you can do the PS during the first lvls, the change doesn’t matter much to most….it just becomes a pacing change.

smart thing to do, whould be to have the PS missions run as they do now until about level 35-40 (when you choose an order)….then create the gaps, because its around that time that you end up doing more farming./world events/ etc. that would pull you out of the PS story groove

I don’t know. I’ve read many a thread where players commented on how disjointed the Personal Story seemed. Having to level up between each step. True, there will still be leveling, but it seems like fewer times between steps (as they will be larger).

Also, usually only heard this from newer players (or new to the PS). I would guess we would have to see it in action before making a definite judgment about it. But, that’s just me.

Guhracie.3419:

You know why it doesn’t make sense? Because we don’t have all the information. Granted, it still might not make sense afterwards, but there’s no way of knowing until it’s implemented.

Just because we don’t have all the information doesn’t mean we cannot express concerns based on what information has been released. All of my concerns come from directly quoted statements in the blog post and the facts of the game.

-“they come in story chunks that unlock all at once per chapter”
This means the story sections are lumped together

-“chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward”
This means the lumped together sections will be unavailable prior to reaching a certain level

-“you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops”
For this to be true the chunks MUST unlock at least at what is currently considered the recommended level for the last step in that chunk. Otherwise you would run into level barrier problems mid chapter, which they have said will not be the case.

All my concerns were derived from these key points.

If it turns out they’ve completely worded something in some odd way and it works nothing like how they’re suggesting, then I would be ecstatic. As it is I am concerned and I am expressing that on the forums, which is what they are here for

Even if you find you level too slow for the current system, this will not make it better. This will make it worse, as far as I can tell.

For example, doing nothing else, I can do the first chapter of the personal story as it currently is, and be level 5 by then end of it. I should be level ten according to the recommended level. This means if I want to catch up I’ll have to do something else and gain 6 levels, then begin the next chapter, which currently has a first step level rec of 11.

Under the new system, most likely the first chapter will not unlock until level ten. This means you must grind ten levels before you even start. You then play straight through the personal story, and gain at most 5 levels (potentially less due to the leveling curve.) This puts you at 15, an you have to then go grind another 4 levels to get to 19 (the current level rec of the last step in the second chapter)

If you rush through the story steps you’re going to have to grind some levels somewhere else at some point, regardless of the system in place. At least with the current method you have the option to get started right away and then grind later, or to do some minor leveling while walking to the next step and progress naturally. Whatever works best for you. The new system seems to effectively force you to go do grinding between chapter chunks whether you want to or not.

The only way to eliminate this is to increase the experience you get from playing the story, which they could do without forcing it into blocks. Basically what I’m saying is by the nature of this system as they have presented it, the system itself cannot inherently reduce the grind/need to do something else between story steps. It just pushes it to the end of the chapter, which is what most people rushing through the story did anyway. Now however, it also actively locks you out of the next chapter until it decides you are ready for it. Which I don’t think is a good thing any way you look at it.

Relshdan.6854:

if it works as OP says…the biggest problem would be if they lock you out of PS until level 10+………since PS missions are excellent ways to level and get lvl-appropriate gear for new characters.

if you can do the PS during the first lvls, the change doesn’t matter much to most….it just becomes a pacing change.

smart thing to do, whould be to have the PS missions run as they do now until about level 35-40 (when you choose an order)….then create the gaps, because its around that time that you end up doing more farming./world events/ etc. that would pull you out of the PS story groove

This I think could absolutely work and would be a pretty good compromise