Guild Wars 2

I first noticed it when I leveled up my Charr warrior and now I’m noticing other things with my Sylvari ranger.

I enjoy the personal story being uninterrupted with "go level up some more’ forced breaks. I wish it was a viable way to simply level a character up from 1 to 80. Anyway, I will level up doing other things until I reach a level where I can level the rest of the way via story without having to take any forced breaks.

With my warrior, I noticed some mess ups with regards Sayeh al’Rajihd. Earlier I meet up with Trahearne and Sayeh al’Rajihd to discuss the next course of action. Then later on, I meet Trahearne in secret so he can introduce me to Sayeh al’Rajihd for the first time….

Wait a minute….

Then with my ranger just now, I’m Sylvari so I already know Trahearne and we even have a “hey been a while” moment right before Tybalt then introduces us….

Um, yes Tybalt, we’ve met already….

Strange that they would add the “hey been a while” moment in addition to the introduction as opposed to replacing it.

Such small inconsistencies. Then there is the so called decisions. Instead of being carefully woven into the story in a natural flowing way, they seem forced. The decisions offered and their consequences are way too transparent. The problem is how they are presented to the player.

Other than that, the different paths that come form both the choices presented and race chosen make it one of the least grindy and most enjoyable ways to level….Well, it would be if it were actually possible to level the whole way through via the personal story alone.

Now I’ve heard the argument before. This is not a single player game, it’s a MMO. I get, and have no problem teaming up with other people. I believe it to be one of the appealing qualities of a MMO.

Yet, currently I can level to 80 via map completion which doesn’t require teaming up with others at all. So why not the personal story?

In addition to this, there are the story mode dungeons. Which, when chained, tell the tail of Destiny’s Edge getting back together. A story that parallels the player’s personal story both of which converge on the final chapter for both. The final dungeon ending with the defeat of Zhitan. So if solo is such a concern the solution is simple.

Have the personal story allow players to level from 1 to 80 BUT have milestones. The milestones being the dungeons which the player has to complete story mode before moving on with their personal story. That way new players can experience the full extent of the story in a smooth integrated way.

I like how personal story is broken up in segments rather than the old system.

Personal Story needs a Redesign/work.
In my opinion it really doesn’t work anymore the way how the Devs have meant it to work, before they came up later with making the personal story.
Living Story is a clear superior System and basically already works partwise as like a Personal Story too as long you play all the content solo, with the few exceptions of the open world based events.

I think it would be the best for the whole game, if Anet completely merges together the Personal Story under the Project Name " Season Zero" with the Living Story and makes out of 2 Systems just 1 complete System, whose Story also feels from its begin to its end complete and gapless, thinking about the mess anet did with the Personal Story due to their senseless NPE changes which harmed the game more, than they did anything really good in regard of dumbing the game down partwise to benighted niveau that it really feels in certain cases insulting (in my opinion, however, thats a different topic)

Making Season Zero happen as a Redesign and Merging of the PS with the LS, would allow the Devs to come up with solutions for what many of players have complained about the PS, which are bullet points like:

• Fixing the PS Story Mess Up and brign back the Story Content, that has been removed (bug or not, its regardless, its just a total NO GO to remove story content, Period)
• Giving PS better more fitting Rewards and Replayability by giving the Story Content of Season Zero like the other Season(s) – if Anet hopefully returns Season 1 remastered under Season 2 Style) also Achievements
• Redesigning the terrible boring designed End Battle with Zhaitan and make it something, that is truly epic and WORTH OF REMEMBRANCE having fought an Elder Dragon, which shouldn’t be something, what should be just doable by 5 persons with just some airship cannons, what is/was totally immersion breaking and laughable par exellence. These beasts of the nature freaking rival the power of the GODS and we just shoot them down with some ridiculous airship cannons within a few minutes of tabbing 1 button like crazy. The whole personal story after loosing our mentors felt so incredible rushed and not very well thought out.

• Doing this Step should come together with a kind of “Rebirth System” to allow veteran players (while not losing any gear progress) to get their characters resetted in the story and the level back to start/lvl 1, so that also veterans can profitate retroactively from the one and only good thing that came with the NPC, the improvements of the leveling up reward structure.
  once such a rebirthed character rereaches again max level, he/she can wear again all the stuff that has been unequipped at the moment of your character’s rebirth.

• Reworking the LS Characters (Braham, Rox, ect. also somehow into thev PS making them there like “Companions” that you can have with you, working basically like Heroes from GW1, which you could command then also like a real Commander, meanign their best introduction point would be basically from the point on, where you become Commander of the Pact

Part 2 comes, due to Word Limit.

Part 2:

Sure I know, that would be alot of work, together with the changes of Season 1 to make it replayable, but an effort, where I absolutely think, that it would be totally worth it to do that, so that the game gives the player at the end storywise a much better impression of being designed as like made out of one piece, which every story should be, to be compelling, strong and simply said a good story, that feels congruent with all of its parts that play a role in of it..

I dont see this game working anymore under the concept of the personal story after ANet has introduced the livign story. ANet could come up 2015 with like an expansion continuing the personal story (which is all about the personal battle against the elder dragons storywise), when we exactly have this now also in the living story, which is why i think, its time to throw the concept of personal story finally completely over board and merge both systems as one together and reshape this new system with redesigns and remasters of the existing content, so that as said the final product out of this gives the player a good feeling of havign a story there, which feels complete and liek being made out of one piece from its begin to its en and not like something, that gets between both systems shred into pieces which devalue only the quality of the overall story mechanics and make the story fragments always look only heavily discontinued to the point, that you even don#t get shown anymore, when and how time passes on in the game’ story, that we have in the living story a sudden 2 year step into the future (without that characters change in that time by the slightest bit!!).

Breaking up a Story into several Seasons, Chapters, Segments, Parts and Verses, like telling a book or watching a TV series is nice and good, but it loses its appeal, when story content gets lost due to not well thought out interweaving dual story telling systems, where only 1 is needed and other good meant game changes, but failed at delivering the content in a congruent way, so that the story stays at least completely intact.

I know this will surely never happen, but one can at least dream about a perfect congruent story system that works as one unit and not like two rivaling different opponents that leave no place for the other side, but still basically just deliver the same content, just differently packaged in regard of player rewards, because only in the PS our decisions are meaningful so far to decide over it, what for rewards we get, whears we get in LS all the same rewards, regardless of what we do or not do in the story, the reward is at the end always the same and thats in the end the only mechanic, which differs the PS from the LS.
But I’m sure, this game can also work with having both types of rewards just under 1 complete and congruent story system.

“[…]BUT have milestones. The milestones being the dungeons which the player has to complete story mode before moving on with their personal story. […]”

^
Besides the topic this is the best idea I have read in a long time!
+1