I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put this, so, I put it here. I was playing through the Norn Personal Story steps involving the Giant Jotun with my brother (because I’ve been trying to get him to play the game) and he was very “underwhelmed” as he gently put it. His biggest gripe was that the story built up these ‘big’ moments, but the fights that were supposed to be “kitten” not only were over far too quickly (Even though I was roughly the correct level WITH NO ARMOR OR TRINKETS) but the look of the bosses weren’t impressive in the least. Another interesting quote from my brother is, “With a name like Giant King I was expecting something big, and it turns out to be a fat guy.” He hasn’t played it since. How can I convert any of my friends to the game when a big part of the game is in such a state? How? I would really like an answer to this. I showed him the World Bosses, namely Shadow Behemoth and the Fire Elemental and he was much more impressed (still hasn’t played it since though, sad day).
I didn’t see a suggestion this topic anywhere, if there is I apologize. I also understand that there is very little time to spare for this part of the game considering the current projects on Anet’s table, I really get it, but there’s nothing wrong with accumulating ideas, right? So here are a few suggestions that hopefully won’t take too long.
1. Update the “bosses” in each story step (Giant King Korag and Legionnaire Urvan Steelbane to name a couple) with more health to make the fight last longer and a more impressive appearance (larger for some, shiny bits for others). This should limit the let down from being built up to them and being completely underwhelmed by the fight.
2. With the ability of npc’s to check for achievements like the Squat Leader Bennett in Bloodstone Fen checking for raid completion to adjust his dialogue I don’t think it would be too hard to use that to smooth out some of the PS dialogue like Trahearne introducing people you’ve already met in previous story steps. I wouldn’t mind seeing some achievements added specifically for this.
3. Take out certain story decisions to pad out some sections of the story. Such as the Charr “Building your warband” sections, it seems so short. I’m sure there’s others, but I mostly know the Charr story. :/
Yeah… the personal story really is a letdown, which sucks because it had so much potential (And frankly, I’d take Galina Edgecrusher and Snarl Backdraft over any of our Living Story teammates. Those two were fun. As was the Gear Warband)
I’d love to:
1. Have all the story steps be reduced by 5 levels, so that they drive exploration while leveling instead of rely on you backtracking to get to the story (And fit nicer into leveling. Pushing into Orr should start at 75, not 80.)
2. Shorten boss invulnerability times to let us get on with it already (Iron Legion charr who choose turrets have an egregiously bad example of Invincible Boss Syndrome)
3. Make the Vigil Invasion Plan feel a bit more like a power trip. And be less… buggy, I guess? The tanks should be actually functional (instead of merely a turret you stand outside of the one time you get to use them, with awkward targetting), don’t have their targetting get caught on terrain, and disable the Risen Giant’s out-of-combat regeneration so the tanks can kill them.