Guild Wars 2

I know I’m gonna get blasted for this, but….I think I’m getting burnt by TOO much content.

Every time I think I’m done and I can relax again, a new living story comes in and I get hurled into the rush of things. Self induced I know, and I can always take a break…but then you get that feeling like you are missing out because it is a one time only thing.

Maybe start inserting a minor living story updates that can repeat between large story archs so people don’t feel stressed if they are not on.

Something that is slow and easy going to give people a breather from the constant zerg push go go go. I don’t mean a grindy gather 10000 candies or something, but something simple and fun.

Epic is good, story is good, but you need a rise, climax, and fall for the audience to follow along, right now we are inconstant rise/climax and it is somewhat stressful.

Like a greek plays did, end on a comedy to relax the audience (by comedy, it doesn’t have to be jokes and silly, just something calm and easy).

Its too much filler and temp content for me. So much of these LS updates seem rather pointless and grindy. I am getting burnt out on this more than anything.
The updates seem to severely lack quality imo.

You can never get too much content.

That’s part of the problem of having temporary content. =p

I totally agree with the OP!!!

I don’t want to be pushed around by temporary content, take Liadri for example. I still have to do the 8 orb Liadri achievement, and the place is going to close soon enough. I’m running out of time and keep failing it. To make it worse, I have to wait for a rez or run up everytime I die. All of this isn’t fun.
If I don’t get that achievement, it would be the FIRST achievement I fail to get in Living Story since the start of GW2….

Agree. Although I am grateful to Anet for the new content and appreciate the work that has gone into it, I hope we get a breather soon. My small group of friends seems to be getting increasingly snappy towards one another and I think it is the stress of wrapping our poor tired brains around new content so often. It will be nice to get back to puddling around with map completion or personal stories or messing about at the crafting tables.

Personally I like the constant stream of content, but if I am sidetracked leveling an alt or doing WvW, I don’t feel that bad about missing out. What did I lose really? A Weapon skin everyone else has, some gold, an achievement or two, five, twelve? Two weeks later it will be back so no big deal really. IMHO

A lot of content is a good thing, it gives us variety of stuff to do in game. Besides that it means that it gives Anet something to do, because if they had nothing to do they would be without a job right? In fact they are HIRING more people to give us more content which means they are giving more people jobs – that’s a GOOD thing in today’s world.

What it comes down to for us personally is to decide which parts of the content we want to do and manage our lifestyles around that and those other icky parts of life we have to deal with. Don’t feel pressured, have fun! Remember it’s a game and games are meant for fun. This is not one of those other games where you have to be up to scratch with every other player to be on an even playing field or to just have fun.

Some of the achievements are one time only. Sure it isn’t really a big loss and new achievements will come, but for some the whole point is to finish everything and that is what brings a sense of accomplishment.

Also in chat I was hearing a lot of old players come back and some mention they still need to 100% the world or finish up personal story or some dungeon paths.

We are being drawn away from some of the other aspects of the game by this amazing consistent high paced content….but as I said, a nice breather would be appreciated.

Something that is still profitable for those that want to grind and farm, yet no achievements or very casual achievements for those that need a little bit of down time without the stress of missing things.

A living story update of peace and calm, maybe a party in town or something to that effect that doesn’t turn into run around the world and gather/kill 1000+ things and complete some obscure achievement that is totally luck or overly skill based.

I really enjoyed the mad kings clock tower, I kind of liked crab toss, the queens gauntlet was challenging and I felt amazing after I finished all the fights and 100% all my previous challenges…but I need a second to recuperate.

It doesn’t have to be hard core go go go, all the time. Even military members come back for recuperation every 6 months and get a chance to breath before you get sent back to hit the ground running.

In tv series, sometimes they will have a non eventful recap episode that lets people who missed all the previous shows catch up and understand whats going on. I think we need something like that to give some of us a chance to relax and others a chance to catch up.

Don’t get me wrong, I have loved the updates and I understand not everything is mandatory for the metas (thank you), but I’m just kind of worn out and I think some others have similar feelings. yet if we take a break we risk missing out, which is part of the stress.

I like dynamic and changing content and I think it has done wonders to make this game attractive and keep people active, I don’t worry about permanent content as much as a lot of the posts do, but I do think we need a little bit more of a buffer between content patches. At least every now and then.

What do people feel they will “miss out on” if they don’t do a particular living story step?

The story? Realistically, very little story gets told each time, and the update can be summed up in a few sentences. Catching up would be easy, and the story sequences are not all that memorable (at least so far).

Loot? There will always be loot.

Achievements? Does it really matter whether you get mini X, tonic Y or the next 500 point chest next week as opposed to this week?

Fun? Well, whether GW2 is a hobby or a pastime, RL concerns probably should trump it, just as they would any other hobby or pastime. If it’s other hobbies, which is more fun?

If you can adjust your view so that you don’t feel you have to do everything, then a plethora of content could be seen as a good thing. If the game is producing fresh stuff to do constantly, people who have more time to play than you might won’t get bored and migrate away. This might just be good for the longevity of the game, meaning that when you do log in, there will be new things to do, and plenty of people around to do them with.

I could care less about loot
the achievement points I don’t worry about
the storyline is easy enough to keep up with.
the living story rewards such as minis or weapon/armor skins are not critical, but are nice to have. Some have been so RNG that I never even saw it drop and I"m ok with that.

It is seeing the achievement tab filled to the sense of completion. This is what I like, a small challenge to myself that keeps me engaged and goal oriented.

Having a glaring hole in the achievement tab is irritating and it will never be fixed.

I have not 100% my other achievements like dungeons or mini pets, because they are not engaging enough for me to care about.

I don’t think it is fair to ask people to just stop liking what they like to do and change yourself.

This is akin to me saying, “why don’t you stop making money, if you change your view and understand that monetary gain is nothing but a distraction from true happiness, I think you will feel better.”

Sure it is true to a point, but no that is not something I’m interested in. If I do miss out on an achievement then oh well, I will survive and keep on playing. I will not have that same sense of pride in myself though, every time I see a missing achievement. It is a goal I set, for myself, and not reaching it is disappointing.

I could set my goals lower…but does that sound good? Maybe…maybe not. Just be happy with what you got? or strive to better yourself…depends on your philosophy.

A good thing they have done with regards to the achievement’s lists now is to hide previous events and the parts of them you missed. So really you don’t have to worry about having “holes” in your lists because come next living story that list will be hidden from you (well the bits you missed/didn’t do anyway) so you really have nothing to worry about besides missing any mini’s, items and the AP’s of course.

Oh and also I can usually complete all or most (that I care to do) of any new living story within 1-2 days of the release. Granted I do have more time to play than most but in my view I think it is realistic for most to complete them in 1 week so that still should give 1 week of time to finish up other stuff. Right now all I need for this latest story is 1 more map for the 13 different maps and then I’m done. I am completing my personal story on one of my alts while I wait for the correct map to come up as well as doing other stuff (such as post here so much lol) so it is all do-able.

I do kinda agree. It’s like people have no time to do the normal stuff like level, do dungeons or even smell the roses. There’s such a pressure to get stuff done before the time’s up it seems more like a job than a game.

I guess you guys don’t get it. There may not be a visible missing tile, or what not. I am not interested in covering up my missed achievements.

Maybe that doesn’t register in your though process and your only goal is to finish the minimum needed and ignore the rest.

“I” would know that I didn’t finish something that “I” wanted to do, and that would bother me.

Typically I finish all my achievements in the first couple of days and take as much relaxation time as possible, but I still think some buffer content would be appreciated.

I am not asking them to “NOT” make content updates, I am asking for a stress free content update that would have little to no feeling of “gotta rush to finish this before I run out of time”.

Optional or not, some people have personal goals that you may not understand or agree with.

At the moment the only thing I’m missing is frostgorge sound and iron marches and I have 100% all the living story for this update putting me at 18/17 for that tab. I won’t run out of time and those last 2 zones will happen eventually.

Technically I am “done” as soon as I finish frostgorge sound, but I like going that extra mile. Not for looks or for bragging rights or to be ahead on achievement points. Simply for me, because I like it.

I spend plenty of days not logging in and not worrying about finishing my daily achievements and I"m not worried about missing laurels or other things like that, so I’m not compelled to play every day to the point that it is an obsession….although denial could be a key factor here

Well I guess I have learnt not to worry so much about those holes now more than you have lol. Having said that tho I am like you too and try to finish them ALL. But if I come up against some I see no real point in doing or the time/efforts would not be worth the pay off I just decide to over look them. Having said that I have 8k AP’s and have done all JP’s etc etc and a lot of the regular achievements.

I also have 6 chars with 100% world complete and my 7th close as well. So as you can see I do a lot of the normal stuff as well. Yet I gave up trying to do the mad king’s clock JP after about the 5th time because the way it was set up and latency issues (I’m in NZ so some things work against me in this game ) along with others . I know I failed to do it and yes it could annoy me and be thought of as a hole but I just don’t let it bother me.

I came from another game that was VERY grindy and I played that game for 11+ years and at 1 point was the 24th best player in the world and believe me that game demanded a LOT more from the players. I left that game wanting a change and yes EXACTLY what you are asking for. A breather, fun downtime and for me in GW2 I have found it. Perhaps I am just used to far more stresses in these kinds of games, I dunno really but tbh I really think it is a personal thing that we all individually have to come to terms with and find a way to deal with it all.

Relax, take a deep breath and as one of the quotes in this game goes “relax, you’ll live longer” lol. I mean no offense by saying all that but yeah I guess that’s all I have to say for now.

There is coming to terms and giving up, it is a fine line.

I am extremely proud of myself for the clock tower and also the queens gauntlet.

There was no real “gain” in doing them and if anything they were a waste of time as many felt. The risk versus reward was not great enough.

That is where it changes from person to person, my reward is the “achievement”. Not the points or the loot, but taking on a challenge and completing it.

This is something akin to little things I do in real life. Sometimes I will say to myself I will take my keys, throw them up in the air, and have them drop right into my pocket…why??!?! well cause it sounded hard to do and entertaining….. I am odd, I know.

I have been playing MMOs since EQ and UO. I understand the “race to the top” mentality that you speak of and the pressure it can bring. I don’t feel this is as demanding on the player as it is demanding on the group, so I didn’t care much for guild raids and world 1sts. Besides I wasn’t into a lot of the uber guild mentality either.

I did my raids and in everquest I spent a year of real life time raiding dragons till I got my fiery avenger due to a player council who would vote on who was allowed to loot the quest items…. I also was racing against the other paladins to get the fiery defender (I forget, i think that was what it was called) first when the 2.0 weapons came out. I think I was in the top 50s on my server at the time? no idea. So I understand what you mean to some degree.

For you, the missing gaps were not important. I don’t think I need to learn to accept that if I have a gap. If I do end up having a gap then I can accept that, but I will do what I can to not have a gap.

I was almost ready to accept a gap with the queens gauntlet and some of those challenges, but I kept at it and succeeded. I felt great and I still feel good.

Back to the original idea though, there is stress.

Stress can be good, because it motivates people and creates a sense of relief and achievement when you overcome that stress, but continuous stress without a break can be bad stress and it causes emotional and physical responses of exhaustion.

Everyone has differing levels of stress they can handle, so some are still doing ok, maybe I’m just old now and I can’t handle as much as I used to when I was in my 20s.

I really don’t think this needs to be a discussion about how I need to relax though, I think that for a healthy story arch and progressions of this game, we need to have things come in a wave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure

Right now we are consistently stuck at rising action/climax after climax after climax.

I think we need to go on the down end of that slope and stop for a second longer.

current format :
1 month of major content update with
2 weeks of minor content update

e.g. :
1 month of Bazaar of the Four Winds, with 2 weeks of Cut Throat Politics
1 month of Queens Jubilee, with 2 Weeks of Queens Speech.

ANET should change it to :
2 month of major content update with
1 month of minor content update

Thanks azizul, yeah I think that would be a decent buffer. The big content would have to become longer though to satiate the player base and not become stagnant.

There is always room for tweaking the timelines later as well

The question I have, is it really too much content or is it that you only have a week or two to complete it so you feel forced to get on with it when Anet wants it and not when you want it?

I would agree that if you really like a game there’s no such thing as too much content, but you do want to be able to move at your own pace and when you want it. Perhaps that’s the real issue that makes you feel that it’s overwhelming because the content that is added is mostly fleeting. Interestingly though the holes in your achievement list will stay….

Some people don’t care about getting all achievements, some do but I feel this is not the best approach for a MMO.

I think we are saying the same things with different words gehenna.

by less content I mean more time to do current content and delay the new content “or” give us a filler content that is carefree to put a buffer between two really active content updates.

I like the new stuff, I like the variety. I am enjoying the game a lot…I just need some room to breath….It’s not you….it’s me…..

There is no such thing as too much content. There is no need at all to finish all there is in a given amount of time. This might not make everyone happy, but this too will never happen. But… they should take more time and make the content lasting and of higher quality. The current LS feels hurried, never tested, horribly written and feels like it is done by a totally different company than the original game. Sadly.

need versus want grileenor, I think I explained my motivators already and don’t want to rehash, if you can’t understand mine and others desires to do certain things then I can’t do anymore, but please don’t just discount it because it doesn’t matter to you. There are others besides ourselves with differing mentalities, and we just have to remember/understand that.

In the long run though, you sound like you would like them to spend more time working on the content, inadvertently providing something I want, more time between content (less content in a month).

So you are sort of asking for what I want, but with a different reason for the request.

CMF.5461:

I think we are saying the same things with different words gehenna.

by less content I mean more time to do current content and delay the new content “or” give us a filler content that is carefree to put a buffer between two really active content updates.

I like the new stuff, I like the variety. I am enjoying the game a lot…I just need some room to breath….It’s not you….it’s me…..

Well, I feel the same actually about this content that comes and goes. It does put pressure on people who like to complete things or simply just want to partake in all content possible. This approach makes that very difficult.

You could blame yourself but I think Anet has some responsibility. Perhaps they didn’t see this coming but here it is. There are people who need to take and choose their time. This doesn’t allow that and I think that’s a shame.

I just wanted to make sure I understood you correctly

For sure gehenna, I have had to just suck it up early on in the game for some of the one time live events as I work extended hours throughout the week. Thankfully they have moved away from the one time thing and to individualized storytelling.

Although it was amazing to have the community band together like that for the openings of these things, I think this repeat on the hour or instanced versions of storytelling are better.

I understand we can’t please everyone and there will be times that you just wont get everything you want. Very acceptable and it can/will happen, but I do get the feeling that I need to log back in and get stuff done like I had in other MMOs. GW2 didn’t have that at first, but it is slowly moving in that direction. What they have done is amazing when you compare it to the lack of updates in other games, but it is having it’s side effects.

I can definitely see your point. One the one hand, something new regularly can be interesting, but on the other hand, it can get to feeling like an achievement treadmill, if you want to experience as much from the content as possible. Just when you get caught up, there’s a new to-do list, as it were, on the board. The other downside of cycling content, is the demotivating feeling that once you start missing sets, you’re not really getting much out of the game, anyway. You miss an update, you don’t know what’s going on, so it’s easier to miss the next event, then the next…

LOL! You call this content? Its a lazily thrown together story line where they add new places to mindlessly zerg. There hasnt been a real “content” patch in months.

The problem is that although it may seem like too much content to you, to a ‘hardcore’ gamer, the content’s nowhere near enough.

But, the quality of the updates are actually quite amazing given the rate they’re being released at. I just sometimes think that maybe, all that effort is going to the wrong places. They could’ve easily added a few more dungeons, easily continued the actual storyline more (I tend to consider the LS as a side-story), or sharpened a lot of things up such as skill-reward ratios in all the DEs. Would those have attracted more players to the game? Who knows.

I’m just tired of the Living Story in general. Firstly, I hate being funneled into certain maps which is exactly what Anet does with this. It takes the feeling of freedom away and just makes the game a whole lot less fun. Secondly, I hate how repetitive the achievements for all of these living story events actually are. I can’t force myself through more than the bare minimum for these achievements anymore, because I get deja vu from the very first Living Story. Thirdly, the content is just utterly terrible and makes me want to cry. It seems like Anet is doing the bare minimum on this content and just throwing it out at us without a thought at what potential consequences there might be. Instead of completing content on my own time, I am basically forced to complete the content now, and not later when I might have more time on my hands.

I could give a flying kitten about “The Living Story”. The game is starting to feel very piece meal and fragmented. I farmed for a little bit in the queens gauntlet and kept dying because it made me sleepy within 45 mins, which is why I’m not bothering with the new farm(and really that’s all it is). The new currencies, time gates and limited time offers etc are starting to really turn me off too.

projectcedric.6951:

You can never get too much content.

^

Too much content? Every 2 weeks/month they add an amount of content you can play through in several hours.

Still waiting for them to add something even remotely related to the Elder Dragons.

I have found that unless there is something I really really want bad out of an event, I don’t worry about it. I’ll play an alt. I’ll work on whatever…anything as long as it’s not the living story. I find that if I pretend it don’t exist, it doesn’t. At least not for me, and I know that in a couple of days others will be getting back to normalcy and things are aren’t that bad.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Every 2 weeks/month they add an amount of content you can play through in several hours.

This here basically describes my approach to GW2 lately. Used to be every month, but now every 2 weeks, I log in and see what’s up. I play for maybe 2-3 days tops, and then I go back to my other MMOs where I’m still playing through new content that will last me for months. My gaming dollars go to those other games because I’m spending more time there and it makes no sense for me to invest in a game that I’m only playing a max of 5-6 days a month.

While the new updates have me logging in, I’m not spending any money nor am I really contributing to the economy or the community as a whole. That’s not exactly a formula for a healthy MMO future.

I think this could all be solved if none of the content was temporary. Sure make the festivals temporary and SAB but living story should be always able to be done. They could even make people do them in order to catch up. Lets say once you get the achievement chest for the event you can move to the next. People could still do everything but wouldn’t get the achievements for it unless the prerequisites were done.

I only play a few hours at night before I go to bed. I work I coach I have a life but the op was correct in saying you feel like you are missing out if you don’t complete the content. With such little time to do it you cant really do anything else but the content since its only available in a short window of time.