Guild Wars 2

Quick question: As a new player, how much do I need to know about previous lore content before getting into HoT and its story? I have only played about a month, and don’t even have a character at 80 yet (just enjoying the world and trying out different profs), but once I do get to the HoT content, will I be lost if I haven’t played through the Living World stuff? Is Season 2 pretty mandatory for it to all make sense? Just something I’ve been wondering.

From what I saw in the Beta, you’re going to be really lost doing the HoT story if you haven’t at least read thru a cliffnotes version of what happened in Season 2. The personal story won’t really have any bearing on your understanding but the Season 1 recap and Season 2 will.

Just being out in the open world will be fun regardless as those events seem to only be somewhat relatedish to the story. I’d highly recommend either reading about the Season 2 story or doing the story before getting to the HoT Story if you want it to make better sense.

khani.4786:

I’d highly recommend either reading about the Season 2 story or doing the story before getting to the HoT Story if you want it to make better sense.

Agreed. We’ve not seen much of the HoT story yet, but even in the very first mission you’re thrown into things with the assumption that you know who all these people are and what’s been happening. There’s also a few unresolved major plotlines from season 2 that will make no sense to you if your first introduction to them is in HoT.

Would this be like the Living Story episodes that came out last year, in which you had to login in a certain time frame in order to unlock them or will it be like the main story in which you can do it at your own pace? I ask cause I wanna do Halloween stuff and then take my time enjoying all the new content in the expansion.

So grouping up for “Torn from the Sky” after every group member has completed the prologue (and is able to open the instance themselves) is possible and will result in all group members getting credit?

I’m asking because in the 3rd beta this part was bugged and only the instance owner would receive full credit (and 2 mastery points). The rest got a character that was out of the tutorial but unable to use masteries (and got only 1 mastery point). Well, just to be safe I’ll solo the instance.

ElPewPew.6784:

Would this be like the Living Story episodes that came out last year, in which you had to login in a certain time frame in order to unlock them or will it be like the main story in which you can do it at your own pace? I ask cause I wanna do Halloween stuff and then take my time enjoying all the new content in the expansion.

If you’re going to log in anyway for Halloween, then this is a bit moot for you Nothing says you have to go straight to the new content. Being logged in unlocks it and you can do it months later as you wish, along with any new chapters that come out as long as you log into game once per chapter.

I actually find that rather disappointing. I had always hoped that mini version of Silverwastes was just an artifact for the beta and that the actual silverwastes would be the intro into HoT.

Unless the map you’re actually talking about is the story instance, that happened after Silverwastes but before dropping into the HoT map, but that would be weird.

Is there going to be any explanation for why Canach shows up? In the beta he just kind of appears alongside you and the biconics with no explanation and it was a bit jarring.

I was hoping the beta was just skipping some introduction or something for the sake of getting you into the important bits, but this kind of makes it sound like the first few beta story steps are the actual ones and he really just shows up for no reason.

Thanks for the heads up. This should save some support tickets. Might I suggest this get a sticky.

glehmann.9586:

Is there going to be any explanation for why Canach shows up? In the beta he just kind of appears alongside you and the biconics with no explanation and it was a bit jarring.

I was hoping the beta was just skipping some introduction or something for the sake of getting you into the important bits, but this kind of makes it sound like the first few beta story steps are the actual ones and he really just shows up for no reason.

It was explained through living story season 2 why he was there.

Well, it’s sort of explained, in that Anise tells him to be her spy. And then we do a mission with him to rescue Caithe’s squad.

But I don’t recall anything in those sequences saying he was going to tag along with us. Now, in the opening story for HoT when we run into him that could be when he hooks up with us. However, the dialogue comes across as him already being more integrated into the group. There’s no “hey, you again” comment.

I’d be more specific about how the scene feels but I know some people don’t want spoilers on story details.

MatthewMedina.5419:

There are some mastery-gates on certain chapters (certain skills are required for navigation in the story chapters, because of their locations in the maps), but those will be messaged both on the in-game UI and in the story journal.

Any possibility of being able to tell us exactly which masteries will be required and how far in to them we would need to be in order to play the story from beginning to end?

I’m sure many of us plan to tackle the story first and wouldn’t want to get locked out from continuing on in the story (until we train the mastery that we needed) because we invested in the wrong mastery or masteries.

If character A has completed the entire story up to the xpac, can I use character B to continue it? Example, can I make a rev and hop right into the storyline?

Beorn Saxon.4762:

If character A has completed the entire story up to the xpac, can I use character B to continue it? Example, can I make a rev and hop right into the storyline?

Yes. It doesn’t require the completion of any personal story or previous living story content.

Ayrilana.1396:

MatthewMedina.5419:

There are some mastery-gates on certain chapters (certain skills are required for navigation in the story chapters, because of their locations in the maps), but those will be messaged both on the in-game UI and in the story journal.

Any possibility of being able to tell us exactly which masteries will be required and how far in to them we would need to be in order to play the story from beginning to end?

I’m sure many of us plan to tackle the story first and wouldn’t want to get locked out from continuing on in the story (until we train the mastery that we needed) because we invested in the wrong mastery or masteries.

Pretty simple and 99% it’s mushroom jumping, and gliding. They are a part of the map. And the new story is right in that map. So it’s basically almost a given it’s these two. I honestly doubt there’s another one needed, but forgive me if i see it wrong Btw I think both ‘first tier’ of these are enough to be able to get most of the map locations (you can get higher ranks in gliding/mushroom jumping, but those are for like really special places in the map.)

MatthewMedina.5419:

-snip-

So…

Does this mean that the story instance we saw in the Beta – the “Heart of Thorns Beta Story” titled one…

Is that the same story instance as “Torn from the Sky”?

Because if so, that makes me very, very sad. Because, in all honesty, the writing and plot of that instance was really, really kittenty – especially as an opening story.

Then again, so was the very first NPC dialogue you have in that open world tutorial (why does HoT need its own tutorial instance, btw?).

MatthewMedina.5419:

• Silverwastes tutorial – This was needed for a number of reasons: 1. because the storyline for the base Silverwastes map is so distinctively set in a time period (Pact forces are preparing for the assault on Mordremoth, however in “Heart of Thorns” this assault has already been launched, and failed). 2. because it allows us to not have a flood of players in one of our popular maps who are not working toward the meta for that map and consequently skewing the meta progression in undesirable ways, and 3. for some sound technical reasons. :-)

How would having a story instance entered from Silverwastes be any different than the Season 2 story instances – especially when Season 2 was new?

MatthewMedina.5419:

• Canach and the others – Yeah, the beta version of this chapter didn’t include the main NPC’s you’re used to seeing in story content, but they’ll be there in the Live version you’ll experience on Friday. You’ll get to see them briefly and get an explanation for their presence prior to seeing them in “Torn from the Sky”.

So they’re in the tutorial instance? Okay, that makes sense, and fixes one of the many issues I saw glaring me down in the first beta story instance. That of Canach being randomly with your party – doesn’t fix how there’s suddenly no rivalry between you two despite there being nothing but insults coming from the PC during the course of S2 (which was annoying, but going from full blown insulting to “we’re pretty chummy” with no transition is worse and this was the second most jarring part of that beta instance).

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Ayrilana.1396:

MatthewMedina.5419:

There are some mastery-gates on certain chapters (certain skills are required for navigation in the story chapters, because of their locations in the maps), but those will be messaged both on the in-game UI and in the story journal.

Any possibility of being able to tell us exactly which masteries will be required and how far in to them we would need to be in order to play the story from beginning to end?

I’m sure many of us plan to tackle the story first and wouldn’t want to get locked out from continuing on in the story (until we train the mastery that we needed) because we invested in the wrong mastery or masteries.

Pretty simple and 99% it’s mushroom jumping, and gliding. They are a part of the map. And the new story is right in that map. So it’s basically almost a given it’s these two. I honestly doubt there’s another one needed, but forgive me if i see it wrong Btw I think both ‘first tier’ of these are enough to be able to get most of the map locations (you can get higher ranks in gliding/mushroom jumping, but those are for like really special places in the map.)

Yeah. I figured that but I’m honestly not that worried as I’ll have more than enough XP to unlock them.

MatthewMedina.5419:

There are some mastery-gates on certain chapters (certain skills are required for navigation in the story chapters, because of their locations in the maps), but those will be messaged both on the in-game UI and in the story journal.

This scares me.

I haven’t played GW2 for a long time, so long in fact I have no idea what a ‘mastery’ is but get the impression it’s a character progression feature of several ‘masteries’ that each requires some sort of grind to unlock: clearly ‘gate’ means story progress is blocked until I have opened it.

Are my level 80s going to be stuck in the ‘old world’ for weeks simply in order to get these unlocks?

Kraggy.4169:

MatthewMedina.5419:

There are some mastery-gates on certain chapters (certain skills are required for navigation in the story chapters, because of their locations in the maps), but those will be messaged both on the in-game UI and in the story journal.

This scares me.

I haven’t played GW2 for a long time, so long in fact I have no idea what a ‘mastery’ is but get the impression it’s a character progression feature of several ‘masteries’ that each requires some sort of grind to unlock: clearly ‘gate’ means story progress is blocked until I have opened it.

Are my level 80s going to be stuck in the ‘old world’ for weeks simply in order to get these unlocks?

Masteries are a new feature that is coming with HoT for max level players. You can get informed on the wiki

Kraggy.4169:

Are my level 80s going to be stuck in the ‘old world’ for weeks simply in order to get these unlocks?

No, they definitely are not. First of all, you need to play (and earn experience) in the HoT maps to even progress those masteries.

Basically, masteries are similar to character levels with the exception that they progress account bound, not character bound. As such, I expect the mastery locks on the HoT story to be similar to the level locks on the classic personal story. You’ll simply unlock the steps by exploring the new maps, playing events, harvesting, doing HoT story instances and so on.

Mathew, I have a question regarding terminology.

How can we call the HoT’s main story? im talking specially for wiki purposes or day by day interaction.

Is this Living World Season 3? will be a LS4 later on?
It is HoT’s Personal story, and then it will be a LS3 later on?
Raids have story, and it comes “after” this Hot’s main story. Are raids LS4? or LS3? or nothing related to it?
It is confusing, I feel like Living World story has no space if they are not part of this “personal story” or raids. and LS2 was a really good one, in terms of continuty. I thought that the future would be a LS3, then a LS4, etc… but with all this i am just confused.

Can you solve this doubt, please?

MatthewMedina.5419:

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to pop on here and clarify something very specific, and very important, about the “Heart of Thorns” storyline. The first chapter titled “Prologue: Rally to Maguuma”, which some of you have played a beta version of in our previous BWE releases, is set in a public multi-player tutorial style map, very similar to the way that new players start in a multi-player tutorial map. It is NOT a private story instance.
As such, the rules for story steps in public maps apply, namely that even if you are in a party with your friends together in this map, EACH party member must complete the story step individually in order to receive credit toward unlocking the second chapter “Torn from the Sky”.

In short: if you want to party up to get into the “Heart of Thorns” storyline and enter the first story instance “Torn from the Sky” together, PLEASE make sure all party members have completed the “Prologue: Rally to Maguuma” story chapter first.

The game WILL allow you to enter the “Torn from the Sky” instance even if you have not completed the prologue step, but you will NOT earn progress on “Torn from the Sky” until you’ve completed that step, which may result in party members needing to re-do the prologue and “Torn from the Sky” a second time to get full credit.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this might cause, but hopefully if you all think of the starting prologue experience in terms of the starting tutorial maps, it will be clear.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you all playing through the “Heart of Thorns” storyline and giving us your feedback here. See you in game soon!

I asked during BWE and no one responded. Continue to wonder what the purpose is of a tutorial level in HoT. If a player had masteries unlocked for the tutorial and it was designed to showcase what they will be able to achieve and let the use these play mechanics just for the tutorial it would make some sense. But it does’t.

From a game design perspective what do you feel this tutorial offers to players? Every player entering this map will be on a level 80 character, most have done multiple dungeon runs, world bosses, etc… So what exactly is this tutorial teaching? If it’s not teaching anything then what is it’s function? I’m not angry, just curious what the thought process was if the designers would be willing to enlighten us. As it stands it just appears to be poor design because it seems every character we want to bring into HoT has to go though this pre-story mission #1 tutorial.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Continue to wonder what the purpose is of a tutorial level in HoT.

He already explained that further into this thread:

• Silverwastes tutorial – This was needed for a number of reasons: 1. because the storyline for the base Silverwastes map is so distinctively set in a time period (Pact forces are preparing for the assault on Mordremoth, however in “Heart of Thorns” this assault has already been launched, and failed). 2. because it allows us to not have a flood of players in one of our popular maps who are not working toward the meta for that map and consequently skewing the meta progression in undesirable ways, and 3. for some sound technical reasons. :-)

Silicato.4603:

Mathew, I have a question regarding terminology.

How can we call the HoT’s main story? im talking specially for wiki purposes or day by day interaction.

Is this Living World Season 3? will be a LS4 later on?
It is HoT’s Personal story, and then it will be a LS3 later on?
Raids have story, and it comes “after” this Hot’s main story. Are raids LS4? or LS3? or nothing related to it?
It is confusing, I feel like Living World story has no space if they are not part of this “personal story” or raids. and LS2 was a really good one, in terms of continuty. I thought that the future would be a LS3, then a LS4, etc… but with all this i am just confused.

Can you solve this doubt, please?

The HoT story is not LS3. As far as we know the Living World season will start again at some point after HoT launch. We have no idea when or how often those updates will be coming.

SamTheGuardian:

Further, it’s not actually a tutorial (unless they lock us into the glider/shrooms training progression like in HBWE3), it’s just the same instance mechanic as the starting tutorial areas so he mentioned those to help us understand how it works.