I think there is too huge aspects that are really holding back the living story.
1. You guys are afraid to make paradoxes. I’m sorry, but if the LS is going to be something cool you’re going to have to change the world. You’re afraid to do anything permanent in the world because you don’t want to create paradoxes with the personal story, but seriously this is holding you guys back a ton. So far the LS had done nothing. It was supposed to make the world feel alive. Now it just feels like an achievement grind every 2 weeks and is steadily becoming less and less satisfying to participate in. Look at molten alliance. 3 LS chapters. Awesome enemies. What do we have to show for it? A new player can start the game right now, level up to 80, and have no idea that the molten alliance ever happened. Nothing in the world shows that an entire zone was INVADED by an ARMY of FIRE LEGION AND DREDGE! This should have been a huge event in the games history, yet half a year later all evidence of it is almost gone. All we have to show for it are some gloves that hardly anyone wears. If you dont bite the bullet, create some paradoxes and actually change the world; the whole living story is pointless. You sold me on the LS by saying it will make the world feel alive, have it change around you. Instead we got one new zone (the release and opening of southsun was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a MMO. The LA attack, raid on the island, establishing the structures, etc), then a new jumping puzzle, one world event that happens randomly and you may not see for days, and a new dungeon path. These are all awesome, but they don’t make the world feel alive. Defeating or losing to the invaders doesn’t do anything. I am not big into dungeons so I will hardly see that in the world. The new JP, well its a JP. No real affect on the world. I want to see characters die, towns expand, towns get destroyed, towns created, new zones founded, new zones being settled, huge NPC battles happening, zones delving into chaos from invaders for long periods of times, corruption spreading, corruption being destroyed and pushed back, things like that. Things that actually change the world around us.
2. Combat- Your combat lacks depth. I’m sorry but it does. This means you’re going to have to go all out when you create content. Tequatl is a cool fight, its actually hard. You know what isn’t cool? Your combat. Its boring, I’m sorry. There is no depth to it. No strategy. Wonder why WvW is so popular? That is because there is a lot of depth in troop movement. The amount of depth is huge compared to small scale combat (hence why spvp is so dead). The fighting is just boring. Some may say there isn’t much of a difference between Gw1 and Gw2 in terms of endgame. There is. Gw1 combat had more depth, better reward system/Progression, and it was hard. It was very very satisfying when you’d kill something, go to the next town, defeated a boss, did a mission, etc. Same with the PvP. There was tons of depth and strat in combat which made PvP insanely satisfying because you felt successful and good when you’d kill someone.
P.S I felt I needed to create this because the past 2 LS have been pretty bad from the LS standpoint. They really didn’t affect the world at all. Tequatl got buffed, cool. Not too many people do him anymore however. The rest of the game is too easy to bother. So it left little affect on the world than the previous boss and it had little to no apparent connection to the LS (I Know you will reveal it, but you’ve been saying that for the past 3/4ths of the year, when will we see the connection between all these living story chapters). Then this years i thought was cool, but look! I have to get a freaking MINI PET to progress the story. REALLY? A MINI PET? I do not care for these achievements. I have never cared. I care about the story, and now you’re forcing me to grind out 13 stupid achievements to get a freaking mini pet that is some how loosely connected to the story.