Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing GW2 since launch. There was a lot of great things about this game. The graphics, the stories, the non competition for resource nodes, helping get players up that were hurt, respectable fair pvp, etc. There was a lot. Unfortunately once I got to 80, I could never find anything to do. So I leveled another 80, and another. Then the living story stuff started, and it was very cool, new and fun for an MMO – at first.

Fast forward a few updates, and the whole thing has seemed to slip into rapid fire and I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost. I log in and Lion’s Arch is destroyed, and I’m in the ruins with no direction or explanation, and people are yelling “red, blue” etc. in map chat and I have no idea what is happening.

Furthermore every single expansion has had a pretty cinematic, and then it thrusts you into a zoned area where if you’re not in a zerg you are instantly dead, there is no explanation and everyone has already done everything and has the boss on repeat. There is virtually nothing you can do alone, and everything is one giant zerg after another.

To finish it all off, the kill on Scarlet was totally rushed and didn’t explain anything! Why did she gather the molten alliance, etc.? No one knows. In fac,t no one knows why she did anything at all.

I have to respect Anet for trying to keep us pulled into this game and not getting bored, but for me they killed it for the above reasons – total backfire. I am done with Guild wars 2 for good. At base, if your game has no point or reason to play, you can’t cover that up with poorly designed rapid fire expansions, because so far, they still haven’t given me a reason to play beyond running around in a zerg and collcting the latest “drop” to make yet another set of armor.

How is this problem different than any other MMO? Once a player completes everything, the only thing really left to do until new content comes out is to make another character. Then another… Then another…

Once content does come out, it is usually all finished within a couple of weeks to maybe a month. Then after that, you are only logging in to level your alts, or you are just doing dailies or running a dungeon/raid for the “latest drop” (aka: new raid tier armor). The problem you are describing is in no way new at all, or just pertaining to GW.

I do agree that Anet does need to work on non-zerg content. While that does help with the feel of the story, as it helps convey the large scale destruction and battle feeling, not all players like to do zerg after zerg.

The story problem can be easily solved by just walking around and talking to npcs. The one’s around the LS area usually fill the player into what’s happening at the moment. Though, if you are missing any parts, and if you are feeling particularly lost about it, you can always go to the Lore forum and ask. They will usually point you to an easy place to get the cliff notes or explain anything you might ask about.

There is only one thing I’d totally disagree with though…

To finish it all off, the kill on Scarlet was totally rushed and didn’t explain anything! Why did she gather the molten alliance, etc.? No one knows. In fac,t no one knows why she did anything at all.

If you did the final instance, and you killed Scarlet, the final cinematic very much showed why she did everything she did. It didn’t show the finer details of everything, since the explanations for the various alliances were breadcrumbed through the LS. but it showed what her entire endgame was.

Also, there will be an epilogue on March 18th that should fill in some of the gaps.

I believe she formed all of those alliances to be able to have a force strong enough to defend her while she looked for, and then ultimately found, the ley lines that would awaken that dragon. Speculation being that she has been controlled by that Elder Dragon this entire time.

I take it the dragon knew that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish all of this on her own without all of the heroes of Tyria stopping her before completion, so she needed a bunch of allies (the various alliances) to attack/defend/distract while she finished her awakening task.

I never played GW1, I haven’t read anything additional for lore, this is what I’ve gathered/surmised from playing the LS events, watching the cutscenes, and reading the dialogue between characters.

I believe what I’ve described is the basic plot. I felt everything was explained pretty well, I’m sorry you didn’t pick up on this stuff.

Exactly what the OP said. I’ve been playing since launch as well and I felt the first year or so went fantastically. Living story came about every couple of months but for the most part it was laid back and you could take your time and actually have fun. For the past few months now it’s like ANets been shooting Living Stories out at a rapid fire setting and for increasingly short periods of time.

It’s not fun anymore!

To log in and instantly feel like you need to participate in the living story or miss out forever on the loot, achievements, special items, and story of it, is total nonsense and incredibly frustrating. Especially for those of us who actually have lives we need to take care of outside of Guild Wars, or have low level characters we want to take a break to that can’t participate in these constantly lvl 80 events.

The developers seriously need to hit the brakes with the living story. Don’t stop it entirely because it does keep things fun and dynamic, but seriously dial down the pace and the pressure put into completing these things so people can still enjoy the rest of the game too.

LS kills the game for me too. Not because of too much content, but the lack of content that is not zerging. I want a new dungeon, something that actually requires SOME brains and teamplay to complete.

cranos.5913:

Not because of too much content, but the lack of content that is not zerging. I want a new dungeon, something that actually requires SOME brains and teamplay to complete.

< This – having “too much content” wasn’t my issue. Too much same thing zerg content that I can’t do alone, and it all happening too fast with not enough explanation and then “poof”, it’s gone forever.

I agree with everyone that said that maxing a char and then another happens in every mmorgp. I like the living story!!!
But I algo agree that it’s gotten too much too soon, and too serg-dependant. I remember how cool the first ones were, when u had to go around a bit, collect some stuff for story purpose (not only to loot in order to exchange for stuff), do instances, etc. Some of the best I remember are halloween (the 1rst), christmas (the 1rst), the molten alliance, the mai trin dungeon (part of it is now a fractal, so are the molten!! that is good). It would be nice to mix it up a little, to have some episodes to be zerglike, and others more at the party level, or even solo instances. This is my feel though, I think this is quite personal, depending on how u like to play.

I agree with the OP. For me, the Living Story should be presented much like the Personal Story, in which I can run most of them solo. Have some dungeons for group play, and even throw in a meta-event where a massive number (zerg) of players is required, would be fine too But the lack of really any solo-able quests is a mistake, IMHO.

Ok. So this story has a simple “kill scarlet” quest that really was too easy. More cut-scene than any interaction, however.

I agree with the OP’s sentiment in moderation. Personally, methinks that if ANet was not entitled to blunders and screw-ups, they would have never went into the MMO industry.

motherbox.5493:

I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost.

You’re not the only one. The story has been pretty poor imo. The biggest issue was they never explain anything. Why was she doing this? to awaken the dragon? to take control of the dragon, to team up with the dragon? to become his lieutenant? to drain the power from him? to awaken him to face her nightmares and destroy him herself?

Her motive could be anything and anet won’t tell us either. sigh. Now that scarlet is dead how are we supposed to find out? find some journal or diary of hers in the ruins of the drill?

motherbox.5493:

I log in and Lion’s Arch is destroyed, and I’m in the ruins with no direction or explanation

So when you clicked the game application on your computer for the weeks ahead of time and saw the news stories about it, you ignored them, then on patch day you downloaded a giant mass of files with multiple news & announcements accompanying them and you refused to read all that, too? And NPCs shouting things and mission text like “Kill the X to advance to Y” and “Leave the city, it’s poisonous” aren’t clear directions enough for you?

motherbox.5493:

it thrusts you into a zoned area where if you’re not in a zerg you are instantly dead, there is no explanation

Reading is fundamental. Listening, too, although maybe you’ve got the sound on your computer turned down or something; I’m assuming you can read, though, since you’re on the forums. I really don’t understand how you can refuse to read the copious plot and exposition that’s been added to the game in the form of NPC dialogue, mission text, achievements, news stories & announcements, etc. and then complain that nobody has informed you. Were you waiting for a personal invitation? A one-on-one candlelit dinner with a game developer to talk you through everything step by step?

motherbox.5493:

To finish it all off, the kill on Scarlet was totally rushed and didn’t explain anything! Why did she gather the molten alliance, etc.? No one knows. In fac,t no one knows why she did anything at all.

You know she has a base in Lornar’s Pass, right? With diagrams and records of her experiments and endeavours? You may also check the GW2 official wiki, or perhaps even the forums you’ve currently found for pages upon pages of folks answering these questions for you (or – and in my opinion even more intriguingly – speculating about future things to come).

Thobek.1730:

motherbox.5493:

I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost.

You’re not the only one. The story has been pretty poor imo. The biggest issue was they never explain anything. Why was she doing this? to awaken the dragon? to take control of the dragon, to team up with the dragon? to become his lieutenant? to drain the power from him? to awaken him to face her nightmares and destroy him herself?

Her motive could be anything and anet won’t tell us either. sigh. Now that scarlet is dead how are we supposed to find out? find some journal or diary of hers in the ruins of the drill?

Hmmm… I suspect you haven’t looked for the answers you want and just want them handed to you. The reason I say this is because the answer to the question “Why did Scarlet do this?” is explained quite clearly. You’ll see screen shots posted in this forum. I’ve seen two of them myself. So, before you continue to complain that Anet doesn’t provide the answers, I suggest you take a moment or two to actually look for them.

The answers to the Living Story are all there in the game, but the trouble is that they’re scattered across many different NPCs, so unless you’re assiduous about talking to everybody and/or follow a guide, you’ll probably get very lost, especially if you take some time off.

And that last bit is what I totally agree with the OP on. The pacing is just a bit too fast. There’s no time for players to play at their own pace; you have to log on every day, read up on forums/reddit/dulfy to know what to do (because players will scream at you if you try to do Marionette/Knights etc. and not know what to do from the start), and you can’t ever take a break (because otherwise by the time you come back the content’s either gone, or the zerg has moved on and you can’t get any help completing the achievements).

I admire what ANet is trying to achieve, but I honestly feel that the rapid-fire pace of the LS is doing more harm than good in terms of player burn-out and a less friendly, welcoming atmosphere. Everybody knows that time is limited, so everybody’s trying to get their stuff done before it disappears. Time spent teaching or helping new players is time that you can’t spend on farming/achievement hunting, so why do it?

Dalris Thane.6314:

Sadly, I can’t relate. Every other game I’ve played (EQ, CoH, SWTOR), and by heresay (WoW) the number one complaint is lack of content (followed by bug fixes, followed by lack of dynamic changes to the world).

I can’t wrap my mind around complaints of too much content, even if it’s (often) temporary. I missed plenty of LS during my break. I’m sure I’ll miss more. I’d rather have LS every 2 weeks, heck, every week even, and miss some, then have LS (or expansion) further apart, then get into “dry spells” of content.

But that’s just me, I guess.

Nope me too – I personally love the living story and the 2 week content (whether permanent or temporary) keeps me logging in, i also strongly believe that while the story has been relatively weak to begin with it can only get better, bring on the LS I want more but ANET don’t forget expansions as well – I think the new LS is leading to one so don’t disappoint OK :P

So in short I like the LS and think that the temporary nature is quite good for character building though some permanent content is very welcomed outside an xpac

The ONLY thing I dislike about the Living Story stuff is that it is not permanent.
I gave up GW2 for others games shortly after release; i didn’t hate the game I just had other games that took priority, and was not around for when the LS started.
I recently came back to finish level off and try out some of this LS stuff. Boy was I disappointed to find out I could no longer do any of the previous stuff because of the temporary nature of it.
I came back to Lions Arch burning, some angry chick called Scarlet, lots and lots of champion npcs wanting to give me a proctorial exam and no clue as to what the hell was going on.
Some kind of phasing system could of been used to keep the previous parts of the LS in game for returning players and such or create dumbed down versions like a TLDR event that allowed you to play out part of the LS you missed and still have a chance at a slightly weaker version of any special items that could only be granted from that LS story.

Draknar.5748:

I believe she formed all of those alliances to be able to have a force strong enough to defend her while she looked for, and then ultimately found, the ley lines that would awaken that dragon. Speculation being that she has been controlled by that Elder Dragon this entire time.

I take it the dragon knew that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish all of this on her own without all of the heroes of Tyria stopping her before completion, so she needed a bunch of allies (the various alliances) to attack/defend/distract while she finished her awakening task.

I never played GW1, I haven’t read anything additional for lore, this is what I’ve gathered/surmised from playing the LS events, watching the cutscenes, and reading the dialogue between characters.

I believe what I’ve described is the basic plot. I felt everything was explained pretty well, I’m sorry you didn’t pick up on this stuff.

She made those alliances not just for them to act as her personal armies but especially for their magical and mechanical expertise.
All the members of the alliance represent a facet of magic in Tyria: flame legion- fire, dredge-earth, aetherblades- air and krait- water if you follow an elemental charting or like in this update where it follows the asuran principles of eternal alchemy: Static- Molten Alliance, Dynamics- Aetherblades and Synergetics- ToxicAlliance.

She didn’t choose them at random, she choose them so she can combine their magic and create pure magic, just like the magic that flows in a leyline and then manipulate it into awakening Mordremoth.

gw2 pve overall is bad all we see is zergs of mindless gameplay…

The game already feel old with this LS system.

It’s certainly ruined the STORY for me. But I’d rather had them spend time adding new features & rewards then making the LS. It’s awful.

LS = Zergs and RNG bacon wrapped in RNG bacon.

I read the original post, but not the entire blob of posts after it, so I may be repeating what some others have said.

I do agree that the sheer amount of content released (every 2 weeks) could have someone feeling confused once they login after not playing for a little while. But what did you expect?

If you were to go into a coma in your actual real life, and wake up 6 months later, the world might be a little different. Sure, you’d be confused, not sure what’s going on. But then maybe you’d read the newspaper, or google the events of the past 6 months to get yourself up to speed. Then you’d understand the world you woke up to.

The same goes for GW2. Maybe you took a break, and that’s fine. But the game moves on. This is especially true since Anet implemented the “Living Story”…we all knew that new content would be released every 2 weeks, and that includes the continuation of the lore/world developments, ie. Lions Arch getting destroyed, etc. It’s not anyone’s fault that once you login after a period of inactivity that you feel “lost”. It’s kind of normal…but if you would have read up on some of the developments that took place in the game since you last played, and maybe read up on some of the continued lore that Anet provided, then you’d have felt caught up, and the game world would once again make sense to you.

When it comes to the mindless zerging, though, i totally agree with you. But that’s a whole other discussion…

I’m not a fan of the transient and rapid fire nature of the living story. I can’t play every single day. I should NOT need to look up a guide on the internet to enjoy a game I am playing. For something called “Living Story” it lacked story and I didn’t do much living while playing during it. It was rather rushed and forced and left me disappointed. Games are supposed to be fun, by definition. Making things a grind fest to get meta achievements before they disappear forever? NOT FUN!

Agreed. LS has managed to get me to do something no MMO I’ve played in a decade has ever done.

I bought Skyrim and am actually playing a single player RPG.

Just quit logging in last chapter, LA Farmfest. Haven’t managed to even bother since.

ANET is snatching failure from the jaws of success. It makes me very sad.

All of the above. All you guys have nailed it very eloquently.

I should not feel relieved when the constant bi-weekly living story content ends. I should be feeling disappointed and looking forward to more.

Admittedly they have cleaned up the mess of Scarlet’s character and story very nicely towards the end and I now feel like her existence plays some not insignificant part in Tyria’s canon vs a throwaway character I’m only feeling disappointed over the ending of one story. However I won’t be missing being forced to keep up with it and often only BARELY getting things done on the last Sunday of the last weekend with the cost being sleep deprived “only” a few hours going into Monday.

Lackluster content, few challenges and even less (rng) rewards. Those are the hallmarks of the LS if we are to take the past year in regard. Please stop it Anet, give us meaty permanent content with meaningful progression, armor and challenges to progress towards, better story instances that tell more than a 5 minutes story every 2 weeks and finally, no more brainless loot pinata content.

The LS was not the reason why I stuck with this game for more than a year now, but it might be the reason why I might leave it due to lack of content!

DarcShriek.5829:

Thobek.1730:

motherbox.5493:

I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost.

You’re not the only one. The story has been pretty poor imo. The biggest issue was they never explain anything. Why was she doing this? to awaken the dragon? to take control of the dragon, to team up with the dragon? to become his lieutenant? to drain the power from him? to awaken him to face her nightmares and destroy him herself?

Her motive could be anything and anet won’t tell us either. sigh. Now that scarlet is dead how are we supposed to find out? find some journal or diary of hers in the ruins of the drill?

Hmmm… I suspect you haven’t looked for the answers you want and just want them handed to you. The reason I say this is because the answer to the question “Why did Scarlet do this?” is explained quite clearly. You’ll see screen shots posted in this forum. I’ve seen two of them myself. So, before you continue to complain that Anet doesn’t provide the answers, I suggest you take a moment or two to actually look for them.

Ok I’m going to challenge you on this, its not clearly explained at all. You tell us why she did all this with ingame information. Put it spoiler tags if you want. No speculation either.

Haven’t entered the new LS LA instance for about 3 weeks now. (not to mention I’ve quit playing LS for months now).
They won’t lure me in with some shallow zerging, few champion boxes, ugly backpack or pointless achievements.

What I miss was back when you actually went out into other maps to FIND things like the heirlooms in Flame and Frost (I think it was this one)… you could do that without zergs >.>

Bazaar was fun too, in fact it was my favorite because it was a beautiful looking map and theme (surprise- no zergs there). [edit: I didn’t grind those things… not grinding makes things actually fun >.>]

That said, I still play the game, the core game is great~ but I completely ignore the LS now. I only keep an eye out for Labyrinthine Cliffs being brought back permanently.
(And guild halls too but that’s another story…)

WingedVictory.9013:

What I miss was back when you actually went out into other maps to FIND things like the heirlooms in Flame and Frost (I think it was this one)… you could do that without zergs >.>

Bazaar was fun too, in fact it was my favorite because it was a beautiful looking map and theme (surprise- no zergs there).

That said, I still play the game, the core game is great~ but I completely ignore the LS now. I only keep an eye out for Labyrinthine Cliffs being brought back permanently.
(And guild halls too but that’s another story…)

I wasn’t really engaged with Labyrinthine Cliffs. It was pretty but I ran out of things to do there pretty quick. About the most time I spent was finding crystals and then I went elsewhere. I’m not an activities kinda guy, and I didn’t feel like grinding boxes, so there really wasn’t much there I was interested in.

LS is lackluster, plain and simple

They (anet) puts too much resources into LS imo…I mean for what???

It’s literally mindless zerging content ?? Seriously?
Thats going to end up ruining this game if this is what the focus remains

Outside of twisted marrionette, I have not enjoyed LS and a lot of players feel the same way

It’s literally, ok log in patch day, ok got the achievements? good, i’m done.
Yea if you want few cosmetic items go ahead and do it for 1-2 more days lol.

What on earth good is this type of content?? it’s not meaningful at all. I don’t understand how players support this kind of development…

I would love for anet to make an official poll and ask the community if they prefer development to be focused on bi-weekly temporary LS content or meaningful xpac like content (new dung/areas/fractals/skills/pvp modes, etc you get the point)

Its been 1.5 years and literally, there are dead zones across every server.
Dungs are only run for the daily gold, no other reason to do it (yea you can get some dung armor if you really love a skin, but that only takes a few days max to get)

State of the game is this
Zerg zerg and more zerg

Want to make gold? champ zerg train for an easy, mindless grind of 40-45 champ bags an hour

WvW? who ever has the biggest blob wins, roaming means very little, run around the commander and drop AOEs, fun for some. It could be a hell of a lot better though if they made it to where having 10-15 groups of 5 would go around doing completing objectives. That’s something I could get down with.

I enjoy sPvP/tPvP/high lvl fracs, only thing i’m playing at the moment that requires somewhat of a coherent thought to be good at and its fun imo. But that’s literally it.

LS imo is taking too much resources imo… there are WAY more important things than this kind of temp content… 1.5 years and we are just now getting a big “feature” patch which I highly doubt will even be have new dungs/pvp modes/rewards/weapon sets/skills… etc. That alone will be the reason why many other players will at least go out and give the new MMOs a shot like ESO/Wildstar

That alone will be the reason why many other players will at least go out and give the new MMOs a shot like ESO/Wildstar

Players won’t give ESO a shot for long. It doesn’t matter if they like Elder Scrolls or hate every other game on the market. I’m not in the beta, but I’ve heard some of the outrage about it at reddit/other gaming sites.

The game is subscription based AND locks very powerful classes and some end game content behind a pay wall. Objectively, even the most devout fan isn’t going to be happy with that.

motherbox.5493:

To finish it all off, the kill on Scarlet was totally rushed and didn’t explain anything! Why did she gather the molten alliance, etc.? No one knows. In fact no one knows why she did anything at all.

You could always visit the highly convoluted Living World Atlas and comb through all of the plot points in non-chronological order…

… Or be lucky enough to log on during a “recap” chapter (such as “A Study in Scarlet”) and endure vague lengthy explanations that still don’t add up…

Actually, wait, those are terrible ideas…

Nevermind. Seems you have a point.

motherbox.5493:

Fast forward a few updates, and the whole thing has seemed to slip into rapid fire and I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost. I log in and Lion’s Arch is destroyed, and I’m in the ruins with no direction or explanation, and people are yelling “red, blue” etc. in map chat and I have no idea what is happening.

Furthermore every single expansion has had a pretty cinematic, and then it thrusts you into a zoned area where if you’re not in a zerg you are instantly dead, there is no explanation and everyone has already done everything and has the boss on repeat. There is virtually nothing you can do alone, and everything is one giant zerg after another.

…etc.

Well what you are saying is that you personaly are uninformed and unable to find out what is happening. However, other players managed so I don’t think it’s a problem of the game. There is a lot of ingame hints and instructions, and if this is not enough, use Google, my young padawan.
I really don’t understand what are you complaining about. That you can’t do things alone? This is a MMO – which means teamplay.

My point of view, Living Story is not in general a bad thing – on the contrary. What I dislike are the main characters, plot and dialogues in the LA living story, but that’s another tale.

Fext.3614:

motherbox.5493:

Fast forward a few updates, and the whole thing has seemed to slip into rapid fire and I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost. I log in and Lion’s Arch is destroyed, and I’m in the ruins with no direction or explanation, and people are yelling “red, blue” etc. in map chat and I have no idea what is happening.

Furthermore every single expansion has had a pretty cinematic, and then it thrusts you into a zoned area where if you’re not in a zerg you are instantly dead, there is no explanation and everyone has already done everything and has the boss on repeat. There is virtually nothing you can do alone, and everything is one giant zerg after another.

…etc.

Well what you are saying is that you personaly are uninformed and unable to find out what is happening. However, other players managed so I don’t think it’s a problem of the game. There is a lot of ingame hints and instructions, and if this is not enough, use Google, my young padawan.
I really don’t understand what are you complaining about. That you can’t do things alone? This is a MMO – which means teamplay.

As far as I know, the only game where you have to go on the internet to find out what’s going on is The Secret World, and that’s because it revolves around urban legends. Should it not be in the game’s design to help players get up to speed? And in particular for new players. New players can still buy the game.

Thobek.1730:

DarcShriek.5829:

Thobek.1730:

motherbox.5493:

I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost.

You’re not the only one. The story has been pretty poor imo. The biggest issue was they never explain anything. Why was she doing this? to awaken the dragon? to take control of the dragon, to team up with the dragon? to become his lieutenant? to drain the power from him? to awaken him to face her nightmares and destroy him herself?

Her motive could be anything and anet won’t tell us either. sigh. Now that scarlet is dead how are we supposed to find out? find some journal or diary of hers in the ruins of the drill?

Hmmm… I suspect you haven’t looked for the answers you want and just want them handed to you. The reason I say this is because the answer to the question “Why did Scarlet do this?” is explained quite clearly. You’ll see screen shots posted in this forum. I’ve seen two of them myself. So, before you continue to complain that Anet doesn’t provide the answers, I suggest you take a moment or two to actually look for them.

Ok I’m going to challenge you on this, its not clearly explained at all. You tell us why she did all this with ingame information. Put it spoiler tags if you want. No speculation either.

It still seems you want to be spoon fed the answers.

Erukk.1408:

How is this problem different than any other MMO? Once a player completes everything, the only thing really left to do until new content comes out is to make another character. Then another… Then another…

If you truly think that, then you have missed the golden age of MMOs, when never-boring and utterly addicting games like Shadowbane, Darkfall, and Dark Age of Camelot were made.