Guild Wars 2

So I like the idea of the living story. I like thinking about the world not being static and always changing due to events. But I really don’t like how Anet is implementing it.

My problem is every 2 weeks we get a new segment of the story and it’s all the same: one brief cutscene followed by some new achievements that lead to a meta reward. But these aren’t really achievements, they’re mind-numbingly boring tasks. So far every if not all segments have had minigames, jumping puzzles, a dungeon, some random trivial roaming across the map doing something an absurd amount of times for no reason but to be filler I suppose and stuff like that.

There’s honestly nothing fun about it for me. I don’t mind you adding achievements and making a dungeon/jp/minigames for people, a lot of people love that stuff and they can get some AP’s for some chests they may want, but I really hate how you all diverged from traditional quests. It feels like everything a living story is right now should just be add on stuff to a quest that actually goes into the story. I know I’m not the only one having trouble following the story because you don’t really give us the cutscenes or quest tasks for us to get that image in our head of everything going on. Instead all we get are random achievements spread out and by the next chapter I’m like….wtf happened in that 30 second cutscene I watched 2 weeks ago and when I finally remember I’m like okay how the hell did we get from there to here. You can do the 1 dungeon but it’s kinda the only thing that gives you any info.

So I was just wondering if Anet or fellow players would like a new approach? I think we should bring back the quest chains filled with events where we can clearly see/participate in that will help us with keeping up with current events, and keep the add on achievements the living story currently is for people who like that. I love stories in games, but to me this is just becoming a 2 week event that is really quite boring and I end up doing all the achievements in a few days or so just so I can try to get some semblance of a story. I just feel like it should be an actual story we can go through besides feeling like I need to grind some achievements to understand the situation/environment/people of the living story.

Tl;dr – I want to do the Living Story, it’s just becoming harder and harder due to it’s (imo) bad design and I hope something about it can change and hopefully make it better.

You´re not alone, there´s several topics discussing this.

I agree, I´d like to see more story and less achievements/jp´s/minigames. A lot of people enjoy them, and I’m fine with that, but to me they are meaningless activities that are pretty unrelated to any story or character progression. Just there to keep you playing.

One word: Dragon Piñatas.

Stop the boring grindfests of events.

there are aspects of Cutthroat Politics that i am enjoying, but i personally don’t feel that it makes Tyria feel like a living world – at least not in a broad sense. for example, when I go into Queensdale, I know that Harpies will attack the dam, Bandits will try to poison the water supply, Centaurs will attack farms, etc. these events are fine, but i would like a deeper dynamic event experience. just brainstorming a scenario here, but what if events triggered in Queensdale, that if successfully completed, forced the bandits to regroup underground? maybe in their place, new threats appear that trigger all kinds of new dynamic events. for me, if zones had a richer dynamic event experience, the world would feel much more alive. the living story is fine, but zones have become a bit predictable.

I’m with Tad on this one. The events could use some unpredictability, and the living story is the perfect medium to deliver that experience. I can only hope that developers listen to our feedback and use it as that sort of tool rather than just another achievement gimmick.

Bambu.4270:

One word: Dragon Piñatas.

Let me add two more: Launching Fireworks

Silver.3284:

Bambu.4270:

One word: Dragon Piñatas.

Let me add two more: Launching Fireworks

And more: Dancing in front the effigies to burn them

I am up for new approach but I really dont want to do some events and mobs grind again that just isnt a good content. Opening 100 doors to kill 100 skeletons, killing 100 holographic mobs, collecting 100 kites.. thats way more worse than minigames.

I think there should be some new things to satisfy you but I am fine with minigames too.

I’m fed up with the grind(mini game) and is definitely looking forward to a new approach.I want to do more things for my racial city.As a human there’s no reason for me to go to Divinity’s Reach or to my home instance.

Tad.4109:

just brainstorming a scenario here, but what if events triggered in Queensdale, that if successfully completed, forced the bandits to regroup underground? maybe in their place, new threats appear that trigger all kinds of new dynamic events. for me, if zones had a richer dynamic event experience, the world would feel much more alive. the living story is fine, but zones have become a bit predictable.

Some dynamic events already do this. In the Harathi Hinterlands there is a massive chained dynamic event which leads to eventually to a final assault against the Modniir centaur leader. You push them out of camps, you can fail this and they will retake the land.

So these world changing event already exist, are you asking that they should be included in the living story as well? This would be hard to do because people would complain about not seeing the content i.e. some group completing that part before others had witnessed it. You could do it in instanced events but that wouldn’t change the world.

Thobek.1730:

Some dynamic events already do this. In the Harathi Hinterlands there is a massive chained dynamic event which leads to eventually to a final assault against the Modniir centaur leader. You push them out of camps, you can fail this and they will retake the land.

So these world changing event already exist, are you asking that they should be included in the living story as well? This would be hard to do because people would complain about not seeing the content i.e. some group completing that part before others had witnessed it. You could do it in instanced events but that wouldn’t change the world.

i totally agree with you. the point i was attempting to make was that the same events happen again and again and again. i know exactly what to expect in zones when i enter them. what i think is needed to help create a ‘living world’ is more events, regardless of what they are – my brainstorm was simply that, a brainstormed example. to put it another way, once current event chains are completed, the cycle starts over again. all i am wanting is newer event cycles, or alternate outcomes to current events that don’t currently exist.

to that point, i would love there being events in zones tied to Cutthroat Politics. in fact, as it is now, i randomly wander through Kryta waiting for someone in map chat to say ‘Troll is up!’ or ‘Wasp is up!’ in order to get my support achievement. those events are fun, don’t get me wrong. however, when i am tasked with completing tasks in the field in order to support my candidate, i want to do things that feel like meaningful support. in other words, i want events tied to the story and to achievements we are trying to obtain. how is killing the wasp 10 times helping the Keil campaign? i don’t see the correlation.

The Karka event did a great job of integrating story with events. right now Tyria feels like it has a living story, but not a living world. once you leave Lion’s Arch or the Sanctum, it’s the same old Tyria.

Not only are the tasks boring, but you have to do them every two weeks.