Guild Wars 2

I really enjoy Guild Wars 2. It’s been my replacement for World of Warcraft since I no longer felt up for paying a monthly subscription fee, and I hated seeing the pointless changes made to that game. So, it’s been extremely frustrating for me to be having no interest in the Living Story, which is where most of the story-driven post-game material is, and is the future of the game.

I know people will see this topic and think I am complaining for the sake of complaining. But, as someone who has a few 80s (I have deleted others in the past with no regrets), I want to express my feelings on this.

I was able to start Season 1 when it first aired but, almost immediately, I disliked the new characters and the direction of the story. Even to this day, I can’t bring myself to like Marjory, Kasmeer, and the rest (Taimi started off obnoxious to me, but she’s grown a little on me compared to the others, probably because she’s more memorable/quirky). And with the Living Story focusing almost exclusively on Destiny’s Edge 2.0…I mean, Dragon’s Watch…how can I make myself like the story? It’s as if our player character is mostly an observer, which I admit was also an issue with the later half of the Personal Story, where Trahearne was obviously important. But, back to Season 1…I actually never finished it. I never got to see Scarlet defeated, mostly because the Lion’s Arch material required group work to succeed (and I most enjoy playing alone). But, I did play Season 2. Still frustrating, especially with Dry Top and the Silverwastes.

And then came Heart of Thorns. I didn’t buy it until months later, but by then the xpac hadn’t been “nerfed”, so I was dealing with the sharp spike in difficulty when I first started it like most people did. The maps were confusing (the second area (I forget what it’s called, with the big city) wasn’t nearly as bad, and had some nice music, but it still is a pain to try to 100% that map), and the story stuck to its guns about focusing on the new characters, and villifying Caithe (who was, IMO, merely misunderstood, since no one knew what her motivations were). Yeah, she screwed up by not being forthcoming, but…for anyone who’s played the Sylvari Personal Story, it’s hard to ever see her in a negative light. Oh, and before I push too far with my HoT thoughts…I really, really, really disliked the story with Caithe and Faolain and that Sylvari whats-her-face. The whole “Sylvari are children of Mordremoth” made no sense and was put in for shock value. And then post HoT, never revisited, so it might as well have never been true. Again, personal opinion.

HoT was incredibly frustrating for me, not just because of difficulty, but the story and characters as well. And…killing Eir? Also pointless. It just made Braham (who drives me crazy) act like a jerk in the post-HoT story (yes, that’s a real life coping mechanism for losing someone close to you, but when I am already not liking these characters, some story-telling decisions make them even harder to like).

So, I stopped at the fire islands chapter and haven’t touched the LS again. Which – and, this is the main point of my post! – is extremely depressing. I love how easy it is to jump in, play for a bit, and jump out of GW2 (although I hate the changes put in the game from the NPE. I won’t forgive Anet for that). I enjoyed the Personal Story. I am always making new characters, especially since i get bored once I hit level 80. I by no means am losing interest in the game as a whole. I just really can’t find a reason to enjoy the Living Story, which, as a player who loves single-player experiences focused on story, is one of the only things I would be able to play after hitting 80.

Am I the only one who feels this way? I really don’t want to be turned away from this game, especially since there aren’t many others out there that scratch that WoW-type (without subscription fees) itch. I have Elder Scrolls Online, but it’s not as easy to jump into and play for any given amount of time (if anything, it’s better for wanting to play for extended periods, given the nature of its quests and exploration). As a GW2 fan since release (I never played GW1 since I was a WoW player back then), I feel very sad.

Tbh if you dont like it, move on. I dislike the format and the storytelling in s3 sofar and that has pushed me away from the game i made my suggestions but i was met by ppl praising the current format and the devs dont seem to want to change it.

So yeah i just play doff thing until something in gw2 catches my eye then i come back for 2 days play whatever is new and move on. As you said one of the great perks of gw2.

EDIT: the whole silvari are the children of mordremoth made sense and there was quite abit of teasing about it.

If you disregard the snot load of unresolved plot threads in each LS release, know-it-all/do-it-all characters we’re forced to team with, backstabbing characters we’re forced to reconcile with, general poor dialog, and the underwhelming ‘big reveals’ – the living story isn’t to bad.

I can see how the storytelling would be underwhelming, especially for Living World episodes. I kept getting excited by them, only to be let down with dropped threads, baffling ‘plot twists’, random deaths, and isolated responses with no root in the continuity.

Episode 6 is going to have to do a LOT of heavy lifting to resolve plot arcs left behind from the start of HoT…

Rauderi.8706:

I can see how the storytelling would be underwhelming, especially for Living World episodes. I kept getting excited by them, only to be let down with dropped threads, baffling ‘plot twists’, random deaths, and isolated responses with no root in the continuity.

Episode 6 is going to have to do a LOT of heavy lifting to resolve plot arcs left behind from the start of HoT…

This is a concern of mine. I fear little will be resolved. We don’t feel at a finale point with so many sudden and unresolved threads popping up left right and centre. LS2 at leats felt like we were heading somewhere, LS3’s GPS fell off somwhere round ep3 and it feels a bit like we are driving around with an upside down street atlas…

My rubbish metaphors aside, the story just isn’t cutting it for me anymore like it did. I was excited for each episode, but the lack of any real coherent plotline and the bizarre identity reveal of Lazarus last episode has hurt my excitement for a release. Luckily, the open world content is still thoroughly enjoyable to me and some wonderful map building, with their own mini stories are keeping me back for more.

If I was to feedback anything constructive, it’s the same as what I’ve said for the last 2-3 years. Each Season and expansion, should be concise, and keep to a clear and central narrative as many players as possible can keep to following. A clear central story for each Season/expansion and leaving no more loose ends left dangling with engage with players a lot more. Shocks for the sake of shocks is also not a positive sign.

I know they want to write this like a TV Series, but this is not the right medium for the style they are going for. Video games work better with self contained linking stories/campaigns.

Randulf.7614:

Rauderi.8706:

I can see how the storytelling would be underwhelming, especially for Living World episodes. I kept getting excited by them, only to be let down with dropped threads, baffling ‘plot twists’, random deaths, and isolated responses with no root in the continuity.

Episode 6 is going to have to do a LOT of heavy lifting to resolve plot arcs left behind from the start of HoT…

This is a concern of mine. I fear little will be resolved. We don’t feel at a finale point with so many sudden and unresolved threads popping up left right and centre. LS2 at leats felt like we were heading somewhere, LS3’s GPS fell off somwhere round ep3 and it feels a bit like we are driving around with an upside down street atlas…

My rubbish metaphors aside, the story just isn’t cutting it for me anymore like it did. I was excited for each episode, but the lack of any real coherent plotline and the bizarre identity reveal of Lazarus last episode has hurt my excitement for a release. Luckily, the open world content is still thoroughly enjoyable to me and some wonderful map building, with their own mini stories are keeping me back for more.

If I was to feedback anything constructive, it’s the same as what I’ve said for the last 2-3 years. Each Season and expansion, should be concise, and keep to a clear and central narrative as many players as possible can keep to following. A clear central story for each Season/expansion and leaving no more loose ends left dangling with engage with players a lot more. Shocks for the sake of shocks is also not a positive sign.

I know they want to write this like a TV Series, but this is not the right medium for the style they are going for. Video games work better with self contained linking stories/campaigns.

I more or less feel this way. A lot of the Living Story material has had promise…but then it’s either dropped, or handled in a way that isn’t satisfying or makes much sense. As is pointed out a lot in my OP, most of the reasons why I don’t like the LS is the new characters. I feel like the writers tried too hard to try to make them as interesting (and yet different) as the original Destiny’s Edge, but…it fell flat. Everyone felt like a stereotype or had something annoying about them. And with the LS having a lot of focus on them…that spells disaster for me, personally. Also, as everyone else has pointed out, the strange plot “twists” and hanging story threads.

Once I played an amazing game named Dragon’s Dogma, incredible gameplay and the story I liked it as well, something called my attention there which some of the players really praised: The world is bigger than the player’s role in it. In this particular game players were chosen to slay a massive dragon that could destroy entire civilizations, but during the story we learn of some characters with their own life and dramas and most of them were left unresolved… why? because our character’s role was only one: fight the dragon. We weren’t supposed to meddle in every plot around the world (politics, the kingdoms rivalries, a betrayer whose final destiny we didn’t learned, the church’s secret and dark organization and so many more). We were left with many plotholes because thats how a realistic world works, we cannot learn everything about everything.

Like what happened in Dragons Dogma, in the Guildwars universe life went on while we played through the story: while we fough Zhaitan, kasmeer, marjory and all of the dragon’s watch members were on their own lives, during the fight with mordemoth, caudecus was preparing to make his move for the krytan throne. So much happened behind the scenes while we were doing these things, and, likewise, so many stories happening right now while we are busy with the new revealed threat that we don’t know of and are not suppose to know, at least not yet. All that is left to us is to speculate, deduce or wait for anet to reveal these stories and mysteries to us.

And in the end, if you don’t really like it, then perhaps this game’s plot isn’t really for you (not everyone loved The Lord of The Ring plot, or the godfather’s, or mass effect’s, etc), as for me I’m pretty thrilled with the current events.

Pax.3548:

Once I played an amazing game named Dragon’s Dogma, incredible gameplay and the story I liked it as well, something called my attention there which some of the players really praised: The world is bigger than the player’s role in it. In this particular game players were chosen to slay a massive dragon that could destroy entire civilizations, but during the story we learn of some characters with their own life and dramas and most of them were left unresolved… why? because our character’s role was only one: fight the dragon. We weren’t supposed to meddle in every plot around the world (politics, the kingdoms rivalries, a betrayer whose final destiny we didn’t learned, the church’s secret and dark organization and so many more). We were left with many plotholes because thats how a realistic world works, we cannot learn everything about everything.

Like what happened in Dragons Dogma, in the Guildwars universe life went on while we played through the story: while we fough Zhaitan, kasmeer, marjory and all of the dragon’s watch members were on their own lives, during the fight with mordemoth, caudecus was preparing to make his move for the krytan throne. So much happened behind the scenes while we were doing these things, and, likewise, so many stories happening right now while we are busy with the new revealed threat that we don’t know of and are not suppose to know, at least not yet. All that is left to us is to speculate, deduce or wait for anet to reveal these stories and mysteries to us.

And in the end, if you don’t really like it, then perhaps this game’s plot isn’t really for you (not everyone loved The Lord of The Ring plot, or the godfather’s, or mass effect’s, etc), as for me I’m pretty thrilled with the current events.

If you want to take reall life into it we can.

1- Braham should not act this way because it is not part of Norn Culture to cry like this. His mother would be praised with song and a Legend who brought DE together and killed the first elder dragon.

The devs gave some human reasoning behind it with there own lives but this isnt there lives. You wrote a story with characters, cultures and historic back rounds. They are not sticking to it.

2- The new characters vs the old. Op stated in the main topic that you were kind of part of the process but eventually goes into the direction of Trehearne leading Tyria vs Zhaitan.

I personally loved it because it made sense, you helped the order you were in. You helped bring DE back together they greatest warriors in the land, you assists in every way possible but the death of Zhaitan wasnt about you. It was about the Journey you took to get there.

Now with the new Guild, YOU are the leader. YOU saved the egg, killed Scarlett, saved DE and YOU killed mordremoth.

Huge problem, giant lack of layers with in the story. For instance why did Trehearne jump into the fight with Morde knowing he was there creator, knowing the pale tree was hurt and simply knowing he is a scholar first. He set up the death of Zhaitan by slowly starving it, killing the eye, helping Zojja create the lazer that kills him.

That is called development and in HOT you run around, " ohhhh look a egg" ohhh look we will just jump into Morde and kill him" " ohhhh Taimi i have to help my ghost friends out, Taimi replys ghost friends? "

There is a serious lack of thought behind the story line, its like Micheal Bay is writing GW2 after the Scarlett wars.

3- You touched on it, the million things happening in Tyria yet we dont get to see it.

GW2 when releasing HOT talked about a interactive story, giving you a unique experience threw the game play. None of that has happened, we got a little of set up with Caduacus and it had its moments. But once again the final fight with him was poorly done and the other parts of the story who prefer there cultures.

For instance my 2 favorite races are Sylvari and Norn. I had 2 Sylvari play threw the HOT personal story and it was straight crap, as well as my character not caring for the person who gave me life and the ability of choice.

Seriously who treats there mother this way?

All in all you can say its like real life and you may enjoy it. More to ya, im happy that you are enjoying the game. But to say this is real? Naw no one would act like this, at some point the Death of so many friends. 1/2 of the people fighting this war would be dead. There is nothing real from this game which is why people are losing interest.

Theres nothing wrong with braham acting like someone with emotions and feelings. The issue is that we had none other norm act like an actual norm. They are all watered down and ppl expected it from but its not like character developememt like this is bad.

kdaddy.5431:

That is called development and in HOT you run around, " ohhhh look a egg" ohhh look we will just jump into Morde and kill him" " ohhhh Taimi i have to help my ghost friends out, Taimi replys ghost friends? "

A lot of story in HoT was happening in maps, but apparently you didn’t bother doing them. There is development. You go from bunch of scattered survivors and organize them into the force that manages to punch through entire Maguuma. You save people from wreckage of a fleet. You discover that mordrem are able to clone dead bodies. You make alliance with frogs. You help to save Tarir. You discover lost asuran city, and what exactly destroyed it. And then you bring all of your new-found knowledge and allies to physically kill the Mordremoth.

So, yeah. Nice job not paying attention I guess.

The actual plot/dialogue is almost a moot point for the OP. It’s pretty common for us humans to burn out on a game, a TV show, a book series. Sometimes the writers run out of ideas, sometimes we outgrow the tale, lose our willingness to suspend disbelief, or there’s a change in direction that doesn’t suit us. It’s sad, like losing a friend or moving from a beloved home or the last day of summer camp.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that anything has gone wrong (although of course it’s not good news for the bottom line of whoever is producing the content). It just means things don’t last as long as we’d like.

If the story no longer interests the OP, stop following it. Work on other things in the game. If that doesn’t appeal, take a break. The game isn’t going anywhere soon and it’s designed so you can pick up mid-story years from now (or re-start by retracing from the beginning).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If the story no longer interests the OP, stop following it. Work on other things in the game. If that doesn’t appeal, take a break. The game isn’t going anywhere soon and it’s designed so you can pick up mid-story years from now (or re-start by retracing from the beginning).

Or you can write on a forum what exactly you don’t like. Thats what the forums are made for – the feedback and critique. Sometimes devs ideas can be great on paper but dull or even awefull in actual game or story. Sometimes devs create something actually bad, and it helps noone if you just shut up and close your eyes on the broken part of the game.
Of course the argument “if you don’t like it shut up or GTFO” is very common in MMO fan bases. But actually it is just anti-consumer and can lead only to the detriment of the game quality and playerbase.

Ider.1276:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If the story no longer interests the OP, stop following it. Work on other things in the game. If that doesn’t appeal, take a break. The game isn’t going anywhere soon and it’s designed so you can pick up mid-story years from now (or re-start by retracing from the beginning).

Or you can write on a forum what exactly you don’t like. Thats what the forums are made for – the feedback and critique. Sometimes devs ideas can be great on paper but dull or even awefull in actual game or story. Sometimes devs create something actually bad, and it helps noone if you just shut up and close your eyes on the broken part of the game.
Of course the argument “if you don’t like it shut up or GTFO” is very common in MMO fan bases. But actually it is just anti-consumer and can lead only to the detriment of the game quality and playerbase.

Except I’m not saying anything close to your rephrasing. I’m saying we all evolve and sometimes the game doesn’t move in the direction we want. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The game isn’t “broken,” the OP just isn’t interested any longer. I’m sure ANet is interested in why, but that won’t do the OP any good today or tomorrow or for the next 6-12 months, since the stories that will release during that time are going to be pretty close to scripted (the coding can be done later; the voice actors are hired to do their work in advance).

So I wasn’t telling the OP to stop critiquing. I was offering an option for what they could do in the meantime. I’m sorry that you think that’s a bad thing.

The ending of Episode 4 was very well put together (besides the boss, which was hit or miss depending on the player’s skill and build). It had me chuckling, it had callbacks to
the human personal story, it had some semblance of drama (though it was a little over the top for a character that barely remembers us).

Living Story 3 has its moments. Even if it didn’t, it’s still worth the rewards!

I really liked the end boss fights, specially the one in chapter 5, epic as hell

Yeah I don’t/didn’t like how Season 3 jumped around a lot story wise but there are 2 main things I really hate about the Living Story.

1. How they go about with “end game” content. Meaning making all the enemies OP as hell. Don’t get me wrong end game content isn’t going to be easy but could they have made the White Mantle and more so the Jade Constructs any more powerful? I HATE the Lake Doric map do to how OP they made the White Mantle. Add in how fast the re-spawn time is makes it even worse.

2 The cryptic end boss fights in the story missions. I love a good challenge but also I like to have a hint how to go about the fight. Any hints you had to lure the Champion Unstable Abomination to the Larva and then kill the Larva in order to hurt him? No! Any hint you had to get the Champion Ice Beast to run into all the minions before you can actually start to damage him? Nope!

joshc.3129:

Yeah I don’t/didn’t like how Season 3 jumped around a lot story wise but there are 2 main things I really hate about the Living Story.

1. How they go about with “end game” content. Meaning making all the enemies OP as hell. Don’t get me wrong end game content isn’t going to be easy but could they have made the White Mantle and more so the Jade Constructs any more powerful? I HATE the Lake Doric map do to how OP they made the White Mantle. Add in how fast the re-spawn time is makes it even worse.

2 The cryptic end boss fights in the story missions. I love a good challenge but also I like to have a hint how to go about the fight. Any hints you had to lure the Champion Unstable Abomination to the Larva and then kill the Larva in order to hurt him? No! Any hint you had to get the Champion Ice Beast to run into all the minions before you can actually start to damage him? Nope!

I definitely can attest to the fact that one main reason why it’s hard for me to enjoy the post-Personal Story content is due to how challenging the enemies are. Even after HoT got a bit nerfed, mobs and single enemies are still troublesome. Like you, I in no way expect post-80 content to be “easy”, but…the type of difficulty added to HoT and the LS is not very “user friendly”, so to speak. Not all play styles can succeed easily, or you need to group up, which becomes an issue for players such as myself who are casual, play only a few hours a week, and prefer solo content due to those factors. I just barely survived the bloodstone area (the LS chapter right after HoT, whatever it was called. Shows how much it made an impression on me).

Finding a balance between user-friendly and challenging is of course not an easy thing to do, so I wish I had suggestions…but I don’t. I don’t even think it’s an instance of “git gud”, since everyone plays differently in games with this much freedom of playstyle.

Moyayuki.3619:

I love how easy it is to jump in, play for a bit, and jump out of GW2

You made my point for me. I go through long periods of time of just logging in to do dailies and logging out. I don’t even need to do that, but it’s what I feel like doing. You don’t pay a subscription for this game so you are allowed to play other games with no real penalty or downside. If you think you might want to play the living story in the future you just log in once every couple of months. Easy.

I wonder if a lot of people have been programmed by other MMOs to feel a terrible sense of waste if they stop playing GW2 for a while. If ArenaNet want you to play more then the responsibility is on them to give you that reason to.

If you get a lot of joy out of making and leveling new characters then great – there is something here to keep you playing. I still wouldn’t be feeling bad about not having an interest in the living story.

Moyayuki.3619:

(although I hate the changes put in the game from the NPE. I won’t forgive Anet for that).

I’ll +1 that.

I really miss the feeling of unlocking weapon skills by using them.

My main issue with S3 is that it’s all too rushed, look at the story in episode 5, it has 5 steps 2 instanced and 3 in the world and you can play through them all in a couple of hours. There’s not a lot of storytelling you can do in that brief a time and it feels like it’s trying to be too grand in scope.

The fact that they tried to cram so much into the 5 episodes didn’t help, it feels to me like they’ve barely scratched the surface for each episode. Personally, I’d prefer they slowed the story down and added… well, added more, more dialog, more story, a more substantial experience.

A new map with each episode seems great but is probably not always necessary. If every episode didn’t have to add a new map then the ones that didn’t add a map could add a lot more “story” based in existing locations.

Sarie.1630:

I really miss the feeling of unlocking weapon skills by using them.

Off topic, but I agree. I feel it was a disservice to new players. One of the ways I learned about the game was buying all the weapons I could use and trying to get all my skills unlocked by level 10. And I paid attention to every skill I unlocked, so I had a better sense of what each weapon was supposed to do.

@Pifil: Too right. The new zones were great to have when shiny and new, but there isn’t a lot to keep us coming back (except maybe one corner of a leather farm that’s finally semi-decent). I do my rotation on some of the maps for easy dailies, but the rewards beyond that are lacking for extended participation. Bitterfrost could be lucrative, but it’s annoying af.
I’m not sure it’s worth making all these new zones for something that could be inserted into the mainline maps. Then again, new maps keeps meta-map content from spilling over into weirdness like it did pre-HoT. Kessex is still forever reeling from Season 1, and I seem to remember a spot in Iron Marches that’s a lot more obnoxious when the plant events take place.

Moyayuki.3619:

Am I the only one who feels this way? I really don’t want to be turned away from this game, especially since there aren’t many others out there that scratch that WoW-type (without subscription fees) itch. I have Elder Scrolls Online, but it’s not as easy to jump into and play for any given amount of time (if anything, it’s better for wanting to play for extended periods, given the nature of its quests and exploration). As a GW2 fan since release (I never played GW1 since I was a WoW player back then), I feel very sad.

See here, this is your problem. You compare GW2 with WoW or The Elder Scrolls which have a more serious tone. Although WoW has a cartoon like graphical style you take everything serious because of the way it is presented to you.

The Elder Scrolls by tradition has been a mature story with super serious characters and legends and also, so many years ( like WoW ) to establish a deep and compelling lore.

And you have Guild Wars 2 which has a more funny, whimsical take on it’s story which for most players, like yourself, is not enough to care about the characters, their dramas and so on.

I play both WoW and GW2. The first I play for the epicness of the story while GW2 I play for gameplay, mechanics and a more relaxing play session.

I just hope we won’t have to destroy Balthazar or some wierd crap this time. I’d rather be offered the choice of kicking Menzies in the nuts and help Balthazar get his stolen power back.

The LS in GW2 kinda sucks tbh. But I mainly run WvW so does not matter to me lol