Guild Wars 2

Evening Tyrians.

As much as I am enjoying the new living world storyline, I’m getting angrier and angrier at the length of the episodes – they’re getting shorter and shorter. I managed to finish this one in about 30 minutes of gameplay. No, I did not intentionally rush through. I read all the dialogue, listened to various NPC interactions and so on.

If this is what it’s going to be like, I’d prefer longer development times and less frequent episodes so we can actually get an episode that takes longer than half an hour to complete.

Yeah this is kittening pathetic

woah woah careful buddy, you will irritate the anet fanbois, we wouldnt want any effort to start getting put into these storylines again.

Exactly what was disappointing about it?

Malkavian.4516:

Exactly what was disappointing about it?

He quite clearly stated that the length was disappointing since each episode has been shorter and shorter and contains less and less content.

Did you not read the OP?

Took me 90 minutes to complete with reading all dialogue. It’s not much, okay, but I think you’re a bit exaggerating. Dialogue was okay-ish, story was fine, difficulty was a bit on the low side and length was okay-ish too. If we get 90 minutes of story and some additional content gameplay wise, like we did, I’m fine with that.

Though I have too say, this will not make up for the lack of a proper expansion in my opinion.

I just didn’t like playing No refuge. I hated every moment of protecting that b*ch Faolain and killing innocent centaurs. Even as a flashback, even as roleplay, it sucked. Can’t wait to grind it more for achievements…

Its true this show how LS failing and cannot replace normal expansion Living world is great only on paper but ingame cannot work.Its really bad how anet sabote own game i love this game i play it every day from release but every living world update i think more and more to leave it. This game really need big content ( new class or new weapons or more weapons for each class/ more skills/ new trait or rework useless what nobody use/let us make our own trait tree (let us take trait what we want and choose bonus stats) hard version of dungeon or more content for 5man) rework spvp what nobody play and better reward system like for teq kill or fractal have 1 token for x token you can choose what you want its really bad when after 250 teq have no drop and anybody got 10 teq kills and got 3 ascended drops and why is this game called guild wars 2 when there is no guild wars and when guild want go gvg they must go to wvw or obsidian sanctum??? this game need this pvp mode for 10-15 people

I really like stealth in games and setalth sections. Except for “meeting the asura” This has to be the worst stealth section I’ve ever seen in a game, ever. A tedious mission with yet more unskippable, cheesy dialogue culminating in a long, boring boss fight which basically involves sitting around waiting for an opportunity to press the Interact key. Whoopy-frickin-doo. Dissapointment doesn’t cover it.

Player feedback:
Hey Anet, the unskippable dialogue is making the replay excessively long, could you please respect our time a little more?

Anet response:
Ah they won’t us to cut the replay time? Ok lets get rid of everything, except the dialogue.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Malkavian.4516:

Exactly what was disappointing about it?

He quite clearly stated that the length was disappointing since each episode has been shorter and shorter and contains less and less content.

Did you not read the OP?

I read it, yes. But all I got was that it was short. I’d appreciate specifics.

Oh, we have to grind the forts once again. How original…

This is like the Heart quest called “Join the Ash Legion of Tawny Ridge in stealth operations”, except worse, it’s more frustrating.

Yunielesca.2850:

Oh, we have to grind the forts once again. How original…

One of these days anet will realize that we would rather have releases once a month, or once every 3 months, and have real GOOD playable content that lasts more then 30 minutes, rather then having crap every 2 weeks and then we just log off because there is nothing to do except repeating the same old same old. Been saying this for over a year now.

wolfyrik.2017:

I really like stealth in games and setalth sections. Except for “meeting the asura” This has to be the worst stealth section I’ve ever seen in a game, ever. A tedious mission with yet more unskippable, cheesy dialogue culminating in a long, boring boss fight which basically involves sitting around waiting for an opportunity to press the Interact key. Whoopy-frickin-doo. Dissapointment doesn’t cover it.

Player feedback:
Hey Anet, the unskippable dialogue is making the replay excessively long, could you please respect our time a little more?

Anet response:
Ah they won’t us to cut the replay time? Ok lets get rid of everything, except the dialogue.

That part was fun, you don’t have to knock out vorrp you can just fight everything and damage him twice, donedee

I thought that Tangled Paths was shorter, this one felt like double the lenght. But it is not a wham Episode, more like a bridge Epsisode with the intent to carry the Story to the next big thing, which I wouldn’t mind but we had now 2 Bridge Episodes who raised questions but gave almost no answers. And since the the next Episode is likely the last in Season 2 it does feel like these Episodes are on the wrong place and we are getting nowhere. Well not as bad as this feeling was in Season 1 but still.

@ Anet: At this point now, you should start answer Questions, more than raising these. You are still doing it the other way and this is a problem for the Late Season 2. Late Season Episodes shouldn’t raise so many Questions but start to answer Questions and not just doing this in the last Episode. You should have give us another flashback, one with Caithe and Wynne ( its obvious that at one point they have met about this thing that Faolain was obsessed with. ) and it could have answered why Caithe stole our Egg, the very Egg the Pale Tree has reserved for us in the Loot Table.

You know what I think would be great? If I could play the story to the end, but noooooooo. First time I get a server time out right during the last bossfight, have to do it all over again. Sevond time the game bugs out while I try to open the door to the last boss fight. I mean, it’s probably me, I just have no luck today, everything I touch seems to break…. but boy it would be cool if atleast GW2 was playable. Nope, not today. I think I call it a day.

For those complaining that I wasn’t specific enough with my opinions, let me clarify.

My guesstimate is that we’re coming up to 3/4 of the way through Season 2 and there are still flaws in the way ArenaNet are telling the story. My two main griping points are:

• Rytlock’s fate: this has been one of the most exciting parts of the entire living story (yes, I include all of Season 1 here). Why haven’t we had any follow-up? Did the incantation even work? Is Rytlock even alive?
• Spoiler Alert Memory Seeds: we were given four yet were only allowed to access 3 of the 4 associated memories? Why bother giving us four? To purposefully leave a completely unnecessary cliffhanger?

These points could’ve been addressed with longer, more in-depth episodes. Sure, Rytlock’s ark might take quite a bit more but the 4th memory could’ve easily been put into this release.

To conclude, I feel ArenaNet are needlessly shortening episodes to stretch out the story as much as possible, which is slowly starting to spoil things for me.

Donutdude.9582:

To conclude, I feel ArenaNet are needlessly shortening episodes to stretch out the story as much as possible, which is slowly starting to spoil things for me.

I’m starting to get that feeling too, or rather something like it. I’m getting the feeling that they can’t produce more LS than they are already, so they’re forcing cliffhangers into it to try to make it seem more exciting.

Less good content, more unecessary shop items like the new mail messenger. Even kitten games like Last Chaos or Runes of Magic are making things better than you do. At least we are getting a full fancy costume after hours of boring grind there. Here we get 1 part of 6.
The stealth mission is completely bullkitten. Normally in games stealth approaches are meant to be faster and more effective than the 08/15 Rambo charge. Here its the opposite. And even that carnage and slaughter isnt funny at all with those laggy servers, command delays and bugs.
And on top of that you managed to kitten up things that worked fine before the patch like selling in the AH.

Donutdude.9582:

For those complaining that I wasn’t specific enough with my opinions, let me clarify.

My guesstimate is that we’re coming up to 3/4 of the way through Season 2 and there are still flaws in the way ArenaNet are telling the story. My two main griping points are:

• Rytlock’s fate: this has been one of the most exciting parts of the entire living story (yes, I include all of Season 1 here). Why haven’t we had any follow-up? Did the incantation even work? Is Rytlock even alive?
• Spoiler Alert Memory Seeds: we were given four yet were only allowed to access 3 of the 4 associated memories? Why bother giving us four? To purposefully leave a completely unnecessary cliffhanger?

These points could’ve been addressed with longer, more in-depth episodes. Sure, Rytlock’s ark might take quite a bit more but the 4th memory could’ve easily been put into this release.

To conclude, I feel ArenaNet are needlessly shortening episodes to stretch out the story as much as possible, which is slowly starting to spoil things for me.

1. About Rytlock, the trailer didn’t mention him at all so he wasn’t the main focus in this update. We only thing we got is pictures/screenshots of him under the title “Point of No Return” so we can assume he’ll appear at around season finale, I guess.

2. Okay, I agree with you there. The story started out strong for me but a cliffhanger like that felt like I crashed at a brick wall. But then again, the objective of the cliffhanger is that it leaves the audience wanting to see more of it. And I honestly did want more. I just wish the next update wouldn’t focus too much on the final seed.

Unless this season’s last episode is 9 hours long and has some real epic stuff in there, this season is a waste of time. Honestly it feels like some kind of a half-baked filler.

Venomge.7142:

Unless this season’s last episode is 9 hours long and has some real epic stuff in there, this season is a waste of time. Honestly.

It’s not gonna end with us fighting mordremoth, i can tell you that right now. With the way its shaping up it will end with us finding the egg and probably finding out that caithe was doing this to redeem herself for what they did to wynne. Anti-climactic and it all makes sense now, given who the story writers are.

It would be nice to see some other lasting relationships that matter to the central story, either M/M or mixed.

Spawne.3128:

Venomge.7142:

Unless this season’s last episode is 9 hours long and has some real epic stuff in there, this season is a waste of time. Honestly.

It’s not gonna end with us fighting mordremoth, i can tell you that right now. With the way its shaping up it will end with us finding the egg and probably finding out that caithe was doing this to redeem herself for what they did to wynne. Anti-climactic and it all makes sense now, given who the story writers are.

And we know nothing about Rytlock, and have not even seen what Mordremoth looks like, and pact will be preparing for the assault for 6 months until season 3 kicks in? A very frustrating development.

Spawne.3128:

Venomge.7142:

Unless this season’s last episode is 9 hours long and has some real epic stuff in there, this season is a waste of time. Honestly.

It’s not gonna end with us fighting mordremoth, i can tell you that right now. With the way its shaping up it will end with us finding the egg and probably finding out that caithe was doing this to redeem herself for what they did to wynne. Anti-climactic and it all makes sense now, given who the story writers are.

Given what we’ve failed to forgive Canach for, there’s no way we should be forgiving Caithe. Honestly, she should be facing execution for what she did back then.

Palador.2170:

It would be nice to see some other lasting relationships that matter to the central story, either M/M or mixed.

Canach/Anise – calling it now! Those two are just perfect for each other.
I know it won’t happen but one can still dream… :/

Sorry to say but, I want GW1 story and system back…
GW2 is nothing more but bad game concept in new nice graphics mode.. rest is way worst than GW1

Arena net, if you think that CHEAP living story like this will weight out the expansion in next 6 months, you are more than wrong..

If we don’t get expansion till September 2015, GW2 will be as good as dead.
Arena net, wake up PLEASE..

Venomge.7142:

Unless this season’s last episode is 9 hours long and has some real epic stuff in there, this season is a waste of time. Honestly it feels like some kind of a half-baked filler.

Last episode is getting filled with a unfinished story, bugs, grind and a kittenload of not needed shop items. Epicness has gone lost long ago at Anet. Probably started when they hired the first underpaid contractors.
The most part of this season doesnt feel half baked. It feels completely raw, even rotten at certain points. Many things looked like they got rushed out in a hurry without thinking about them and before they were really finished. Like a “new” car which got already sold but misses the windshield, the engine, the tires and the wheel.

Firelysm.4967:

Sorry to say but, I want GW1 story and system back…
GW2 is nothing more but bad game concept in new nice graphics mode.. rest is way worst than GW1

Arena net, if you think that CHEAP living story like this will weight out the expansion in next 6 months, you are more than wrong..

If we don’t get expansion till September 2015, GW2 will be as good as dead.
Arena net, wake up PLEASE..

GW2 is already as good as dead, just doesnt know it yet. Problem is no other good MMO’s have really come along to replace it. Every other MMO I have played just doesn’t meet up to the standard by which it is judged. Most either feel like im playing a kids game or others just have really poor development and uninteresting stories. What makes GW2 appealing is the lore from GW1, which is why people hold out for so long. Honestly it was getting better when I came back from my 6 month hiatus after the horrific scarlet story line, and now it just feels like more of the same again. Cheap poorly made armor, no loot worth grinding for, and horrible story telling again and again.

Didn’t even reach the 30 min mark for me and since I refuse to do the grind for the boots I have nothing to do for another 2 weeks, hope they don’t keep this trend 30 min of content every 2 weeks.

really taking my time I got done in an hour and a half, then I spent 2 hours in the jumping puzzle

When you are measuring the time it takes to complete content, it isn’t just the LS. you gotta factor in the LS, JP, and new rewards.

Length was fine imo. What was disappointing was the lack of any answers. So much for calling it Seeds Of Truth….

zallis.2138:

When you are measuring the time it takes to complete content, it isn’t just the LS. you gotta factor in the LS, JP, and new rewards.

Most of the rewards are just time-filling achievements with no challenge or story progression. They’re easily the weakest content in game.

90 min LS
Back to DA:I
0 Interest in grinding achievements or skins when I play 90 min every 2 weeks.

Traveller.7496:

I just didn’t like playing No refuge. I hated every moment of protecting that b*ch Faolain and killing innocent centaurs. Even as a flashback, even as roleplay, it sucked.

Yeah, that was really… disturbing… to have to participate in. Even knowing that you were just replaying Caithe’s memories, it was still Not Cool to do.

I agree with the op, in that it feels like we’re getting less and less story each episode- it took 2 of us about 60 minutes to go through it all.

Donutdude.9582:

Evening Tyrians.

As much as I am enjoying the new living world storyline, I’m getting angrier and angrier at the length of the episodes – they’re getting shorter and shorter. I managed to finish this one in about 30 minutes of gameplay. No, I did not intentionally rush through. I read all the dialogue, listened to various NPC interactions and so on.

If this is what it’s going to be like, I’d prefer longer development times and less frequent episodes so we can actually get an episode that takes longer than half an hour to complete.

jesus christ, every time i come to the forum to hear people’s thoughts on something there’s always some kitten guy out there complaining like this. Longer episodes would be great but that would mean them coming out once every month. Or what about two months for even better quality. Not the same as two weeks.

I hardly play the game anymore and personally the length of updates doesn’t bother me. And the story is getting better every time.

I really don’t understand where ANet is going with this game and LS….I mean except reddit’s GW2 fanboys, how many players actually care about the lore of GW2 at this point? GW2 always had a weak story and lore….so I’m not sure why ANet is forcing this on the players…The whole living story idea was never planned very well and the guys at ANet really need to sit around a table and re-think their whole strategy because at the moment, they have no clue where they are going with this game….

Mal.1670:

And the story is getting better every time.

I agree that the story is getting better, it just feels very chopped up and sparse to me- less than an hour of gameplay every two weeks feels awkward.

I think there might be more success with releasing story monthly, so there could be more weight to it, and other open world content (like the skritt tunnels, or the Mordrem breaches-which had absolutely nothing to do with the story content) every two weeks.

Zylonite.5913:

I really don’t understand where ANet is going with this game and LS….I mean except reddit’s GW2 fanboys, how many players actually care about the lore of GW2 at this point? GW2 always had a weak story and lore….so I’m not sure why ANet is forcing this on the players…The whole living story idea was never planned very well and the guys at ANet really need to sit around a table and re-think their whole strategy because at the moment, they have no clue where they are going with this game….

I care about the lore of Guild Wars. The “lore” of Guild Wars 2 is “do whatever, just sell more gems!”

i actually like the new content itself…they are trying all sorts of new things in terms of mechanics that make the overall play-diversity better than any other mmo (to me)……………….but its just too little an amount of content given the release schedule/breaks to keep my interest at ths point (and the fact i’ve played this as my main game since launch). i don’t really need to grind for new skins (they aren’t aesthetically pleasing enough to replace the ones i do like)….and that is PvE endgame. living story and its achievements, as they are, just aren’t substantial enough to qualify.

further more…..the narrative is too short and thus characters are too shallow to serialize the LS like a tv series and get that same effect……..instead, we’re getting what is more akin to movie (meant to be watched in one sitting), but broken up into tiny webisodes spaced two weeks apart. its counter-intuitive as a way of delivering its story and puts unnecessary time constraints on content development..

so i think it’s time to put GW2 on the backburner until the season is over, and then play the whole thing from start to finish in one go…..i have a feeling i’ll enjoy it much more.

Relshdan.6854:

i actually like the new content itself…they are trying all sorts of new things in terms of mechanics that make the overall play-diversity better than any other mmo (to me)……………….but its just too little an amount of content given the release schedule/breaks to keep my interest at ths point (and the fact i’ve played this as my main game since launch). i don’t really need to grind for new skins (they aren’t aesthetically pleasing enough to replace the ones i do like)….and that is PvE endgame. living story and its achievements, as they are, just aren’t substantial enough to qualify.

further more…..the narrative is too short and thus characters are too shallow to serialize the LS like a tv series and get that same effect……..instead, we’re getting what is more akin to movie (meant to be watched in one sitting), but broken up into tiny webisodes spaced two weeks apart. its counter-intuitive as a way of delivering its story and puts unnecessary time constraints on content development..

so i think it’s time to put GW2 on the backburner until the season is over, and then play the whole thing from start to finish in one go…..i have a feeling i’ll enjoy it much more.

I find it really pathetic and sad that its so easy for regular game players to come up with sound and great ideas to improve overall gameplay and story/content, not to mention easy implementations, yet ANET continues to just flat out IGNORE almost every one of these good suggestions. Been reading these forms for a year now and have seen countless suggestions on features, content, and story that would be simply amazing additions to the game, instead we just continue to get more of the same crap pumped out week after week.

If you do everything its probably about an hour to do the story, another hour for the achievements, and a few hours (lets say 2) to do whatever achievements/events in the new zones that came out with each chapter. You could argue that only the first hour doing the story for the first time is the only new “content” if youre not interested in doing any other stuff, but other people are and its content to them

Thats 32 hours of stuff to do over 4 months, not counting the gap between seasons. Not to be a white night (unskippable dialogue is the worst idea ever, and the stealth is pretty terrible too, so this is a pretty mediocre episode overall) but thats not bad of a rate, considering the team working on this stuff is what, 20 people.

Skyrim expansions had like 8 hours of content at most and it wasnt even free, and probably took 4 months to make. If you want more content and less frequent patches then just log in every 6 months, spend a few weeks doing everything, and then take another break.

Venomge.7142:

Spawne.3128:

Venomge.7142:

Unless this season’s last episode is 9 hours long and has some real epic stuff in there, this season is a waste of time. Honestly.

It’s not gonna end with us fighting mordremoth, i can tell you that right now. With the way its shaping up it will end with us finding the egg and probably finding out that caithe was doing this to redeem herself for what they did to wynne. Anti-climactic and it all makes sense now, given who the story writers are.

And we know nothing about Rytlock, and have not even seen what Mordremoth looks like, and pact will be preparing for the assault for 6 months until season 3 kicks in? A very frustrating development.

We didn’t know what Zhaitan looked like until the Arah instance so….

There’s a difference between an episode ending, and an episode stopping. This episode just stopped.

Two words.

Exceptionally disappointing.

I am no fan of the story at the moment, it is beyond tedious and full of uninteresting characters. But the episodes themselves are jarringly short, it is like suddenly turning off a TV show after only watching for fifteen minutes, to only continue two weeks later.

The jumping puzzle was epic, but so severely unrewarding that I know for a fact I will never do it again. It is hard to believe but this season might actually be worse than last, worse rewards, story quickly going down the toilet and episodes that are completed in no time. Not to mention the horribly grindy nature of badges, armour pieces and other similar mechanics

The Hidden Arcana story instance may have been a wonderful highlight, but I am not sure it is worth suffering through this.

only thing that really was interresting in the LS was using caithe´s skillset but knowing i will never ever get to use the skills for anything else but that instances gave me a sad again

I like this episode for the story. It was too short, though. I do not measure that in time only but also in plot progress. We got three flashbacks out of four. Flashbacks support a plot but they are not plot.

I disliked killing the centaurs. Yes, I know, I only reenacted history, but I would have preferred a simple cut scene there. I personally was on the side of Wynne and the centaurs. Games are about enjoyment and I did not enjoy that particular fight.

The jumping puzzle and the corresponding cave, on the other hand, are awesome. It was the best part of this patch for me.

Aedelric.1287:

Two words.

Exceptionally disappointing.

I am no fan of the story at the moment, it is beyond tedious and full of uninteresting characters. But the episodes themselves are jarringly short, it is like suddenly turning off a TV show after only watching for fifteen minutes, to only continue two weeks later.

The jumping puzzle was epic, but so severely unrewarding that I know for a fact I will never do it again. It is hard to believe but this season might actually be worse than last, worse rewards, story quickly going down the toilet and episodes that are completed in no time. Not to mention the horribly grindy nature of badges, armour pieces and other similar mechanics

The Hidden Arcana story instance may have been a wonderful highlight, but I am not sure it is worth suffering through this.

That about sums it up. Great jumping puzzle, waste of time in the end. Story going down the same sad path as scarlet, they just can’t let that go at all. Anet does a good job of teasing people with things that are potentially awesome, and then squanders all that potential at the end. How hard is it to come up with a system where people are rewarded for work? All work. Including puzzles, dungeons, bosses, etc. Do you know how angry I was at the end of that jumping puzzle after over an hour of trying to find the right skritt holes to jump into to only get blues and greens and some stupid elixer and a wand that did absolutely NOTHING when I turned it into the NPC?

I was disappointed with this episode. The length for a start. Then just as the story starts to get good, yeah have to wait till next time. And maybe we’ll get some answers to questions like where the kitten is Rydlock! I’ve been so unimpressed with the last two episodes that I’ve not even bothered replaying them for the achievements.