Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet (or Santa…).
First, I must thank you. I’m a 25 years old student, who plays videogames since 10 (more or less). I played lots of games during my long career, and finally I realized WHY I kept playng Gw2 for 2k+ hours and WHY I started from the First Weekend Beta.
Your work is great, and finally I feel that it’s my time to bring my feedback to this pages…

About the LS and it’s epic final. I will explain my point of view of the old Living Story contents during this post. But, my goal here is to explain to you what (I think) are the 3 most important things that you should focus while building and creating.

1)Fun
Ok, this could sound quite stupid…Of course you need to make fun stuff. But I’ll make some example from the last episodes of the LS for explain my view of fun.
Many people have different opinion on what is ‘fun’. Your first thing to do is tryng to make things that are less frustrating.
Note that frustrating and hard are 2 different thing, and while I like hard stuff (and I think that there are not enought hard contents in GW2) you should avoid to make even hard thing. A Medium difficult setting is good, you could just had an hard dungeon at the end of the LS, but without requiring players to complete it to witness the final act of Scarlet’s Legacy.
Now, a few examples:
-Molten facilities was fun..NO! It was the greatest content that you made. The dungeon itself was totally not hard , while still required a few runs to understand enemy AI and combat mechanic. The Dredge Engeneer fight was totally hilarious (and I must say that I was a little sad that he got to level 80 inside the Fractal…It loose a bit of his charm)
-Aetherblade Retreat it has simililar level, but overall down if compared to the Molten. More complex fights (still, not a bad things), but less charming style and atmosphere.
-Nightmare Tower. I must admit that I need to get used a bit, and I didn’t like the inside of the tower in the first hours. But than…I finally saw it.
Players…..Players Evreywhere tryng their best to overcome the insidiuos of the Toxic alliance, fight for any step they made inside that living nightmare. I know that a lot of people were there just because was the ‘new stuff to do’, but while me and my friends too were doign achievement and stuff, we fealt beign part of a real community of players which goal was to save Kryta from the evil seed.
-Watchwork Invasion & SouthSun Cove -Last Stand. Here we get a little less happy. While the concept was good, the event it self was big and too much chaotic. I’m hope that you left behind those MASS-mass event for going in the direction of the Nightmare Tower.
-Aetherblade path in TA. Finally an example of a dungeon that I didn’t like. It was more complex and the boss fight were much more frustrating than Molten or AetherBlade Retreat. The Ooze mechanich was really frustrating (again, not hard, but frustrating ). Overall, that path didn’t have a sinlge Boss fight (maybe the Char)…. I felt like all were a Puzzle fight…in the moment you know how to solve the Puzzle, you automatically win since the bossed had really not much HP, so you tried to balance the fight with a restricted group play and tactics. But it ended up beign frustrating and that’s all…

(continues next post)

2)Characters
Since we’re going to see an “epic finale that will rock Tyria to its very core”, we need someone to guide us inside, or fight with.
NPC are an important piece of the Living Story, and I wish that ALL of them will have their correct and deserved spot inside the story.
Evreyone must play their role, from heros to villans. I really hope to see again Rox and Braham, fully designed like in Molten Facility. Hell, those are an other reason why that dungeon was soo cool, excelent quotes.
“Yyyyyy It’s Overheating! Out my way……Oh! That’s suppose to happen…”
“I’ll deal with you….some other time….grrrrrr”
“Ooooooooh We’re so dead!”
“I’ll just say…explosive and me. We don’t get along very well”
Also, they used skill in the dungeon too! I see lots of projectiles blocked by Braham shield, or Rox ressing me while I was dead. Really small stuff that made NPC part of the Team, and not just stupid allied Mobs.
This is one of the reasons why Ellen isn’t that much appreciated like those two…(although i voted for her). I really hope that she will get a new restyle of her attitude and how she interacts with the players.
Marjory and Kasmeer had they’re opportunity to shine, and it didn’t went wrong, but I expect to see more.
We also saw Destiny’s Edge coming slowly inside the living, with Caithe. But I’m curios about the evolution of Eir and Braham, and maybe we’ll see the full DE in action like in Arah!
But why stop at the Heroes…You made a serious work on Scarlet’s background…why just focusing on her?…
I wish to see again Mai Trin (and finally interrogate her for good! Or let her escape so we’ll need to fight her again to bleed our curiosity dry!!).
Hell! I Want to see Canach too in action!
I hope that I explaind well my poin here…. Evrey character you made has a role in the LS, and you can’t make an epic final, with out and epic epilogue of their stories!
EDIT:Marcello di Giacomo & Ho-Tron, Subdirector Noll, Lord Faren and it’s fancy panties, and the list can go much more!!

Finally…3)Interaction
You know what I liked about Cutthroat Politics?…the CHOOSE.
Oh yes my friends. There’s nothing more tempemting in a videogame (especially in MMOs) whend you can CHOOSE the course of history.
Players during their personally story line make decision, but those all all scripted. While other players go in dungeon just for the reward. And even if you put a new LS evrey 2 weeks, those thing start at point A and goes at epiloque B. But whend players can CHOOSE the future of the word in which they play, they feel a great sense of power and beign important for the ‘realm’.
Honestly, I think you (Anet..not Santa) have waisted an opportunity, since anyone of the 2 candidates seemed to make any different with eachother…
I know that probably it will be impossibile to combine an “epic finale that will rock Tyria to its very core” with 2 different ending, which only one would preveal according to the decision of the players.
But, again, I invite you to think about it…The most catastrophic ending….it’s an ending that you choosed, writted and scripted ? Or a consequence of players attitude between moral questions and trade-off decisions?
At least…Think about this for the future contents.
Let’s just make a simple example:
-Final =>Scarlet unleash a more deadly threat, but now she’s defenseless. Player will choose if kill her immediatly for her crime….Or use her help to stop the new (common) enemy and redeem herself.

So…This are my suggestions…I hope that you will (read this first, lol, and) accept my feedback, for this is why a keep playng GW2. The Living story is something that I like from this game. With it’s ups and downs.
And, whend I think about the Epic Final, I picture in my head those 3 points I explained to you.

Thank you again.
Merry Christmast and an Happy New Year.

Your Favourite Reaper of Grenth, Zaganna.

PS:Santa, can you bring me a PS4? Thank you!!!!