Guild Wars 2

Better these “festivals” then just Nicholas the Traveler collecting random junk

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

This content and all other temporary content is optional………….. There is still the rest of the game. If you don’t want to put in the time , you won’t get the rewards. This is by far the best update they have released. Seems like every update that is tied to LS keeps on improving.

Also if you don’t like the whole Living Story concept , then just don’t participate in them. There are many players out there that don’t give two craps about LS, at least they don’t come on the forums and cry about it.

The problem is that those who don’t have nothing new to play.

Destai.9603:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

This content and all other temporary content is optional………….. There is still the rest of the game. If you don’t want to put in the time , you won’t get the rewards. This is by far the best update they have released. Seems like every update that is tied to LS keeps on improving.

Also if you don’t like the whole Living Story concept , then just don’t participate in them. There are many players out there that don’t give two craps about LS, at least they don’t come on the forums and cry about it.

The problem is that those who don’t have nothing new to play.

Tyria is huge and since you can’t out level a zone all of it is always available to play in. I almost guarantee that there is some event somewhere that you’ve never seen before and didn’t realize existed. If you don’t like LS, go find that event. Go play in zones you don’t typically spend time in. Go play the game.

If you’re not interested in playing the game, then why exactly are you?

We are the Guild Wars community, and we can complain about anything relevant or otherwise!

Gizmo.8623:

Dasroth.9236:

Just be patient more main line story will come soon enough. Instead of being negative about what you felt you didn’t like about the patch why not just focus on what you did like. No one is forcing you to play the new content or the game for that matter.

For me it’s not the problem of being impatient. It’s the problem of the whole direction the game is taking, so no amount of time will bring the update I dream of – expansion of world, improvements of faulty systems, new ways to affect Tyria, interesting further story.

Listen, of course I can name positives and forget about negatives. But this way I won’t really and trully enjoy the game. I will be lying to myself of telling that I like the game only because I will acknowledge things I dislike. I’ve done the math and I’m really starting to dislike more things than like in a wonderful game that’s becoming only good in a beautiful world that’s neglected by it’s makers.

I really can’t change myself in this matter, I won’t start liking grind or content appealing to zerg. The game started to change, important things are put away for shallow content. I shout – “Please! Look in the mirror and see what you’re becoming! I don’t like it, but I really care for you and thus I don’t want you to lose me. And many others who really care!”

Exactly. Arenanet seems to be in serious need of an “Intervention” and if some of us come off as a bit harsh or angry, it’s the frustration over what the game is becoming in relation to what it was and could/should have been that drives us.

I don’t like this update. I’ll join the club and complain.

First, I’ll start by saying I’ve been playing since Launch (and even before), I went through every updates without any major issues and every dungeons (the only path remaining is Arah p1&2).
… And I’ve never experienced so much hatred and anger toward the game. Never.

The Crown Pavillon starts of as an interesting idea, it was, but when I look at it, it’s just a simple zerg fest. Add to that the disminished returns hitting after 30-60 min and the zone becomes pretty much pointless. It’s small and we end going in circle between the same areas over and over again… And that’s about it.

The Gauntlet. While fun at first, it becomes a nightmare once you hit Tier 3. Not only you have to walk back to the Ring Master after every stupid death, but you also have to pay the waypoint, the repair cost, AND 1 ticket for each choice made to the NPCs (gambit, boss choice, entrance)… So I’ve wasted approximatively 11 gold on Liadra without any success.

Challenge is good, but it needs to be dosed. Throw us Liadra in a dungeon or in Arah, I’m perfectly fine, but a solo boss:
1- Not instanced (which brings FPS drops)
2- With an orange floor (which make AOE invisibles sometime)
3- With weird camera angles
4- There for only two weeks
5- Asking for silvers of repairs and tickets every time
6- With a waiting queue…
7- …AND WITH LOADS OF BUGS/GLITCHS

… IS INCREDIBLY STUPID. I stopped counting the amount of time I got stuck with Liadra AND some remains of the last fight (Quaggan or Ooze). Wasted tickets. Awesome.. Like I said, I don’t mind challenge, not at all, in fact I had fun doing the Mad King’s Clock tower (the hardest jumping puzzle in the game so far), because we didn’t have to pay the bills of our failures, we could try as much as we wanted for free, which isn’t the case here. Did we really need another gold sink? Like if the moa race from Dragon Bash wasn’t insulting enough.

The fact that this incredibly hard gauntlet is temporary adds a layer of pressure not very much welcomed. We feel forced to complete it. I know some managed to go through it, but either:
a- They adapted to the game’s bugs and flaws (which isn’t how things should work)
b- Had a specific gear, a specific build and a specific class
Which means:
c- In addition to all the countless gold I’ve spent on Liadra, I must also get a specific gear and a specific build., and maybe I should also create a Mesmer to have clones while I dodge the AOE? Play your style they said. Heh.

This update has way too many flaws to a point I got turned off and I’ll just wait until the next one. Worst of all: Since it’s too hard for me obviously, my gauntlet meta will be stuck at 9/11 and will eventually appear on my “nearly achieved” pannel to remind me of this horrible thing I won’t be able to complete anymore. GG.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Destai.9603:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

This content and all other temporary content is optional………….. There is still the rest of the game. If you don’t want to put in the time , you won’t get the rewards. This is by far the best update they have released. Seems like every update that is tied to LS keeps on improving.

Also if you don’t like the whole Living Story concept , then just don’t participate in them. There are many players out there that don’t give two craps about LS, at least they don’t come on the forums and cry about it.

The problem is that those who don’t have nothing new to play.

Tyria is huge and since you can’t out level a zone all of it is always available to play in. I almost guarantee that there is some event somewhere that you’ve never seen before and didn’t realize existed. If you don’t like LS, go find that event. Go play in zones you don’t typically spend time in. Go play the game.

If you’re not interested in playing the game, then why exactly are you?

I am interested in playing the game. I do enjoy the existing content – that’s why I want more of it. Not some b.s. living story achievement merry-go-round. They had the right idea when the game was in beta. They had the right idea when the game launched. I’d even say they have the right with Ascended Items. The Living Story direction is ruining the game for myself and probably others. Eventually those 25 zones and their content will get boring. Eventually, I want to explore new zones. Eventually, I want to experience new dungeons. They talk about strengthening the core gameplay – I fail to see how. Oh wow, I get to go click on signs. That’s fun. That lets me use my skills that spent 80 levels acquiring.

If the living story were the entire game, would you still play it?

Kal Spiro.9745:

Destai.9603:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

This content and all other temporary content is optional………….. There is still the rest of the game. If you don’t want to put in the time , you won’t get the rewards. This is by far the best update they have released. Seems like every update that is tied to LS keeps on improving.

Also if you don’t like the whole Living Story concept , then just don’t participate in them. There are many players out there that don’t give two craps about LS, at least they don’t come on the forums and cry about it.

The problem is that those who don’t have nothing new to play.

Tyria is huge and since you can’t out level a zone all of it is always available to play in. I almost guarantee that there is some event somewhere that you’ve never seen before and didn’t realize existed. If you don’t like LS, go find that event. Go play in zones you don’t typically spend time in. Go play the game.

If you’re not interested in playing the game, then why exactly are you?

Furthermore, I’m doing that and that adds some depth. But what about alts? I have two 80s, and two characters I’m leveling. Those leveling experiences are hardly going to be different than the previous. There’s not enough zones. There’s not enough dungeons. There were when the game launched, but they need to add more.

I’m hopeful something interesting will be added by the end of the year, given their latest blog regarding it.

NickChabby.8907:

I don’t like this update. I’ll join the club and complain.

Challenge is good, but it needs to be dosed. Throw us Liadra in a dungeon or in Arah, I’m perfectly fine, but a solo boss:
1- Not instanced (which brings FPS drops)
2- With an orange floor (which make AOE invisibles sometime)
3- With weird camera angles
4- There for only two weeks
5- Asking for silvers of repairs and tickets every time
6- With a waiting queue…
7- …AND WITH LOADS OF BUGS/GLITCHS

… IS INCREDIBLY STUPID.

I referenced NickChabby because it basically sums up the LS.

IMO:

This is my first ever MMO and been playing since Feb 2013 and already have over 800 hours in the game and 4 lvl 80s. I enjoy the game to the fullest and I feel there is so much to do in this beautiful world.

But then I am starting to feel frustrated with all these stupid mini games and solo bosses and feel that this kind of unnecessary challenge in a Living story is killing the fun. Every time I log in, I have to open up a second laptop to look up LS guides and search youtube how to kill the bosses in the LS or do the mini game to win since I don’t have 10 hours to find out everything by myself with trial and error with two weeks. Yes I know….you gonna say if I don’t like it then I don’ have to play it….but I feel that GW2 has so much more to offer…I am sure the amount of work that has been put in this game is more that we can imagine and I want more and not less…

You wanna have a living story then fine, go ahead and make some new stuff but enough is enough with all these challenges and jumping puzzles and mini games.
Where is the fun in collecting 1000 baskets and flying 200 balloons?

Why don’t you add a new area and increase the level cap to 90 or whatever. Why not add new dungeons or fractals? why not add these LS mobs/bosses on the actual world map? why not give us a real story about dragon and us defeating our homeland? what happened to all the races joining together and fight together? Why you enforce solo challenge LS in a MMO that is suppose to encourage social team play? If I want solo challenge then why on earth I would play an MMO? There are so many things wrong with this LS approach that I can go on forever but I want to be optimistic for a better future in GW2 world.

I enjoy this update more than some of the other ones, and I’m glad to finally get more content focused on the Queen. That being said, I hope that we do see a much greater amount of content that will cause physical changes to the world. I was hoping that South Sun would at least partially become a stabilized town/settlement, maintaining the events outside of the settlement somewhere, perhaps because as it stands it feels as though we left the settlers in a very bad spot and there’s no sense of finality to that.

I want to see the evolution & growth of the world, the Ebonhawk people’s new settlements outside the city growing and participating in building…Maybe some parts of Orr recovering, perhaps finally getting to the root of the centaur & bandit problems plaguing Kryta & The Queen’s reign currently. All of this could be done through an event-style process with a much stronger emphasis on story development to go with it, less running around collecting baskets & this and that. More actual content to play through, and dealing directly with these things.

More dungeons of the traditional nature, just different things to do in the game at all times, permanently.

Let the zergfest begin and lag affect u performance in the queen challenges ….

The farmers actually don’t care about cof nerf when u give them this . Heard that some ppl did 80g in first day just staying in the “park”.

Living world should be all about changing the world around you.
Now we collect 30 baloons, etc. Fine, I dont mind this idea, but why not make it something more engaging storywise where all players participate to the common goal.
Lets say you want to build these baloon stations in the world for those who want to have an aerial view of the maps. They wont be used for traveling from one zone to another but a s fun journey through one zone.
Let players collect special materials – you know those new currencies you always add – and they will use them to support the building of these baloon stations
These stations, after the event is gone will be a permanent architecture in the world.
To go even further, you could make the players “donate” materials in each zone for each buiding not only in Queensdale so you could make the people go in all zones to build these things
You will not make a deadline for these, they will be on forever untill the players would finally built them all.

to resume, make players BUILD something permanent in the world through common efforts. Even dungeons could be developed in this way, Make players gather "explosives to put in different parts of the world and there you will make the new dungeon entrances.
Make players involved in building something and they will appreciate it.
Put recopies for building things as drops and easy to get tokens so all will feel they participate.
Lets the crafting recipes be used by +300 levels so there will be more people interested in buildings and crafting.

We need more pve content that makes support roles actually needed and everyone on full zerker not an option.

Gaunlet is fine, but liadris was over the top due to some classes not being abke to dps from range properly.
If those visions werent in phase two it wod be much more doable than lucky crits.

Mosts people I know that completed it are eng and mesmers for a reason.

Ronah.2869, please seek employment with ANet, as ideas like yours would make for a REAL living world experience.

Firstly, I agree with the OP on most levels. While I enjoyed the QJ for the first day, I’ve taken a break from the game because there’s little to do in the open world.

In short (and I do this in short because everyone seems very anxious to post their opinion and most overlook short posts like these), I would just like to say this:

The “Living Story” updates are making the world less alive. They’re buffing small areas, but the rest of the open world remains a cold, dark abyss of Ascalon Soldiers, Centaurs, Skelks, Harpies, and Ettins. For the past while in my world completion, I’ve noticed very people who aren’t situated in LA (and DR for now) or by a Dungeon or Guild Mission poi. Events are empty, the world is dead. Because of Living Story.

I checked out the Frostgorge champion loop… How was this not expected? The Queensdale champion loop was already popular pre-patch. People were actually yelling “just spam 1 so everybody can get tag”. That’s a new low: zerging too hard. How has GW2 devolved this much?

TL;DR everyone’s comments, but I hope the gauntlet is sort of a bar test for where the game is going. I like fighting bosses with unique abilities and environments that make it a real challenge beyond DPS. I even like fighting the champs that have unique tactics like having to dodge till they are exhausted. I don’t like huge health pools, and if mechanics are going to replace commas and zeros in the long term, I’m all for it.

Since I have completed the personal story I feel completely disconnected from the game. All the new additions have nothing to do with the actual storyline and I am looking for connections but can’t find any. I’ve been playing GW1 since factions came out and enjoyed it a lot, because it had a consistent storyline with REAL threats. In GW2 it feels like there are no antagonists, nothing dangerous is happening. Sky pirates? Are you kidding me? I am sorry but that is just a cheap filling to create the illusion of real content being added. There are so many unanswered questions from GW1 that you could create 5 years worth of content from just using that but no, you will add useless enemies like steam-punk pirates and burning dredges, really? I am trying hard not to sound too harsh but these updates are just a complete waste of time and add nothing to the game and make the core world feel utterly dead.

Agree 100% with the OP. I played the game non-stop when it came out. I have not played for a long time. The original promise was something which we never experienced before. A constantly evolving game world which rewards exploration and adventure. What we got instead was carefully scripted events with lots of fanfare but little consequence.

I’ve said it before in this thread, and I’ll say it again: (an evolution of the) dynamic events are still the future of GW2, but for them to not degenerate into laggy, unfun zergfests, Anet will have to create anti-zerg mechanisms. They’ll have to create and polish mechanics that make (force) zergs to spread, especially with event scaling, so as to make sure that each dynamic encounter can be as interesting as a dungeon/ instance/ queen’s gauntlet encounter could be.

The meta event in southsun proves that in an unfortunate way. It’s hard, yes, but is it strategical? Every time I used to go there, when it was still populated, it was nothing more but a giant zergfest of hard-to-see one-hit kills.

Dynamic events just don’t work with zergs. Making them challenging, interesting or fun, while keeping the zerg there, will never work. As someone else said, it’ll either be too easy, or so hard that every player must play perfectly.

A scaling system that forces players to spread into many small groups of 5-ish would be great. Even better if some of those meta events happened at the same time as other meta events do somewhere else in another map, to further spread out the population. An event could spawn several mini-events across a large area of the map, demanding players to go to any of those points to complete an event – or even to initiate it.

Because it would be so much easier to create interesting content if the system can make sure there’s only 2-8 players doing a specific task, and not 25+.

One of the biggest obstacles to this, however, would be (the lack of) pre-planning. A zerg is an unorganized mess, but there’s certainly many organized players within it. Having an event requiring pre-planning before initiating could be a good idea, as long as it could “hand-hold” those player’s organization a bit. Incentivate players to form parties before an event starts. Warn them that they’ll have to spread. Guide each party to different sections of the area. This might seem crazy, but there could be a system that would mark the place of the map where each party would have to go, but no other players outside of that party or outside of a small group would be able to see it. Anyone could still contribute and help, but generally, instead of an universal “go there” orange circle on the map, the system could generate several personal orange circles, guiding the zergs to all sorts of different directions. Before an event starts, players would be able to choose where they would want to go.

“Should I prevent the assassin from reaching the NPC with crowd control, or should I defeat their boss near the cliff? The assassins will only stop spawing if the boss is killed, but the event will fail if the assassins kill the NPC.” After choosing one of the options, each player would be “guided” to their respective place with an orange circle marked on the map, but they could always change their “path” if they wished to. If both sides were successful, the event as a whole would universally reward all players. And if tehre were 15 players, or 20, or 35? The system would scale to create more “paths” to spread the zerg further, in addition to making each one harder with more champions.

And then, in situations where each small group of players could complete their own “personal” mini-event, they could help other players nearby to do the same, until all mini-events were finished. Then, again, the event as a whole would be successful, and it would reward all players involved, and spawn an universal chest, create a new event chain/ sequence, whatever.

Dynamic events need zerg-control mechanics.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thanks for the feedback

Here’s some feedback for you, Queens Jubilee SUX!.

I totally agree with your post, this is not what i was expecting after 7 years of GW1.

I think its pretty awesome, i enjoyed the story instance very much.
The Pavillion is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! kittenING BEAUTIFUL!!!!
The gauntlet is a very nice challenge.
It was such an awesome feeling after i beated Liadri the first Time
Never had such a feeling since my first Lupicus kill
Its very awesome, idk why there is so much whining about this, this is the Game! if you dont like it, dont play it! simple.
And btw there is much other content you can enjoy.

But ofc its not enough for todays human being, it will never be enough :P
If you get what you want, you want something else, if you get this, you want something else.. and so on.. stop wanting start enjoying
AND NOONE FORCES YOU TO PLAY!!!!

btw i realy wish more bosses like those legendarys in the events, in Dungeons!!!
Zerging it with 30-50ppl or whatever, makes it veery boring

something that became clear for me with this update: you can’t create challenging (= fun, at least for me) zerg-battles. It’s not possible.

Yes, enemies use anti-crowd control skills. Yes, many players (mostly melee) die during the battle. The fact is: it’s entirely possible to play as a ranged character and spam 1 the entire time. Maybe a few players need to put in some effort to defeat those champions in order to make the crowd win, but most players don’t have to do anything other than 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1.

I think Anet has done what’s possible to make those battles fun, but… meh imho. I’d rather have challenging battles with groups of 2-6 than zerg-battles since in small groups you really have the feeling of contributing. In small groups YOU make a difference. I don’t see that in zergfests.

So how would I proceed if I were a developer? Making sure that such large groups of players aren’t at the same place (which can mean a lot of things, like a different dimension in the same space e.g. etc) at a time. An idea:

example
Shatterer: defeated players respawn as crystal phantoms. Since Anet doesn’t want PvP in PvE environments those phantoms are invisible for the living human players. They can support the Shatterer though. They can heal Crystal champions by collecting human souls from player-corpses for example. They can “heal” the crystals which trap human players to heal the shatterer, so those won’t go down as fast also. etc etc. If the shatterer wins (or stays alive longer than x minutes) the player-phantoms get their own chest & reward too.
tl;dr: spread zergs into different groups, even different sides, and give those different objectives.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’ve said it before in this thread, and I’ll say it again: (an evolution of the) dynamic events are still the future of GW2, but for them to not degenerate into laggy, unfun zergfests, Anet will have to create anti-zerg mechanisms.

Party-wise this can be done really good. As you said different objectives seen only by certain parties. Also, randomizing objectives between solo players.

Imagine how battles with dragons would be fun when after entering dragon zone, each player would be randomly assigned to certain task – attack wings, attack dragon head on, support/defend artillery, fire artillery, fight reinforcements. If you wouldn’t do your job, you would get no reward. Each task could be some distance away to minimize low fps or even could be done in separate instances.
I’m sure that it is known the average number of players who fights dragon, so there should be no problem in optimizing each task (and scale it appropriately).

I really wanna see that Tyria expands to support smaller groups with wiser and more complex quests, events and challenges other than spamming #1. There is already many relaxing things to do, possibilities are superb – please use them!

I think that there should be done some work (PvE and WvW) to make melee characters more significant (maybe more anti-ranged mechanics should be added). With actual problems with new effect detail option, boss attacks (aoe) are barely visible. Dragon battles don’t support melee at all. IMO it must change!

While I am an avid fan of expanding greatly on the dynamic events in the actual world, I don’t think this particular event is as bad as people say it is.

• There’s Story, though it’s only an opening ceremony so far, there is someone behind the scenes attacking and we don’t know what that will lead to. I feel that this could potentially be very interesting. But yeah, s far I feel the story part for living story is missing. There’s very short living story parts for the last month and a half and I would lie to see more story to it.

• The Pavilion are itself is an area for people who like to kill and get loot. You’re not seriously going to expect people to go out in the world and experience all the events? I love to be that naive, but sadly most people go to the areas where they make the most money the fastest. This isn’t bad design.

• Mini games, I guess they are annoying to people. But some people certainly like them, I don’t see why it is such a bad thing. Other than that it seem pretty hard to defeat certain bosses with certain classes. ( Help, I need to think about my build for once.)

• Making Living story affect the whole game world or put in smaller changes over the course of time in the dynamic events will make the world change, however, I don’t see new rewards come up as easily. That is probably where champion loot will come in.

• Champion loot actually made the whole world more rewarding, except I believe people are too focussed on easy loot and easy times to actually see what has happened. I implore you to go out in groups of 5 and scale up a few of those Aetherblade Airship attacks on the balloons, and then continue that idea to other events as well, Anet has specifically mentioned Orr events will spawn champions once you get enough people together.

• There are many events that have “hidden” champions, because scaling doesn’t happen because players solo only in the world. It might be an idea for ArenaNet to let some champions in those dynamic events at random, except then you get players complain “This solo event isn’t soloable, QQ, whine whine”.

• The balloon events are actually very awesome to someone who actually likes exploring, wandering in the world. It didn’t particularly hit me as such at first, but once I figured out that events start to scale up, it became a sport to me to get my guild together in one area and search out the champions, and the scaling effects to champions. Whilst moving from balloon to balloon.

• People are super focussed on getting achievements, any achievement they cant get needs a nerf, any event that doesn’t give a proper reward is not worth your time. With that in mind, even though i agree with you, I don’t see it happening that the dynamic events change bit by bit because players don’t feel the need to search them up to do them (yet).

I don’t like this either.

Gizmo.8623:

Imagine how battles with dragons would be fun when after entering dragon zone, each player would be randomly assigned to certain task – attack wings, attack dragon head on, support/defend artillery, fire artillery, fight reinforcements. If you wouldn’t do your job, you would get no reward.

I like this idea very much. You’d have a different experience every time you do the encounter. They could also add random events that COULD happen to some objectives. For example: you got the job: defend the artillery. On one occasion there spawns a huge champion which you have to push away with knockbacks so that he doesn’t destroy the defense. On an other occasion the champion won’t spawn, but instead a friendly NPC champion comes along and you get the new job: storm the flanks and keep the NPC alive.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Gizmo.8623:

Imagine how battles with dragons would be fun when after entering dragon zone, each player would be randomly assigned to certain task – attack wings, attack dragon head on, support/defend artillery, fire artillery, fight reinforcements. If you wouldn’t do your job, you would get no reward.

I like this idea very much. You’d have a different experience every time you do the encounter. They could also add random events that COULD happen to some objectives. For example: you got the job: defend the artillery. On one occasion there spawns a huge champion which you have to push away with knockbacks so that he doesn’t destroy the defense. On an other occasion the champion won’t spawn, but instead a friendly NPC champion comes along and you get the new job: storm the flanks and keep the NPC alive.

That’s exactly what I have in mind – expanding DYNAMIC event system!
Imagine that we have 7 ppl in group and task – defending the artillery and huge abomination spawns which starts his slowly advance towards our big guns.
And we think: Aaaaaahkitten we got no necro with spectral wall to keep it away! Maybe mesmer could get new skill for this occasion: artillery illusion: abomination would be confused and with a little luck attack our illusion.

There’s so many possibilities, so many great uses of what we have now in game.

Devs should really stop ignoring this topic, posting only generic answers with no prospects of improvement. The very least that can be done is putting the gambit arena in a solo instance after the jubilee ends, and make the achievements be retroactively obtainable. The time given to get all the achievements is too short. I have real life obligations and cant spend 12 hours a day farming and wasting tickets and cogs. I know that people look down upon ones who want all the achievements, but if i cant get them, i dont know… might aswell stop playing (i have 2500 hours of playtime).. i just need it…

small idea about how to keep the gauntlet encounters after the living story update:

• each zone in the game gets one arena (which can also be used for 1vs.1 PvP duels)
• every day 5 random bosses spawn on any of the 25 maps and wander around.
• if you find one, you can talk to him and challenge him: he responds: "sure, we meet in the arena
• now you walk to the arena and queue up (in case duels are going on)
• the boss is now available to fight for you for 20minutes.
• he counts as a champion here too, so you get a champion lootbag for a win.
• the battle is not instanced, but only for you. Others can watch and cheer for you.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

• the battle is not instanced, but only for you. Others can watch and cheer for you.

Watching how other people fight bosses is very exciting and fresh. More!

This is the update i like the most after the mad king one but all this temporary content prevent me from enjoying the permanent one and this is sad.

Another problem is the queen’s gauntlets. It’s a good idea but it suffer from so many problems like having to run back to the arena.

I just wonder if in the coming weeks we will see an investigation under way with Logan leading. Anet has not given any sign of continuation of the incident during Logan’s duel with the robot.

Buffy.9246:

Queens Gauntlet is a fail in my eyes. Anet says all classes can kill every boss and do able with different builds. It’s been tested but its a flat out lie. If you are not a zerk for this you wont win. Any other builds other then zerk will run out of time and fall to your death. The final T3 boss is way 2 hard…I watched videos(showing mesmers only it seems) beating her and I do the exact same way, same skills and weapons, I still fail. Anet needs to take its time on these living stories instead of rushing to put them out in the game every 2 weeks. If they took the time, queens gauntlet prob would have been better instead of the skill lag, camera angle, super hard boss. I want that mini(i am collecting) but it looks like I will not be able to get this 1.

This isn’t true; I’m PVT and I won.

pavo.4371:

Devs should really stop ignoring this topic, posting only generic answers with no prospects of improvement.

Many times they have stated that they are listening and reading and are very busy with work so we shouldn’t expect to have dev come here and use much of his time answering to our pleas (or whatcha call it). It’s always nice but we should understand that and just write constructive feedback. Hope this thread is taken into consideration (fingers crossed).

I am having a total blast with this content. I enjoy the fact that there is new content every two weeks. It keeps the experience from going stale. Are the updates perfect, no. Do I enjoy all of them, no. But it’s nice to have something to look forward to. This update has been a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed the arena and chasing of the sky pirates. I haven’t enjoyed the gauntlet though. I suck at it.

FrizzFreston.5290:

• The Pavilion are itself is an area for people who like to kill and get loot. You’re not seriously going to expect people to go out in the world and experience all the events? I love to be that naive, but sadly most people go to the areas where they make the most money the fastest. This isn’t bad design.

Yes, most people choose the most efficient grind, despite whether or not they’re having fun. It’s Arenanet’s job to stop people from grinding until they burn out.

We’ve seen update after update turning things into dailies: karma jugs, ascended items, world bosses, dungeons, etc. They realize we overdose. However, they miss the mark when making new content. Crown Pavilion was touted as “anti-zerg” and “groups of 10-30 would be challenged”. They tried. They failed. That’s bad design.

Some people may like a relaxing, thoughtless grind. That’s fine. That playstyle just can’t create gold from NPCs because the inflation will affect every player, eventually forcing those that don’t want to grind to have to. Much less blues and greens and more emphasis on/uses for Karma is the answer to that. With multiple options like Lost Orrian Jewelry Box, Karma would be turned into gold through the trading post.

Gizmo.8623:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Gizmo.8623:

Imagine how battles with dragons would be fun when after entering dragon zone, each player would be randomly assigned to certain task – attack wings, attack dragon head on, support/defend artillery, fire artillery, fight reinforcements. If you wouldn’t do your job, you would get no reward.

I like this idea very much. You’d have a different experience every time you do the encounter. They could also add random events that COULD happen to some objectives. For example: you got the job: defend the artillery. On one occasion there spawns a huge champion which you have to push away with knockbacks so that he doesn’t destroy the defense. On an other occasion the champion won’t spawn, but instead a friendly NPC champion comes along and you get the new job: storm the flanks and keep the NPC alive.

That’s exactly what I have in mind – expanding DYNAMIC event system!
Imagine that we have 7 ppl in group and task – defending the artillery and huge abomination spawns which starts his slowly advance towards our big guns.
And we think: Aaaaaahkitten we got no necro with spectral wall to keep it away! Maybe mesmer could get new skill for this occasion: artillery illusion: abomination would be confused and with a little luck attack our illusion.

There’s so many possibilities, so many great uses of what we have now in game.

Scratch the “randomly assigned task” and you are on the right track. More complex Dynamic Events should require multiple, simultaneous responsibilities be met, with the way the zerg splits those responsibilities organically making the difference between victory and defeat.

The closest the game has to this is the Tequatl, the Sunless, Dynamic Event. The concept shown there needs to be further improved and then established as the minimum standard for World Boss encounters.

I hate to point to another MMO that failed on many levels for a positive example, but in the recent MMO Defiance, there are some extremely fun and well Designed Ark Fall events that are fun, scale very well to the zerg, require the zerg to split among elements and often culminate in very satisfying Mega Boss events. The combat mechanics make the actual combat, at the individual player level, a lot less dynamic and interesting than in GW2, but they still managed to make much better World Encounters that scale to accommodate zergs.

In any event, I hope most see beyond the Shinies and can appreciate that The Queen’s Pavilion, a small circle split into pie pieces and designed to offer rotating, mindless, zerg-fest fights against bosses that are only bosses because they have a ton of hit points, really is a new low in modern MMO content design. ANet is much better than this.

It occured to me that maybe to eliminate zerg we should simply have to activate more than 2 bosses (so let’s say 4) and redefine the scaling:
1-10 – normal, challenging
11-15 – very hard, boss is much more demanding
16+ – boss is so hard that is not worth the effort.

This way zerg would have to split and every fight would require this smaller group to coordinate much more.

ttyl.6021:

FrizzFreston.5290:

• The Pavilion are itself is an area for people who like to kill and get loot. You’re not seriously going to expect people to go out in the world and experience all the events? I love to be that naive, but sadly most people go to the areas where they make the most money the fastest. This isn’t bad design.

Yes, most people choose the most efficient grind, despite whether or not they’re having fun. It’s Arenanet’s job to stop people from grinding until they burn out.

We’ve seen update after update turning things into dailies: karma jugs, ascended items, world bosses, dungeons, etc. They realize we overdose. However, they miss the mark when making new content. Crown Pavilion was touted as “anti-zerg” and “groups of 10-30 would be challenged”. They tried. They failed. That’s bad design.

Some people may like a relaxing, thoughtless grind. That’s fine. That playstyle just can’t create gold from NPCs because the inflation will affect every player, eventually forcing those that don’t want to grind to have to. Much less blues and greens and more emphasis on/uses for Karma is the answer to that. With multiple options like Lost Orrian Jewelry Box, Karma would be turned into gold through the trading post.

I think you hit the mark pretty squarely with your post.

A problem, though, is that ANet will have to really except a changing of their ways before we will see it happen. For what ever reason, they have proven to be absolutely loathe to giving players new, meaningful rewards for previously accumulated currencies. We would have been much better off if most of the new currencies had never been introduced and most of the new rewards had just been tied to Karma.

We are now in the situation that many don’t even bother to try to accumulate new, event related currencies because they know they won’t actually earn enough to buy what they want before the time expires to earn that currency.

Gizmo.8623:

Many times they have stated that they are listening and reading and are very busy with work so we shouldn’t expect to have dev come here and use much of his time answering

Somehow I would expect those responsible for recent updates should soon have lots of free time…

I personally only notice every update being worse than the one before. So sad for such a great core game. Creating temporary content was the worst decision to begin with, having this content up for only two weeks was the second worst. Encouraging grinding in farm raids in the new content area (and low level areas) hopefully is just a temporary issue…

The current update has so many flaws and most of them were mentioned in this thread, I guess. My overall main complaint about the state of the game is, that it becomes more and more a second job, if you want to get all the points and complete all the content. I want to play a game to relax and to enjoy; something I did for months with GW2 – but with every step of the “living” story enjoyment is replaced by compulsion.

And yet I still have hope – but it’s a very weak flame of hope to be kindled here…

Gizmo.8623:

pavo.4371:

Devs should really stop ignoring this topic, posting only generic answers with no prospects of improvement.

Many times they have stated that they are listening and reading and are very busy with work so we shouldn’t expect to have dev come here and use much of his time answering to our pleas (or whatcha call it). It’s always nice but we should understand that and just write constructive feedback. Hope this thread is taken into consideration (fingers crossed).

A little communication can go a long way. The random dev comments, sometimes on some very specific areas of concern, add a lot to the relationship between the Devs and the Players.

I think in this case and for some other big picture issues, it’s a lot harder for them to comment, because what are they actually going to say? If they defend what many consider indefensible, it just makes people more angry. A Mea Culpa and commitment to change what’s broken in the process would be awesome, but that pre-supposes they actually have a change of heart and are willing to change direction for their ongoing development efforts.

Unfortunately, since they seem to be starting from a point so far away from those expressing concerns in this thread, to the point of being proud of content some of us see as a new low, it’s probably going to take a lot of ongoing pressure and measurable drop offs in player participation before they will make the desired course change.

I see the current direction as being detrimental to the game in the near term and potentially game breaking the further down this false rabbit hole the developers plummet.

If the studio was already split between Living Story and actual, substantive evolution of Dynamic Event content in the greater game world, then there is hope. If most of the Developers drank the cool-aid and believe content like this paves the way to success and salvation, then things will probably have to get a lot worse before they get better. Worse still would be if they sort of see the mistake, but are just too stubborn to admit they were wrong and proceed to double down on a failed strategy. In that case, there may not be much hope at all.

We sort of need a “that was all just the result of a fevered dream” sort of moment, with a resulting radical change of direction, but the developers need to actually wake up.

I have been thinking that this might be a good time for a comprehensive player survey via Arenanet, sort of like what they did after Southsun, but with more, (less-leading), questions to get a clearer picture.

IMO, that should have been something that was ongoing, at least every three months, but also in response to issues that have gained a lot of traction in the community.

Ok just gonna say that i didn’t read most of the comments and apologies to anyone if i say something that has already been said in this thread.

I totally agree with OP, this is definitely the worst Living Story so far. I am not talking about the new permanent content such as the champion loot or changes to dungeons, I am talking about the entire “Queen’s Jubilee” story. It seems as though the crew responsible for this one didn’t really think it through, and it turned out just as much as another holiday event with even less content…At least with Dragon Bash we didn’t know what to expect, there was some intrigue, things were unfolding slowly, while this one ends up being just another “Oh noes, aetherblades crash yet ANOTHER party…”. I am personally sick of poorly designed holiday events and sick of the aetherblades that we still know barely anything about other than they like to crash parties and whatnot. As for the holiday events, don’t get me wrong, I love them, but there is a time and a place, i loved the Halloween event, because it was what i thought holiday content should be, mostly separated from the “day-to-day” outside world, but yet so involved in it that you can’t help but be amazed by the little things that were happening like the statue blowing up and the dungeon which was so relaxed and at the same time challenging, felt like a perfect mix. The tower, some may disagree, but at first i hated it with passion because i was always running out of time, missing this or that jump, but after i made it the first time it was so much fun that i went in afterwards and done it a couple of times again just for the fun of it. Wintersday was a pure holiday event, it lacked the story, but the content was beautiful nonetheless, but it brought a trend i don’t like at all, that’s the content being too much involved in the “day-to-day” world.

I can only exclude the Flame & frost living story out of this, but the things like “go out and run around the entire map so you can do x at y random/fixed locations around the world” isn’t fun for anyone. It just ends up being a waste of money for the waypoints, and it’s happening ever increasingly, it’s seriously getting dull. At least the candy corn nodes were a little different than these balloon towers providing two types of events: escorts, which people seem to avoid because of the length, and kill aetherblades, go kill and run back, doesn’t seem like fun to anyone… And don’t get me started on the “winner and champion” events, where people basically camped in front of a balloon waiting for all 5 to rotate…

But, the things above aren’t nearly as bad as the bug-filled gauntlet, which isn’t a challenge at all, just a way for them to provide something for people who have a desire to show-off that they are in some way better than someone else, basically a way to shut up people with a desire for hardcore or end-game content by giving us something that isn’t either of that, but for some people i can see that it worked.

And for the thing that annoyed me the most, and one I shall be happy to put as my closing, the whole focus of this event, which is celebration of an anniversary of a queen’s rule. Can anyone just answer why, just why, should any of the other 4 races care about this at all? I can understand somewhat the charr, since she is responsible for the peace negotiations, but that doesn’t at all seem like a good enough excuse why it should be important to them. But apparently we have to appease the human population, which, at least on my server is the highest among all player characters. As much as I’d like that, seeing as we can all celebrate the human queen, we should then reopen UW and FoW, who cares if charrs don’t believe in gods, it’s important that humans do…

A-net should just open a test server. This would provide them with much more feedback before their updates go live. I’m not sure how this would work though, since every update for Living Story is every 2 weeks.

So, Queens Jubilee…
I loved the opening ceremony, until the Aetherblade Pirates were involved in the scheme, because, lets face it, they’re an overused plot device, quickly thrown in and just as quickly pulled out, without adding any depth to the story at all, which is beginning to give them a very ‘Team Rocket’ feel. Their leader has been imprisoned, their base ransacked, so why are they still such a big threat? If they really are of consequence, I would like to see why. More then that, why don’t they have a place in the world map like the other pirate crews? Aside from the jumping puzzle they don’t exist outside living story, and then they come with such a force one would think there’s an entire nation of them hidden.

As for the Queen’s gauntlet; I realize that there should be a challenge to achievements, to make players feel like they earned them, so that they cant boast to other players… however Achievements should not be impossible, or difficult to such a point that players simply hate playing the game. Is that what you really want? Rage quitters? You might say that there should be content for advanced players to enjoy, however that does not mean it should be limited to only advanced players. If there is a boss, I should to be able to fight it, if there is an achievement I should to be able to obtain it, if there is a reward, I should be able to win it; regardless of whether I’m the most skilled player online or simply a casual one. Now im not saying everything should be given to us, or that there should be no difficulty at all, but content should be available to all players of all skill levels, because we don’t play GW2 just to be aggravated and annoyed to the point of rage quitting. As in all games, we play to have fun. And sure, you can tell me that I don’t “have to play this content,” but the content exist, its an experience that as players, we want to be part of and enjoy. So its wrong to lower a bar over who is able to do so.

This being said, I pay a fair penny on Gems… more than a right-minded man should do so, and all I ask in return, is that you make fun and interesting content.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

however Achievements should not be impossible, or difficult to such a point that players simply hate playing the game. Is that what you really want? Rage quitters?

You might say that there should be content for advanced players to enjoy, however that does not mean it should be limited to only advanced players. If there is a boss, I should to be able to fight it, if there is an achievement I should to be able to obtain it, if there is a reward, I should be able to win it; regardless of whether I’m the most skilled player online or simply a casual one.

Now im not saying everything should be given to us, or that there should be no difficulty at all, but content should be available to all players of all skill levels, because we don’t play GW2 just to be aggravated and annoyed to the point of rage quitting. As in all games, we play to have fun. And sure, you can tell me that I don’t “have to play this content,” but the content exist, its an experience that as players, we want to be part of and enjoy. So its wrong to lower a bar over who is able to do so.

First of all, if you make achievements which can be achieved by every player, you can’t make challenging achievements. There will always be bad players who can’t beat a normal veteran alone… I definitely don’t want that. I want challenging achievements where you might hate the game at a point, but overcome your weakness by becoming better through trying out different builds, different things until you finally get it. Then you truly can be proud of your achievement.

99% of the achievements already can be achieved by investing time, without the need for skill. This is not fun for players who invest time to become better. I can’t show that I am better now than before.

About your next statement: you are talking about gating. You want that everyone has access from the get go to the last tier in Queens Gauntlet – the last boss? Am I right? Well I’m not sure if this would be a good idea. There could be a design where you choose the bosses from a list, where everyone is unlocked from the beginning. You’d get the achievement / mini for defeating every boss on the list. Hmm. I think this would be more frustrating to bad players; they’d try a lot of difficult bosses and fail instead of slowly experiencing the weak bosses first.

I agree though that this gating should not exist in bigger content-parts like dungeons. Zones do have such a gating system, it’s called levels. You can’t play through Orr in the first minutes you play the game. Your character has to become strong enough / you as a player has to go through an environment which becomes increasingly more difficult so that bad players won’t stop playing the game out of frustration.

I’m sure that a player who want’s to become stronger and learns how to play the game has a fair chance to beat any of QGs bosses. It’s just a matter of getting the mechanic, there’s a trick to every(?) encounter.

In that case, rather than tiers, why not impose skill levels? For example you could fight Linadri at lvl 1 for casual players (akin to tier one bosses); lvl 2 for skilled players who want a bit of a challenge, but are not within the 5/75 category that are able to complete queen’s gauntlet (similar to tier 2 bosses); and then lvl 3, for players who wish to ascend to godhood (the power of tier 3 bosses). If it were structured that way, everyone would be able to face the bosses and complete the meta, but the most skilled players could still experience the challenge they desire. The higher lvl the boss you face, the higher the pay out could be, or even titles could be awarded.