Guild Wars 2

Heya people thank you for comming over here,

Today i’d like to talk/discuss with you about the Living story 2.

I definatly enjoyed it, i definatly feel its too short and i definatly believe anet couldve done that little bit more. (will explain later on its nothing terrible since i loved the LS2 but just a small tweak they should add in to these updates wich im sure will not take too much time, but for now read on.)

As we, the community of guildwars2 forums, all agree on.

Hold on..

As we the community of the guildwars 2 forums, partially agree on…

Wait, wait thats not it either.

As we the community of the guildwars 2 forums, the cassuals agree on..

Now im forgetting the hardcore…

Jeez i cant do this right can i?

And here you go my entire explanation of why guildwars 2 is in the state its in.
Guildwars 2’s community is in its essence always in conflict with itself.

The hardcore vs the cassual.
The people who have no life who play video games all day versus the people who dont have a life who work all day.
And they both want to be cattered to. The dillemma of why guildwars is what it is today.

Being a hardcore gamer myself, ive always raged when there was nothing to do ingame after ive gotten everything i wanted. There was no ‘endgame’ content except getting the gamble weapons, yes im talking about legendaries. and if youd have them all the only things you could do is roam around a bit, fighting the same bosses over and over again, where you already know the first 10 minutes of how the fight will go and where you will need to be to avoid every attack whilst still making your max dps gear do the maximum possible damage. for the reason to quickly kill it and get some more gold to hopefully spend it on something interesting in the new LS or gemstore at the next release. (and im talking with a rose tinted glass here) since most people i know who have legendaries just spam ‘im bored’ in chat or sit in LA afking waiting for something to do. The ‘might aswell do fractals then’ mindset.

Cassuals will say those people miss the point and those people need to find a.. hobby?…
(Isnt gaming a hobby?)

And in the end guildwars2 will totally ignore those peoples complaints, not because they are mean, not because they dont see, its because they want to deliver quality. Thats what cassuals want in the end. while the majority of hardcore gamers want quality quantity.
To be fair you cant have both, its, quality vs quantity.

TBC…

The essence.
Imagine your arenanet, you have a small team working for you who work there kitten off to get some good quality content ingame. get some gemstore items for potential profit and fix bugs/balance etc.
Youve worked all month on designing a new map as a team and your deadline is comming soon. you want it to be polished just like the story that will be folded out in the map. You dont want to instantly release the entirety of the map so you can still build around more of the story on other parts of the map and deliver a quality fun playstyle with a nice story line. (i really loved the idea of the zepyrite crystals scattered on a big open map wich you needed to use to explore the content.) This takes time.

And there it is the big release where your reaping the fruits of the labor. You go for a stroll on the forums to see how the community reacts to your insane work and hope they are all very happy and pleased with this new form of free content. But then you actually start reading the titles alone;

‘LS2 WAS BAD’ ‘IT WAS TOO SHORT’ ‘I JUST DONT LIKE IT’

And there you are, again, Anet, people didnt like the content you came up with again. You didnt catter to the community again… You look for people who actually liked the content and you start reading what they have to say, ‘MEH NOT BAD’ And you feel somewhat accomplished that regardless of the nay sayers there are still people who like the effort you put in the game. Then you keep reading and the next comment says; “WHERE IS MY BALANCE WTF ANET WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Then you see people all commenting on it agreeing with the balanceboy. And you decide to turn an eye again. not because you dont want to balance the game, its because you want to make the game more fun catter the people who want new content. And actually stay with your promise of adding updates and adding to the game in general.

You dont want this game to die out, you want people to enjoy playing. And you want to keep your job. But atleast there are some people defending your work, the cassuals.
Who actually see the beauty of the game and how its new mechanics work in the new map.

So now your on a crossroad Anet, do you catter the people who constantly complain or the people who enjoy the game. Well we all know the awnser to that.

So cassuals it is, they want all content to be easily accesible, so you give them that. with a small spice of ‘hardcoreism’ with the crystals

Me as a hardcore player, i like the quality content i like the story line of LS2. But what i really dont like is the idea of hardcore people having nothing to do again.
Yes for me too it was a stroll in the themepark watching a new attraction get opened. waited inline, and eventually played 3 hours through it. and then suddenly it finished again ‘gee im sorry seems youll have to wait a month again to the teaser release we gave out’ is literally what i imagined anet to think.

Not because the content is bad, Not because it was so ‘short’, it was because there was nothing left to do. Yeah sure i can farm for an armorset ill never use or add some extra spices in my soup to grant a bit more of almost exacly the same. But lets get reall there is no reall point in doing that.

So what do I, the hardcore player, wanted then? I wanted a new pair of boots skin wich would take me a month to farm to atleast feel like im still progressing in some areas. Wich i cant imagine would be hard to add. Just give the hardcore people 1 or 2 ascended recipes with UNIQUE skins(no more backpacks since i cant equip more then 1) wich would need stuff like geodes so id have to play the new map to get it. Ofcourse people will complain about having to farm for a skin. But thats the least bit of relief someone playing this hardcore would need.
But to neglect an entire part of the playerbase because the other playerbase wants it all?

I feel there should be a balance in every update where they catter cassuals and hardcore alike. sometimes the emphasis on cassual sometimes on hardcore. But atleast give something to do to both parties. I feel thats quite lackluster in this last update. The only thing it did to progress is to let cassuals play more skillbased. with a really really slow learning curve.

Also give all the guildwars 2’s hobos a home! We want a housing addition (all player bases btw)

So in the end my final gist of this patch

I loved it, i really really did enjoy this patch, gave some really cool fresh ideas with the crystals and the dessert sandstorm(darude) was really awesome to see added in. The storyline after hearing scarletts name for the 1000th time i really did enjoy it, and didnt even mind it was also about scarlett at all. For the next time the only thing i still needed was something to work towards, wich i didnt get. And i know you can do it, make certain armor skins available on certain maps only.

Never forget, housing! Keep saying it community so we will eventually persuade them!

By that definition you just stated, I would be a hardcore casual….

I am rank 80 in PvP and part of the top 1% in PvP, so in theory I am a hardcore PvP player

But I only play about 20 hours a week and most of that is on weekends. I don’t play 60 hours a week or 12 hours a day like your definition of hardcore is.

I think some of what you say is just nonsense, OP.

There are achievements to acquire in the game – associated with the Living Story.

The story itself is not going to get more difficult or longer to satisfy any segment of the playerbase, ANet designed AP so you can be happy. If you don’t want to do the “hardcore” content they offer you, that’s your prerogative – nobody else’s.

I found the LS2 to be a success so far. The story was immersive (short, but immersive – and why shouldn’t it be short? It’s like an episode of a TV series – it only runs for 22-48 minutes per week anyway), it wasn’t stupidly short like Season 1 where the “Living Story” was like two sentences for two weeks. Like, we wont’ tell a chapter at a time – just a paragraph.

So…I don’t know. I think you need to find the prerogative in yourself to enjoy doing the achievements or to go explore other aspects of the game still – have you acquired every Legendary? Have you maxed all of the PvP tracks? There’s a lot do in the game for somebody who will take the responsibility to know that not everything is tailored exactly to their wants and needs and sometimes stuff just doesn’t work for you but it works for others.

You might have a problem with the Living Story being casual – but I think that’s exactly how it should be.

as someone who is as casual as anyone can get, i can say that casuals have plenty to do, just not in the LS or events.
for my perspective Anet only cares about hardcore players, proven with their “tournament” to rush a dungeon as fast as possible, something only hardcore gamers do.

i do agree that i like to see quality and Anet doesn’t get to the level of quality i am used to in the original guild wars, being an environmental artist my self (mapper) i find most maps they made and make quite low in quality and lacks immersion so much.
it doesn’t have the natural feeling i have when playing games like farcry 2/3 or skyrim/oblivion, to flat with some rocks to cover the flatness of the map.

beside the maps, their idea of a LS makes me wonder why they like this coaster so much, it’s not even living at all and the story has allot to desire.
when they released the mission bonus pack for GW1 it gave us more back story, it’s not the best but still, it has some merit and it doesn’t have a bad story at all.
in every chapter the story literally evolved more and more, engaging players to play further and get interested in the story.

the LS however is so plain that i gave up even carring, watching paint dry has a better story behind it then getting trough this white paper.
heck, even the process of making paper is more interesting…

i had hope that Anet would look back and see what they did right in GW1, all they did was looking at their mistakes and tried to improve it by using the same mistakes in the LS.
if they make the game more interesting with improvements within the battle system (fix the darn targeting system), make the world look so good that we want to explore the world and improve the story telling with fun-to-do (still objective) objectives we would be allot happier to play the game and yes, even pay for gems with real money.

good game=happy players=willing to pay more=profit
broken game=unhappy players=players rather leave=loss

Someone says why shouldnt it be short and I say because we were seemed to be promised much more expansive LS" content updates and less frequent than LS1 but this seems to be back to the best LS1 content standards as does the frequency of 2 weekly. However because its been 5 months of repeated festival content in between this to me is too little content and not enough to hold my attention more than 2 days and it doesn’t really inspire group play either.

I don’t really consider myself either party since I have plenty of time to game I just choose not to actively play and thus dry up every last bit of content I have yet to do in the game.

From my PoV one of GW2’s biggest failings is story vs content, the story has delivered well but the content that comes with it as a consequence feels very hallow.

How to explain this:

Episode one of LS 2 feels great for its storytelling, its like an episode of wolf among us, well paced, exciting, and driving.

Then you finish it.

…And…. you do… what?

The problem I have with this update as I keep playing is that I find the content is so empty that I don’t really see any reason to do anything but go back to role-playing in a capital until the time passes.

I don’t think that LS2 is a failure, but I do fear that if this is the way future seasons will be done, the value will dry fast.

However, I blame the achievement system ever since WoW introduced it mainstream for the fault of making content extremely lackluster because achievements are the BANE of development.

Achievements are the reason that MMO’s in general fail to have any decent content, for the hardcore they are kitten points for the casual they are mini challenges, but what do they come at the cost of?

Actual content.

They don’t actually offer you anything you didn’t ‘already’ have, they are just bragging points for the sake of bragging and as a consequence, take them away for five minutes, and what are you left with?

Nothing.

You realize rather fast how hallow the content is.

This is why achievements in general are just a dumb idea, instead of achievements focus on adding “chunky” levels of content, should that mean pushing back time to add more and work more heavily on specific content updates? Yes, it should, because id rather have a long developed update with a lot of content to look forwards too than one I can finish in 2 hours and be bored kicking the dirt wondering “what next”?

And what kind of content do you ask?

- More bosses, with mega server friendly difficulty but perhaps some challenge or optional hard mode to make them more rewarding.
- Player Housing, which might require actively going into the world to retrieve house assets that can only be attained by re-doing the heart quests multiple times to unlock tiered layers of house assets.
- Guild Alliances, for smaller guilds struggling to survive and larger guilds eager for assistance to help them do missions.
- Guild V Guild
- Refined Dungeon and Fractal system.
- Changing how achievement based armor sets are unlocked from kitten points to something that requires actual long term work to earn but can be done within the span of a year.
- While adding the next tier the year after.

hannah mee.7925:

I think some of what you say is just nonsense, OP.

There are achievements to acquire in the game – associated with the Living Story.

The story itself is not going to get more difficult or longer to satisfy any segment of the playerbase, ANet designed AP so you can be happy. If you don’t want to do the “hardcore” content they offer you, that’s your prerogative – nobody else’s.

I found the LS2 to be a success so far. The story was immersive (short, but immersive – and why shouldn’t it be short? It’s like an episode of a TV series – it only runs for 22-48 minutes per week anyway), it wasn’t stupidly short like Season 1 where the “Living Story” was like two sentences for two weeks. Like, we wont’ tell a chapter at a time – just a paragraph.

So…I don’t know. I think you need to find the prerogative in yourself to enjoy doing the achievements or to go explore other aspects of the game still – have you acquired every Legendary? Have you maxed all of the PvP tracks? There’s a lot do in the game for somebody who will take the responsibility to know that not everything is tailored exactly to their wants and needs and sometimes stuff just doesn’t work for you but it works for others.

You might have a problem with the Living Story being casual – but I think that’s exactly how it should be.

Why shouldnt it be short? because what the hell am i playing this game for then!?
So i can play some 5 min content every kitten month!?

Please this is BAD not GOOD, i dont watch tv because of the inane stupid stuff on it, its always the same kitten and i dont understand why people bother to watch series at all, theyr predictable or vague and non enjoyable. stupid plottwists with no reall reasoning and worst of all they drag you on and on about some stupid ‘plot’ where they constantly deviate from, so you need to watch it till the end to finally get some interesting ‘story’ or even see an end to the story wich was totally deviated from (see fillers) If id want to watch a story id watch a movie not some stupid every week series.

AP you must be joking why the hell would i try to get more AP? what does it add? some extra gems and a skin wich noone wants every 4 months? Thats not hardcore ‘hard to get content’ thats for stupid people wasting time away in a game with no reall content if its supposed to be ‘hardcore’ content.

And pvp is seriously way too unbalanced and lacking why the hell would i want to be in that no balance no skill setting in Guildwars? because ive done everything and theres no other reason but to literally waste my time more? No thanks.
Already tried it got rank 43 then just gave up since there wont ever be good balance since there isnt a dedicated team for that and noone is bothering with it. So dont let me get started on that.

The fact is and remains that there is no reall content for hardcore people. if you play gw2 for 7 days a week 24/7 ill bet your kitten off that youd be bored in less then a week.

Ps. i dont want a legendary to start with, and the only reason why i would get it is if id saved up enough money because there is no reall content to spend it on.

ErazorZ.5209:

The essence.
Imagine your arenanet, you have a small team working for you who work there kitten off to get some good quality content ingame. get some gemstore items for potential profit and fix bugs/balance etc.
Youve worked all month on designing a new map as a team and your deadline is comming soon. you want it to be polished just like the story that will be folded out in the map. You dont want to instantly release the entirety of the map so you can still build around more of the story on other parts of the map and deliver a quality fun playstyle with a nice story line. (i really loved the idea of the zepyrite crystals scattered on a big open map wich you needed to use to explore the content.) This takes time.

And there it is the big release where your reaping the fruits of the labor. You go for a stroll on the forums to see how the community reacts to your insane work and hope they are all very happy and pleased with this new form of free content. But then you actually start reading the titles alone;

‘LS2 WAS BAD’ ‘IT WAS TOO SHORT’ ‘I JUST DONT LIKE IT’

they had all of WvW season and another month to make more content than this. Even with a few people it could have been more easily.

You put 4 players (not even devs) in EQ Landmark with unlimited access to claims, they could build a zone that’s 400 times bigger than the living story in much less time. There wasn’t anything added to this for balance (or in any sizable measurement).

while I appreciate what they put out (the fact they put it out, not the fact some updates have been atrocious with bugs and now this hilarious lag that makes the new zone unplayable (may or may not be their fault)), they made this update way too short for the build up.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

This is why achievements in general are just a dumb idea, instead of achievements focus on adding “chunky” levels of content, should that mean pushing back time to add more and work more heavily on specific content updates? Yes, it should, because id rather have a long developed update with a lot of content to look forwards too than one I can finish in 2 hours and be bored kicking the dirt wondering “what next”?

And what kind of content do you ask?

- More bosses, with mega server friendly difficulty but perhaps some challenge or optional hard mode to make them more rewarding.
- Player Housing, which might require actively going into the world to retrieve house assets that can only be attained by re-doing the heart quests multiple times to unlock tiered layers of house assets.
- Guild Alliances, for smaller guilds struggling to survive and larger guilds eager for assistance to help them do missions.
- Guild V Guild
- Refined Dungeon and Fractal system.
- Changing how achievement based armor sets are unlocked from kitten points to something that requires actual long term work to earn but can be done within the span of a year.
- While adding the next tier the year after.

1. achievements aren’t dumb
2. whether or not there are achievements, it would not affect the size of content released.
3. None of that stuff in that list will happen, including a revamp of WvW to make it better than zerg fests and coverage.

AP skins are a pain to get if you dont’ play a lot anyways and even more of a pain if you do play a lot. How many have the boots/legs/chest? Thats what over a year and a half of some people playing non stop and still don’t have 20K+ AP. Pretty sure its already balanced well except that it forces you to pick the same skins within the 3-18k range. What if i don’t want the stupid radiant helm? i am forced to take it. Rather they allow you to pick any piece of the hellfire/radiant as you gain the 3K APs.

They don’t need more bosses. They need no mega servers. They just need to scale bosses to the amount of people there or by server overall population. Mega servers are horrendous. You can’t do guild missions without having to “Join on” half the people. You rarely see fellow, in my case, Blackgate people (insert home server here). Its just a mess.

Achievements are actually meaningless if you ask me, it literally does nothing for your character except give you some random skins most people really dont care about. And the way to get achievementpoints ussually consists out of doing your dailies and maybe a jumping puzzle dependant on meta event…

Its not special at all, it only showcases howlong you are playing, not how skilled you are or whatever. Most AP are really easy to get…