Guild Wars 2

After today’s update (Sept. 9) the next step of each of my Character’s personal story is no longer displayed on the UI in the top right corner of the screen, nor does the little green emblem showing the next personal story location seem to show up anywhere on the map. This has me stumped at what I’m supposed to do for the next step of the personal story.

Is there an option somewhere I need to re-enable so that the personal story prompt will re-appear in the top right as was the case prior to the patch?

So using my thief as an example, who is level 64. I did the level 62 personal quest this past weekend, and my next step was (I believe) indicated as level 64. I think the next quest was “Shell Shock” and was supposed to start in Mount Maelstom. When I log my thief in tonight, even though he is the exact level that was previously assigned to this quest, nothing is displayed.

Is there a list somewhere of the new level ranges for each story chapter? I don’t understand what the benefit to this change is? I really enjoyed having a new personal story quest every few levels.

When I log my thief in tonight, the UI (in the top right) just points me to the nearest heart quest.

Edit: I checked each of my four characters, and this change has impacted three of them. My 64 Thief (as noted above), my 35 elementalist, and my 12 ranger. The only character with the personal story quest UI still showing the same quest in the top-right is my level 80 guardian.

I have always stayed current, or nearly so, with the personal story quests with each of my characters, and honestly found this to be the most enjoyable aspect of the game. If this change is a “feature” (deliberate design decision) and not a “bug”, I am disappointed. . .

I am experiencing a similar issue. My character is level 78 and I had just finished a level 72 mission(Temple of The Forgotten God) and I now no longer have the ability to pursue the next step in the story. This happened after the update.

Quests will be grouped together and unlocked at the highest level episode of that arc. Thus, Personal Story episodes 1-10 will be grouped together and unlocked at Level 10. PS episodes 51-60 will be grouped together and unlocked at Level 60. PS episodes from levels 70 through 80 have been shuffled around and work a bit differently, but one set is unlocked at Level 80. You can probably find the information in the Wiki soon, if it’s not already there.

Good luck.

I would say that I found the steady pace of personal story questions (every 2-3 levels) to be one of my favorite aspects of the game. I am a casual player who might gain 1-3 levels per week with a character. The previous set-up allowed me to consume the personal story in very well-designed “bite-sized” chunks.

I am very disappointed in this change. Now there will be a big “chunk” of story all together, followed by 10 levels of less interesting content before more personal story is again available.

Edit: I wanted to add that this change seems to me to only penalize players. If a player was previously “frustrated” with the personal story being broken up, they could simply have waited until level 10, 20, 30, etc and then completed a chapter all at once, the same as the new design. This new design seems only to penalize players (like me) who enjoyed consuming the personal story content along the way, at the designed level.

So um, if now I can only unlock the 70-80 missions when I hit 80… what is exactly the point of doing story seeing that max level is 80? Just curious.

Now that story lines are being unlocked every ten levels will I have to do the quests that I’ve already done over again?? for instance I had just completed the level 76 Mouth of Zhaitan quest, but now my journal says I’m several quests back?

I’d also like to point out how redundant this change to the game is.. The story line Way Points always at least for me would be in further areas of the map. You had to explore and do challenges along the way just to get to them, giving the game a good feel. Who wants to go back over several areas of the map you have already explored?? It takes so much away from the “STORY” of the story quests.. who thought of this change??..lol

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Previously, a lot of players found it very frustrating to have to interrupt the story steps to level up constantly to keep up.

I fail to understand how this system fixed it. You’re still interrupting the story steps and for longer periods of time. In my opinion, this system is worse since players are more bound to forget what had happened in the previous story steps. Logic these days.

Yes except if you wanted to do them anyways even if you weren’t “at the specified levels” you are now blocked from doing so, correct?

I still don’t feel as though this is a positive change. The system wasn’t broken before and as the saying goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. I don’t know how many people were against the previous system but since it is the first time I have heard of it, I want to say it was a small percentile. Other things like the megaserver received much more negative feedback which should warrant a repeal but this is not the time nor thread for that.

All in all, I don’t think this was a logical/necessary change. Enough of my griping though.

As a new player who had the green marker to start my quest last night, and to log in today to move toward the marker only for it to be gone was frustrating. I knew I had to go to my home instance for Quinn so I looked around the instance for much longer than I would like to admit since I thought the marker being gone was a glitch. How unfortunate… Unimpressed with this new system of “all quests at once at X level” and a bad first impression of the game. At the very least under “Story Journal” where my quests show (for My Story), you could put “Unlock at X Level” instead of it sitting there like it’s available. I tried all sorts of clicking on the quest I had available last night thinking I was doing something wrong.

Edit: After looking I can now see above the first quest I already completed with a green check mark it informs me I cannot access the next quests until level 10. Too bad I was so focused on the quest below that once that needed to be done…

Wait. That means that you do all the Zhaitan areas… and then you have to go BACK to Fort Trinity and do the missions. That’s backwards and inefficient. Put it back the way it was, please. You’ve broken the story context in relation to your level. Or at least have the 8th story at 70, 7th story at 60, 6th story at 50, etc. That would at least fit with the story more. As it stands now all my characters have a 10 level deadzone with no story missions – all my characters are now 10 levels too low for their PRESENT mission. You are PENALIZING us for playing the game before now. This means you’ve done it wrong. Honestly I don’t see the problem with how it WAS. But if I started the first part of a mission in the previous story system… and now am 10 levels too low for it… you’ve done something wrong in how you’ve fit the stories to the levels.

How it is now:
Arc1. Level 10
Arc2. Level 20
Arc3. Level 30
Arc4. Level 40
Arc5. Level 50
Arc6. Level 60
Arc7. Level 70
Arc8. Level 80

How it should be:
Arc1. Level 1
Arc2. Level 10
Arc3. Level 20
Arc4. Level 30
Arc5. Level 40
Arc6. Level 50
Arc7. Level 60
Arc8. Level 70

That’s my compromise. I’d prefer you just put it back how it was.

Mitha.7039:

How it is now:
Arc1. Level 10
Arc2. Level 20
Arc3. Level 30
Arc4. Level 40
Arc5. Level 50
Arc6. Level 60
Arc7. Level 70
Arc8. Level 80

How it should be:
Arc1. Level 1
Arc2. Level 10
Arc3. Level 20
Arc4. Level 30
Arc5. Level 40
Arc6. Level 50
Arc7. Level 60
Arc8. Level 70

That’s my compromise. I’d prefer you just put it back how it was.

While I agree with you I don’t think this will happen especially the part about the first story missions at level one since I suspect part of the reason was to nerf all this key farming happening. Not saying that the communicated reason they are giving is wrong from their impressions but I just think it is not the whole story.

I don’t normally post in forums, but in this one I have to.

I play in a standing team that gets together when we can to play our way through the game. Last night we’d just finished the Chapter 2 story and were looking forward to knocking through a couple of levels to 23 or so and then hitting the next one tonight. All three of us have lives and play other games, so we’re not playing Guild Wars like it’s a job. Previously, all three of us agreed that GW2 had a great design in its story missions and how they were placed; there was definitely a very organic flow to where the missions were, side missions/hearts/group content/etc. between them keeping us decently near where the missions were. Now, that hard work by the design team to lay all of that out is getting thrown away, and we feel like we’re going farther than we were actually intended to before getting the requisite story elements.

Furthermore, I think this is a horrible idea especially for players just starting out in their first character. They do their tutorial, and where previously they were easily able to find and fill a couple of hearts to get to the next story mission, now they have to go out and wander aimlessly before a big chunk of story is thrown at them. I don’t think a lot of players will make it that far. You’ll lose them before you’ve properly hooked them.

To draw on a comparison made further up the thread, I liked the more organic, episodic feel of the previous “level a bit then do a story mission.” It broke up the story into bite-sized chunks that were easily handled. Now for those of us who only get a level or two a week, we’re looking at months of mindlessly bashing NPCs before we get anything interesting.

I can honestly say I dislike this change very much. I just bought extra character slot and was looking forward to leveling a new character of another race and oh boy talk about disappointment. I liked the old story line and if the reason for this was the key farming they could so easily just move the keys to level 20 in the story. They just ruined the flow of the game. I certainly hope they will listen to us players here and change this back along with the minis being visible ALL the time not just in your home instance. I know a lot of people that wont be buying any more minis, and I thought they would welcome the money from the shop? Please rethink this!!!

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

No, you don’t have to repeat any story steps.

Hmm .. my level 80 guardian was on the last step (lvl 80) to kill Zaithan.

Now however she is on a level 70 step and should go to the Airship in Fort Trinity.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

They end at the same level, but now require you to be L10 to do the entire storyline. Previously, a lot of players found it very frustrating to have to interrupt the story steps to level up constantly to keep up.

I found that frustrating too, I wanted to be able to level up characters through the personal story alone. Unfortunately you haven’t fixed the problem. You’ve instead increased the size of the interruption between story steps and think that it’s fine because you get more of them at a time.

Well, I’m glad I have several level 80s. It doesn’t look like I’ll be playing any low level characters for awhile now (until you guys fix this obvious error in design judgement or I get extremely bored (unlikely)).

Ugh. This is easily the worst change the game has implemented.

I agree. This is a terrible change with demonstrably no benefit to the player community. It is simply a poor design decision, plain and simple.

Before this change, any player who wanted to wait until level 20 to do the level 11-20 quests (for example) could do so! Any player who wanted to play the quests in smaller episodes, at the listed levels, could do so!

With the new change, the players who wanted to wait and do a whole chapter’s worth of quests all at once every ten levels can still do so, exactly the same as before. The players who wanted to experience the quests along the way, every 2-3 levels, can no longer do so.

This change does NOTHING except to limit a player’s freedom to enjoy the game as it was originally designed. I see absolutely zero benefit to the player community from this change.

This change should be reverted as soon as possible.

Petryc.9501:

I agree. This is a terrible change with demonstrably no benefit to the player community. It is simply a poor design decision, plain and simple.

Before this change, any player who wanted to wait until level 20 to do the level 11-20 quests (for example) could do so! Any player who wanted to play the quests in smaller episodes, at the listed levels, could do so!

With the new change, the players who wanted to wait and do a whole chapter’s worth of quests all at once every ten levels can still do so, exactly the same as before. The players who wanted to experience the quests along the way, every 2-3 levels, can no longer do so.

This change does NOTHING except to limit a player’s freedom to enjoy the game as it was originally designed. I see absolutely zero benefit to the player community from this change.

This change should be reverted as soon as possible.

I disagree, having them in chapters feels nice. Else you would get stuck at hard levels and you would have a higher chance of failing them.
This was clearly an issue in the lower level quests.
This issue stems back all the way to the first beta’s, where they were tinkering with the difficulty and rewards (XP wise) to give a smooth transition between open world and personal story.
They’re trying something different now and as a veteran it’s hard for me to judge whether this is the best solution, but it does take in consideration the fact that on release I remember a lot of people complaining that the personal story was too hard. Now you have the appropriate level to do the personal story, and it should be a fun thing to do rather than a challenge due to leveling.

But before, no one HAD to do the personal story at the required level, you could always wait until a later level to do it. Now waiting is the only option. The only affect of this change was to limit player choice. . .

It worked well before, do some questing and then a story step. Next story step points you a little further, quest your way there. This change forces you to go back to areas you have cleared, going the wrong way. This change has the game going in the wrong direction. Terrible update IMO.

Never, ever, ever post on forums but thought I’d put my two cents in here as this really affected me this week.

Reinstalled and rerolled a new character this week since I originally bought it the first few months of this game’s inception (simply because I couldn’t remember how to Mesmer and figured it would be easier to start fresh)

Reinstalled on Sunday, rolled up an Engineer and off I went. Throughout the quest I was reminded what a fantastic and progressive MMO system they had developed. A main quest line that you could follow at your own leisure and it made me wonder why I had stopped playing in the first place (getting a full time job probably didn’t help).

Was very confused come the other day when I realised the game was no longer pointing me in the direction of the next story quest. Googled and found out it was because of the new patch and I have to wonder why? This is a big step backwards.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

One comparison might be a half hour TV show that comes on every week, versus a DVD boxed set of an entire season that comes out every 6 months or so. Previously the story steps were set up so each one was about 3 levels apart, which meant that a single storyline had a lot of breaks in between steps (if you wanted to do each step at the level it specified.) Now there’s a bigger gap between storylines, but each storyline is playable without level breaks.

we are somewhat okay with the staging of the story through levels, however we are more concern about dropped content known as the " greatest fear" storyline with its branching paths and the re ordring of some missions from the far end of the Whole story line.
There are still all dialogs and NPC spoken text that still reference the events of the missions with apatia, tonn and the mesmer infiltraitor.
also the new order ofsome missions from the far edn does not make anysense.
We are somehow in or without having invaded it first, and we also face the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan first onyl then to later learn that eyes of zhaitan exist.

This is for many player and wihtout doubt the majority of players an unnessacary vut of content. specialy since the"greatest feat" story missions were on of the best in the entire personal story, specialy since it volved around your charcater specific decisions.
and as biggest “insult” Trahearne stieals the show again by beeing palced there.
And i think you developers have heard enough complain how the personaly story at the end was more about him then the player avatar.

I agree with the other players about the (changes made to the personal storyline), the whole idea/concept for it only progressing every 10 levels is just a downright “terrible idea”. The way you had it before made perfect sense & allowed players to keep in line with both there personal storyline & there level up progression. Plus you were more “free” to access the storyline “when you wanted to” rather then being limited by a certain “character level number” which in my opinion is way to high, every 10 level ups…. I mean really???

I can’t even continue my characters personal storyline now as whatever changes were made literally “broke” my personal storyline (it literally doesn’t work now at all)<< and yes I’ve reported this already (am a level 69 character & can’t even play a level 10 storyline because the script/triggers/cutscene won’t work!). I know you guys are doing your best to fix all the bugs from recent changes, but perhaps you should implement changes “in future” a little bit at a time to ensure whatever you change is “functioning correctly” first!

I agree with most of the people here. This segmenting of the story is a nightmare for casual players like me. I simply can’t stomach more than an hour or two of video games a day – I get bored and want to do something else. MMOs are especially mind-numbing for me in large doses, which is why this game appealed to me so much. You always have (or had) a carrot on a stick beyond gear grinding.

Many of the posters here made a good point about how in the old system, we had the choice to split our story in 10s if we wanted to. Forcing us to do this is going to turn off a lot of people. These now required periods of grinding are the reason I ditched WoW, Rift, Wildstar and SWTOR.

I think the devs forgot that Guild Wars 2 is more geared toward casual players. Leveling is faster, it’s easier to grasp the game and your life doesn’t depend on having the latest and greatest of everything after 35 hours of raids. Perhaps it might be advisable to just survey the general community with a simple “yes” or “no” to this development.

I understand you can’t please everybody, but in this case, I’d say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes into play.

just so i have this right, i have to be level 80 to go onto the mission ‘temple of the forgotten’? if not then there is something wrong with the game

I’m be completely honest, I love GW2. I never played the first one, though I wish I had purely from a story aspect. I LOVE the story portion of good games, esp. mmos. The previous system, though a mite overwhelming for a semi-noob mmo player, was actually one of the things that kept me playing. I would finish a story line and then go grind my way to the new story marker. I’m the kind of player that roams and wanders a lot anyways, often many lvls higher than my story line because I keep going for every vista and POI.

This recent change really annoys me. I shouldn’t have to “earn” my missions. They’re my story and if I want to go in under-leveled and risked getting ko’d that’s my prerogative; honestly I enjoy the challenge. I am really disappointed in you guys for this drastic change. I have a number of lower level characters and now I’m not sure I want to bother playing them without the constant flow of engaging story material.

All-in-all I am very disappointed and may not bother raising my other 3 characters since I would have to roam and grind 10 levels just to get my next chapter. Just stupid.

mjasa.5821:

if the reason for this was the key farming they could so easily just move the keys to level 20 in the story. They just ruined the flow of the game.

I was just going to say that.. :S

beatinbuddy.7314:

The previous system, though a mite overwhelming for a semi-noob mmo player, was actually one of the things that kept me playing. I would finish a story line and then go grind my way to the new story marker. I’m the kind of player that roams and wanders a lot anyways, often many lvls higher than my story line because I keep going for every vista and POI.

That’s the point. Usually the next step would require you to go through areas you hadn’t discovered yet and it gave a proper way to level up, you could even already have reached the proper level even before reaching the destination of the next step. Now we have to keep roaming around until we get the proper level. 10 levels? I could explore 2 maps or so completely until I level up that amount! Even in my case, I always played Personal Story at a higher level as I would explore stuff before bothering with Personal Story. Playing a step at 2 or 3 levels never was an issue for me. Was being “interrupted” at each 2 or 3 steps annoying? Really? The game isn’t about Personal Story only, there are more to do and PS could wait a bit. Now PS must wait a lot…

I’ve never taken part in a forum conversation before, but this time I feel like I have to.

GW2 is by far the best MMO game I have ever played. I have loved it for its natural, seamless and unique gameplay , which has made it clearly different from all other MMO’s. You just can’t find such awesomeness in any other similar game. I have seen GW2 as a player-friendly world of humble, yet unbeatably stunning natural beauty. When most other similar games are helplessly stuck in the profits of mindless grinding and hours of gameplay per day, GW2 has supported those who like to play every once in a while; and instead of grinding, like to explore the world and see what they find along the way, continuing their heroic story at a leisurely, steady pace. And those who still prefer to grind, have been perfectly free to do so. Both preferences have had equal benefits – GW2 has been suitable for many different types of players.

So this is why I am asking: WHY? Why did the personal story system have to be changed? This new change really eats away the unique beauty that GW2 originally had. Ten levels of grinding and then a big pile of personal story thrown to one’s consumption at once is just….I don’t even know what to say. Besides, it may be needless of me to present more arguments for this since so much has been already said by other players. But I hope we’ll all be heard, and that an opinion stated by such a huge amount of players will be taken into serious consideration.

So please, ArenaNet. Please stay awesome and don’t make GW2 more and more like all other MMO’s. Preserve and develop the beauty which has made GW2 stand out for the best. This game has seriously been one of a kind, so please don’t make us lose it.

This change also broke my personal story. I was in the 8th chapter when the update hit, but the 8th chapter “Victory or Death” does not even showed up in my story journal. It also made me completely miss out on the “helping Trahearne cleanse Orr” part of the story, because that part was moved to chapter 7 which was already completed before this feature pack 2 hit……

JackedNights.4952:

This change also broke my personal story. I was in the 8th chapter when the update hit, but the 8th chapter “Victory or Death” does not even showed up in my story journal. It also made me completely miss out on the “helping Trahearne cleanse Orr” part of the story, because that part was moved to chapter 7 which was already completed before this feature pack 2 hit……

The same, was on “Starving the beast” when patch hit, and so lost the whole cleansing the orr subplot. Also, since the patch no entry has been put in Journal (i am currently on “Victory or Death”, so mayboe the journal will be updated after i do Arah story, but it currently seems broken)

I too want to register my displeasure with this change. I play very casually and I got into a nice habit of doing a story mission, then letting the living story marker guide me in the general area to explore next. Usually doing heart quests and events along the way would get me the two levels I needed for the next story mission.
Now I log in and I’m a bit of a loss. I have to level up 5 more times to see my personal story again?

Since the Sept. 9 patch, I have not played any of my characters except for my level 80 guardian who had already completed his personal story prior to 9/9. I am not playing my other characters because:

A) I am hoping that Anet will revert some or all of the personal story changes as they appear to be overwhelmingly unpopular, and
B) Multiple players are reporting that their personal story quests appear to be broken.

I am afraid that if I do advance any of my characters who have not yet completed the personal story, I may miss some of the personal story quests due either to current bugs in the personal story or due to additional changes to the personal story.

Could someone from Anet provide an update on if/when any further personal story changes will be made? At the very least the current personal story configuration appears to have bugs for at least some players.

If this was done to please a few vocal complainers maybe you should have asked what other people thought first? Or implemented a choice, letting people know at what level they’d be able to play all storyline missions straight through if that’s what they want. I always felt that the storyline gave direction to the game and that levelling between missions was no problem because ususally it was enough to explore the relevant areas and join events or do “hearts” between the mission locations. Now I feel like I’m just gonna shuffle about aimlessly until I’ve gained another 10 levels. It takes a lot of the fun out of the game. (When I logged in after the patch, I noticed the star was gone – I finally got to the required level yesterday and felt that “woohoo finally the story goes on!” Today I actually played the mission, only to find it was the last one of the level 20 missions and I now have to wait another 10 for level 30.)

Btw I’m not too keen on how all the nearest points of interests, hearts, scouts etc start “glowing” when you’re near. It’s distracting and for all the direction the green star was giving me I do prefer to choose for myself what to do next. (Which I can still do of course, but like I said, they’re distracting.)

Changes to reward systems and wardrobes etc seem fine, though. (Haven’t tried the minis, saw someone said they only show up at home – what’s the point in that? I solo, I’m only ever in the home instance if a mission requires it…)

Usually I have a lot of things I wish were different about any given game. With GW2 there have been very few. But I hope enough of us complain so that you change the personal storyline system back. I really don’t see why the wish of a few people who could just wait a few levels should ruin the game for everyone else…
sniff

Vanadis.8147:

Changes to reward systems and wardrobes etc seem fine, though. (Haven’t tried the minis, saw someone said they only show up at home – what’s the point in that? I solo, I’m only ever in the home instance if a mission requires it…)

This was a bug that showed up with the patch, it has been fixed at this stage though (minis appears normally except if the map population is too high, then they are culled).

Vanadis.8147:

I really don’t see why the wish of a few people who could just wait a few levels should ruin the game for everyone else…
sniff

I couldn’t agree more…

You can choose what the glowing arrow points to, and in fact, turn it completely off, if you so desire.

My personal story is broken, too. Fortunately I had already completed it on my main character before the patch, but on my newest side character, I can’t advance at all. I guess I’ll just have to start over… At least she was low level

Leveled Necro to 24, decided to go back to do Personal Story (very first mission) and it is broken, won’t advance.

I understand the thought behind the change that was made, but the implementation is awkward and impacts the game experience negatively.

It really feels like a “changing something for the sake of change” kinda thing, instead of something that was carefully thought through.

I just persuaded a couple of my buddies (experienced MMO players) to play GW2 finally, and can confirm they were a little put off by the personal story disappearing on them.

Players don’t all need to be hand-held. Give them choices, instead of forcing them to play on the rails you’ve created.

Doesn’t really bother me – I approached personal story bit by bit until I was challenging missions 3-4 levels above me; I stopped, leveled up to 80, then went through all of the story missions in a long sitting.

If I were to start a new character, I’d do the same. Level up to 80, then begin personal story. Instead of 8 smaller chunks, I get the full story in one long stretch.

KidShogun.8509:

Players don’t all need to be hand-held. Give them choices, instead of forcing them to play on the rails you’ve created.

Good and perfect point. It should be a learning process, not a “do what I tell” thing.

This is my first time posting in the forums but as no change implemented up to this point has effected me negatively I haven’t really thought to use the forums. First off I’d like to say I bought the game a few weeks after it was released. The furthest I have even gone was around level twenty but that was more because I couldn’t decide which character I wanted to stay with and haven’t played in a long time because I haven’t had a PC that would run GW2. I started playing again last night and quickly leveled to 9 before realizing I couldn’t start my personal quest. Now finding out the I can’t continue the story without leveling to 10 and then 20 and then 30 threw me way off. I’m kind of a solo player and the only reason I even play GW2 is because of the story. I guess I’ll just come back next month to see if they changed it back.

Mitha.7039:

How it should be:
Arc1. Level 1
Arc2. Level 10
Arc3. Level 20
Arc4. Level 30
Arc5. Level 40
Arc6. Level 50
Arc7. Level 60
Arc8. Level 70

That’s my compromise. I’d prefer you just put it back how it was.

I agree with you. At the first level, the lungs were subjects of history. Wait until level 10, bored.