Guild Wars 2

It’s all very well for people to give advice like ‘kite around in circles’. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out before, some of these personal stories involve operating in confined spaces and it’s not quite so simple as it’s made out to be to kite in these situations, especially with some of the close up camera stuff being VERY confusing to look at.

I wonder whether an earlier comment hit the nail on the head. It seems that the missions might be fine and balanced if you’re a guardian or warrior, and just possibly most of the evaluative feedback came from people playing these classes? If you play a primarily ranged character (eg elementalist – yes I KNOW that they have close up skills but a wave of mobs getting close to you normally spells big trouble if you 1) Have low hp and 2) have light armour), let’s say that you are not at an advantage compared with melee specialists in heavy gear!

There may be story line quests in which guardians or warriors are at a disadvantage compared to other professions and it would be interesting to hear any examples which people may have. I’d be prepared to bet, though, that most quests are designed in such a way that these classes don’t have as many problems as some of the others. And, of course, this presents a difficulty. If a quest is no more than a fair challenge to a warrior or guardian, it may very well be extremely difficult for a mesmer or thief, for example. The ideal solution would be to scale the difficulty according to profession, although I fully understand that this might be very difficult to implement.

Bringing a friend, as various people have suggested, seems to make a nonsense of the quests being part of a ‘PERSONAL Story’

Further to my point above. Could a developer please explain why, when the ‘Fall of Falcon Company’ personal story quest subdivides, one branch (Seek Logan’s Aid) is FAR more difficult then the alternative (where you confront Tervelan without involving Logan T at all)? The former involves being set upon by loads of traitor seraphs in a confined area, where dodging ain’t easy, while the latter only really involves taking down an ettin or two which is LOADS easier.

There’s simply no comparison between the two in terms of difficulty. What’s the justification?

I would like to add something here. There seems to be an excessive inconsistency between one story line quest and another. Let’s take two supposedly Level 8 personal story quests for humans, ‘Arson at the Orphanage’ (or its ‘Hospital’ alternative) and ‘The Greater Good’. The latter has already been mentioned as being horribly difficult for more squishy professions; even in its modified form it is still a LOT harder than ‘Arson at the Orphanage’ which is straightforwardly soloable with a modicum of care.

Where’s the sense in that? It makes one’s experience of the personal story lines entirely a matter of chance depending on which story line one has chosen. There really can’t be any good reason for such wild variations between one quest and another at what is supposed to be the same level!

I’ve been following this discussion with some interest. One or two thoughts occur.

It’s interesting to see how many of the contributors who claim to have little difficulty are guardians or warriors, who just happen to wear heavy armour! Being mass mobbed is slightly different for them than it is (say) for a squishy cloth armour wearing elementalist.

You CAN win some of these quests by attrition, as it were! Kill a mob or two, die, resurrect, rinse and repeat, gradually whittling down the numbers. But this is, at best, a sort of bodge up. The fact is that for the average player (I’m very average at best!) with some professions it’s virtually impossible to avoid a number of deaths during these quests. Either that, or you wait till you are over level or bring friends along. And, to my mind, this is totally unsatisfactory. There’s absolutely no logic in having to group for what is supposed to be a PERSONAL (ie solo) quest. It’s equally silly to have to be several levels above what the stated level of a quest is in order to complete it! A level 8 quest which needs 90% of people to be level 10 in order to complete it without dying just ain’t a level 8 quest! All it means is that (not to put too fine a point on it) the person who devised the quest has just got the level of difficulty plain wrong.

It’s a real pity! GW2 has many excellent features. But people are going to move elsewhere if their gaming experience is frustrating. And, unfortunately, as this thread shows, a fair number of people are frustrated with the personal storyline aspect.

I’m not asking for things to be made easy, or ‘dumbed down’ significantly. I’ve played both Final Fantasy XI and Vanguard, both of which can be quite demanding in PvE terms. But I’m totally convinced that the designers need to look at these quests, especially the balance of difficulty between the professions. As things stand, a good proportion of people will either ignore them, or take one of the ‘easier’ solutions (group, die and rez or go into them over-levelled) and have a less satisfying experience as a result.