I agree that the pace of release is maybe a bit too fast for a casual player. I have almost got several achievements only to log on with 1 or 2 remaining and its gone. A few areas where the LS could be enhanced I think would be:
1. Make the content more random. And I mean by that if actual events would or could happen on a large unannounced schedule. Dragons do not announce when they fly over and burn a big swath of destruction across the country side. The Karka event at its kick off was cool where they attacked Lions Arch. Our guild banded together and went to Southsun to take the fight to those fools. The queen while being a hard boss was do-able as you pushed her across the map back to the hive. We all achieved and were happy. Much of the newer content Unfortunately does not have that same feel to it. The dungeons look cool and the entire game has had much polish but much of the releases since feel more grind related. And alot of it ends up not being completable. Some of the zerg aspect is OK just do not make it the core staple for each event. Jumping in a zerg to level a toon is fun too. But when too hard or complex people start quitting due to the sheer repair bill and the grind of failure. The change to the re-spawn while anyone was in combat now meant that once you died, you just sat there waiting for the others to fail to get back into the game. People left here too. Bad idea. The dungeons as a whole are cool but suffer the same. Most are too hard and people get through once and say hell no I’m not ever doing that again. Tequatl is a good example of that. I have one achievement left to get there are no toons doing it now. Don’t get me wrong here I don’t think everything should be easy by no means but it also should not be a pulpit to say hey I’m the designer and there are 75 things that must must all fall into place exactly as planned or you will never succeed. The casual player does not nor will ever be retained by this. They just get frustrated and go away.
2. The guild tools are also a sorely lacking aspect to support this as you cannot properly reward those who are still remaining active or boot those who are not. The guilds are either mega large and impersonal or you cannot maintain an active roster. This forces you into the pug situation as mentioned above.
3. The money sink aspect of the game I feel should also be looked at. Not the gem store aspect as I know this pays the bills and affords expansion and development. Money for travel, money for repair, money to reset skills etc etc. all the things that make it hard to gather wealth. In GW1 as you figured out a build and could go solo for ectos you felt achievement points without any further reward. You could mentor others in your guild to learn to do it too. 2 man or 3 man Rit farming UW, or solo Vettir or 55 monk are a couple examples. Many game hours were spent this way on vent. Community. The current cost of success is too steep for a casual player. Convert the cost of a Legendary to real world money. After you cry for a bit you will give up and not bother if you have any life outside the game or a job. GW1 if you got a awesome Green skin you were happy and could brag a bit. Here it just says you have far too much free time on your hands. And get rid of the soulbound on use for weps. It was nice to use weps on different toons or as hand me downs to lower level players in your crew. Now you can just salvage them or burn them in the forge. It was nice to use one for a while and then when you get a cooler skin you sell off the old one or give it away.
3. The skill build aspect too is weak compared to GW1 most do not understand how to put together a build. And you cannot save them. It is not very clear the mechanics to putting them together. New and returning players state that this is frustrating.
I mention these last 3 because some of these underlying issues and others like them that need polish or adjustment are keeping people from remaining in game as they burn out due to these types of issues. If they do not log on for the new content it really doesn’t matter how cool it is. I think some focus should be put into this infrastructure before further LS content so it will be more successful and better received.
In closing the whole of GW2 is fabulous and a huge undertaking. The art is top notch and I find myself just running around and looking at all the little touches from early Betas till now still finding cool stuff. The Living Story content while evolving needs some of this sub structure in place and shored up to maintain the activity levels to make it more robust. Slow down on the content releases and evolve the skills, Guild tools, activity boosters and get rid of some of the useless money sinks that discourage players from logging in.