Guild Wars 2

Dagger mainhand melee attacks do not cleave nearby enemies unlikes every single other melee weapon in the game. This helps account for why our class hardly ever gets loot/credit in events and makes our multi target DPS suffer in a huge way. Would love to get some dev feedback on whether this is intentionally (poorly) designed this way or if it’s another bug.

(Continued.)

2) There are too many disposable NPCs.

In every story arc, we meet one or more characters who play a pretty important and active story for that arc. And just when I start to like them … poof, the story ends and I don’t see them again (though I hear some come back much later). This is exacerbated by the fact that each story arc is really only very short. The charr have the advantage of the warband adding at least some continuity — though not enough. Where were my ‘bandmates during Sins of the Father and the Dragon Crystal story? Euryale was there, but even when she says that it’s good to see the whole warband fighting together in Dragon Crystal … there was just her and me. No Elexus. No Fyon. And at the same time, the charr story is perhaps the worst example of disposable NPC syndrome since you only get to exchange like three words with each member of your warband during the tutorial, maybe you even miss them in the excitement, and then you learn that they all died while you weren’t looking. And these are supposed to be the best and closest friends my character ever had, the center of her existence, her family! How are we supposed to feel the impact of what would be the greatest horror for any charr if it’s all just hi-bye-dead?

I can only guess that due to the branching story arcs and some further choices that can be made within them, it would have been a pain to carry over all these people. But I think it would add a lot to the game. If we’re meant to care about an NPC, if our characters are supposed to care, then we need the chance to spend more time with them.

3) Where’s the emotion?

So far, my characters have shown a rather disturbing lack of emotion in situations that should be highly emotional. Maybe they agree with what I said above and just didn’t have enough time to get attached to anyone. :p But snark aside … it’s really immersion-breaking. My whole warband just got wiped out except for myself and my closest buddy, and on top of that some POS and his new cronies are blaming me for it and treating me like dirt? I’d expect shock, grief, rage, something! Instead, my character reveals that she’s actually a Vulcan spy in disguise by showing about as much of a reaction as a rock. It’s as if her warband, her family, didn’t matter to her at all. Another example: my Vigil mentor-turned-partner-and-friend just gave a moving farewell speech and made a heroic last stand so I could lead a ragged handful of survivors of our doomed mission to safety. And what did my character do? Nothing. She didn’t even say goodbye. She didn’t even thank him. She said nothing. Nothing at all. Almorra and Trahearne showed more emotion, however briefly, than my Vulcan sylvari did.

Dictating a player character’s emotional reaction is dicey, I know that, and in a pen&paper game it’s one thing that a GM should never do. GW2 does a lot of dictating already, though — all the cutscene dialog is automatic, the Charm/Dignity/Ferocity options show up rarely and have little impact. So if you’re going to pre-define my character for me, please make sure to include strong reactions when it’s called for. Doing a constant Spock impression isn’t a “neutral” or “default” reaction, and it’s not credible.

All that may sound a bit negative, but really — I do enjoy the story for the most part and the lore as well! I just crave more depth, more distinctiveness and more of a chance to really “bond” with my NPC buddies. So please view this as praise by way of constructive criticism.

Very interesting thread! I’m particularly glad to see “official” replies.

BobbyStein.2315:

We’re in the process of analyzing the final version of the personal story, and looking at ways to improve the writing, voice acting, and overall presentation going forward. My team and/or I will likely be more involved in that regard.

Thanks for the compliments on the ambient and event dialogue. We worked hard on it.

It’s a well-earned compliment, I say.

And please look into the continuity issues that so many people have mentioned! I’m not that far into the story yet (my “main” has completed Battle for Claw Island), so I can’t comment on the whole thing, but by now I’m a bit afraid of continuing the story. Why? Because I fear having my enjoyment and immersion wrecked by having people I met and helped before treat me like a stranger, and seeing the earlier story arcs that I enjoyed so much get treated as if they never happened and never mattered.

I’m totally fine with “sharing the glory” and in fact much prefer it to being the only important and competent person in the whole bloody world, but continuity is utterly crucial for any story.

Anyway, my feedback to far:

1) More cultural storylines, please!

For the most part I really enjoy the initial parts of the story. They help to define and immerse myself in my characters’ culture, and that is exactly what I always wanted from a game that offers different species. Yes, some of the writing could be better and deeper. And yes, the “you’re such a special hero destined for greatness” song and dance gets really old (though GW2 isn’t even as guilty of it as some other games). But overall, during these acts of the story I really do feel as if my sylvari was a sylvari, my charr was a charr, etc., and that is great.

All that vanishes as soon as I join an order. There’s nothing whatsoever in any of the order-related missions I’ve done so far that made me feel like anything other than a generic, bland human-in-a-funny-suit. The distinct, defining, interesting aspects like the Dream and the Wyld Hunt, or the loyalty to my warband and Legion, are just gone. And that bites hard.

I understand one of the big themes of this game is putting aside differences for a greater goal or the world will die. That is great! But putting aside differences should not equal eradicating every recognizable cultural trait. What’s the point of crafting all these detailed cultures and backstories if it all goes away at level 30?

All in all, I’d much have preferred if the cultural storylines were the defining ones for the whole game, or at least for them to continue “on the side”.

(Split for length issues.)

Nebilim.5127:

Story spoilers

Show Spoiler

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You killed my Sieran

. And for what purpose? Just to impact me emotionally? Well sir, you did it.

It honestly missed the mark for me. Not everything needs to be grandiose, with significant build-up and fanfare, I know… But the way this was handled, and how quickly it seems to have been forgotten/pushed aside just made it lose any real impact it should have had.

My thought at that point was basically Seriously? That's what you wanna do? Get rid of the only interesting character you've introduced in such a dull way? Brilliant! :-/

I think the biggest problems (well, aside from the fact that the whole event seemed extremely contrived and unnecessary) were my character’s complete lack of personality/ability to emote¹ and the fact that it was just swept under the rug so quickly with Gixx even making lame ‘jokes’ in the next mission (uggh… that mission…)

¹Seriously, she seems like someone playing a VR game, only ‘acting’ like the main character to move things forward. Nothing seems to genuinely mean anything to her.

BobbyStein.2315:

ZetaStriker.9142:

Lack of continuity is a big issue as it currently stands. We need some characters to be with us from 1-80, and others can come and go in the storyline. Characters shouldn’t just disappear without explanation.

The Charr warband is a nice start, but we need those elements used across the entirety of the personal storyline. Otherwise, how will we care about them if most of them are only around for 2-3 events? Longevity on NPCs allows us to interact with them, build relationships with them, care about them . . . and through that, care much more strongly about the storylines that involves them as well.

100% agree.

Story spoilers

. And for what purpose? Just to impact me emotionally? Well sir, you did it.

1-30: I have only played Human and Norn so far. I found the human one pretty decent. I like the political intrigue of it all. I was disappointed that most of the Norn choices were “something bad happened because I am an alcoholic.” Makes the Norn not seem very capable whereas the humans are dealing with big social issues. Which is sad cause the Norn are my favorite race.

Oh and spoilers . . .

30-50: Played Order of Whispers and part of Durmond Priory. I don’t much care for the priory. And Sieran (spelling?) I found fairly annoying and far to perky. But maybe that’s just because I played priory after the Order of Whispers story . . . so. much. fun.

I honestly played these quests back to back to back because I couldn’t wait to see what happened and to hang out with Tybalt (yes, I said hang out (more spoilers) When he died at Claw Island I was like . . . :O And honestly was pretty sad/mad.

If you secretly bring Tybalt back and pretend he miraculously made it, I wouldn’t be disappointed. Do it . . . I’ll wait here.

50+ Honestly I was kinda still mad that Tybalt wasn’t gonna be in my story so these didn’t seem as fun. Kinda depressing, difficult and well, I don’t care for Trahearne. His character has very little charisma/charm/more than one dimension.

So to sum up . . .

Like:

Intro story quests are light hearted and fun.

Order of Whispers is insanely fun. Let me run missions with my buddy Tybalt, and I’ll be here awhile.

I actually quite liked the cinematic style and voice acting (for most characters).

Dislike:

Trahearne, and the fact that he is 20 levels of my story, and I feel like my character has no emotional bond with him whatsoever cause he is a monotone personality-less character.

The fact that my character was very cavalier about the death of her partner. I felt like there was very little mourning. When people gave her condolences she was like, “yeah he’s dead, move on already.” “Ummmm, but he died an hour ago.”

I like a little light hearted fun mixed in with my undead slaying, so I felt one or two missions where I wasn’t being ambushed by undead would have really been ok. Really. : ) Like when I thought I was simply delivering a message to a widow and BAM, undead ambush.

Overall though, I like it, keep up the good work.

As a Charr, I went with Ash Legion and Honorless Gladium.
I can say that while I didn’t particularly feel very sneaky as Ash Legion, the story was serviceable enough. It wasn’t bad, and there were some fun missions, like disguising yourself as a Flame Legion. In general the whole ‘building your warband’ thing was a really good touch, and the only disappointment is that I wish ALL of my warband was in every mission, instead of it usually being Dinky, sometimes with one or two of the others.

Honorless Gladium was really good. Good voice acting, hard decisions, and while it would be nice to have a little bit of failure available as a player (every choice is the right choice), it had a great tone to it. The only disappointment is that my dad said he’d catch up with me later and… he never does. I was expecting him to show up again late in the personal story or something.

I’ve also done Sylvari from 1-20, doing the White Stag storyline. Apparently this is the best early Sylvari story, and I liked it because Gavin was legitimately an interesting character. It’s kind of a shame you never get to see ‘another Gavin’ if you catch my drift, and the rest of the Nightmare Court are apparently all complete jerks at best, and depraved sadists at worst.

I hear tell that ‘where life goes, so too should you’ is the best second option, but I didn’t pick that one.

EDIT:
Something I liked about the Charr story as opposed to the 50+ story. As a Charr, my rank matters. I order people around, but those above me give me missions. There’s a clear chain of command to follow, and my Charr isn’t afraid to both use that, and is responsible enough to follow it.

Meanwhile, later in the story, being ’Trahearne’s second in command’ actually means ’Trahearne’s Errand Boy’ and being given orders by random order members.

I have a level 80 guardian, and I just haven’t progressed the story since hitting the 75-80 zone in Orr. I’m actually very close to facing off against Zhaitan, etc etc, but I just don’t feel compelled to… which is a shame, he’s the big bad, after all.

There are a few reasons. Sure the voice acting can be a little emotionless and wooden, the timing can be off (seriously, interruptions that have a time delay aren’t interruptions).

The main reasons however are two fold;
The story cutscenes take me away from the action and become contextless. “We need to storm the lighthouse!”… which lighthouse? Where? Show me the objectives. I loved that about GW1. DEs do a great job of making me feel like part of an event, whereas the main event, the story, I feel terribly disconnected from.

The second issue is pacing and place. I know the “You’re the hero of everything!” line has been taken by so many RPGs, but ultimately I got bored of playing toy commander. I was treated no better than a foot solider. Often given orders by NPCs i’d just met with “ranks” lower than mine. In the end choices didn’t matter; I felt like I was just choosing who was going to boss me around next, as opposed to how I wanted to take the fight to Zhaitan.

At the end of the day the technical stuff can be improved; delays addressed, VO done differently, but the disconnect between the world and the story is what really hurts IMO. It doesn’t matter if some story elements are a little weak if they were presented better.

I think trying to merge all five race’s stories into one was a huge mistake on the part of the writers. Even If we all end up in more or less the same spot, each race (if not each race’s background facts) ought to have been done individually.

Even though the war with the dragons is the main storyline, and unavoidable overall, it would have been nice to be able to stick with my “home” team somehow or return to them. I had the most enjoyment/love for the personal story when it revolved around my home-town areas, Medium enjoyment where things began to splinter off into different choices (whispers, priory, vigil), and the least enjoyment when things got “serious” and all three factions were brought together under Trehearne’s management.

I picked my race because they intrigued me. I love the cities, the cultural flavor, and the racial quirkiness. I became cozy, happy and comfortable just being a citizen and seeing all the facets of my race’s culture. It would be fantastic to have a diplomatic side to the personal story, that lets us choose to dive further into local politics, interacting with secret societies, breaking up conspiracies, hidden agendas and skull-duggery (perhaps even with twists depending on our charisma, ferocity, or dignity levels). As the story progresses perhaps we gain prestigious positions within our head of government or even become an ambassador for our race instead of running off to get ourselves a dragon head on a platter.

I’d definitely agree that charr have the best story, at least until you join an order. I initially intended to go human after launch. But then I made a charr during beta, and I was so impressed with the story that I ended up maining charr after launch.

However, I can’t say that I’m that impressed after having progressed through the whole thing. What we have in this game is about 30 levels of personal story, and 50 levels of impersonal story. It’s a joke in my guild now… “You’re going to do your personal story? You mean your impersonal story?” I was pretty disappointed to learn by level 30, I had almost the same story as everyone else in my guild, and by level 50, we were all the same.

A charr is supposed to always be fighting alongside their warband, but I never get to fight with them again, only see them in my personal instance… but at least I get to see them, unlike Rytlock (more on him later). I would have loved to have more involvement with charr society rather than jumping into the order and the Pact so soon. I wouldn’t have minded joining an order and forming the Pact if it was later in the story, as I know the Elder Dragons are the focus… I just really wish I could have stuck around the Citadel for longer. I liked being called centurion. It’d have been awesome to make tribune.

Rytlock was an awesome mentor, and I felt like he really had my back as opposed to Logan, who asked me if I wanted go leave my friend Quinn to die in order to help the city (something that the Seraph should easily be able to do themselves). I’m sad that I can never find Rytlock around anymore since he’s permanently on temporary leave from his office, and I’m also sad that your mentors don’t recognize you in dungeons, because that’s your only opportunity to see them after joining an order. It’d be nice to at least see a “hey, centurion” or something from Rytlock when you talk to him in a dungeon. Same goes for the other races and their mentors. It’s like none of them have ever seen you at all, which isn’t true.

Another thing… when I played my human’s personal story up to like level 20 where they cut you off, I expected more after beta. I figured that since my lost parents were spies, they wouldn’t actually be dead, and I would find them alive later somewhere. But nope. Time to join the order and forget all about them. Meh.

I was disappointed about the impersonal story at first, but I don’t really think too much of it now because I shouldn’t have expected too much out of an MMO’s story. I’m sure a lot of work went into the personal story and I appreciate that, but it could have been better. I guess for next time, those are my thoughts.

If I could ask one thing, though… please put Rytlock back in his office after the player defeats Zhaitan. ;( He sends us mail saying he’ll keep in touch, telling us that we’re good friends… and then he disappears, on temporary leave forever.

I can’t speak either way in regards to Trahearne, except that he seemed an alright character for a guardsman (which is what I think he is in the Sylvari story).

He’s supposed to be a Firstborn researcher who’s researching Orr, etc…Then suddenly becomes Commander of the unified army, steals the sylvari PC’s legendary sword when it’s your Wyld Hunt to actually do the fighting against Zhaitan and he’s supposed to just be a researcher, and…yeah. Screw Trahearne.

Also give the person who designed Tybalt a medal too. I now eat an apple a day in tribute to his royal appleness.

I have to agree with you. I’ve dabbled in every race but Human so far, and I liked the Charr storyline the best for a number of reasons.
1. Rytlock is by far my favorite mentor.
2. Dinky and the other members I recruited were much more memorable than the helpers in the other storylines.
3. I thought the gameplay was more balanced than the other races. There were less instances of so-called “benny hilling”. While the warband members didn’t do great damage, they actually seemed to be effective tanks/distractions.
4. My Charr was an engineer, so building ghost-killing turrets and rifles fit right into my character’s class from the get-go.

3. Depth. One thing that I have to say that made the Charr storylines so enjoyable for me was the sheer number of characters that you could recruit into your warband. They’d still stick with you and you could keep talking to them, learning more about them, and so on.

What really helps the Charr here is that their third biography question has a real impact on their story. Not a huge one, not one that changes your missions, but it does impact the writing in a meaningful way. Your sparring partner sticks with you for thirty levels of personal quests, and you can actually get attached to the guy. It also helps that they have some of the best writing as far as NPCs go. Dinky is wonderfully dumb but lovable, Maverick is hilarious in his showboating, and Clawspur is suitably direct and insightful.

It really would have helped the Norn storyline if the choice of your guardian spirit actually had some impact. This is something that should be one of the most important things defining the Norn PCs life and personality, but it’s not even mentioned. Even just one scene during the third arc where the spirit in question speaks to the Norn and advises him to go fight the dragons would have been wonderful.

4. Mentors. I hate to say it, but Rytlock is the best of the five racial mentors. He’s got some of the stronger writing, being the very definition of badkitten while also being flawed enough to not be overly Mary-Sueish. He carries a deep grudge, but he’s the sort of superior that understands when rules need to be bent and when fun should be had. I think the only mentor that probably matches Rytlock in terms of sheer personality is Zojja, and I want to say half of that is due to Felicia Day’s voice acting. Caithe is, thankfully, also given a pretty good story arc, so she’s in a pretty good place, too.

Eir and Logan, on the other hand…

Eir suffers from failing the “Phantom Menace test.” Try to describe her character without resorting to talking about her role in the story, her occupation, or what she looks like. It’s really, really difficult because she has few definable character traits. When I talk to most people in my guild, the answer I get is that most people think she’s a little stupid due to her goal in Ascalonian Catacombs.

Logan is…Logan. I don’t know if this is the same everywhere, but among my social circle, we use Logan as the butt of jokes because everyone hates him.

This is already unfathomably long for feedback, so I’ll end it here. Thoughts?

I don’t want to be that guy that claims he can do so much better than the writing team Anet already has, so I won’t. That’s essentially the point of this long ramble I’m about to go on. It’s not that I think I can do better, but I think that they can do better, by showing that they already have! One thing that I’ve come to the conclusion on when playing the game during the BWEs and post-release is that the Charr simply have the best personal story. In order to illustrate this, I will be comparing their stories to the Norn stories for convenience, since Norn are the other race that I’m most familiar with. Most of what I say will apply to the other races as well, however.

It goes without saying that this will include spoilers for the 1-30 personal story steps. Without further ado, a list, in no particular order, of reasons why the Charr storylines are simply better:

1. Cohesiveness. One of the first things that you are greeted with once you’re out of the tutorial is a greeting by your warband member. Talking to him/her will get mention of Howl and his amulet, and you may wonder what this has to do with anything. Then, lo and behold, that point is suddenly brought back up again in your third story arc. That’s not really the only point, either. The truth is that the Charr storyline just feels much more cohesive than the others. Things that you do in the first arc have an impact on the following, due to the warband members that you recruit staying with you in the second and third arcs.

Compare this to the Norn storyline, which has three arcs that feel incredibly disjointed. The only unifying theme here is the growing friendship with Eir, which…has its own problems that I’ll get to shortly.

2. Meaning. Right from the get-go, the Charr personal story has things that actually impact the character and shape how he grows as a person. The first arc has you learning about your legion and building up a stable of friends that will be with you for the rest of your racial story arcs. In the second arc, you have your warband dealing with your character’s father in some way. In my opinion, these arcs have some of the best writing present in the personal story. Even if they don’t really go too in-depth, these stories end up covering some interesting and deep themes, like the meaning of family and what one would do for that family. When you chose to side with your father in “Sins of the Father” (Sorcerous Shaman) and believe that, despite once being a Flame Legion shaman, he’s truly repented and wants correct his past mistakes, there’s something powerful and personal there. When you choose to trust your father despite his deception against his own warband in “Thicker than Water” (Honorless Gladium) you have a character weighing in on the importance of family versus the importance of his duty. (Also, I don’t normally care one way or the other about voice acting in video games, but props to the guy who was voicing the male Charr PCs. He was definitely channeling something during the end of “Thicker than Water.”) That can be some pretty powerful stuff. Then the third arc comes and you have to deal with the risen corpse of your former leader. That’s definitely personal.

Compare this to the Norn storyline. The first arc introduces us to the Sons of Svanir, so I suppose it does the job the first arcs usually do in introducing us to the racial enemy, but that’s about it. The first Norn arc has no real meaning as to who the Norn is as a person. All it is is some crisis that the Norn PC comes in to save the say with. That’s fine and all, but at that point it’s not really a personal story, and just becomes an event with cutscenes. The second arc is selectively okay. The “Blacked Out” storyline has some witty writing, but ended on a fairly lackluster conclusion that really didn’t have the comedy that carried the first parts of the arc, nor introduce any sort of meaning for this arc for the character in question. The “Lost a Fight” storyline is basically just the Norn PC going through some fights so he can win a grudge match, and the attempt at making it hold a deeper meaning comes off as fake (did the Norn PC really learn about when fights should be fought, just from fighting in a tournament? Really?) The best arc was probably the “Lost an Heirloom” arc since it provides some nice meaning in the ruminations of what it means to honor a legacy. Then the third arc comes in, which is just to stop some dredge for reasons that never seemed adequately explained to me.

I actually hate Trahearne… and he’s the only one I hate. Literally the only one. I think the OP may be pulling our chains.

This, a million ti…zzZZZzz

…sorry, was mid cutscene in Orr, Traherne was speaking and I fe…zzZZZzz

…dang it, he did it again!

Sorry, had to be done. His VO is boring as all heck, and poorly delivered with the emotional range of a toaster.

Just my opinion.

Just dropped in to say…
…those are the worst in the game. Our beloved Mary Sue is not only taking over everyone’s “personal” storyline, no, he does so talking in the most uninspired way imaginable.

Any chances of getting a list of voice actors? I’d be interested in the german ones, too.

Trahearnes VO… Is he actually an advanced Asuran golem in disguise?
(just read this into the mic please sir, theres no context required)

@iniquix that is a common problem, and getting bronze medals after 10 minuts of condition spamming on World Bosses too.