Luck or getting a bunch of strangers to cooperate are really the only ways to get this. I have it now because during an afternoon working on the other crab toss achievements I cam across an arena where people were working together, and given this chance I joined in to get the achievement for myself and kept helping others afterwards.
Is that against or in the spirit of the game? I dont know really. But being able to freely pass the crab around seems to point to cooperation at least being an option.
Anything that has happened in the recent past can be recounted in some kind of journal, either from a neutral point of view or a biased personal one. Having both would actually be even more interesting.
They could place rumormongers in taverns, give the heralds some text about past events players can ask about if they care, etc etc. Doing these things isnt even much work compared to scripting or making graphical stuff.
I am lore-interested and find the presentation of such lore in the game lacking, especially with southsun and the previous events that took place there in november (and Canachs involvement in them). Now I knew about it because I already owned the game back then, no problem for me in this case.
But I think if Anet places value on the lore of the world and history they created, they need to present it even more in game.
I would have liked some more dialogue with Kiel for example about the initital taking of the island months ago. Maybe bringing up details about Canach and the apparently fruitless hunt for him.
New, lore-interested players should be given the lion’s share of it in the game through books and journals, npc dialoge and the randomly occuring npc chatter. Anet already does that to a degree, but for living story chapters with a previous installment (or similarly here with the previous southsun events) they should put more in the game instead of relying on out-of-game methods.
For example the short story about Rhox was neat, gave a glimpse into her past. You cant put that into an in-game book and Rhox herself probably wouldnt tell you about it so vividly. But she hints at at with the mining comments, so maybe have an “incident report” summing it up from a neutral position lying around somewhere relevant. Same with Canach, and Noll. I was giddy when I met Noll on southsun a while back while they started rebuilding, it was the first hint at them actually involving npcs repeatedly in the updates. Even though he only had two lines, I liked that little touch.
Even WoW or any MMO is “living” in that regard, Anet just wants to make it matter even more. From the bits a read on WoW (left years ago) they had several one-time events for expansion releases with stuff you cant get anymore, change up their holiday content from time to time, revamped several continents completely as part of an expansion story line and some zones before and after that on a smaller scale.
I missed alot of that, because I didnt have time or didnt want to play. The same applies to GW2 or like other said, your whole life. You cant be in two places at once, so being on vacation in Italy means you miss the victory bonfire, being in prison for a year means you miss more content, working on an excavation site in the sahara for half a year, or whatever else. That’s just life.
The only part I think Anet is neglecting is that the living story chapters should leave changes in the world after they pass so while I might miss the southsun chapter because I’m hiking through new zealand, at least I would find the world changed and go there to check those changes out. F&F failed that, Southsun seems to do it but question is how much.
I hope future chapters improve on that so in a year coming back after a break means you get to say “yea you missed this and that but check out that area that was opened after the quake, and there’s the catacombs under that town that was leveled you need to see…”
Awesome posts, Marcus. I might add some suggestions if I find time but you sum up everything so nicely there really isnt anything important to add.
Anet, take those posts to heart when working on the next chapters and the general direction of the game.
That was really hard to decipher, you need to work on your writing.
If I sum your post up correctly you want more goals beyond the “get 80, get max stats, get the look of your choice (including a legendary or not, its a style question)”.
I agree with that notion. I like the living story and dont think it is a waste of time, but the game also needs more persistant additions. Especially additions that people can spend alot of time on if they desire. Personally I actually do have a legendary in mind, but since I play casually that#s a very longterm goal. The game is lacking in middle ground goals. Specific armor and weapons and exotic stats you get really fast once you hit 80 (often TP/crafting for the stats), and then theres a while to pick out your desired skins, and after that … make money. That’s all afterwards, making money. It might be for the legendary or for buying things from the gem store, or whatever else, but “making money” as the only goal is not good in the long run.
The game needs more things you dont buy but play for. More skins and special looks, , more mini pets, housing/home instance improvements (which opens up a whole new level of rewards and items that is entirely cosmetic), new skills for PVE-only and PVP-only (they slowly start on this with wvw levels), strictly-cosmetic mounts (no runspeed or swiftness level at most). There are so many ways they can go to add more goals for people that want them without adding a new tier of stats, but I see no intentions in that direction from Anet.
Living story so far seems to be a monthly installment of some do-it-once-in-an-hour tasks (fun but short), some gem store items and some rare drops in the area the living story takes place. In the case of Southsun it also adds some events to the previously barren island, in the case of F&F it didnt really add anything. So far what was provided is not living up to the expectations they raised. I’m withholding my own conclusion until we pass the 1 year anniversary but as of now the situation is very underwhelming.
I want to see those dragons reworked to be more epic. That includes a good chance to fail them, and appropriate rewards if you beat them. Karka queen at last has a timer (and twice the bonus rewards) so it might be testing the waters in that direction.
What I dont want to see is real instancing though, especially not with those three events. More, new guild events that are like big boss fights, gladly. But they should be added, not take away other content.
Ties into their goal of having temporary content that has more meaning to people because it that limited availability. in some cases its a good concept.
Since this mini-game isnt seasonal and ties into the world nicely (unlike SAB, imo) I’d be all for it staying. Its like Keg tossing in that regard, and Anet promised many minigames before release, and “Soon” after release, and that was it.
It said equivalent to Ori in the gem store, and it says all plants/minerals on the actual item. I dont expect them to void them by bringing tier 7 mats that they dont work on, it’ll stay all.
I do however expect the rainbow sickle and the pick of howling winds etc, different effects and new time-limited opportunities for endless tools.
Anet should really take the time to work the Living Story chapters into an UI section just like the personal story was. I like being able to look back on my characters journey from time to time.
Also, such an UI element would allow to consolidate all the scattered info that we currently get on the main UI, the mail box and the achievement lists.
That aside, I hope future installments have a bit more polish in the form of secondary npcs that relate the lore and story to you if players bother to talk to them. In a way, a boon for those that care about immersion and the lore while those that do not care about such things arent forced to “endure” it.
Alot of dungeons that are already completed lore-wise are still in game (all story modes), so while its not 100& lore-accurate I could see it being put in at the same time as those explorables you are suggesting. The latter was a sore point for me about the whole F&F and I really expected them to be added.
You mean they made it worse then they could have done on purpose without time or money constraints? I dont think that is the case. They lacked one or both of that, probably time.
This is considered RNG?
Compared to other games like Scarlet Blade the item-mall here is pretty much fair. But lacking.
The concern is about the RNG items and not about the entire ‘item-mall’. And yea obviosly the RNG-based chests are considered RNG.
Maybe you are mixing it up with pay-to-win? GW2 so far has no pay-to-win.
The living story needs more polish. F&F still was ok in that regard but Southsun seems very unpolished, like they ran out of time. Most of what you suggest would fall under that umbrella.
Given how Living Stories aren’t full-on expansions, I’m very impressed with how a small development team can push this content. They are progressively getting better (from the magnificent return of The Mad King to the devastatingly disappointing Lost Shores) at releasing this small content. Southsun is now so rife with activity and players that I find myself going there to participate in events even after I’ve completed my dailies!
So while its not a heavy lore expansion, its good for keeping things alive until said expansion.
So far its fairly ‘meh’ when you take into account the claims made about their live teams and post-release plans as announced before the game came out. They lived up the letter of the word with monthly updates but at least for me they created far more expectations then they are currently meeting.
Its been said already but if you miss doing an achievement then you only missed doing that achievement. No other consequences. Nothing bad will come of it, so dont worry!
I think calling the NULL encounter a dungeon was false advertising anyway. It is a single, instanced encounter, nothing more.
So yea, MF was MUCH better.
The point of the updates is to sell us gem store items. That’s fine and well, I welcome having that instead of a subscription.
However, I find the ratio of their invested time/money/effort in those updates vs their expectations from the gem store sales flawed. They minimize the work/time/money being put into the updates while shelling out some fairly expensive gem store items (that sometimes are done sloppy, like the new sickle functionally being a pick…).
I would welcome it if they dialed back their profit margins a bit in favor of quality releases, the game will be better for it and thus create more profit in the future.
If they would at least put a token system in the RNG box so that after say 50 fails you have enough tokens for 1 skin, that’d be an acceptable middle ground. You can weight the worst case scenario and decide its worth it or isnt worth it. This .5% chance with NO guarantees is something I wont buy. I might if a set number of fail chests also got me a ticket.
Wooden potatoes (youtube gw2 channel) has a great video on the wizards tower. He talks about what could possibly be up there, and who. I went and visited that town and saw all the elementals walking around. When he said they were possibly the people of that town used in horrible experiments of dark magic, I felt now this is a good story. lured as apprentices and then tricked into becoming test subjects by a crazed powerful necromancer.
I could imagine a dungeon where you went through the tower, boss fights being warped creations, finally making your way up the stairs to the tower of the tower where you fight his greatest creation and then him.
But nooooo, we get business contracts in a holiday resort.
Yea I think I remember that from flying castle with the necromantic abominations from somwhere else … I just cant quite put it together…
And to give a serious reply, yea this story’s background might not appeal to everyone but maybe the next one will. The core of the concept is good.
I’m more worried about them not having the manpower/time/money to keep going because while South*sun* (Southshore was overrun by the undead iirc) has some neat ideas, it’s lacking in polish (some texture issues and npc dialogue, some frame rate issues). Little things really but they add up to given the impression that they simply could have used another week or two to really finish this chapter.
Wildstar… here I come!
If Wildstar delivers what they promise (big IF though, talk is cheap) then the GW2 team better start soon with adding some more meat to their game or the game will fall into obscurity come winter.
I like it, it’s a good tale with twists and open to further additions.
I actually assume we are getting into storytelling like this from now on, and the F&F chapter with it’s especially slow start was meant to buy them the time needed to get a schedule for further chapters and start developing them. I am really curious how the next three months shape up.
My reply is based on the assumption that temporary content is a stated goal of Anet for various reasons. Their entire concept going forward is having these stretches of temporary content to create a feeling of urgency for the temporary related cash shop items and rare status symbols in the acquired items, achievements and titles that are no longer available.
So how do they achieve that goal and still reduce the impression that they are only making throw-away content thats only good for a few weeks each? Imo the solution lies in having each chapter have permanent additions to the world as a result of what happened during the living story.
For example after F&F they could have added the hatchery and cragstead as parts of the open world and expanded them a bit with a skill challenge or vista and an event or two. Cragstead during the victory celebration was nice, in the state of rebuilding and some npcs even recognizing my deeds during the living story. Loved the single wolf shaman with the wolf pup in the cave, too. Do that for every chapter and keep it in the game as part of the open world. Because as far as I can tell cragstead is still instanced and now you can only ‘recap’ the fight there.
Depending on how much you keep as permanent as opposed to temporary, newer players and especially returning players shouldnt feel like nothing changes in the world and that there are no additions. Coming back after a year of living story done the way I describe would mean big and small additions in several zones, so people have that sense of a changing world that Anet states as their goal. Right now though? Not feeling much change in Wayfarer foothills and the changes on southsun feel more like they were required because that place was only half-finished before.
The Razing, mate. It says “A hybrid army erupts through fiery portals in the Shiverpeaks. A Molten Alliance between the dredge and the charr Flame Legion has created a force powerful enough to massacre any who stand in their way. One settlement, one homestead at a time, they’re wiping out all resistance. The razing has begun.”
Well that description still holds true if all the MA wanted was to take over Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau, and from the view of any Norn or Charr living there it would be terrible enough – but that doesnt make them a threat bigger then the elder dragons that aim to wipe outthe whole world.
This is mantra discussion mostly off-topic to the thread – if Anet wants a mantra of swiftness they can simply add it, no need to tack it onto other things.
And the underlying request is to finally give us decent swiftness skills. Curtain in hamstrung by the stacking limit, ideally I would like to see that fixed but I guess its complicated. Considering that our best swiftness source is operating at reduced effectiveness, I believe new skills that alleviate this issue are in order. Maybe even a passive effect with 25% runspeed like almost every other profession has.
Orr has major issues in my opinion:
a.) The champions guarding certain areas are kind of ridiculous. You should’t have to kill a champion to get a skill challenge. It is called a skill challenge for a reason.
b.) Respawn rates are too high.
c.) Waypoints are almost always contested.
d.) Because of the waypoints always being contested you have to trudge through a sea of risen that play freaking hot potato with your body.
e.) Loot is constantly nerfed which makes people not want to go to Orr.
My point? Orr is a hot mess and deserves a thread of its own lol.
I agree that Orr has issues – imo the issue is Anet did not deliver on the pre-release hype of the players working together to take back the island gradually. Instead they ‘nerfed it for casuals’ and events are mostly unrelated to each other, as is the state of one zone to the next. There was talk about ‘the retaking of Orr’ taking weeks, now the various areas flip back and forth independently a few times per day.
The problem of course is that they had no other max level content and the flawed scaling (both in loot and difficulty), so you cant make Orr the way it was described 2-3 years ago without having a casual whinefest on the forum the size of the Everest.
I dont need Cantha if it is a problem for Anet/NCsoft. They can pick any of the entirely new directions to expand the known map. I’m looking forward to them tackling other themes besides a mix of asian cultures (Cantha) and african cultures (Elona).
The only thing I would do is redo the bounties so the first one is for 1 target only and it goes up from there. Maybe make 4 or even 5 tiers of it. That way a group of around 10 people should be ok with tier 1 and maybe 2, though they might fail. That sounds ok for me.
Edit: What I would find helpful is a raid group interface (I can hear the haters hissing) so we can better organize groups for the guild events and to speed up communication and task assigment, since everything is a narow timer. Would also be useful for puzzles, and possibly for organized WvW or even big meta events (well, those are too faceroll atm but one can hope they improve them).
At some point everyone has to agree that x people are unlikely to complete it or we end up balancing for guilds with 3 players 2 of which arent online eventually. I think a good cut-off is a having at least 8 people online and willing to participate (no matter how many are actually in guild). If you have less then that, sorry but reschedule.
(edited by Mastruq.2463)
Your real life is more important then a game, that’s good. Dont sweat what happens in the games you dont play, just enjoy it while you do. I mean to obsess about not completing all Wintersday achievements now in May I would have to actively search for them in the achievement section, its not like the stuff thats in the past is right there in your face forever.
I’d like some overlap between chapters, preferably ones that are totally unrelated to each other. It gives the sense that the world is alive, and not everything and everyone is connected on the same story string. That way the basic stuff and warm up and finale parts can run a bit longer without causing the impression that there is only 1 hour of content for 2 months like in early F&F, because there would be a concurrent story wrapping up or starting somewhere else in the world of Tyria.
It would be possible if we didnt have the writer from A.net posting above saying that more personalized dialogue was cut because of time constraints.
Yeah, it’s really tough to write one or two additional sentences and tack them in with the 9 measly sentences/4 boxes of dialogue currently on Faren here.
That’s unfortunate.
edit: I am sure this comes off pretty combative. I am just pretty frustrated at the lack of NPC memory/consistency across the game overall and really am rooting for the writing staff getting more time/more help on things like this.To be fair, it certainly adds up across all of the NPCs in the game, but think of how much more immersive NPC interaction would be if someone was paid to handle this.
No reason to be rude, I was merely stating the obvious as a reply to someone that didnt take the time to read the thread. I do otherwise agree with you, I wish the game had much more little personalized interactions here and there.
I do believe the ship has sailed for this chapter, so to speak. There’s a distinct lack of polish in the little details compared to F&F, probably due to time constraints, and It’s likely those constraints do not go away during the short 1-month chapter. With the way the living story is apparently set up, look for implementation of the player feedback in the chapters following the current, because that team can probably to some degree acount for the things players didnt like much. I might be wrong there but the way they implement the supposed ending of this chapter after the whinestorm about the dungeon in F&F directly takes those complaints to heart. As does the dropping of southsun supply chests after complaints about the fused weapon tickets. Baby steps, but still…
If I am at least partially correct there, living story might actually evolve into something awesome in like half a year to a year, with enough iterations. Too bad they didnt have the concept early enough to iterate during beta.
Raise general drops in exchange for removing magic find sounds like a good idea.
Any concerns against that apply equally to the other eight dungeons in the game, though. And fractals, too. MF wasnt any special there, if anything it was treated as less then a full dungeon due to the temporary nature and not having specific armor and weapon sets.
So is your concern with dungeons requiring a party of 5 players, or is it with not getting to do all the living story content of the F&F arc ‘your way’ because part of it was a dungeon? I’ll say do it with 5 or dont do it, those were the options. You did it but ended up with jerks, thats unfortunate. Maybe connect with a larger circle of people in-game for such occasions?
The dungeon was for people that like that kind of content, they deserve a bone from time to time. Therefore solutions that turn it into solo content arent solutions for the design, which is to make a 5 player dungeon, they are suggestions that let solo player have their way by changing the design goal. The thing is the solo player gets the lion share of attention already, with a total of 2 additions (only 1 permanent) for group players since release. Let those poor dungeon players have their dungeon once in a while, will ya?
P.S. I’d love for this game to add content tailored to 2-4 players because from my RL friends at best 1-2 are available at a time, so I’m in a similar situation. But a dungeon instance made for 5 people is not the right point to anchor such requests.
Yea I wrote that in the first post. The thread is meant to encourage discussion on what players think about upscaling with regards to future living story chapters (that might take place in zones between the two extremes we had so far).
I like the downed state idea. Maybe skills could use some tweaking, what doesnt.
But I dont follow the complaint of “I killed him he should be dead wuwuwu” … if you kill someone he is dead and have to be revived by someone else or at a WP. People arent dead in downed state, they’re just on their last leg. If you attack someone, he goes down and you break off, you didnt kill him.
I miss
From Everquest:
- longterm PVE character progression through skill points (AA in EQ) beyond just buying all the skills at 80 (GW1 also did this better)
- huge non-instanced dungeons where several groups can roam through for coop play (important difference to instances: no or little scripted encounters, difficulty through mob density and respawn times)
- factions that like or dislike your character based on his actions (probably impossible the way GW2 is set up)
- a useful LFG feature (like EQ ca. 2002, not auto-dungeon finder like WoW)
- more camera options for screenshots
- Epic weapon quests (a legendary weapon that deserved the title, with a quest chain to obtain it)
From WoW
- hunter pet taming variety
- mini-pet and mounts (for collectible / Show-off / Style reasons, not move speed)
From GW1
- multiclassing (balance nightmare so understandable, but I miss it)
- MOAR skill choices
In general:
- the home instance being a variety of player housing with trophies or changes based on the characters in-game accomplishments
- deeper more useful crafting (different stat spreads(?), more skins)
- more content suitable fo 2-4 players, most of the game is solo or 5 player oriented. Open world dungeons would suit this since the players can decide with how many they go as long as different parts are more or less difficult
- more traps and pit traps in outdoor dungeons, illusionary walls and so on. I think a guild puzzles goes in that direction.
I could probably list a dozen more things if I thought about it for a while.
LOL hardly, what’s lacking is an enormous amount of casual gameplay, that’s what’s really lacking.
Saying hardcore is missing from a newly adjusted to hardcore game is redundant.
Care to list all this hardcore content in this game? Because from where I am standing its 80% or more pure solo content with maybe 15% group content and 5% raid content.
And only the group content can even be considered hard because the few raid encounters like Shatterer just get zerged to oblivion.
Your character in GW1 at least in prophecies was pretty gullible to fall for one betrayal after another. It was getting old. So yea some plot twists are nice and the Personal story is mediocre, but GW1 wasnt all that either.
For GW2 a better move would be many short to medium stories all over the world, not this overarching plot you are herded through alongside every other hero. That way different characters and players can experience a different story and character development.
Kinda like the living story chapters and the three chapters that make up the personal story, but not linear.
I want new armor designs and looks, dont care particularly if they have a few stats more or not.
Gee…I’m so glad that Anet took an amazing franchise and turned it into a money grubbing RNG fest. Remember when cool items used to cost time, and not money… Glad to see all the people running around with these weapons and know that they spent no effort to get them at all, but instead just opened their wallet.
Time is money, friend.
All these theories lead the same conclusion: Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
In the absence of orbital missile platforms I’d like this chapter to end with intentionally causing a volcanic eruption in the hive that clears out all the Karka-infected areas with the magma flow and leaves the island as a peaceful tropical island (that’s covered in liquid fire on one half, gotta make concessions there).
That’s really no different then the entire F&F arc. You can complete the achievement-based content in day with rare exceptions, after that the zone is ‘just a zone’ and you might as well be elsewhere unless you enjoy that area.
Thing is that seems ok for me. I’d hate to feel forced into the ‘hot zone of the month’ by the living story. I would like the living story parts to have a bit more repeatable content (and leaving more permanent content). But being too enticing would be a bad thing too because players will feel forced to do unfun things all month and quit over it. They can shift the sweet spot a bit more towards luring players there, but not very much.
Asheron’s Call, now that is a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
I’m glad to hear some positive feedback on this living story concept, seems these days most people on the forum are unhappy about not getting everything done because (newsflash) real life is more important then a game.
The maybe and someday aside, yes F&F is over and the content is gone save a few exceptions. That is the whole concept of the living story, the world of Tyria moving forward regardless of your presence and things will change over time.
Mind several games have had events like this in the past (TOR, WoW, probably many others), the new change GW2 is bringing to this concept is turning rare once-in-a-time happenings into the main focus of their ongoing development.
Anet has dedicated alot of effort and apparently several live teams to this concept so I dont expect it to go away. If you are very opposed to this kind of game elment then it’s probably best to look into other games.
My suggestion would be to give it a try though, once you are over the assumption that you can do everything, anytime, and catch up with every story bit, it gives a nice sense of direction or feeling of the world being just a little bit more alive.
He means the entries in the achievement list I believe.
Achievements for temporary content are a two-edged sword i games like these because many people develop what I’d call “achievement OCD”. I’ve been guilty of it myself. In such cases marking things as “missed” is just as bad because they see it as permanent blemish or failure on their part (unreasonably so).
If there were no achievements for the entirety of the living story many, many complaints from the forum would vanish. The problem is, they’d be replaced by an equal amount of “i want achievement/titles/permanent recognition for my deeds in this chapter” complaints. You really cannot please everybody at the same time, after all.
I kinda hope that Anet sticks to their guns on the living story (obviously learning and improving it) so people get used to it. Because right now most played other games before where you mostly can go back and do things later and the living story seems counter-intuitive and different. These differences with the usual internet sense of entitlement creates alot of complaints that’ll hopefully die down once the Living story has matured some more.
(not saying you are complaining but as you see on the living story forums, many people do)
I find criticism about the F&F and the start of the current chapter warranted, because there are things Anet can do better. Myself I could still go for or against continuing the focus of development on the Living Story arcs, but I am liking it so far. That’s under the very clear assumption that the arcs will have better polish, pacing and integration in the existing world. In a way, the things I found lacking in F&F get a free pass from me for being the first chapter of this concept, which is bound to be a bit rough in execution. They have to improve a good deal for the concept to work in the long run, though.
Contrary to some I dont want everything and anything linked to the Elder dragons. I’d be happy if the only reference to them is the occasional tip of the hat to the players role in those events, and maybe dealing with side effects of the dragon activities. Like someone above said we have a whole continent of people with their own agendas and interests, both personal and kingdom-spanning. Let these living stories with that and leave the dragons for expansions.
I also think they dont need to bend themselves in five directions to connect each Living Story chapter with the following. The world is large, things are happening all over and they need not be to be linked.
A transitionary chapter in southsun is a good choice for now because the island was half-finished. I hope they take the chance to finish it into a full zone during the next weeks. That means Map completion, part of world completion, a few skill challenges, Vistas and more permanent dynamic events because the current ones will likely be resolved throughout the chapter.
Here’s a summary of my expectations from the chapters after southsun:
- enough new content to allow interested players to spend much of their time in the area the story takes place in.
- have the events of the story increase the amount of available permanent content in the game in meaningful ways (new areas or dungeons, not just a new PoI somewhere)
- introduce and reintroduce characters from a recurring cast where it makes sense to have players build a connection to some npcs (so killing them later actually means something, unlike what was done in the personal story)
- have continuing and closed story lines respectively, both can work
Well written post, but if I sum it up it comes down to “no achievements in temporary content please”. Unless I misunderstand it.
The thing is that simulating change in the world through a living story comes at the price of temporary content. It’s the very core of their current live team concept.
A very good point can be made for halting this experiment and instead focusing development on permanent additions that enrich the game with more content for years down the road. Nobody would miss achievements, new players would have more content to play through, returning players would notice all the work Anet poured into the game in their absence, etc. I cannot argue against that and I am all in favor of more permanent content.
But I also find the idea of temporary content intriguing enough to wait a bit longer to see how well it turns out. We’re at the start of chapter 2 only and I’m sure it is very much a learning experience for Anet. Yes it means I have achievements uncompleted forever, and there are now items I can no longer obtain like the fused weapons. That is the price of having this changing content, because if you make it available through other means like servers-in-the-past or recap npcs or whatever else, there really is no point anymore to not just making permanent content instead. And like I said favoring permanent content is a very understandable stance to have – I might change my mind towards that in the coming months.
That’s besides the point though.
Levels are more important as far as upscaling is concerned because without it, all the armor and traits in the world wont make a lvl 26 put up a useful fight in Sparkfly Fen. If they didnt re-use the upscaling on Southsun that was already implemented you wouldnt have characters in their teens fighting Karka there.
Living story is anti-grind/farm? That opinion is simply ignorance or fanboyism, you pick.
You are aware that you can do everthing that came with this last patch in about an hour, the next additions are on the 28th, and from now until then you have the choice of grinding for the consortium supply crates thingies from the cash shop, grind/farm crafting mats or farm DEs on southsun? That is the living content for these weeks. One hour entertaining new stuff followed by pure repetition.
Mind you thats ok with me. I like the living story and I like the content from the original game. I just see where his concerns are coming from, and they are reasonable.
The OP is right, too little permanent content has come from the living story changes so far, and it is important that we adress that so Anet considers their designs for the coming chapters. If you condense the living story chapters (all of F&F and this first part of SoS) you get a few days worth of playing. For half a year or more that is too little, even if you play through it.
I’m still in wait and see mode until August because implementing these changes takes time and this living story concept is still new, but Anet has to realize that they need to make permanent additions to the world alongside the living story. Ideally, through the living story even. F&F already missed a great chance by not leaving behind some aftermath of the invasion events or even explorable dungeon modes. Lets see if SoS had time to learn from that. I’m not worried if it doesnt, but the July/Aug/Sept updates really need to leave permanent additions behind or the rest of the game, outside of the ‘1 hour per week living story’ gets stale.