Story-Strike Mission was a clever choice

I thought it was a smart move for Anet to make the first half of Visions of the Past be this Strike Mission disguised as a Story Mission. Why? Because now we have a Lot of people trying out this newer form of content.

Before, when I thought about Strike Missions, my reaction was mostly "eh.", i didnt feel the pull to try them at all. But now as you enter the new hub, youre immediately presented with new potential rewards And as part of this filler story, you have to do a Strike Mission. And I must say, it was rather enjoyable.And now I find my thoughts have changed from "eh." to "hmm.. i think i should try those missions out. They dont seem so bad and the loot seems good too."

Im sure that other people have also experienced this feeling of "Oh wait, this aint that bad actually" after finishing the mission, and got curious for more.

Its like a marketing strategy. This gets more people to try out the strike mission content the devs put effort into previously already.

Also no need to discuss about existing bugs or such. Im sure theyll be fixed. Focus only on the concept of implementing the mission itself, if you have an opinion to share.

If this strike mission isn't any harder than usual solo story instances, then it might work. Though I've seen quite a few people already complain that they are now forced to party when they wanted to enjoy the story alone. :/

The new rewards does make me interested in trying them out, though I wonder how long it'll take to get those ascended rewards. :o

I like where it offer public options, Now even I'm solo player this feature help me get into party with no worry about my build or control skill anymore. Thank you Anet. hope next time we got content like this with our own toon. :)

I didnt like this, would probably never do this strike again... I dont like instance base content in a mmo... And nothing about this need to be a strike could have easly been an open world meta event so yeah.... And most of all is an escort mission...

Interesting, I didn't even consider that a Strike mission, I just thought of it as a group based Story mission since there was so much to do before even reaching the Boss, but that's just me and it doesn't change my opinion of Strikes at all, still not interested in doing them.

I'd agree with the OP if this was somehow representative of strike missions or even anything like the other srike missions, but it's not. I feel a bit like the first 20 levels of Age of Conan, which I loved. Voiced, detailed, easy to follow. You finish that area, jump into the main game and it's a completely different game. I bought the game because I loved it in the beginning.

This is sort of the same thing. Mark my words, a lot of people who like this mission (including me) won't enjoy other strike missions because they're completely different.

clever choice to get people to log off and watch a movie instead, i don't think i've ever played content this bad until today in gw2 lol.

agreed.reminds me of gw1 missions where you have to work together to complete the mission/bonus.difficulty was just on the sweet spot for it to.

I liked it very much. I like strike missions, too (and am a bit into raiding) and I really hope that more people get attracted to it. The thing is: even in raids most of the people are nice and relaxed. Especially in training groups. But many players seem to think it's just horrible without even trying.

I now that reaction from a group of friends. One of them I got to try strikes and even raids and enjoying them. Another one tried strikes with me the first time yesterday, got his meta achievement for Shadow in the Ice done and had so much fun he asked me to do strikes with him again. But another friend just doesn't want to try them and said "nah, you three go alone".

The last two of these friends were complaining about having to join a group for the story but after they did it, they seemed to have fun.

TL;DR: I hope that people will try out new content before judging it. I liked the missions very much.

Why can't all Strike Missions be like this rather than the boring Boss-in-a-Box we've been given up to now?I really enjoyed playing this - it was varied, interesting, room to manouver and, more importantly, fun.If all SMs were like this I would be more than happy to play them but until then I'll give the previous ones a miss.

Did it on my main account, did it twice due to a bug.I don't like to be forced into group play however.On run 2 there aready was a self proclaimed "commander" filling chat with his frustrations during the boss-thing fight.Those are people I wish to avoid.

In normal LS I hardly ever complete the meta's last years as I don't speed-rush the "Do this event 20 times" in first weeks.After those weeks those events are only possible if anet artificially adds them to some hype collection.

In general I prefer content to be done alone, casually, no hitpoint sponges.That's what I like about gw2.

We have seen experiments with quicker story bossfights, I liked that better.But the experiment of putting an LS story end-boss in a forced group setting is a one time only I hope.

But as this LS only added some skins I think I safely can add it to my long list of never completed temporary content.

@"Andovar Edoras.2143" said:I thought it was a smart move for Anet to make the first half of Visions of the Past be this Strike Mission disguised as a Story Mission. Why? Because now we have a Lot of people trying out this newer form of content.

Well actually it is more like a (quite easy) scripted story mission for more than one player. It is not like the other strike missions. So, for lack of a better wording, I would call this a "dungeon story mode mission". Calling this a strike mission could backfire when people are trying out other strike missions and find out, that the usual strike missions are completely different.

I was very surprised by how well these missions were done.

I really enjoyed both Forging Steel and Darkmire Delves (havent done the LW1 stuff yet)Forging Steel in some ways actually felt like a large squad based Dungon run! Seriously it had quest objectives, a big boss at the end, upto 10 man content and even a seige weapon you had to keep alive and also could jump in and blast the crap outta everything in your way.Items to pick up like rocket launchers and potions.. it really did feel like a Dungeon in a lot of ways.. I seriously hope that Anet keep making new content like this going forward, I had a blast playing these missions ^^

No. I found it rather annoying and tedious. Had it not been for the public option, I'd not have bothered. All of it felt designed to drag on longer than necessary, especially the final boss, though that might've been because of the CC phase which the group couldn't/wouldn't break. I tried, but it's rather pointless when only one or two people are trying to break a defiance bar that is apparently meant for a whole group.

I think the only things that caught my attention were the NPC banter (although I cared little for the NPCs themselves, cause, well...just met em) and the new(?) enemies.The only payoff story-wise was in the second section, so the Strike Mission portion could've been skipped outright.

It is alright for once, made me try it out. I appreciate the weekly strike mission thing, and the reward thingies, but please no more locking story instances behind strike missions. The only saving grace of raids for me is that those stories can be skipped or they may be taking place in the background somewhere sometime. This was a look back into the past, alright, that works fine in the narrative. Still the whole warband thing storywise just feels pushed onto the actual story. You could take it away entirely and you wouldn't lose anything from the narrative.I prefer to do my living world alone or with 1-2 friends. The Victory or Death (Arah dungeon story mode) instance can easily be done with those numbers, even solo if you play well enough, and even that was a controversial choice back at release.

So yeah, it was alright once, good marketing trick or whatever, but please no more of this locking story behind 10 players group content.

Players just need to do ONE thing: read the chat! Players who already did it for their story keep doing it for crystals and they know how to do things properly while newcomers don't (or may not). If they don't read the instructions — or the only one that matters — the final fight can take up an additional 40 minutes 'cause we'll have to kill the boss by brute force.

I've been in a group a few hours ago that made me angry 'cause people were auto-attacking the boss and trying to CC it with regular skills while me and others in the chat were warning/instructing/whatever them to get inside the damn tank -AND- how to use the skill (since you have yo fire and then pull).

I feel the same way, its not about the dificulty (altho id apreciate harder content for groups that connected to the main story) its about the multiplayer aspect of it and what it adds to the experience.

For me every single story boss has felt lesser pf what it coupd potentially be because they were solo content, no soloable content, they were designed for one person to go in and clear it.

Im not advocating for hard content here, all im saying is that it feels good when the good guys group up to face a challenge thats bigger than the sum of its parts.

@zealex.9410 said:Im not advocating for hard content here, all im saying is that it feels good when the good guys group up to face a challenge thats bigger than the sum of its parts.It doesn't feel good when the end boss takes half an hour, because one person afk's, two quit midway, and three remaining (yes, somehow the public group numbered 6 players at this point, some players apparently left earlier) get overwhelmed due to all portals being up and all the area swarming with enemies (no, there were no challenge motes active, from what i saw. The instance just never scaled down back to three active people that were left).Personally, i'd rather have it as a solo mission at this point. It would have felt way, way better.

But of course if the idea was to make people dislike strike missions even more than they did already, then i'd say this instance did the job really well.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Im not advocating for hard content here, all im saying is that it feels good when the good guys group up to face a challenge thats bigger than the sum of its parts.It doesn't feel good when the end boss takes half an hour, because one person afk's, two quit midway, and three remaining (yes, somehow the public group numbered 6 players at this point, some players apparently left earlier) get overwhelmed due to all portals being up and all the area swarming with enemies (no, there were no challenge motes active, from what i saw. The instance just never scaled down back to three active people that were left).Personally, i'd rather have it as a solo mission at this point. It would have felt way, way better.

I dont see some failled attempts being that detrimental to the overall strike missions as well as this aproach to story content, esp when strike missions are more rewarding than ever now.

Failure deff didnt deter players (or well, most players) back in gw1 nor in mmos like ff14 or wow.

Just like a new raid or a new fractal ppl need to get used to the encounter.

@zealex.9410 said:Just like a new raid or a new fractal ppl need to get used to the encounter.Which is true if you enjoy that type of content. Forcing it on those who don't is, IMO, not a grand idea.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Just like a new raid or a new fractal ppl need to get used to the encounter.Which is true if you enjoy that type of content. Forcing it on those who don't is, IMO, not a grand idea.

Fortunately players don’t have to do this content.

Personally, I have mitigated feeling, with disappointment rather winning: No new area and all what usually comes with that (mastery points, treasure hunts, new mat, JP, ...). To my eyes, that's dry. There are of course several achievements, but most rely on simply repeating the same two instances and I'm not fan of repeating same in a row.

I wonder for how long people will remain interested at that rather limited content. Also I believe that PvE explorable players probably feel completely left aside with the concept of this episode. For them, that's sort of no content. Once more a case of "time will tell".

@Dreamy Lu.3865 said:. There are of course several achievements, but most rely on simply repeating the same two instances and I'm not fan of repeating same in a row.

How’s this different from having players repeat things over and over on a single map?

I didn't say it's different from the rest? I just say I'm not fan of it. I generally don't like to repeat in a row. For everything.

Now if you want to compare with explorable, I can share my opinion: To my eyes, explorable gives more flexibility/freedom and more variety of the activities. And you are right: There are players who repeat in a row in explorable too, typically meta events. But that's not mandatory. It remains a choice. Personally, I don't do that.

With this episode now, I don't have any choice: The only way to go is to repeat the instance, exactly the same, again and again. It's like we would have an explorable area for which all achievements are linked to the meta, so that repeating the meta is the only way to go. But that's never like that in explorable. That's where I see a difference. And I also miss the limited variety of types of tasks. Hope I was able to explain what I mean. And again, that's me and how I see it. Nothing more.

Honestly, it feels more like an easymode raid mixed with personal story rather than a strike mission. Strike missions don't have the extra fluff between boss fights, while raids do.