Personal Story is bugged, live with it?

Completed a chapter of my personal story, which was supposed to award an achievement and a mastery point. I was not awarded the achievement or mastery point.

Filing a ticket with "support" yielded a response that strongly suggested that the responding GM had not read or understood my explanation of the problem. Responded to this, explained the problem in more detail, asked if they could reset any part of the affected character's personal story progression. The GM again responded in a fashion that suggested they still did had not really read or fully understood my explanation of the problem, but the GM did indicate they could offer no assistance with defects related to personal story, no tools for this exist.

Basically: "I don't really have the time to read your problem report, and therefore don't really understand what you are talking about. But if the game is defective, live with it".

Frustrating.

The only workaround I can think of is to attempt the personal story again, on a different character, with every likelihood that the problem will recur.

Can anyone think of anything else to try? Is there any sort of escalation mechanism for tickets when a GM indicates they can't/won't help?

You can simply update your ticket with a request that it be escalated/sent to a higher up.

Which story step were you on when you had your bug? Or which achievement were you trying to get?

I was in progress on original personal story chapter "Forming the Pact" when the mastery system was introduced, then moved on and did other things in the game for quite a while (like, Living Season 2, Heart of Thorns, etc). Upon resuming the chapter a couple of days ago (cleaning up unfinished tasks, hoping to pick up the mastery point), my character was presented a severely abbreviated remainder of the chapter (which did not in any way resemble the various steps/missions the Wiki documents for the chapter), seemingly successfully completed the chapter, and progressed onto the "Victory or Death" chapter of the original personal story.

However, "The Cost of Victory" achievement was not awarded, the character was never presented with the steps/missions of the "Forming the Pact" chapter that are cited in the achievement description as completion criteria, and of course the mastery point was not awarded.

It is as if the progression for the "Forming the Pact" chapter was changed out from under my character, without my character's story journal being correspondingly "resequenced", and when the character resumed the chapter it followed an obsolete progression (or was simply skipped to the end, since the character's progression was out of sync with the chapter's progression), which denied the character all access to the chapter step(s)/mission(s) necessary for the achievement.

I have amended my ticket to request escalation. We will see what ensues.

It appears achievements/mastery points for earlier chapters (preceding "Forming the Pact", all of which had been fully completed by the original character) were properly awarded to my account when the mastery system was introduced. Its just this one achievement and its associated mastery point that remain at issue.

So, I have resumed the original personal story on a second character, a character with decent progress on the original personal story (in progress on the "Helping Hands" chapter... which means I will have to do the whole "The Battle of Claw Island" chapter, which I remember as being interminable... so be it) but absolutely no progress of any kind yet on the "Forming the Pact" chapter. We will see what form of the "Forming the Pact" chapter this second character experiences (in terms of the manifest and order of steps/missions), and whether the achievement problem recurs. Mastery points are account-wide, so I only need to earn this particular point once.

The GM that responded to my ticket directed me to a locked forum thread in which these story journal achievements/masteries and their various bugs were discussed. Seems like these problems occurred from the outset of the mastery system. Clearly they still occur :-(.

There were a few weird changes with the tail end of the personal story a couple of years ago. They changed how the story worked, cutting out some steps (such as the whole "My Greatest Fear" storylines with Apatia/Tonn/Syska). About a year later, they undid those changes and restored the "My Greatest Fear" storyline. If a character had already done the "Forging the Pact" step of "Forming the Pact", then that character skipped ahead to the "Battle of Fort Trinity" and skips all of the "My Greatest Fear" stuff. So, it sounds like that might be what happened with you. If that's the case, then your other character shouldn't have any trouble unlocking the achievement when it gets to that point.

Here's a link to the dev post about the story restoration from the old forums: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Personal-Story-Restoration-update

I remember this happening and it was quite a mess for many characters. Unfortunately I am pretty sure the GM was right when he told you he was unable to help you, as manually putting you to an earlier stage of personal story is not possible. I think you skipped forward when being at a storystep that got removed or "shuffled around" and you cannot go back to it even when they put it back into the game at a later time.

Did you complete the personal story? The achievement you expected to get is the chapter they cut out back when you stopped playing it. They later added it back and reset it to that point for anyone who missed it. Once you complete it, it should loop back to that point, though I'm not sure if it still does that. If it doesn't, you'll need to play it on another character.

Sounds like this chapter of the personal story mutated extensively, aimlessly in circles, all while my character was on "hiatus" while in progress on this particular chapter. Needless to say, by the time I returned to the personal story, my character's progress was hopelessly SNAFUd, to the point that this chapter became impossible to access correctly (even as a story experience, much less as a means to in-game rewards).

Why didn't Anet simply reset progress on this chapter for everyone in progress on it, when the problems started? Why have they never developed the tools required to address these things (especially since so many customers were negatively impacted, during and afterwards)? I expect even they don't know. Just a series of incremental reactions, with no strategy or well-considered outcome as the target.

Anyway, I put in the hours required to reach and complete this chapter on a different character. Started fresh, from the beginning, the chapter sequenced correctly (was not snarled on an account-wide basis), and I was able to secure the achievement and its mastery point. In the aggregate, it was a disproportionate amount of duplicate effort for one mastery point, but beyond my control. Fortunately the matter is now resolved. Hopefully, they won't feel compelled to mess with the original personal story any more.

But, as always: Caveat Emptor.

Thanks for the responses.