What's your favorite story? (Core/expansions/Living World seasons)

What is your favorite story? I know there are other older threads. But since those a few new things got added.

Personally I only played up to including chapter 1 of season 4. (Playing all stuff in release order.) And I now this one has been popular. (And Icebrood is considered even better.) And I want to talk about story only. (Map events and the story told there is important as well.) Not the gameplay content.

Imo core story as okay-ish. Was great back then when only that one existed. Compared to the stuff I played so far ... I liked season 2 much better than most of the later stuff. (Seems to be an unpopular opinion though.) Liked how the old maps got re-used. And the big reveals and the story about the Sylvari (even with flashback where we played Caithe in the past) and the egg.

2nd probably is the HoT story - which also has the greatest map events. I really liked the outpost helping stuff in Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths. PoF had a lot to explore and some okay-ish (better than season 3 but far away from being as good as HoT ones) meta events in the maps. Story had good moments. Also okay-ish ones. I think the season 3 felt more "consistent". For both - HoT and PoF - I though it got worse in the end ... cause it felt a bit rushed there.

(And suddenly you found the allies ... and then finished Mordremoth. You had Joko's army ... and then directly the decisive battle. Slow build-up and then rushing.) I guess I liked the season 3 more than PoF ... but less then HoT (excluding the ending).

Now looking forward to season 4.

When I compare it to the core story: There it felt much slower. Actually the last maps where the ones that had the most story steps. Slowly dealing with Zhaitan's major minions. Helping Trahearn to cleanse Orr. Then the story dungeon which also took some time. PoF: Convince Joko's generals. Next mission: Bam ... following the warbeast and killing Balthazar. End.

I liked all the story till the end of HoT the most :) Especially between scarlets attacks and HoTRegarding gameplay and content i loved season 1 a lot. It was nice to play and coop with so many player. Lately i dont get the happy coop gameplay anymore...

Core, Icebrood Saga, and then HoT.

I actually like the Core story best.Second place is Season 1.

Season 2 drags on too much.HoT feels too rushed and essential parts, which should have been part of it, never made it into the game.Season 3 is just all over the place and introduces Balthazar as an enemy - which i consider a dirty move against players who chose him as their patron god.PoF was almost alright, but Balthazar shouldn't have been killed.Season 4 feels too rushed as well. Neither Joko nor Kralkatorrik had enough build-up.Season 5 is just terrible: the plot twists, one can smell from five kilometres away, Rytlock being reduced to nothing but an angry daddy.The worst part is Champions. They should have just made an epilogue and have a long content drought instead of these droplets of mind-numbing content.

@Luthan.5236 said:What is your favorite story?

The Personal Story because of branched choices and nice little stories that carry a sense of adventure. Up till Claw Island, where the rest of the core story becomes very badly executed, like it was a 20 year old game, therefore doesn't feel epic at all, like it should, but rather cheaply done.

Best was for sure LS1.HoT the Maps as environment was nice, the story a bit thin.PoF was the opposite, the story was quite good, the maps rather bad.LS4 and Personal story was quite goodLS3 was okLS2 was badLS5 hm, I didn't get warm with it, probably to cold environment. ;)

None of the arcs have been strong enough to warrant much merit. The below are my opinions on each story;

• LS1 was awful. Almost no story, little exposition and likely did more to destroy the playerbase than anything since. An idea which was never going to work in practice, it's only saving grace were a few big set pieces.
• LS2 held together, but no VA, poor production values leave it dated. But the story itself structured better than most GW2 arcs
• HoT was too short. Most of it was fine, but far too little of it, combined with the Eureka! moment on the doorstep of Mordy hurt it a lot
• LS3 was all over the place and the Bitterfrost and Sirens Landing episodes were major low points in the story (especially the final episode). Where it succeeded, it did really well. A lack of focus hurt it. The piecemeal approach makes it more replayable for me though
• PoF a great first half, which feel apart halfway through when we back to rushing through the campaign and not really exploring motivations, lore etc in detail
• LS4. Started excellently. The controversial end of Ep3 and the overall poor Kourna episode started a downward trend. It lifted a little in episode 4 and then fell apart into some of the worst storytelling in the game. That final episode is appauling in my eyes.
• Icebrood Saga. It's difficult to fully judge. What promised so much, feels like it has been cut short. There's some good stuff there, it just never hit the potential. It should have been the best of the lot. It almost was, but sadly... we are where we are

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to pick one, but I think I might go Personal Story. Yes it's horribly dated, but it feels like a GW campaign and the early branching bits were fun. It also explores a fair number of things and is a clear start - finish campaign. I usually say LS2 because despite some loose ends, achieved everything it needed to leading into HoT with some great fights and maps, but I'm going Core this time

If I'm going to pick an arc though, it's the White Mantle arc. I think they did a decent job with it and actually closed it off well, using raids, dunegons and open world to tell various aspects of the story. We can forget the Shining Blade garbage in Ep6, but Caudecus' rise and fall, the attack on Lake Doric, the build up in the Manor dungeon and the reveal in the 4th Raid Wing, told a good story

After Scarlet & Mordremoth, the story just got bland for me. But I’m sure it’ll get better when we go to Cantha. It would be nice to migrate away from the Elder Dragons and deal with an enemy on par to Scarlet or even Joko.

Personnal story because I felt like my characters creation choices matter and are used, branching and interesting story. I enjoyed a lot the different dungeon stories. LS1 was a fun experience for me. LS2 was one of the worst before I discovered the chapters of ls5 icebrood saga. I liked some of ls3, ember bay, draconis mons, lake doric. LS4 was promising loved episode 1 and 2 bit it fell apart with the bad episode 3, bad joko death. Rushed map with two lines of gandara meta scrapped and an unused unfinished gandara fortress. I thought they would have learned from their mistakes, but not, they killed not less than 3 good characters, blish, almorra and smodur. Those three were promising and could have been developped to help the plot, but instead they were killed like nobodies during bad story twists.Really, see LS5, exactly the same as LS4: The two first episodes are excellent and after it falls apart and go from worst to worst. Well gonna give credit that ls5 went 1 good episode further, ep3 was cool with drizzlewood.

So basically, everything like Randulf apart LS1, story was ok to me, but sure i liked ls1 because of the massive impressing events like battle of la or breachmaker. My only complain is that I can't experience old la under assault again.

Core (Prologue to Level 30), Season 1 (for its action and set pieces) and Season 2 (for its story).

Interesting opinions. Some seem to like it slower and some prefer the faster stuff. (I mean there are opinions that season 4 was good - that don't are limited to the first chapters.)

For the core story I liked the introduction and the last part. The middle part imo was too short. Just 1 story with the order. Then the minor races chapter. And then the attack at the order after which it moves on to Claw Island. Also killing Zhaitan did not make the main char looking too OP. Cause airships and stuff were involved.

Fighting Balthazar ... just makes me wonder how other enemies can still exist that are stronger. When that one was a god already. And took just a kid dragon + magic sword to destroy him.

I think so far I agree with Randulf. Though I did only play until end of 2013 (then back 2019) ... did only play the start of season 1. Felt nice of the influence you had (voting for Ellen Kiel or Gnashblade) and knowing it was temporarily available only. And new. But the starting chapters itself felt a bit boring. (Seems the real plot only kicked in later when I did not play. At the end.) So ... a bit slow I guess.

HoT for me. It was cut a bit too short, but otherwise good story and atmosphere.I also really like LS4, despite a few shortcomings. LS3 (except Ep6) is also fun to play.And parts of the core story. The quality can't keep up with later patches, of course, but some of the stories are still fun to play.

On the other hand, I don't care much about the PoF story and LS2 is exhausting. LS5 is in parts even worse.

LS1 was fun, not for the story but for the world events like the Marionette Fight (think Octovine, but in turns so you could watch how other lanes did and cheer them on. I loved that!) and the Attack on Lion's Arch (I really felt like I was desperately trying to save people. It was so good. There were also roleplayers engaging with the content which really made the experience more immersive) I liked the story involving Joko - Joko himself was a fantastic and entertaining character that kept me intrigued and engaged.
The thing with Balthazar and the gods in later chapters kind of killed it for me, leaving more questions than answers and feeling disappointed and sad for humans. I don't want to post spoilers but holy crap I have no respect for the human gods whatsoever any more.Then...the writing gets a little less enjoyable after that, going down very dark gritty paths. I wanted to learn about the Norn; a race which had been sort of the butt of jokes for awhile and saw what I hoped to be their story, turned in to one about Charr. Bjora Marches made me play less and I just haven't recovered my interest since. The game play and story is missing something; I can't currently fault the studio as I am sure Covid-19 has had a massive impact on their work. I am thankful there is still new content!But I am not really engaged like I used to.