when do the other Living World Seasons get good?

I remember playing through the end of Season 1 starting with Origins of Madness and had the most fun I have probably had in an MMO. So far Season 2 is nothing more than an extended personal story with no interaction with other players what so ever. When will I get to the epic parts like the Marionette fight, escaping Lion's Arch, and finally retaking LA and killing Scarlet? If Season 2 sucks I will gladly skip it and do 3.

I would assume 3 would be the same as 2.

Hard to say. I found season one to be so disappointing that I left the game part way through. I found season two to be marginally better but found enough interest in wvw to keep me interested in the game at that time.

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:I would assume 3 would be the same as 2.

so basically compared to Season 1 they are all awful?

@Ashen.2907 said:Hard to say. I found season one to be so disappointing that I left the game part way through. I found season two to be marginally better but found enough interest in wvw to keep me interested in the game at that time.

yeah even though I started this game the day it went live I dont remember much about Season 1 until Marionette and then Lion's Arch. So maybe the early chapters are boring solo stuff and then the end is where the epic stuff is at.

Unlikely to be any Living World Story content like Season One, as it must always be available and repeatable. Otherwise, it's released as a Meta Event in a map. It's the trade-off for those content that wasn't permanent, and drew large crowds because it was always new.

S3 and S4 are the best. S2 was okay but TBH, it had too much to keep track of and felt all over the place.

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:I would assume 3 would be the same as 2.

Season 1 will never be replicated. Part of what made it awesome is that it was temporary content. Everyone had to work together quickly to figure things out and make it work, sometimes on a server-wide basis.

ANet scrapped the idea for a variety of reasons (including: they weren't prepared to handle that many game updates, they couldn't produce that much content and stay sane, and too many fans were horribly upset if they had to miss two weeks for any reason... among many, many reasons).

Season 2 was ANet's first attempt to set up permanent content from story updates and it shows. There are some wonderful things and some that are awful. Some challenges that are unreasonably tedious or difficult. With Season 3, ANet seemed to have finally figured out how to repeat their best efforts (mostly) and (also mostly) avoid the worst mistakes. (Each of us has their one story & new map in LS3 that we hate.)

But ... as good as LS3 is, nothing will ever come close to how much fun the game was for me during LS1. Even when it was frustrating, it was still exciting. We'll never get that back, because the new LS stories are permanent, not transitory, and that's part of what was so good, at least for some of us.

I agree with you, OP. Season 2 is just terrible. Season 3 is much better although storywise it is no revelation either, quite the contrary.

so season 1 was free and the best. now in order to do subpar seasons im forced to pay for them? where do they come up with their design philosophy at?

Season 2 should only be viewed as existing for the story. The maps are fun on their own but everything else from it is meh. Season 3 was epic and 4 is off to a great start

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:so season 1 was free and the best. now in order to do subpar seasons im forced to pay for them? where do they come up with their design philosophy at?

You have alternatives:

• Going forward, login 1x/month. That ensures you'll get all the episodes for free.
• For S2, you can piggy back the stories/instances with a player who already unlocked them. You won't get achievements and stuff, but you get to see what it's like.
• HoT story comes with HoT and PoF story with PoF.
• Near as I can tell, there's no way into LS3 by piggy backing; too much happens or starts in the corresponding maps (which are locked).

Based on your comments, I strongly recommend you proceed with just the base stories. If you find yourself falling in love with GW2, then you'll play enough to earn enough gold to unlock the seasons (and maybe catch a sale on them at some point). And if you don't end up being excited by all things GW2, then you won't have wasted your time or coin (or RL cash).

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:so season 1 was free and the best. now in order to do subpar seasons im forced to pay for them? where do they come up with their design philosophy at?

If you had logged in at least once every 3 months, you would have gotten them for free.

@Klipso.8653 said:

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:so season 1 was free and the best. now in order to do subpar seasons im forced to pay for them? where do they come up with their design philosophy at?

ok i was wondering why i got season 2 for free but need to pay for season 3

I admit that season 1 was epic, in ways that you always ended up with large crowds doing the events. They where like world boss events, very awesome.

All Living stories where free, if you just logged in before the next episode came out. And they should continue to do it like this.Season 3 and 4 are way better, in terms of providing new content. Be there when the story comes live, and you have lots of fun with other players. After 2-3 weeks, people go back to their usual things to do. (or like me, do nothing until the next story and map comes out)

Season 2 was pretty solid with only a few duds, the boss fights were memorable and in some cases innovative.

Season 3 was a step back in interesting boss fights except for Cadecus and Balthazar but the story telling was solid except for episode 3 and 6 (coincidently by the same team) who's story lines didn't fit anywhere except peripherally.

Season 4 Episode 1 has been the best LW episode ever released regarding the map, events, bosses, and story.

@Ashen.2907 said:Hard to say. I found season one to be so disappointing that I left the game part way through.

Indeed, season 1 was, by far, the worst of all. An astonishingly stupid story and a bunch of boring open world zerg fights. The only exception was Marionette, which was equally horrible because of how often you got screwed by all the clueless people on the platform. Storytelling got better afterwards (which isn't difficult) and the zerg fights were sacrificed for the new LS maps, which at least offer replayability.

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:Hard to say. I found season one to be so disappointing that I left the game part way through.

People like you are the reason that GW2 gets more of a clone(instanced content instead of open world, raids) with each passing day. Nobody screwed you out of anything as nobody said that each attempt of Marionette could only be completed by seasoned veterans. Luckily for you GW2 over the years turned into the same you find everywhere, good old boys clubs for the veterans and a fooling around in the dark for new and casual players.

Leaving the many rushed storyelements(there is Belinda... AND...she´s dead) out of the equation, ls 2 lets you portray a sister murderer that is mad in love with a psycho - and sociopath and turns a blind eye to almost everything bad happening. The only guys to go out unharmed are the evil smurf scientist and said sociopath. I find zero redeeming qualities or anything just remotely heroic in ls2.

Depends on your definition of good. To me. Lvs2 doesn’t get good until like half way IN lvs3 is a lil bit better but takes couple episodes till you enjoy it. Now lvs4 the first episode was amazing. I truly think lvs4 is a step up.

Living world season 2 and 3 are meh. But however it’s a good thing to know what happened and the living world season 3 maps are a must have. But if your talking the greatness and fun of a story, living world season 4 ep one is by far the best living world episode they made. Not including season 1 since I missed that time to play and they never rebooted it.

Living world season 4 ep is probably as epic as killing Balthazar imho. The director that took charge did a fantastic job.

Living world season 2s story is better than season 3. However living world season 3s killing mobs was more fun then living world season 2. I truly think living world season 2, you would understand everything about mordremoth and Silvari much better. However in lvs3 I think the story isn’t really as important as they made it in lws2. If you didn’t know lws3 story and just got the maps you would be fine. There’s nothing that you would miss, you could make a good prediction and be fine and go kill Balthazar. In lvs2 the story isn’t like that.

I’m not saying the story is THAT good. I’m just saying in lws2 they made it so you kind of need to know it. It’s a very interesting story.

So your defining of good depends on your preference. If your thinking battle, lws4 is probably going to be the best season. If you thinking story, lws2 is better. However we can’t determine season 4 yet since were in 1 episode. But season 3 battle was fun.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:(Each of us has their one story & new map in LS3 that we hate.)Anything with Braham I hate. Season 3's low point was "A Crack in the Ice"

Season 1 was all about single-time events, so they usually were all around big "meta" events that you'd do a couple times for achievements, and maybe some story in between. I quit half way through it, and i did so because the "story" at that point was non-existant, there seemed to be only disconnected things and achievement hunts.By the end they tied it all together (not sure if planned or retconned but in the end everything in the story was tied to Scarlet), but only at the very end.LS2 and onward became about a proper story, not meta/world events connected by a disjointed narrative.As far as story goes, i doubt they will do anything beyond what they've done with LS2 and 3. The thing is, the "marionette" fights are now individual map meta events, since they don't add LS to existing maps, but run it in new maps. The latest "Marionette" is Palawadan siege, the best one in LS2 was Vinewrath. Also the individual episodic bosses are fun enough, like the shadow of the dragon, Caudecus or the Hounds of Balthazar.

Personally, and if you read what i said previously you'll know, i much prefer the new system. LS1 was penalizing and forced. Penalizing because new players or people that couldn't afford to play during a particular "episode" were blocked from ever playing it. And forced because at one point it devolved into people just playing every two weeks, unlocking the achievements, and done.The current model gives itself to replayability, to more play time, and is overall better for it. Do i miss some of those incredible things like when the Mad King first burst out of the Lion's Statue? Or when we braved Southsun and built the camps and stuff, then to kill the Ancient Karka? Yes, those were epic times. But that epicness came at the cost of LAG because everyone was crammed into that spot, and that a lot of people that couldn't connect or were disconnected didn't even get to enjoy it. While i actually got to server hop and get the Legendary Karka's rewards twice, some of my friends didn't even get it once, because they disconnected (although later Anet retroactively gave rewards to people that were dcd one of them didn't get anything because he disconnected too early, and even then the ones that did get stuff missed part of the event, stuff that won't ever be repeated in the game)

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:so season 1 was free and the best. now in order to do subpar seasons im forced to pay for them? where do they come up with their design philosophy at?

Season 1 was by in large despised by the community. It had some great moments, but overall the design and direction since has been shaped by player feedback.

S2 is an extension of the PS< because that is what many wanted it to be. It has a decent story arc, but it can be a chore to play through. S3 improves on the design and structure, but the narrative goes off the rails in places. S4 ep1 improves on what S3 laid down again.

Whether you liked S1 or loathed it (and overall I'm against the idea as it simply didn;t and couldn't really work), you will not see it's like again imo

@Dabrixmgp.4758 said:I remember playing through the end of Season 1 starting with Origins of Madness and had the most fun I have probably had in an MMO. So far Season 2 is nothing more than an extended personal story with no interaction with other players what so ever. When will I get to the epic parts like the Marionette fight, escaping Lion's Arch, and finally retaking LA and killing Scarlet? If Season 2 sucks I will gladly skip it and do 3.Think about it this way: If LS2 and LS3 were done similarly to LS1, you'd never have had the chance to experience them (if you were just trying to play them now). You could read a recap and then jump into LS4, but LS2 and LS3 would be gone and you'd have little idea how you went from point B to point F.

That was the problem with LS1 in my opinion. I missed the start of it and I was a relatively new player at the time so I was not at all comfortable with joining a massive zerg. Nor did I realize that it was temporary content. So I fumbled around in Kessex a little and I participated in the attack on LA (which was fun for sure). But none of it had any significance to me because the first chapters were long gone before I could play them.

I think you might get more enjoyment from playing the maps at the time of release (which would be LS4 now) and may find it more comparable to LS1. There's a huge difference in the atmosphere of a map when you have hundreds of players actively doing events versus 20 people farming nodes or soloing achievements.

I absolutely loved S1. It really was epic. Having said that, it should be more than obvious that the style and pace of S1 would not work for the long term. I mean, anyone who missed any or all of S1 is just out of luck, but the fact is you CAN go back and play S2 and S3 right now. You can't have the same "hurry, we have to save the world NOW!" epic feeling with long term, re-playable content. Most people agree that long term, re-playable content is better for the game as a whole.