Long story instances need a fail safe

Anet needs to add some type of fail safe to long story instances, players shouldn't be punished when the game has an issue and the player can't continue.

I've tried to get through The Departing twice. The first time as I was searching for weapons (a hint would be nice) I got stuck in an object and couldn't move, I had to bail. Went back in and got to the point where I had to find my "special purpose", I opened the map to take a look and the game flipped me to the desktop. The game was still running, I could hear it, but I couldn't switch back to it and I had to kill the process. At this point I'm not really interested in trying the episode again.

I know it's not easy to tell if the player bails on purpose or the game causes the problem, but if the game kept a stack it should be able to make a somewhat educated guess as to how to handle it.

agreeda few times it has just blacked out telling me my network has failed which is total BS and i have had to restart missions..the hardest longest missions too

yeah, first time going through "The Departing" I DC'd after the abysmal Eater of souls fight. had to do that long instance again and refight the most poorly designed boss of the expansion (in terms of gameplay).

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:I've tried to get through The Departing twice. The first time as I was searching for weapons (a hint would be nice) I got stuck in an object and couldn't move, I had to bail.

I know this may not be common knowledge, Anet relies far to much on the wiki, but for the case mentioned above, use the command /stuckIt works in instances.

Logged after a break of four months, attempted a long, solo storyline, dc'd at end on final boss with 1/3hp, barely played again since.

This happened to me three days ago with my Necromancer in the second Story mission (airship travel). After I got a dc the third time while talking to the npcs to get the fire extinguisher I didn't fancy a fourth try so I skipped it and used a teleport to friend to get to Amnoon. In this instance I had no dc issues with Mesmer, Engineer and Guardian, but only with the Necro. Unfortunately I can't tell whether it is related to the profession/build or a (hidden) technical issue.

Well, I also had to play The Departed twice, because I got dc'ed while talking to Joko after the Bossfight. It was very annoying to have to do the whole thing again. In Glint's Cave fortunately I only had to replay the Bossfight, but the area where he is in, is separated by a portal. Maybe there could be some more invisible portals or things that work similar to save the progress before and after an important fight?

Yes, please! It can be done, as I was hit with the bug in Night of Fires where you are d'ced and the cannot reenter at all. When Anet fixed the bug, I was able to reenter where I had left it. I did not have to repeat the big fight at the beginning.

But when The Departed locked up, nope, do it all over again. Please put checkpoints in Anet.

Yes, add some saving points. Or, alternatively, give us an option to skip those endless npc pop-up conversations.

It's sort of surprising that there isn't at least basic checkpointing tied to the mission goals (for the infamous Departing, it tracks finding your name, purpose, and squashing the big bad boss already, so why not have it restart at the last completed mission step if something goes sideways?) I suppose there might be a technical reason, but they've had similar checkpointing in the past so that seems strange if there is.

@Lanhelin.3480 said:Well, I also had to play The Departed twice, because I got dc'ed while talking to Joko after the Bossfight. It was very annoying to have to do the whole thing again.

I had this exact same issue.

3 people in my house play GW2. All of us have DC'd fairly frequently in instanced content. It seems to be happening more in the last 6 months than ever before. I don't know whether to attribute that to something ANet has done to the server or client or some change made by our ISP, Comcast. One of us managed to push through and finish the HoT story, the other and myself are taking a break. For me, the value offered by GW2 is greatly reduced by this recurring problem. I would greatly appreciate some relief, as DC's during NPC dialogue at the end of long, drawn-out chapters is demotivating.

@OGDeadHead.8326 said:

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:I've tried to get through The Departing twice. The first time as I was searching for weapons (a hint would be nice) I got stuck in an object and couldn't move, I had to bail.

I've tried it in the open world and it never helped, I didn't know it worked differently in instances. Thanks for the tip.

The other day I DC'd right after defeating the Facet of Glint during the dialogue right before you leave, and when I logged back in and reentered the instance it dumped me right before the boss fight started, so stuff like this CAN be done. While it was annoying to do the boss all over again and all the dialogue after, at least I didn't have to do everything to open the portal again.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:3 people in my house play GW2. All of us have DC'd fairly frequently in instanced content. It seems to be happening more in the last 6 months than ever before. I don't know whether to attribute that to something ANet has done to the server or client or some change made by our ISP, Comcast. One of us managed to push through and finish the HoT story, the other and myself are taking a break. For me, the value offered by GW2 is greatly reduced by this recurring problem. I would greatly appreciate some relief, as DC's during NPC dialogue at the end of long, drawn-out chapters is demotivating.

I'm going to guess it's a problem with Comcast, knowing their history, it might be a change to the routing, which I don't think Anet or NCSoft has any control over, heck I'm not even sure Comcast has any control over the routing...you could always do a route check to see if there's a place with significant packet loss(I found in the past this is the culprit when getting a lot of DC's), the one time I had an issue I was able to get my ISP to investigate and they found a bad switch that was causing the issue.

It's good to report this on the forums, but have you all filled out bug reports? Even still, Anet has been getting reports of DCs in instances for years and has failed to resolve the issue.
One thing I've found that consistently reduces DCs in instances is to shut down your PC(completely, so that it powers off) then restart it. It has helped me, and several guild mates in different guilds.(one of them thought he'd never finish the final chapter of personal story, until he tried a shutdown/restart right before)

No, this isn't something that you should have to do, but it is a potential solution that is 100% under your control. Also, if you're getting "cannot connect to login server" messages, this won't help you.

Even if there aren't bugs, some of the instances are just too long. They have grown huge since the expansions and now it takes forever to complete one instance. I miss when they were broken down into smaller manageable pieces. Most of us have lives outside of this game and don't always have time for a 2 hour long instance that you can't back out of without losing progress. Now I don't even attempt them unless I can be at it for hours...

yes! sometimes get kicked out of instance bc of stepping over the boundary without realizing, and if course DC's. sooo annoying. some sort of check point in story instances is going to be very helpful.

more check points would be nice i love long inatances i just dont like it when something come up irl heven forbid that happens to some of us and havin to start over

You can't skip anything on this dreadful mission either. I attempted to run to the judge and talked to him before nenah followed and it broke the instance. Got to restart AGAIN after my internet dropped late into it!!!!!

I totally agree with the above. Solo instances are WAY TOO LONG with no saves possible, so if something goes wrong near the end you have no recourse but to do the whole damned thing over again from the beginning. This is the opposite of fun!

I think The Departing was a bit bugged after launch. Like some other chapter in PoF. They've been fixed after some weeks (luckily I didn't play PoF at launch and I never had an issue, iirc). "Funny" thing: The departing has also an achievement for watching all the scenes, which is quite long to repeat (but the episode itself is much shorter than many others with long fights). It's a wonderful chapter and I had to stop while playing it, to take some moment to assimilate those scenes. They really hit me.

Anyway, since this thread is open again, I agree in putting some save points here and there (I had to repeat that part with the giant crystal and I'd like to complete the flying achievement with Mordremoth, but the idea to kill everytime the 2 NPCs really bothers me).I wouldn't shorten them though. If The Departing were too short for example (just to use the same episode the OP mentioned), most part of the beauty of that episode would vanish. It must be savoured slowly.

You could probably get around this by entering a friend's story instance who is on the same story step as you. MMO's in general require minimal technical difficulties anyway :/

Maybe check point