Story Timeline & Game Structure is NOT New Player Friendly (Discussion)

[Teratus.2859]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:hot is awful, and it cost them a lot of players and goodwill.and you will have a hard time finding a player, who likes both core and the expansions.they are basically 2 different games, and that is NOT the correct way to make an expansionabout the writing: what purpose was there to take a FLEET OF AIRSHIPS to a HOSTILE JUNGLE? what were they supposed to do there?air interdiction? strategic bombing? yea....

That was pretty much their plan.. bomb the ever loving hell out of Mordremoth with overwhelming force.Mordy threw a vine in that plan though.

so it was a sneak attack against an unknown enemy in their own territory? do i have to point out how stupid that is?any competent commander would had refused. any sane person with a sense of morale would had done the same.it was a stupid and evil plan, and they actually deserved to die.even spongebob would had done better, we are talking patrick levels of stupidity here

I agree it was stupid, however the same tactic was kinda already proven effective against Zhaitan so can't say I fail to see the logic because at the time there was some reason to think it may work.

That said it wasn't just Mordremoth's vines striking airships out of the sky though, it was countless corrupted pact Sylvari that had fallen to Mordremoth as well which sabotaged the entire plan and launched a surprise attack on their pact allies.It was a devastating blow to the pact that they didn't see coming.

[Milkshake.4370]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I can't agree with the assessment.

There are a lot of Jeremy Soule's music fans. (Not that Maclaine, Stan, Lena aren't wonderful composers, as well.)Many players have posted that Core Tyria's maps are their favorites, and that those maps offer the best map stories available.

Many trailers (which is what was linked) show 'content' that is never seen in-game; that is not unusual.

Personally, I'm hoping End of Dragons is a bit more like Core Tyria, than HoT or Path of Fire. Of course, that's just me.

Hi, thank you for your comment, I can see your perspective and value your opinion.I think that Jeremy Soule, as great as he is, didn't really grasp the game content as well as the current composers but it was also done so long ago. We don't know what material he had to work with or what the set up was.

I'm not sure the Guild Wars franchise is as unknown as stated; it seems to be often listed on gaming sites/in articles about MMORPGs.

Its quite popular, just not growing as rapidly as the mega giants in the industry like WoW. This is likely due to lesser budget and different PR.

As many opinion posts there are pro-Heart of Thorns, there are probably just as many against.Interesting, from what I've seen there are usually more pro-HoT than against.

[Milkshake.4370]

@Treacy.4067 said:

@"Milkshake.4370" said:

I was truly only hooked after reaching Heart of Thorns

.This is where the game takes a huge turn for the better. Absolutely everything is improved; music, sound design, world design, story, writing. Literally everything about this expansion was

incredible, captivating, and immersive.

This was my experience as well. I started and stopped the game a few times, never fully getting into it, but then I reached Heart of Thorns and and everything just clicked. So much so that I stopped HoT, bought all the content I didn't have and then did the whole story in order.

The moment that got me was when I entered Verdant Brink and saw all the destruction with The Pact Laid Waste playing, that npc shouting "Commander, over here!" and seeing how layered the map was. That was when I realized how the maps including the events, npcs, music, sights, and sounds all tied directly into what was happening with the story so I finally "got" what the game was doing. Also, I got wrecked there so the added difficulty was exciting and made me want to play and get better.

YESSS I 100% AGREE!!!

[Milkshake.4370]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Milkshake.4370" said:

Omitted Content Detracts New Players

Firstly, I must say that I really enjoyed playing through all the episodes of GW2 however,

I was truly only hooked after reaching Heart of Thorns

.I am originally a console gamer and only now started getting into PC gaming and I feel that the first half of GW2 (Level 1-80 + Living World S2) is not on parr with the modern gaming world. I understand that the game was just starting out at this point and did not have a high budget, however I feel this may be a reason why the game is struggling to attract new players.

I've called out this problem in the past as well and feel like Gw2's early game content, specifically the personal Story, Lw1 and Lw2 could benefit from a sort of "remaster" update.I know this would be a huge workload for the developers and it would take a lot of time but honestly.. this is something I want and have wanted for years almost as badly as I want new expansion content, no joke.. i'm dead serious on that and have said multiple times in the past that I am 100% willing to suffer a massive new content drought so the devs can work on improving the early game content.

What I think needs to be done.. honestly is not all that much but would be a lot of work.First of all Vanilla Gw2 needs a bit of a difficulty buff in the later game regions (like Orr) to balance it out more with the years of power creep the game has had.Atm it's far too easy for players to get complacent with some build they pulled off a website somewhere and not really knowing how to play it right can still steamroll through content until they hit the difficulty spike in HoT.. which usually results in angry posts here about how hard HoT is despite the countless nerfs the content has had to reduce that.The problem is that nothing prepares you for HoT.. that's why the spike exists and always will exist, and that's a flaw with the Vanilla GW2's end game content.The core game needs to do a better job at encouraging players to learn their classes.. experiment with the build system etc and making the end game pve content a bit harder to bridge that difficulty gap with HoT might just be what the core game needs.

Secondly the personal story needs to be remastered and brought upto par with HoT.How I imagine this to be done is by scrapping the existing "cutscene" dialogue segments and replacing them with the same style of in game dialogue that has become the normal standard of storytelling in Gw2 since HoT came out.Since the dialogue is already voiced and in game I don't think this is an impossible thing to do.. it's just very time consuming but I believe it would absolutely be worth doing.I am fine with much of the text based dialogue remaining as it is for the personal story however I would not oppose new voiced dialogue replacing a bunch of it either.

Thirdly Living world 2 content could use some additional voice work to bring it upto par with HoT onwards, there is a bit too much reliance on text in lw2 imo and I think that could be remedied by having some new voiced dialogue done to replace some of it.Additional note:I also agree with those who say that season 2 is a bad buy compared to other seasons, you're not getting new masteries, new mounts, new maps or anything of the sort with season 2 like you do with season 3 and 4 so what you are paying for is pretty much just the story content and a few achievements.This is a problem and could very well leave some players feeling like they wasted their money on this season which could be a red flag for them not to buy any more content for Gw2.. a bad bad bad! attitude for them to develop.I agree this season needs to either become free to play or should be included free with the HoT expansion.

Lastly and most importantly, Living world 1 needs to be re-introduced into the game as replayable content.. this one alone is by far the biggest sin for Gw2.I am never going to stop banging this drum.This story content not being in the game is a huge problem for me as someone who cares about the story of this game and having this huge hole in the story bothers me immensely and has done for many years.Re-adding LW1 needs to be a high priority imo and should Anet ever do a big remaster of the core game with all the dialogue upgrade's ect that I think they should then these also need to be applied to the LW1 remaster as well.

These few changes are pretty much the only things I really want for the pre HoT game and I would be more than content with this content if it ever got these upgrades.

It is difficult to follow or invest into a story, especially when you feel you have started in the middle. Especially the missions where players have to go through Scarlett's belongings, secret hideout, and follow her trail, her memories. I did not know who Scarlett was and the short recap provided in game was not enough to create a fulfilling experience to me as a new player.I think this is a huge huge turn off for newer players.

I agree, this bothers me as well even though I played and experienced the entire LW1 content.This is the main reason I am never going to stop supporting the remaster/reintroduction of LW1 content into the game.. it is as/more important to me than any new content coming to the game and the more new content they add the more annoying this giant hole in the story is to me.

Heart Of Thorns

(HoT)This is where the game takes a huge turn for the better. Absolutely everything is improved; music, sound design, world design, story, writing. Literally everything about this expansion was

incredible, captivating, and immersive.

The only reason I played to get to HoT was because I saw my partner playing this expansion and it was very different from Level 1-80 and LWS2. If I was a newer player, I would never have paid for this expansion or even gotten to it based off of the experience I had with the gameplay prior. Somebody in my guild compared this to a restaurant, which forces the patrons to eat an entire loaf of bread before giving them the ordered food. Some people are full after the loaf of bread, most people don't even finish it and get to their meal. I think that this may be a source for the dwindling GW2 new player numbers and ArenaNet's revenue. There is very little encouragement or incentive for new players to purchase expansions or spend money on the game, when the initial opening content is so boring and slow. This sets an incorrect precedent and expectation for what the paid expansions will be.

Again I agree and still blame the core game's lacking endgame content for this problem.By the time you get to HoT you should be playing at the level required to not get massacred by everything in that content but the core game and LW2 to some extent as well does an atrocious job at preparing you for HoT.

Fixing the core games endgame and upping it's difficulty would be the best solution to this problem imo and get people wanting more.

Living World Season 4 - INCREDIBLE but Lack of Marketing?

As the game progresses after HoT, it keeps getting better and better. With more mastery points and mounts, the story, sound design, and music reaches incredible potential and structure. If I wanted to get people to play the game, I would be pushing and screaming for them to play Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, or Living World Season 4. I don't understand why ArenaNet hasn't pushed for certain aspects of these expansions in their marketing campaigns.

I don't know much about marketing etc but Living world 4 has been by far my favourite content in Gw2.Some of the best Gw2 moments imo are in LW4 and I disagree severely with those who claim that season 4 was hot garbage or a big disappointment.. I love this season.

Thank you for your comments! I am glad that I am not alone in this point of view!!!

[Milkshake.4370]

@Naxos.2503 said:The missing Living Story Season 1 -is- a cause of confusion and awkwardness from new players, especially players actually following the storyline. They end the personal story, and get thrown in with a team of NPCs that appear to know them, but they feel no connection to them. They feel as if they've been dropped off in the middle of something interesting, and missed half of it. It is a Really bad feeling.

This is one of the most popular comments on this thread and I absolutely agree. It is quite confusing and not a fun experience.

[Milkshake.4370]

As for the original topic, I'm inclined to (1) agree that the assessment of core game pacing is accurate, but (2) disagree that changing it is the key to new player attraction and retention.

Before we go any further: I 100% agree @"Milkshake.4370" that living world season 1 leaves one of the absolute worst story gaps I've ever experienced in any game. Currently the best solution I think ANet could offer is to direct people to Wooden Potatoes' LWS1 recap. The in-game "catch-up" is an absolute joke, and is almost worse than not attempting to patch the hole at all.

I think the only kind of player who can stick around GW2 for an appreciable period of time is the player that excels at finding their own fun, rather than relying on directed content. Of course, "finding your own fun" is the key to longevity in any MMO, but it's just that much more important for GW2 since we lack vertical progression. Since every meaningful system in the game is easy to cap, you quickly run out of gameplay or character improvement reasons to keep playing. You have to have found something completely sidebar or optional to keep your attention.

I would argue that the vast majority of players who can't find something deeply compelling about Tyria prior to reaching HoT will ultimately not find it in either expansion, and getting them to the expacs faster will only lead them to move onto another game faster.

Hmm, interesting perspective. Perhaps changing the initial gameplay is not the solution, but something must happen. ANYTHING LOL!We need the directed content to be cohesive and not throw players 60% into a finished story. The in-game recap is not enough!

[Kiba.9743]

@Milkshake.4370 said:

As for the original topic, I'm inclined to (1) agree that the assessment of core game pacing is accurate, but (2) disagree that changing it is the key to new player attraction and retention.

Before we go any further: I 100% agree @Milkshake.4370 that living world season 1 leaves one of the absolute worst story gaps I've ever experienced in any game. Currently the best solution I think ANet could offer is to direct people to Wooden Potatoes' LWS1 recap. The in-game "catch-up" is an absolute joke, and is almost worse than not attempting to patch the hole at all.

I think the only kind of player who can stick around GW2 for an appreciable period of time is the player that excels at finding their own fun, rather than relying on directed content. Of course, "finding your own fun" is the key to longevity in

any

MMO, but it's just that much more important for GW2 since we lack vertical progression. Since every meaningful system in the game is easy to cap, you quickly run out of gameplay or character improvement reasons to keep playing. You have to have found

something

completely sidebar or optional to keep your attention.

I would argue that the vast majority of players who can't find something deeply compelling about Tyria prior to reaching HoT will ultimately not find it in either expansion, and getting them to the expacs faster will only lead them to move onto another game faster.

Hmm, interesting perspective. Perhaps changing the initial gameplay is not the solution, but something must happen. ANYTHING LOL!We need the directed content to be cohesive and not throw players 60% into a finished story. The in-game recap is not enough!

I believe the only appropriate solution is taking the time to recreate some of LW Season 1 in order to piece things together and begin LW Season 2 with a feeling of familiarity towards the NPCs you get paired up with. I am sure this would be a massive project. As LWS 1 was meant to be played in the open world, GW2 original story model, the only thing to do would be recreate it from scratch with the current instanced story model. But I think they can make it work, even make new achievements for it and all of that. So I would not say it would be a waste of time to work on something like this and would keep the player based busy for a time. I did some of LWS 1 myself, not all of it since I missed some of the events, but things like the Jubilee and the Nightmare tower. After all that, I still felt disconnected with the recap and being thrown into LWS 2 with people that are way too familiar with me than I am with them.EDIT: Since current Lion's Arch is already updated and repaired, I would suggest that it be recreated as a "look into the past". Like when you go watch the Season 1 recap, but instead of a little movie, it begins a "recap" in which you can actively take part of the events of the past. With fractals and many Asuran technology available, I'm sure finding a device that makes this possible (lore-wise) would be no problem.

In addition, I agree that the personal story could be refreshed with the current interactive in-game dialog instead of doing cutscenes for all the conversations. Again, something that I don't know if they would take the time to do, but would certainly add a little something to the story experience.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

They'll never let Living World Season 1 down and they are still maximum unclear that the Living World seasons need to be bought separately from the expansions rather than introducing a bundle.

[battledrone.8315]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:hot is awful, and it cost them a lot of players and goodwill.and you will have a hard time finding a player, who likes both core and the expansions.they are basically 2 different games, and that is NOT the correct way to make an expansionabout the writing: what purpose was there to take a FLEET OF AIRSHIPS to a HOSTILE JUNGLE? what were they supposed to do there?air interdiction? strategic bombing? yea....

That was pretty much their plan.. bomb the ever loving hell out of Mordremoth with overwhelming force.Mordy threw a vine in that plan though.

so it was a sneak attack against an unknown enemy in their own territory? do i have to point out how stupid that is?any competent commander would had refused. any sane person with a sense of morale would had done the same.it was a stupid and evil plan, and they actually deserved to die.even spongebob would had done better, we are talking patrick levels of stupidity here

I agree it was stupid, however the same tactic was kinda already proven effective against Zhaitan so can't say I fail to see the logic because at the time there was some reason to think it may work.

That said it wasn't just Mordremoth's vines striking airships out of the sky though, it was countless corrupted pact Sylvari that had fallen to Mordremoth as well which sabotaged the entire plan and launched a surprise attack on their pact allies.It was a devastating blow to the pact that they didn't see coming.

zhaitan should had known about airships ( and how to fight them) given his ability to gather information from the people he corrupted...and if the pact was so infested by by mordys cronies without knowing about it, they deserve the failure too.the pact is gone, and so is the commander.

[firedragon.8953]

I also started about one year ago (or well, I bought the game 7 years ago, but didn't really begin playing it) and have finally caught up (600+ hours, thanks pandemic?) and am playing through Champions now. So yeah, I'm a fan.

I actually think core isn't that bad. Yes, it is dated. But honestly, I really liked exploring the maps (I didn't get mounts early). There is of course a lot to be desired, but meh, the world still seemed so huge and there were still so many things I was trying to figure out. I guess I did spend a lot of time reading the wiki and watching youtube vids about the lore, but the lore is one reason I got sucked into this game, which may be different for different players. However, playing through the expansion I think it would be much harder for me to go back to core Tyria and play through the initial story again, just because the quality is so much lower and I've gotten used to the newer style ArenaNet went with. But I definitely didn't feel bored, although I think I played the last 10-15 levels through some kind of XP boost event or something, which could have helped, I dunno.

I agree that the gaping hole of Season 1 is really a travesty, and probably one of the worst decisions this game's developers has made. Honestly, if ArenaNet knew they would never be able to "bring it back" and make it replayable, they should have introduced a whole new cast in Season 2 and "started over" and basically forgot most of what happened in Season 1, with maybe a few references to past events in passing for those players that actually experienced S1. I HATE that I have a team that I have no idea who anyone is and they call me "boss" and S2 with references to Scarlet and Omadd's machine and all these things I apparently "experienced". This just plain sucks as someone who places importance on lore and character/world building, and honestly I almost did quit the game at that point. It is even worse that this same crew has stuck with us up until now, so basically ArenaNet built the characters on the graves of ghosts since we will never be properly introduced to these characters, and will just be forced to have them "grow on us". It is for this reason that I hope EoD leaves the majority of the "team" in Tyria, phasing them out, and introduces a new cast. I guess Braham will be around as long as Jormag is (if it is still here at the end of Icebrood).

I also liked the expansions. HoT was great for introducing gliding and I actually liked the confusing and frustrating feeling of the maps at first, since it really gave me that *oh, f..., we need to survive out here" feeling. I think the meta/final story chapter split thing was really confusing though, but this seems to be a thing GW2 does (same with LWS4) so I eventually I got used to the parallel timeline thing, where I can experience two scenarios that temporally overlap with each other. PoF looked amazing, I still love the desert at night, the mounts were super fun, and the story was pretty good.

By far I think LWS4 is probably the best content with various play styles in the missions, extra mounts, some good cut scenes, etc. The Kralk battle is the closest to what I imagine an actual Elder Dragon battle to be like.

As a norn player, I am pretty disappointed with Icebrood Saga as far as story telling goes (I hope EoD continues with norn stuff). I really like the Drizzlewood map though, even just flying around on my griffin from lush forests to icy landscapes and through bridges, etc. In general think map design is really something the GW2 devs excel at.

[Teratus.2859]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:hot is awful, and it cost them a lot of players and goodwill.and you will have a hard time finding a player, who likes both core and the expansions.they are basically 2 different games, and that is NOT the correct way to make an expansionabout the writing: what purpose was there to take a FLEET OF AIRSHIPS to a HOSTILE JUNGLE? what were they supposed to do there?air interdiction? strategic bombing? yea....

That was pretty much their plan.. bomb the ever loving hell out of Mordremoth with overwhelming force.Mordy threw a vine in that plan though.

so it was a sneak attack against an unknown enemy in their own territory? do i have to point out how stupid that is?any competent commander would had refused. any sane person with a sense of morale would had done the same.it was a stupid and evil plan, and they actually deserved to die.even spongebob would had done better, we are talking patrick levels of stupidity here

I agree it was stupid, however the same tactic was kinda already proven effective against Zhaitan so can't say I fail to see the logic because at the time there was some reason to think it may work.

That said it wasn't just Mordremoth's vines striking airships out of the sky though, it was countless corrupted pact Sylvari that had fallen to Mordremoth as well which sabotaged the entire plan and launched a surprise attack on their pact allies.It was a devastating blow to the pact that they didn't see coming.

zhaitan should had known about airships ( and how to fight them) given his ability to gather information from the people he corrupted...and if the pact was so infested by by mordys cronies without knowing about it, they deserve the failure too.the pact is gone, and so is the commander.

Airships were a very new technology developed during the campaign against Zhaitan.. so yeah he knew about them but none of the soldiers he corrupted would have known how to fight against airships since nobody had ever done that before, Zhaitan was the first to ever face them in battle and he held his own well enough against them with his Dragon Champions.

The pact wasn't infested, he corrupted hundreds of Sylvari in that very moment the Pact's attack started by giving them false wyld hunts through the dream.

Nobody could have predicted this, it was a perfectly crafted ambush and the only way the pact could have avoided this would have involved discriminating and excluding the entire Sylvari race from the pact during this campaign based on no real grounds to do so other than fears.. fears which would have been considered unjustified at the time.Doing that would have likely driven more of them to Mordremoth as well as oppressed people tend to get very angry and lash out at those doing the oppressing, but it never would have happened either since the pact was lead by a Sylvari at the time as well and Traherne never would have accepted such treatment of his people based on their race, nor should he have.There was no way to avoid this event occurring.

[ugrakarma.9416]

LS1 and Dungeons abandoment is a mistake...unrepeatable content is huge mistake, that they should avoid at all costs.

Also i agreed HoT is a masterpiece on every side.

but LS1 can be fixed, they have some chapters replayeable on fractals, and others Scrying Pool, they just need adjust some achievments to the new player experience it in a proper order.