Difficulty is irrelevant. You want to see the story, you need to play the strike. Of course you can YouTube it if you're determined to not PuG, but to not play is your only other choice. This current map is the same for WvW. So far locking away the Almora story is the only deeply obnoxious attempt to make you play those side modes but make no mistake that IBS is little more than a promotion of the other game modes. If anyone is finding things rather thin storywise, that is why.