Not a Fan of Tier 2 Rifts required for Story

[Hudak.6809]

So I play Guild Wars 2 off and on and decided to come back for Secrets of the Obscure. I was having an alright time with it, but then I hit "Into the obscure" and get to the rift portion of the quest. I wasn't reading text and tried doing a tier 2. When I opened it I noticed 2 thing, first unlike tier 1 no one seem to be doing this, and two it really isn't something to solo. I get tired and decade to log and when come back the game the next day. When i do I find if I want to do the tier 2 I'll need to buy the item off the TP  for 4+ gold, or get 2 levels into achievement and probably spend 3g golds of mats to craft one. I play infrequent so its not like I have lots of gold to burn so I realize its either do this or restart the story to get another free one.

So it is at this point I want to say how annoyed I am at this design. You put a roadblock in your story where you have to have a group and shell out gold if things go south to redo. And yes you do have to do tier 2 (I read tier 1 counts, but that's a lie). I have also, in my musing to putdown 4 gold for the item, looked at LFG for people doing tier 2. While I can see a few tier 3 there's basically no one looking for tier 2 (least every time i check).

In thinking of prior story requirements I can't think of one time where groups are required in progressing. Maybe a meta event, but normally those things are so full of stuff to farm, so someone will be doing it. And now I have myself in the awkward positions of basically betting gold to try and progress the story, because there's no sure way to ensure the rift will get closed when I have time to do this. And this whole prospect just makes me want to stop playing this game. This is annoying and this design choice of rift feels like one of those slippery slope free to play games have to get you to pay to play. I hope they fix this story aspect, because until they do I don't know if I can motivate myself to play this game. Which sucks, since I've been playing since the first Guild Wars.  

[illuminati.8453]

I had a similar experience, the meta finished and the map closed on me when I was trying to solo the story t2.   I understand your frustration.   You know, just try to do it again and before you go to the t2 rift spot just send out a message in map chat asking for assistance.   I think you'll get a few people to come help.  

[Surelia.2651]

Doing a tier one does count so its not a lie.  I have done the story on 3 chars so far and on each one I was able to get completion doing tier 1s.  In all cases I had an uncommon motivation activated but didn't actually get a t2 open.  How I discovered this was by accident in the first play through looking for t2, but then passed a group below me doing a t1.  I dropped down to help and when we closed I got advancement for the story. so I kept looking for t2 but was doing any that were open mostly t1 since other people were about.  I don't think it matters at all if you actually CLOSE a t2 for the story but simply scan for one.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Surelia.2651