The amount of filler content in story is out of hand

[LichOverlord.6329]

15 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Would it be better if it specifically told you to do the map meta? I'm pretty sure that's the point - the meta ties into the story so it's a prompt to make sure you do both together.

It's convenient that it just lets you do random events instead so you're not held up if the meta is on a timer, but if it's making the story worse maybe it would be better for them to specify which events are relevant.

Normally I would agree with you, because 9/10 times that actually is the case, and the meta directly correlates to story events - its why the "fill the bar" strategy worked in Drizzlewood Coast, as the main way to fill the bar was doing the meta, which in turn was story relevant to not only the charr civil war, but also Ryland's warband

This same strategy worked with the first part of Nayos as well, in my opinion, as it directly dealt with Ignaxious, a lieutenant of Heitor, and tied into the story well

Usually, this is fine - you do the meta, you get some more story from the meta, and it works itself out

The problem with this new installment is that it stands out as especially bad not only because of how much of this type of task we've done already this expansion, but also of how poorly it ties into the story: you're not taking down an important kryptis or anything this time - you're just securing some positions, and fighting a wyvern, which while cool, doesn't feel very story relevant

You could replace the wyvern with any other huge monster and call it "Eparch's pet" like they did and it wouldn't have changed anything. The new meta lacks the narrative weight of the previous one, which contributes to the problem

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, Kiki.9450 said:

I know "(re)visit the vistas" isn't the most compelling gameplay out there, but there was a reason for it. Right before that point in the story, we went around lighting the beacons. When viewing the vistas at this moment, it's done to show us all the ugly little kryptis babies coming out of the woodwork to see what's up with those beacons. Perhaps in the future a better approach may be to have us talk with a given NPC and then more or less get the vista flyover to show said ugly little kryptis babies answering our call. At least that way we can get a bit of voice over or something. 😛 Neither of those are the most fantasticest action-packed gameplay ever, but both achieve the same goal. Only one of these immediately feels like "replay this content you probably just did" though.

Hopefully this feedback isn't too late for expansion 5's development cycle.

The better approach would have been to make us check the each vista immediately after lighting corresponding beacon, so we do not have to fly over the very same points twice in a very short timeframe. Or even better, just make it part of the beacon lighting event itself with no vista part.

(and as for vistas showing us anything, i'm afraid i was already so tired of the filler events and pointless fedexes that i have cancelled the viewing animation right away on all of those points. And i believe many players did exactly the same)

[kharmin.7683]

8 hours ago, Entara.3075 said:

Another example was Joko who I believe was the best villain in GW2 because of his character. The ending scene for Joko was also a perfect example making you feel worry in that you had lost and a surprise that nobody saw coming. It was great.

Cannot disagree here.  Joko was, for me, the most memorable villain.  The entire arc with him made me more deeply consider the actions of my commander.  I had hoped to see some results of this going forward from there, but it was an opportunity that was sadly missed.

[Zok.4956]

14 hours ago, Entara.3075 said:

ANET It's understandable with quicker releases that the story will be shorter for each individual update.

Naturally. However, there is also a point where the story of an update is too short to really immerse yourself in. For me, this point has now been reached. 

[Dediggefedde.4961]

I also have to admit, this is among the story chapters that I was the least invested in, including the map.

I liked some characters and the overal plot is fine with me, but at during the instances I was already impatient with following the dialog.
With a skip-button I would probably not have listened to most of the talk at all.

The map somehow happens. I think I finished the wyvern five times now, which might be the meta. You get things, something with screams and coughs...
But I'm actually not sure why there is a wyvern after the events of Eventide's March... On other maps Meta, or at least the bosses, felt more integrated into the story.
Or is the fighting happening on the map basically Eparch's retaliation?

I'm also growing a little concerned how many times the main character (MC) is frozen for several minutes by surprise attacks.
It made sense with Palawa Joko, since he had all day to prepare a trap in his throne room.
But having all enemies do that to get the MC to listen to their monologe bears the question why they don't just kill us at any time in the later story.
Also, that the queen's army and elite guards basically politely formed a queue to fight the MC individually or in small groups was pretty absurd.

[Nero.7369]

A friend and I joked about how we did the meta 3 times to fill up that stupid bars and expected we have to do it  again then for another story sequence just because of stupid reasons 😉 
At least that was not the case.

But yea way to much filler again, i'm always annoyed by those fill bar with events story "aspects".

[Urud.4925]

OP is right to say that the story feels particularly rich of filler content, but personally I liked this chapter. I already didn't care about SotO story, and the fact that this chapter is very short, has long dialogues that require few input, so I can go afk for a couple of minutes, plus the fact that I can just fill the bar doing random events, it means that I can complete the chapter with all of my characters quite fast, and then move on on content that I like more.

I cannot say that so far it has been worth the price, compared to previous expansions (the content is basically our farming to get the legendary armor, that some of us already had, and relic, which is power that we already had and had to gain back), but at least I like that this time I don't have to complete the meta 25 times or specifically kill the new bosses in the convergence 50 times. I don't like to be forced to play the same stuff/instance hundreds of times just to complete an achievement, and this time it seems that I can complete them quite fast. The game is big, so I'm totally fine to just do the bare minimum for a new expansion/chapter and go back to what I like to play.

[Gehenna.3625]

So, I did map completion when I got to that point with the 2 bars and I participated in events while going around the map and for me, they filled quite quickly. Having said that, whenever I see these bars, I don't like it because it stops me from continuing the story for at least a little while and it still is artificial filler content. So to me, even though it went quick enough, I still didn't like it.

And yeah I never liked the endless yapping of NPCs. They talk so much that my mind just switches off or I get distracted and so I miss out on a lot of story, which leads to me not being invested much in the story. So for me the story is something I just sit through once on my main and I never do it again. And I don't remember much from it afterwards.

Just going to get my xp bar filled so I can buy the last mastery level and I'll be at max mastery again. Not that I want to get the obsidian armor sets but I like to keep my masteries maxed. And then I'll be done with SoTO till the next update, meaning tomorrow. It is what it is. I have no reason to go back there until the next update.

[Vayne.8563]

On 3/5/2024 at 6:23 AM, GBEW.5947 said:

you're just making excuses for why its ok for it to be this way. Its not ok. 

Actually it is okay, it's just not what you like. The truth is, most people are trained by other games to run from green star to green star without experiencing the world between, when a good portion of the world is the actual story.

In the old days at launch, leveling made sure you couldn't get too far ahead and you had to play the open world between story arcs. Then, they changed it to every ten levels. You could only get 2-3 levels at most from the story so you have at least seven levels to go till the next story, even though it was all one story .

In HoT, we had to stop and get masteries and train them, which got us out into the open world, before we got to the next green star. In the beginning we even needed poison resistance but that was a step too far, so Anet removed it.  Every expansion has had filler content since the beginning. PoF had running around Elon Riverland like a noob, talking to a zillion people to find a hidden city.  There's plenty of running around.  Season 3 had filler, too. Lake Doric started with Scouting, and then there was filling a bar, and even having to do hearts.  Siren's Landing you had to do every heart.

People are acting like this is new. Viewing Vistas took me five minutes maybe. The bar was faster to fill than it was in Lake Doric.  But I fill bars or ended up doing hearts in lots of zones previously (and I consider hearts to be worse tbh).

The game has always been like this. It hasn't changed since launch, because some of the story, even a significant portion of the story has always been in the open world. The game isn't focused on story instances, it's focused on open world and particularly meta events.  It was Temple Events in Orr that were the open world end game. The fact that people have played this game for so long and don't recognize it is ANet's fault.

I mean Dragon Stand, the meta event, is far more engaging and better than Hearts and Minds the story. They're each half of the story. Playing Hearts and Minds without doing the Dragonstand event is a huge letdown for most people.

 

[Mistwraithe.3106]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

In HoT, we had to stop and get masteries and train them, which got us out into the open world, before we got to the next green star. In the beginning we even needed poison resistance but that was a step too far, so Anet removed it.  Every expansion has had filler content since the beginning. PoF had running around Elon Riverland like a noob, talking to a zillion people to find a hidden city.  There's plenty of running around.  Season 3 had filler, too. Lake Doric started with Scouting, and then there was filling a bar, and even having to do hearts.  Siren's Landing you had to do every heart

 

Totally agreed. Arguably GW2's greatest strength is that the open world maps and events (including metas) are good fun to play. As someone currently playing through the story for the first time (up to LWS4) it's been very noticeable that there are deliberately inserted gaps between story missions where you need to gain experience, complete hearts, etc before you can proceed. And I've enjoyed that. I want to explore the new zones and see what it is going on. It's a feature not a bug or a problem.

I don't know specifically how SOTO has done it (as I'm not up to that point of the story), maybe it could have been done better, but I'm fine with the general principle.

[Vayne.8563]

11 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Totally agreed. Arguably GW2's greatest strength is that the open world maps and events (including metas) are good fun to play. As someone currently playing through the story for the first time (up to LWS4) it's been very noticeable that there are deliberately inserted gaps between story missions where you need to gain experience, complete hearts, etc before you can proceed. And I've enjoyed that. I want to explore the new zones and see what it is going on. It's a feature not a bug or a problem.

I don't know specifically how SOTO has done it (as I'm not up to that point of the story), maybe it could have been done better, but I'm fine with the general principle.

Soto has it faster than easier than a lot of other zones.  I think people who are unhappy just complain about everything, even if that's not what they're unhappy about, and today's target is filler content. It's human nature. 

[Flowersunshine.7385]

3 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Soto has it faster than easier than a lot of other zones.  I think people who are unhappy just complain about everything, even if that's not what they're unhappy about, and today's target is filler content. It's human nature. 

I think it might be that the story instances are rather short. That makes the filler more noticeable. We did not have a story instance the size of Farahnur, or when we had ourselves taken prisoner in Istan. That lack of story outside the map events makes the map events more noticeable. Which is too bad, because it think the Nephus-scene and the final scene were cool story wise. Although the commander hardly did anything. Later in an event they were called 'Peitha's Champion' and it felt a bit hollow. What exactly have we done that makes us a champion rather than a soldier? That's where the story gets to distinguish us from the ground troops. Not participating in the events, where presence of so many other players makes you one of the many - a foot soldier.

[Vayne.8563]

5 hours ago, Flowersunshine.7385 said:

I think it might be that the story instances are rather short. That makes the filler more noticeable. We did not have a story instance the size of Farahnur, or when we had ourselves taken prisoner in Istan. That lack of story outside the map events makes the map events more noticeable. Which is too bad, because it think the Nephus-scene and the final scene were cool story wise. Although the commander hardly did anything. Later in an event they were called 'Peitha's Champion' and it felt a bit hollow. What exactly have we done that makes us a champion rather than a soldier? That's where the story gets to distinguish us from the ground troops. Not participating in the events, where presence of so many other players makes you one of the many - a foot soldier.

I don't know, I killed Cerus, that's what I did.

[Flowersunshine.7385]

Just goes to show that the last cool thing we did was in August. XD

[Kiki.9450]

Might be a bit unpopular but I'll bring it up: one thing that I feel like we've been missing, storywise, in SotO is puzzles. I don't remember really doing any throughout the story. (Jumping puzzles too, I miss those, though they're not typically story content.) I specifically mean like what we had to do throughout, say, LWS3E6, or LWS4E1 (however brief that was in The First City, it was still something we had to figure out). I particularly liked LWS4E3 as we're solving little puzzles and evading traps all throughout a certain dungeon and I love that stuff. It's the main thing I enjoyed about GW2's dungeons for that matter. Adventures aren't just about beating up bad guys after all!

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 3/4/2024 at 8:24 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I know I have said this in a couple of other places, but thank you for sharing your feedback on this topic. Constructive criticism is good stuff and always welcome--I appreciate you each taking some of your time to talk out what you felt could be better, why it didn't feel great, and what you'd like to see done differently. 

I think it is especially important this time around to pay close attention as Anet rolls out the new expansion format.

Here is some feedback from me personally:

• As stated already in this thread, there is too much filler and too little story.
• There is too little interaction with the NPCs. Some recent examples:
  • In the previous story drop we found an NPC only for them to disappear off screen and get captured only to then get killed. Our characters are deeply bothered by this despite onscreen we just met them.
  • This patch we capture an important NPC and then the next story step... they die.
  • In both cases an intermediary story step or instance where we interact with these NPCs or watch their interactions would have added a lot of depth and nuisance that was otherwise missing.
• As you could probably tell from the above bullet, the quality of the story telling has been getting worse and worse. As a point of reference, I think HoT and LWS3 have some of the best storytelling and character-NPC relationship building in this entire game. PoF and LWS4 carried this on, and even into the first half of IBS. Its as if COVID took the storytelling winds out of Anet's sails.
• Lastly, grinds involving large quantities of materials that may or may not be expensive or time gated is itself not content. Once those grinds are done, people will not return to that content.
• FWIW, I find myself back in the HoT maps more and more these days as they are some of the most interesting and fun content.

[Cuks.8241]

20 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Actually it is okay, it's just not what you like. The truth is, most people are trained by other games to run from green star to green star without experiencing the world between, when a good portion of the world is the actual story.

In the old days at launch, leveling made sure you couldn't get too far ahead and you had to play the open world between story arcs. Then, they changed it to every ten levels. You could only get 2-3 levels at most from the story so you have at least seven levels to go till the next story, even though it was all one story .

In HoT, we had to stop and get masteries and train them, which got us out into the open world, before we got to the next green star. In the beginning we even needed poison resistance but that was a step too far, so Anet removed it.  Every expansion has had filler content since the beginning. PoF had running around Elon Riverland like a noob, talking to a zillion people to find a hidden city.  There's plenty of running around.  Season 3 had filler, too. Lake Doric started with Scouting, and then there was filling a bar, and even having to do hearts.  Siren's Landing you had to do every heart.

People are acting like this is new. Viewing Vistas took me five minutes maybe. The bar was faster to fill than it was in Lake Doric.  But I fill bars or ended up doing hearts in lots of zones previously (and I consider hearts to be worse tbh).

The game has always been like this. It hasn't changed since launch, because some of the story, even a significant portion of the story has always been in the open world. The game isn't focused on story instances, it's focused on open world and particularly meta events.  It was Temple Events in Orr that were the open world end game. The fact that people have played this game for so long and don't recognize it is ANet's fault.

I mean Dragon Stand, the meta event, is far more engaging and better than Hearts and Minds the story. They're each half of the story. Playing Hearts and Minds without doing the Dragonstand event is a huge letdown for most people.

 

Thats all true. But the difference is that in those expansion the story missions are long, often with unique maps, mechanics sometimes designed for 1 mission only and boss fights have mechanics fitting a raid boss. The story delivery is also much more immersive.

In Soto an average mission is literary defeating 3 to 4 packs of normal mobs with 1 veteran mob. 6 same reused mobs we are seeing through the whole expansion. And bosses have 1 mechanic. Like 1 breakbar to break. And the story delivery is a 2 minute static monologue before and after the mission.

So these ow fillers were small compared to the whole story. And a break between long missions that were sometimes maybe even too long. In soto almost everything feels like a filler and a break from a game that doesnt exist.

[Ashen.2907]

1 minute ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Thats all true. But the difference is that in those expansion the story missions are long, often with unique maps, mechanics sometimes designed for 1 mission only and boss fights have mechanics fitting a raid boss. The story delivery is also much more immersive.

In Soto an average mission is literary defeating 3 to 4 packs of normal mobs with 1 veteran mob. 6 same reused mobs we are seeing through the whole expansion. And bosses have 1 mechanic. Like 1 breakbar to break. And the story delivery is a 2 minute static monologue before and after the mission.

So these ow fillers were small compared to the whole story. And a break between long missions that were sometimes maybe even too long. In soto almost everything feels like a filler and a break from a game that doesnt exist.

This is an important distinction in my opinion. I think it would be unreasonable to expect no filler content in an MMO, but it is best used when there is a greater proportion of non-filler. A few events between story steps is ok when the story steps are more significant in scale, scope, duration, and/or engagement factor. I genuinely wouldn't care about filling an event bar in between truly unique or otherwise engaging story steps of significant scope.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

RIP Magdaer continuation

[Vayne.8563]

10 hours ago, Flowersunshine.7385 said:

Just goes to show that the last cool thing we did was in August. XD

That's clever.  But it's not true. We're working on building an army. A story isn't just defeating bosses after all. That's not how stories work. At least not the stories I read. If I wanted to play monster hunter, I'd be playing it.  But in reality, we've made an alliance with an enemy and we're moving through hostile territory.  I like the new zone and I've been doing stuff in it. I've also been doing convergences.

And just recently they came out with something super hard for the harder core people to bang their head against, which does nothing for me, but I think some people are finding it fun.  Some people think it's cool that they've made a piece of legendary armor without raiding or WvWing or PvPing. Seems like you might not be having fun, but I don't think you can speak for everyone.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Thats all true. But the difference is that in those expansion the story missions are long, often with unique maps, mechanics sometimes designed for 1 mission only and boss fights have mechanics fitting a raid boss. The story delivery is also much more immersive.

In Soto an average mission is literary defeating 3 to 4 packs of normal mobs with 1 veteran mob. 6 same reused mobs we are seeing through the whole expansion. And bosses have 1 mechanic. Like 1 breakbar to break. And the story delivery is a 2 minute static monologue before and after the mission.

So these ow fillers were small compared to the whole story. And a break between long missions that were sometimes maybe even too long. In soto almost everything feels like a filler and a break from a game that doesnt exist.

I"m as immersed in this story as I was at most points in Season 2 and 3.  I like the zones better than most Season 3 zones too.  By what standards are you judging it to call it more or less immersive. I feel these zones.  As for raid bosses, we didn't have strikes back then and now we do.  Strikes are like raid bosses more properly than most stuff we got from the living world.  And we have convergences as well.   It's almost like people are ignoring stuff to make a point.

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 3/4/2024 at 10:34 PM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

Kanaxai is dead and has been over 200 years since gw1. Fractals introduction of him is a memory fragment of that.

His axe is in the new map so I wonder if he's reforming rn? The lore is that demons from the mists can come back. Allegedly.

Edited March 6 by HotDelirium.7984

[Teknomancer.4895]

On 3/4/2024 at 9:51 PM, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Personally, I don't even want to be here, I don't trust Peitha at all, her kind's drama is NONE of our business, no idea what even happened to the Queen, the revealed enemy was...kinda small and less epic than I was imagining.

Peitha is undoubtedly a trap.

Our intro to the Astral Ward was "we fight against demons!" Then we get one of those demons talking inside our head and just go with it, because PTSD I guess. The whole reason we even took up with the Astral Ward in the first place is now void for vagueness. Then we take sides in a demonic civil war that is absolutely none of our business and ally with her to help install her as the new demon queen, because why? Because she asked, and nobody bothered to corroborate her story; we're basically taking her word for it. What could possibly go wrong?

The little bit of ambient NPC chatter by the waypoint sums it up: when asked how to tell the difference between a good barf monster and a bad barf monster, the answer is simply "good ones ask for help, bad ones try to kill you." Apparently the possibility of a demon telling manipulative lies in service to their own agenda never crosses anyone's mind, nor does checking with any of the various spy agencies that we have ever worked with. 🤷‍♂️

6 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

• There is too little interaction with the NPCs. Some recent examples:
  • In the previous story drop we found an NPC only for them to disappear off screen and get captured only to then get killed. Our characters are deeply bothered by this despite onscreen we just met them.
  • This patch we capture an important NPC and then the next story step... they die.
  • In both cases an intermediary story step or instance where we interact with these NPCs or watch their interactions would have added a lot of depth and nuisance nuance that was otherwise missing.

FTFY, I think. "Nuisance" kinda works there too though. 😆

That first one did indeed deeply bother me. The idea that I gave any consideration at all to that NPC beyond "well that was a waste of time and effort" was bothersome. We met what, 3 minutes ago? I don't even remember its name. Why exactly am I supposed to be upset about this?

This whole expansion has had me asking "why are we doing any of this?" and I struggle to answer that, because the story doesn't bother even trying to explain. We just careen from one brief snippet of story to the next, and the filler map/meta events are all about what we're doing, not why.

[enigmatic.3576]

On 3/5/2024 at 1:21 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

I tend to work on the assumption that everything in a map is happening near enough simultaneously, so if a story leads me into a map anything in there is happening at the same time as that story and won't be a spoiler.

I don't believe that would be true for the maps that get split across several releases.  A player just starting the map after the second or third release could potentially get spoilers.

Edited March 6 by enigmatic.3576

[Kiki.9450]

21 minutes ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Peitha is undoubtedly a trap.

Our intro to the Astral Ward was "we fight against demons!" Then we get one of those demons talking inside our head and just go with it, because PTSD I guess. The whole reason we even took up with the Astral Ward in the first place is now void for vagueness. Then we take sides in a demonic civil war that is absolutely none of our business and ally with her to help install her as the new demon queen, because why? Because she asked, and nobody bothered to corroborate her story; we're basically taking her word for it. What could possibly go wrong?

The little bit of ambient NPC chatter by the waypoint sums it up: when asked how to tell the difference between a good barf monster and a bad barf monster, the answer is simply "good ones ask for help, bad ones try to kill you." Apparently the possibility of a demon telling manipulative lies in service to their own agenda never crosses anyone's mind, nor does checking with any of the various spy agencies that we have ever worked with. 🤷‍♂️

FTFY, I think. "Nuisance" kinda works there too though. 😆

That first one did indeed deeply bother me. The idea that I gave any consideration at all to that NPC beyond "well that was a waste of time and effort" was bothersome. We met what, 3 minutes ago? I don't even remember its name. Why exactly am I supposed to be upset about this?

This whole expansion has had me asking "why are we doing any of this?" and I struggle to answer that, because the story doesn't bother even trying to explain. We just careen from one brief snippet of story to the next, and the filler map/meta events are all about what we're doing, not why.

I recall being told that we were helping Peitha with her fight because if Eparch gets too powerful from eating everything in Nayos, he'd turn his attention to Tyria next. /shrug

Now, even if we get the obvious good ending where we beat Eparch forever and Peitha becomes King ot the Kryptis, who's to say she doesn't become the next big evil thing that tries to eat Tyria then? Maybe Isgarren is right in that we're wasting time lol

Oh and the friendly barf monster that got eaten three minutes after meeting her was Irja. I do wish we had more time with her, but all of Through the Veil was rather brief, so uh... checks out I guess, sadly.