The amount of filler content in story is out of hand

[Ashen.2907]

25 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.

This.

If Peitha doesn't turn out to be a trap/betrayal/whatever then this becomes the worst writing Ive ever encountered in a computer game story (perhaps worse out there but Ive not seen it). If it does turn out to be a trap then ANet is officially declaring that  not only are our characters gullible morons but they believe we as players are as well.

[Omega.6801]

6 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.

You see, the Hero of Tyria, the Pact Commander, Godslayer and Champion of the Prysmatic Dragon has been retired. A decade of great deeds has left them psychologically scarred and crippled beyond recognition. All of which has been showed and miraculously resolved in the two weeks we spent in the Gyala Delves, where the people we met the month before listened to our problems in passing and our distant Asura friend conducted experiments on us to defeat a demon, because you know, they care.

Now we have the Wayfinder. The Wayfinder doesn't ask questions. The Wayfinder just does what they are told. Why? So the story can happen. Are the wizards kinda shady, not helping with any of our problems, wiping our friend's memory, farming sentient beings for science and all that? Sure. Does the Wayfinder care or challenge any of it? Nope. They're 100% on board "Just point to whatever I'm supposed to hit!" Is the demon lady creepy, shady and will most likely stab us or the "nice" wizard people in the back at some point? Probably. I know, you know, the wizerds know. The Wayfinder? Nah, just fill that bar and remove some opposition. Does any of this, even remotely concern us? Maybe. But why is the Wayfinder doing this here? Why aren't the wizards fighting the fight in Nayos and we are mustering our contacts in Tyria? Ah yes, secrecy, can't have others here. Not shady at all. "Stop asking questions and look at these vistas now."

And because our protagonist is detached from the setting and unbelievably gullable, I as a player am detached from the story and can not suspend my disbelieve. And ANet knows this, which is why they they throw Zojja at me. Why they had to lobotomize her is beyond me, maybe it will make sense in the end. To make me care, I get introduced to NPC that get killed two scenes later. But I don't know for what kind of person that trick is supposed to work. I mean Mabon was one thing. But Irja? That NPC had like 3 lines and only lived to showcase how bad and evil the boss was. It felt so forced and superficial, might as well have a NPC run into the scene shouting "ZOMG Wayfinder!!! That's Cpt. Cruel McEvildoer!!! They're bad!! Real Bad! Look out!". And that is the level of storytelling we are dealing with at the moment.

Anyway...turned out I had to rant a bit... Maye next release we get to close five Rifts between two short, talky instances🤞

[Teknomancer.4895]

1 hour ago, Omega.6801 said:

they throw Zojja at me. Why they had to lobotomize her is beyond me

Because now there's no potential reason to need Felicia Day's voiceover services anymore.

Any change in Zojja's voice is easily explained away because she drank the Water of Life and realized that the wurms are the spice, and the spice is the wurms.

Or something like that.

Edited March 7 by Teknomancer.4895
clarity

[HotDelirium.7984]

3 hours 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'm down with helping ( or refusing) Peitha too but yeah WHY? With restrictions also but then Isgarren says he'll hear her out and then barely helps out like why even bother tell her to shove off and let them have their civil war THEN maybe figure out what to do about Eparch.

His name was Irja and I guess we were horrified as if he was an innocent child version of a Kryptis?

[Obfuscate.6430]

A wild theory but Peitha could be Aurene, ultimately trying to help us find a way out of our trauma riddled minds after we, as the Commander have faced elder dragons and gods, death and the Mists. The enemies we face, and friends we make in the SoTo story may just be abstract metaphors for aspects of ourselves or people we have admired. 
These characters may be using "saving Tyria" as a way to frame saving ourselves, because it's possible we wouldn't be able to comprehend, let alone handle the fact that we may be locked in our own minds. 

Ultimately, when this is over, the commander may wake up...and Guild Wars 3 will be announced as Arenanet decides to take the story to the stars, to find where the Tyrian Gods have gone. 

[Zok.4956]

21 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

• 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.

I agree. If NPCs are just redshirts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(stock_character)) nobody cares about them. 

However, a well-developed character that we care about and whose death/fate moves us needs not only good writing but also much more than an intermediary mini-episode in between. The times when GW2 tried to achieve the story quality of GameofThrones are long gone.

Edited March 7 by Zok.4956

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

12 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

I agree. If NPCs are just redshirts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(stock_character)) nobody cares about them. 

However, a well-developed character that we care about and whose death/fate moves us needs not only good writing but also much more than an intermediary mini-episode in between. The times when GW2 tried to achieve the story quality of GameofThrones are long gone.

That's the problem, they haven't been well-developed. The last one like this was Mai Trin, but her screen time spanned from LWS1 to Fractals, to a large portion of EoD rather than meet in story step X and then die in story step X+1.

[Blueberry.8095]

On top of the how obnoxious the green bar is, after you've finished the entire story, when you finally got the free time to check the map achievement list, only to realize that you've been doing the events ineffectively. 

When you were filling the green bar the 7 other times, you'll just grab what's available nearby to fill it asap so that you can FINALLY progress the story;

On the achievement list however, there's a checklist, you'll want to do each event once so that it can be completed as a whole set, then you'll receive your 1AP, the whole quest line reset and you'll need to run the SAME check list again for 3 more times for one more AP each time until it stopped giving you AP. You're not only doing one chain event multiple times, but it's multiple chain events multiple times.

If the green bar in between story break didn't exist, the multiple unique chain event times 3 wouldn't be so bad although I'd be bored of it already 1/3 of the progress. Because the green bar existed, the map event outstayed its welcome. In fact, it was the chain event achievement that got me stopped playing not long after SOTO released, I just went to play other game instead after I've finished the story. Even though I have always been an avid AP hunter, I just couldn't stand staying on the map waiting for that 1-specific event for the x-th times anymore.

Imo, the green bar should go, so we don't get overfed and got sick with the events before we actually start doing the map achievements.

Edited March 7 by Blueberry.8095

[Gehenna.3625]

12 hours ago, Obfuscate.6430 said:

Ultimately, when this is over, the commander may wake up...and Guild Wars 3 will be announced as Arenanet decides to take the story to the stars, to find where the Tyrian Gods have gone. 

Be careful what you wish for. GW2 was a disappointment for a lot of GW1 players and GW3 (if it ever comes) might do the same for a lot of GW2 players.

[Omega.6801]

16 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Because now there's no potential reason to need Felicia Day's voiceover services anymore.

Any change in Zojja's voice is easily explained away because she drank the Water of Life and realized that the wurms are the spice, and the spice is the wurms.

Or something like that.

True. I should stop asking those stupid questions and keep filling those bars. The spice must flow...

[Cuks.8241]

20 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

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.

Story delivery, not story itself. I generaly dislike the story but thats fine, I dont play games for story.

Compare pretty much all prologues, darkrime delves (whole instance), death of Aurene in ls4, death of Joko and many many more to anything in Soto.

I didnt write about raids but about story bosses having mechanics worthy of a raid boss. Hearts and minds, Balthasar, Kralkatorik!. And many many more. Also there are many interesting achievs that require new approach and some are actually challenging. Now compare to the last boss we got. 1 mechanic, break the breakbar with like 4 seconds wind up and thats also the achievment. I literary dont even remember any other Soto bosses because they all just dropped and somehow all achievs were done without me noticing.

And dont mention soto strikes. They are not worth comparisson to raids or eod strikes mechanic wise. And convergences, really? 111 rush rush rush

[enigmatic.3576]

17 hours ago, Obfuscate.6430 said:

A wild theory but Peitha could be Aurene

Play the last two releases and then come back.

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Story delivery, not story itself. I generaly dislike the story but thats fine, I dont play games for story.

Compare pretty much all prologues, darkrime delves (whole instance), death of Aurene in ls4, death of Joko and many many more to anything in Soto.

I didnt write about raids but about story bosses having mechanics worthy of a raid boss. Hearts and minds, Balthasar, Kralkatorik!. And many many more. Also there are many interesting achievs that require new approach and some are actually challenging. Now compare to the last boss we got. 1 mechanic, break the breakbar with like 4 seconds wind up and thats also the achievment. I literary dont even remember any other Soto bosses because they all just dropped and somehow all achievs were done without me noticing.

And dont mention soto strikes. They are not worth comparison to raids or eod strikes mechanic wise. And convergences, really? 111 rush rush rush

Story bosses do have stuff worthy of a raid boss. You're giving mostly examples of climaxes. The death of Joko is an except you listed, but it wasn't a raid boss quality fight and anyone that says so has never raided. It's a fairly easy fight compared to Kralk.  Now, the instance that was a prologue to Soto was told in Gyala Delves.  While it linked to Cantha, it was also clearly linked to the new story and started it.  It introduced the emotions as a weapons and a wanderer from Inner Nayos, or one of the Horn of Magumma Zones at least.  That was the prologue.

As for the final boss, since we didn't get the final piece, we haven't seen it yet, but Convergences are definitely on that level for a start.  The convergence reminds me of an expanded Dragonstorm.  You pick and choose stuff while ignoring other stuff. I get that you don't like it. But saying a convergence isn't a big raid like boss fight, or saying that we don't have an end boss before we see the last part of the story is disingenuous. There are good and bad boss fights throughout this game. Remember the fight at the end of Domain of Kourna? Not a big fight? And the meta events in PoF aren't raid worth encounters. This idea of picking and choosing to try to prove doesn't really do anything. And PoF and Season 4 didn't have strikes. We have two strikes now with two encounters. Those harder encounters are part of the story too, if you choose to fight them on the higher level.

So you're using final bosses as an example, without acknowledging that we haven't seen the final boss of Soto yet.  Can't compare then, can you?  You're ignoring Strikes and the Convergence (and btw, I'm one of the people who find the CM of Dagda to be plenty challenging. That's closer to a raid than any open world story boss, whether raiders were disappointed or not.  The convergence is close to an end game boss. But you're not talking about that. You're ignoring the prologue where the demons were introduced, which is an entire meta that's in line with bigger metas, even if the first part of it is repetitive.  

You say you can't remember Soto bosses, clearly you don't do strikes, because I remember those fights.  They simply made the story bosses easier so that they could give people who like more challenging content something to do as well. It's still not challenging enough for people who do the harder core content (except for the new CM of course), but it is hard enough for people who don't.  It's hard enough for me.

I remember Dagda and Cerrus from strikes. Sure the easy version of them in story isn't much to comment on, but if you're skipping content, that's on you.

[Cuks.8241]

8 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Story bosses do have stuff worthy of a raid boss. You're giving mostly examples of climaxes. The death of Joko is an except you listed, but it wasn't a raid boss quality fight and anyone that says so has never raided. It's a fairly easy fight compared to Kralk.  Now, the instance that was a prologue to Soto was told in Gyala Delves.  While it linked to Cantha, it was also clearly linked to the new story and started it.  It introduced the emotions as a weapons and a wanderer from Inner Nayos, or one of the Horn of Magumma Zones at least.  That was the prologue.

As for the final boss, since we didn't get the final piece, we haven't seen it yet, but Convergences are definitely on that level for a start.  The convergence reminds me of an expanded Dragonstorm.  You pick and choose stuff while ignoring other stuff. I get that you don't like it. But saying a convergence isn't a big raid like boss fight, or saying that we don't have an end boss before we see the last part of the story is disingenuous. There are good and bad boss fights throughout this game. Remember the fight at the end of Domain of Kourna? Not a big fight? And the meta events in PoF aren't raid worth encounters. This idea of picking and choosing to try to prove doesn't really do anything. And PoF and Season 4 didn't have strikes. We have two strikes now with two encounters. Those harder encounters are part of the story too, if you choose to fight them on the higher level.

So you're using final bosses as an example, without acknowledging that we haven't seen the final boss of Soto yet.  Can't compare then, can you?  You're ignoring Strikes and the Convergence (and btw, I'm one of the people who find the CM of Dagda to be plenty challenging. That's closer to a raid than any open world story boss, whether raiders were disappointed or not.  The convergence is close to an end game boss. But you're not talking about that. You're ignoring the prologue where the demons were introduced, which is an entire meta that's in line with bigger metas, even if the first part of it is repetitive.  

You say you can't remember Soto bosses, clearly you don't do strikes, because I remember those fights.  They simply made the story bosses easier so that they could give people who like more challenging content something to do as well. It's still not challenging enough for people who do the harder core content (except for the new CM of course), but it is hard enough for people who don't.  It's hard enough for me.

I remember Dagda and Cerrus from strikes. Sure the easy version of them in story isn't much to comment on, but if you're skipping content, that's on you.

It's true I mostly gave final story bosses because I remember their names. I'm not really fan of the story so I don't really know the names of chapters and characters and most bosses because I mostly ignore them. So I also have a bit of a hard time to get a coherent timeline in my head. I play for mechanics so I mostly remember just that. Also story delivery is something else than the story. I'm mostly talking about cinematic camera, dynamic events during conversations or gameplay, engine made cutscenes. I remember those if done well.

I did mention Joko because praise Joko. And also Darkrime Delves because I found that instance really well done so I actually remember it fully. But I can give another example with some context because I did it recently, the LS3 Ice beast in Bitterfrost. That fight has a mechanic (make beast charge the npc enemies with correct positioning) but also an achievement that requires you to think and pull of a certain strategy which can be quite tight (it's just a timer but requires you to devise a strategy to beat it). And that I would say is the average end of chapter boss since LS2 onwards, not the most complex. Usually with a gimmick that you need to figure out and than execute and an achiev that steps it up.  Soto just doesn't have that, we basically got all punching bags up to now. And the achievs are "break the bar", "dont get downed", "kill it within timer". Did I miss something? And these would be fine if timers and break bars would actually be challenging. I don't remember in the past that I just did all the achievs by default. Timers were tighter, break bars tighter, bosses actually had mechanics that downed you fast.

Yes there are good and bad boss fights. And a complex fight is not necessarily a good one. But at least for me there hasn't been a good fight in Soto yet. Maybe final boss will surprise. I hope so. Also why not pick and choose good fights and compare to them? Soto is almost complete, there should be some memorable moments. Also it's the latest instalment of a long lasting game. You would expect the quality increases over time or at least keeps a standard. Why not compare it to Joko or let's say Ankha in the underwater facility in EOD or even  Kralkatorik? I mean the scope of the Kralkatorik fight was huge but maybe the Queen encounter could at least get close to it quality wise if not quantity. But it's not even close.

I've done strike clears pretty much weekly up until about a year ago when I got bored. I've done some raiding.

I am not talking about strikes being hard, Febe cm is and probably will always be hard. It's about mechanics and variety. Compare these 2 strikes to Harvest Temple (ok this is again the pinnacle) or my favourite Old Lion's Court. Eod strikes really had a great curve, HT the pinnacle and OLC (LS1 technically but ok) as the wrap up. And I though at the time that OLC is what they want as baseline. Not HT level of complexity but a decently challenging strike with good variety of mechanics, choices a group can do to progress through mechanics and some individual player responsibilities (tanking the bosses) that is not really a requirement in normal mode but makes the fight easier and  mandatory in CM. Soto strikes are a big step down from EOD strikes and Dagda hardly manages to be on IBS level (which was also a living season but had way more strikes). Again, why be content with reduced quality?

As for the convergences. I don't like them. In my opinion it's just more of the same (literary the same) Kryptis that we already fight in ow, meta events, rifts and story. I don't see how they remind you of expanded DS. While DS was highly criticised by many, including me, how it is not suitable for an ending of 2 elder dragons and a living season, I think it's way better than convergences. Now the DS mechanics are nothing to write home about (they are quite boring to be frank), it's just as easy but at least it's not just a 100% reuse and has a cinematic delivery. And at least for me it's great that it scales down to 10 players so you can do it with a strike group and it's not just a 50 man 1111 nausea inducing light show. The only 50 man instance of a kind I really like is Twisting Marionette. That one is very good, especially in private mode when players communicate. Because it splits the group enough that you don't get that 50 man 111111 light show and it actually has mechanics that require both the group to coordinate and player to execute. And yeah it's a story reuse but it adds enough and it's just overall an engaging encounter.

[Randulf.7614]

20 hours ago, Obfuscate.6430 said:

Ultimately, when this is over, the commander may wake up...and Guild Wars 3 will be announced as Arenanet decides to take the story to the stars, to find where the Tyrian Gods have gone. 

Do I get to put on my cowboy hat as I step out of the shower?

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

It's true I mostly gave final story bosses because I remember their names. I'm not really fan of the story so I don't really know the names of chapters and characters and most bosses because I mostly ignore them. So I also have a bit of a hard time to get a coherent timeline in my head. I play for mechanics so I mostly remember just that. Also story delivery is something else than the story. I'm mostly talking about cinematic camera, dynamic events during conversations or gameplay, engine made cutscenes. I remember those if done well.

I did mention Joko because praise Joko. And also Darkrime Delves because I found that instance really well done so I actually remember it fully. But I can give another example with some context because I did it recently, the LS3 Ice beast in Bitterfrost. That fight has a mechanic (make beast charge the npc enemies with correct positioning) but also an achievement that requires you to think and pull of a certain strategy which can be quite tight (it's just a timer but requires you to devise a strategy to beat it). And that I would say is the average end of chapter boss since LS2 onwards, not the most complex. Usually with a gimmick that you need to figure out and than execute and an achiev that steps it up.  Soto just doesn't have that, we basically got all punching bags up to now. And the achievs are "break the bar", "dont get downed", "kill it within timer". Did I miss something? And these would be fine if timers and break bars would actually be challenging. I don't remember in the past that I just did all the achievs by default. Timers were tighter, break bars tighter, bosses actually had mechanics that downed you fast.

Yes there are good and bad boss fights. And a complex fight is not necessarily a good one. But at least for me there hasn't been a good fight in Soto yet. Maybe final boss will surprise. I hope so. Also why not pick and choose good fights and compare to them? Soto is almost complete, there should be some memorable moments. Also it's the latest instalment of a long lasting game. You would expect the quality increases over time or at least keeps a standard. Why not compare it to Joko or let's say Ankha in the underwater facility in EOD or even  Kralkatorik? I mean the scope of the Kralkatorik fight was huge but maybe the Queen encounter could at least get close to it quality wise if not quantity. But it's not even close.

I've done strike clears pretty much weekly up until about a year ago when I got bored. I've done some raiding.

I am not talking about strikes being hard, Febe cm is and probably will always be hard. It's about mechanics and variety. Compare these 2 strikes to Harvest Temple (ok this is again the pinnacle) or my favourite Old Lion's Court. Eod strikes really had a great curve, HT the pinnacle and OLC (LS1 technically but ok) as the wrap up. And I though at the time that OLC is what they want as baseline. Not HT level of complexity but a decently challenging strike with good variety of mechanics, choices a group can do to progress through mechanics and some individual player responsibilities (tanking the bosses) that is not really a requirement in normal mode but makes the fight easier and  mandatory in CM. Soto strikes are a big step down from EOD strikes and Dagda hardly manages to be on IBS level (which was also a living season but had way more strikes). Again, why be content with reduced quality?

As for the convergences. I don't like them. In my opinion it's just more of the same (literary the same) Kryptis that we already fight in ow, meta events, rifts and story. I don't see how they remind you of expanded DS. While DS was highly criticised by many, including me, how it is not suitable for an ending of 2 elder dragons and a living season, I think it's way better than convergences. Now the DS mechanics are nothing to write home about (they are quite boring to be frank), it's just as easy but at least it's not just a 100% reuse and has a cinematic delivery. And at least for me it's great that it scales down to 10 players so you can do it with a strike group and it's not just a 50 man 1111 nausea inducing light show. The only 50 man instance of a kind I really like is Twisting Marionette. That one is very good, especially in private mode when players communicate. Because it splits the group enough that you don't get that 50 man 111111 light show and it actually has mechanics that require both the group to coordinate and player to execute. And yeah it's a story reuse but it adds enough and it's just overall an engaging encounter.

I see what you're saying. And yet, I thought the mechanic in the last story in Bitterfrost was awful. It's not hard, just awful. I don't like or enjoy it. It's completely contrived  And the whole fight is staying out of circles and pulls and knockbacks for the adds the minotaur has to kill.  The problem with mechanics in story missions, and this is what you're not getting, is that most people do story missions once. They're not playing to get a raid boss. They're playing to see what happens and get what rewards they can, and that's it.  The small percentage of people who play storys for mechanics are just that, a small percentage of people. It's why strikes are there in the first place.  I've done the EOD story a few times, but I've done the strike missions  in EOD far more times.  I've done the Soto strikes far more than I've done the soto story.

I'd wager people don't want to repeat story over and over again until they learn the mechanics and get good at it. It's not why people I know play story. There is other content in the story.

As for Dragonstorm, now that's repetitive.  Kill the same two bosses three times. The first time is like the intro, one at a time. The second time, you have to kill them at the same time. The third time you have to break the bar sometimes. But beyond that, it's a very very repetitive fight, that I've done probably a hundred times or more.  The Convergences have four different bosses and each boss is different, not the same boss every time.  Each of the Kryptis bosses have different mechanics too. There are turrets to take down, siege to kill, guys running in that need a bar break, zojja to heal, I find convergences far more interesting than Dragonstorm.  But that's what personal taste is about.

Putting too many mechanics is story mode is the instances that tend to garner the most complaints. IF you like mechanics, story mode isn't where you should be looking.

Last point about Soto, which a lot of people ignore. People, new people, are coming into the game and starting with Soto, so that they can get an easier to get skyscale, without paying for the living world. $25 you get the unlocked core game and soto, which gives you a skyscale without extra expenditure. Everything they did in Soto was probably toned down for that reason, so that people could do a hard reset, and still play the game. They hope is they'll go back and buy other expansions, but I don't believe they could have made it too hard, particularly the story.

[Zok.4956]

9 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Do I get to put on my cowboy hat as I step out of the shower?

Just take an open-air bath like Sheriff Roy Tillman and you don't even have to take off your cowboy hat. 😂

[Andur.9275]

On 3/6/2024 at 12:18 AM, 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.

- snip -

People are acting like this (= having filler content) 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.

 

To me filler bars feel just like lazy writing and story telling. It always feels to me like I'm ripped out of the story to do some chores until I can finally continue.

And you are right, GW2 had this type of content since release: Hearts are nicely wrapped filler bars, with HoT came masteries that somehow felt out of place and disrupted the flow of the story.

Don't quote me on that since it's been a while, but I seriously felt confused when the game told me to go now and learn about my gilder or how to glide. Suddenly there were no directions anymore (no green star to guide me) and I started to search frantically for NPCs or events that could teach me how to build and to use my glider, until I found out I had to activate the mastery "filler bar" and had to do random and unrelated stuff until my character suddenly knew how to glide. It was a huge letdown at that time. I wish I had to do a specific quest, that feels in best case taylored just for my character, that taught me.

I know it takes too much effort to tell the story  in MMOs like single player games use to present it (a lot of cutscenes and personal decisions, etc, Baldur's Gate 3 comes to mind here), so it's understandable we do get filler content from time to time instead and having a mechanic like masteries gives players a feeling of longterm progression, yet I wish the main plot was presented in a more immersive way.

Lucky enough the filler content we get doesn't (most of the time) consist of "Kill ten rats" or "A to B" tasks, but is tied to the open world which is filled with meaningful events and content, that directly relate to our current plot and contribute to the lore. So in the end it doesn't feel that shallow.

Edited March 8 by Andur.9275

[Vayne.8563]

On 3/9/2024 at 1:05 AM, Andur.9275 said:

To me filler bars feel just like lazy writing and story telling. It always feels to me like I'm ripped out of the story to do some chores until I can finally continue.

And you are right, GW2 had this type of content since release: Hearts are nicely wrapped filler bars, with HoT came masteries that somehow felt out of place and disrupted the flow of the story.

Don't quote me on that since it's been a while, but I seriously felt confused when the game told me to go now and learn about my gilder or how to glide. Suddenly there were no directions anymore (no green star to guide me) and I started to search frantically for NPCs or events that could teach me how to build and to use my glider, until I found out I had to activate the mastery "filler bar" and had to do random and unrelated stuff until my character suddenly knew how to glide. It was a huge letdown at that time. I wish I had to do a specific quest, that feels in best case taylored just for my character, that taught me.

I know it takes too much effort to tell the story  in MMOs like single player games use to present it (a lot of cutscenes and personal decisions, etc, Baldur's Gate 3 comes to mind here), so it's understandable we do get filler content from time to time instead and having a mechanic like masteries gives players a feeling of longterm progression, yet I wish the main plot was presented in a more immersive way.

Lucky enough the filler content we get doesn't (most of the time) consist of "Kill ten rats" or "A to B" tasks, but is tied to the open world which is filled with meaningful events and content, that directly relate to our current plot and contribute to the lore. So in the end it doesn't feel that shallow.

So the devs design a game where they want you to explore and not go from star to star.  You say you don't know where to go, and I say that's the point.  Some people come to this game from MMOs, but I came to this game from RPGs. Old school RPGs didn't tell you quite so much. Everyone didn't need to be spoon fed or led around by the nose. 

Anet hasn't done what they've done because they've been lazy. They designed the game this way to get people to actually play the part of the game they want focused on. There have been more updates to the open world than any other area of the game. They don't want people making the few instances the game. They want people doing dynamic events, meta events, and yeah, unfortunately hearts. But that's the game.
 

You may not like the game as it was designed, and that's okay. Not everyone game is for everyone.  But I feel we have quite enough games where you go quest hub to quest hub, getting just enough experience to get you to the next hub. I'm over that kind of game.  And I get that some people want that linear path, but if you do, there's plenty of games for you out there, including most of them.  I feel it's perfectly okay for a game to be designed around setting your own goals and figuring things out.

Of course, plenty of people just look up what to do in the wiki, or use walk throughs and that's okay too. But in a game based on exploration, following an arrow to a star is pretty much the opposite of what the game was going for.  And they'll never get the balance perfectly right. There's plenty of stuff in this game that could be messaged better than it is. But to say that the game design is lazy because people need reminding of the fact that you're not supposed to go from star to star, because every other game is like that?  That seems like a pretty big stretch to me.

Edited April 22 by Vayne.8563
fixed a typo

[Andur.9275]

Don't get me wrong, I don't need a green star to guide me, I came from oldschool RPGs as well. I do like games which are based on free exploration and I really like the way the open world content is designed in GW2. Yet there is too luch filler content in between the story parts for my taste.

The introduction of masteries confused me, true. All of a sudden, I had to switch my state of mind from "go follow the star" to "go and do whatever comes across your way" and it wasn't properly explained, imo.

[Ashantara.8731]

17 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Do I get to put on my cowboy hat as I step out of the shower?

So the "R" in "J.R. Ewing" stands for "Randulf"? 😂 Oh wait, it was Bobby who was dreaming the whole season, wasn't it? Oof, that was a while ago. 😉 

Edited March 8 by Ashantara.8731

[Randulf.7614]

3 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

So the "R" in "J.R. Ewing" stands for "Randulf"? 😂 Oh wait, it was Bobby who was dreaming the whole season, wasn't it? Oof, that was a while ago. 😉 

My secret is out

[Leger.3724]

Don't worry about it bro, they got ~3K unique viewers on Twitch for a brand new CM strike, LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

What happened to Arena Net being innovative? Why copy a failing strategy?

 

[Arewn.2368]

I think "do events to fill the bar" story steps can be good, but they have to be done right.

In this case, they were not.

In many cases, you can blow through the whole story without doing any of the map events. But the events often add context and weight to the story. So doing them can help shape the over all experience in a positive way.

But in the case of the two SotO releases, they just ended up feeling like filler meant to pad out a meager amount of story.

I think the ideal would be:

-Story steps and instances lead you to a new map, where you establish a foothold as part of a story steps.

-Followed by an interlude where you do events and other open world map objectives. Ideally, the player will end up participating in and completing the map meta at this time. But for very obvious reason, don't make successful meta completion a requirement.

-Then resume the rest of the story steps/instanced content, finishing the release.

 

I recall blowing through the HoT story and beating Mordremoth (story instance) without even realizing there was a map meta VS Snakedremoth. Which is not ideal.

There's a lot of contextual information on the map that enhances the story, which you miss (or experience out of order) if you focus purely on the story missions. So I think open world objectives and event completion does have a place. But it shouldn't replace the story content itself.

[Obfuscate.6430]

22 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

Play the last two releases and then come back.

My theory is that the Commander is in a mind scape. He shares a deep connection with Aurene. 
Aurene is currently sleeping, perhaps dreaming. 
So the possibility is that she may be dreaming with the Commander, helping them undo the riddle happening in their mind. 

I am also taking the kitten because I find the current story so out of left field I am hoping there's a cooler explanation. 
So far no one else likes my theory lol!