Instances: A Terrible Design Decision (mild PoF spoilers)

[azureai.9764]

I just wrapped up the Balthazar confrontation - a very long slog full of annoying platforming, one-shot kill mechanics, and Anet's patented skill at explaining things (the Commander literally says "Aurene! Stay near me!" when you actually need to go to the OTHER side of the platform - which indication you CAN'T SEE WHEN YOU'RE NEAR AURENE). After all the tomfoolery, I did it. I beat Balthazar!

And then I was promptly kicked out of the instance by a server side error.

Instances have always been a terrible design decision for this game. ANet's refusal (for what I can only assume is technical reasons?) to preserve your progress if the instance burps was somewhat tolerable when the instances were relatively short. But in Path of Fire, the instances are all irritatingly long, and so the several poor design decisions involved in utilizing the instances have become much more grating. I've lost an hour - maybe more - of my time, because Guild Wars 2 doesn't have some kind of autosave system that nearly every other modern game have. Why? This screams that ArenaNet doesn't appreciate my time. I had a similar experience with the BeastMaster instance that required me to listen to unskippable dialogue again (and I love lore! I just didn't need to hear Joko's Beastmaster drone on again about something I already knew).

If the instances really cannot have an autosave, if they really cannot have a skip dialogue feature - then they NEVER should have been made to be as long as they are in Path of Fire. That's a terrible design decision that has truly soured me on the game. If there's an explanation for this design decision - I'd love to hear it. Because I am truly baffled how ANYONE could have thought the Path of Fire instances were a good idea.

tl;dr - Path of Fire uses too many instances. They're long. And when they (often) mess up, the player suffers through a massive waste of time. Terrible, terrible design choice.

[Bladestrom.6425]

this isn't a new thing, GW1 had instances a decade a go (HM maps) that lasted much longer. Same problems, but even bigger scale as an entire HM zone could be screwed up for you by some unlucky crashes etc.

[calb.3128]

Instances are necessary for uniformity and consistency of delivery for each player. I share your frustrations and do wish that progress within an instance is not lost on disconnect, but The First City story mission from LW S4 looks like we're heading in the right direction (i.e. you don't go back to the beginning if you're disconnected).

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I wish:

• That ANet would retroactively add save points to prior story instances. They were able to do so in GW, and apparently can here, but didn't.
• That I had only wasted an hour of my time attempting instances only to DC during the unskippable NPC dialogue at the end. My guess is I'm on somewhere between 5 and 12 hours wasted.

[Khisanth.2948]

@calb.3128 said:Instances are necessary for uniformity and consistency of delivery for each player. I share your frustrations and do wish that progress within an instance is not lost on disconnect, but The First City story mission from LW S4 looks like we're heading in the right direction (i.e. you don't go back to the beginning if you're disconnected).

Also the wrong direction. -_-

In the section when you first encounter the portals they shift the instance borders. If you are running along on a mount it is very easy to end up out of bounds.

[Ashen.2907]

I like the number of instances. Wouldn't mind greater use of instancing. The instances were not too long.

I detest the frequency with which the instance crashes during the post fight dialogue.

[DeWolfe.2174]

They introduced instanced stories with check points. What they should do is increase the usage of check points then. I DO like instances and not using the open world for personal/living stories.

[Taygus.4571]

I've had similar happen but in Hearts of Mind in HoT.

It's aggravating.

They really do need to add checkpoints.

[Menadena.7482]

@calb.3128 said:Instances are necessary for uniformity and consistency of delivery for each player.

I can think of one or two places in at least the personal story that are not instanced. If they are SO important why the exceptions?

I would rather not have instances myself. Especially as they cause so many problems.

[azureai.9764]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:this isn't a new thing, GW1 had instances a decade a go (HM maps) that lasted much longer. Same problems, but even bigger scale as an entire HM zone could be screwed up for you by some unlucky crashes etc.

I didn't play GW1 myself, but I do understand it was a GW1 thing. Still, a bad decision is a bad decision - regardless of whether it's a legacy thing - especially if it doesn't have to keep being made.

Among the seemingly simple fixes are to include an auto-save system that every modern single-player game has had for a decade.

[Cyndercat.7615]

Thats weird because my instance of beasts of war had a checkpoint right before the boss fight which caused me endles amounts of problems as I was trying to reset the instance to do the pillars achievement. Nomatter what I did it kept putting me straight to the checkpoint before the boss.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@azureai.9764 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:this isn't a new thing, GW1 had instances a decade a go (HM maps) that lasted much longer. Same problems, but even bigger scale as an entire HM zone could be screwed up for you by some unlucky crashes etc.

I didn't play GW1 myself, but I do understand it was a GW1 thing. Still, a bad decision is a bad decision - regardless of whether it's a legacy thing - especially if it doesn't have to keep being made.

Among the seemingly simple fixes are to include an auto-save system that every modern single-player game has had for a decade.

this is not a single player game, state is not saved on the client. I suspect saving the saved state is not simple with their current design or they would have done at while developing new content. Pros and cons with the game engine, GW2 solves many problems, has others, such is life.

[Zeefa.3915]

I love that story is instanced, its what makes the story mine, it lets me enjoy it at my pace, it means I can see the npc's and not just some cloud of people. I am ok with the few sections LS2 where you have to do some open world stuff... sorta. But I would absolutely and utterly hate if story in general became open world and not instanced.

What they could/should do is make dialogue and cutscenes skippable and if possible make checkpoints within longer instances.

[maddoctor.2738]

They added checkpoints in the first episode of LS4 which is a good start. However a huge problem with the checkpoints is you do not know if you reached one as there is no visual indicator that you did so.

[Lonecap.4105]

Honestly just work out why the disconnects happen. I never get them unless I do the story, so why?

[Khisanth.2948]

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:Honestly just work out why the disconnects happen. I never get them unless I do the story, so why?

is it the cutscene one? a bunch of patches ago a bug cropped up that causes some people to DC whenever a cutscene shows up. there aren't much cutscenes anywhere else except maybe teq when failing defenses and vinewrath

[kiklanisune.4095]

ive been getting d/c from story only whenever its longer than 10 minutes. never in a cut scene. usually half way 3/4 way thru so i want to burn it down instead of trying again. why? i have no clue.

[Marina Demeretmonde.1064]

So the best players have weeks and months to do all this amazing stuff...they probably don't work, many like me disabled. Stuck on the Beastmaster with nowhere to go, just not fast enough...SO upset. There ought to be a secondary plot line to allow for those who simply cannot hit multiple key sequences quickly. I believe in you...I fail in real life in spite of my best efforts because of health. The game is my escape...where I feel free from my crippled body. The mounts are awesome, but will obviously not get griffon after tonight. Exhausted from trying over and over listening to same dialogs again and again. Also, instances could contain a time estimate for each, the length impacts my family life...I need to know if this will take hours and will make the quiet time. But they should not be more than 20-30 minutes, because they are physically exhausting, sometimes emotionally too, as the writing in this game is excellent and I get very involved with characters. This is so late, but honestly, physically it has taken me years to master movements and just getting through the maps of HOT is super challenging. Since guilds have zero patience for people like me (just so much dead weight), I appreciate design that allows me or me and my husband to make it through. We want to be loners and map chatting or talking via Discord is NOT possible for players our age and limits (I am 57 with fibromyalgia, he is 73). We love the game...courted and spent time together on GW when physically apart before marriage.

[aspirine.6852]

Never had problems like this. Instances are working great for me. I cant even recall that they are very long or annoying, seems fine by me. .

[Rasimir.6239]

@Marina Demeretmonde.1064 said:So the best players have weeks and months to do all this amazing stuff...they probably don't work, many like me disabled. Stuck on the Beastmaster with nowhere to go, just not fast enough...SO upset.Is that the one in Vabbi where you have to catch some beast (I think it was a giant devourer) three times on a circle course? If so there is a way to do it, which is find somebody to party up with and let them open the instance. The instance opener will have to do the race, but everybody joining gets credit just the same.

If you are on EU, I'll gladly do it with you. I know where you're coming from, I'm 50 myself with fibromyalgia among several other health problems, but I've met a lot of people and whole guilds in this game that like to socialize and help each other out and don't care if you take a day or a year to do content. Voice chat does in fact make things easier (we're still using Teamspeak in my main guild, but we're mostly dinosaurs ;) ), but is in no way required.

[Etria.3642]

Every time I play SWTOR, there are things I miss from GW2(loot pickup, mounts, TP, better jumping, the list goes on) but when I swap back to GW2 I always find things I like better in SWTOR(groupfinder, summon party, guildships, housing) but the most glaring thing that is better in swtor is that if you leave your story instance, for whatever reason(disconnect, logoff, leave to go and do something else), it saves your progress. Right where you were. Once in awhile it will back it up 10-20 seconds, but usually not even that. That said, I would KILL for swtor to have the "accept progress" bit that GW2 has, rather than each person having to do each bit of story. And the number of times I've killed myself by forgetting there is no gliding...

But yeah. Saving progress would be amazing.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@azureai.9764 said:Among the seemingly simple fixes are to include an auto-save system that every modern single-player game has had for a decade.

If this were a single player game then sure but it’s not.

The confrontation with Balthazar is technically two instances in that the fight with him is its own story chapter and you can freely start that part at any time.

[Blur.3465]

They have addressed this issue in GW1. If you DC you will be back to where you left off, if in a mission or anywhere else in the world.I have no idea why this hasn't taken place in GW2 yet.

[Elden Arnaas.4870]

There is a workaround that I've seen work for many of my friends and guild mates who have the story/cut scene disconnect issue. (myself included) This is only workaround, but it's something that you can try without having to rely on ANet for a fix.

• Before any important or long story instance, exit the game and shut down/restart your PC and startup the game right before entering that instance. Go straight into the instance without doing anything else. Accept credit/rewards as soon as they pop. I have seen this work both for me and for others, but your mileage may vary. I have also seen mention of jumping or moving slightly during cut scenes, in order to keep the game server and client "talking" during the cut scene, but I have not had to do this myself.

  This must be a much more difficult issue to solve that we think, because it is a major issue that has existed for a long time without a fix. But at least you have something you can try to attempt avoid it. Good luck to everyone struggling with this.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Blur.3465 said:They have addressed this issue in GW1. If you DC you will be back to where you left off, if in a mission or anywhere else in the world.I have no idea why this hasn't taken place in GW2 yet.

And when did they make that change?