Living story is the single worst gaming experience so far in my entire life.

[Imperadordf.2687]

@battledrone.8315 said:

@Imperadordf.2687 said:

@Leo G.4501 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:Ive never raided.

I dont have even one full set of ascended gear for even one character (though I do have ascended trinkets)

I dont run a meta build.

I play very casually.

I have the reflexes of a man approaching 50.

I have never had a problem with LS instance difficulty (even if I do have other concerns about LS).

.

@Imperadordf.2687 said:I can guarantee you that I'm not a great player, but I can solo all of the LS naked, just for you. I'm on EU, I usually play on Saturdays, between 11:00-16:00 server time.

And I feel either of these posts are quite beside the point (if you read the intent of the quoted posts). You're not disproving someone else's experience with an experience of your own.

The post I quoted was saying that LS is raid-difficulty, which it obviously isn't, unless that guy played in some kind of hard mode I think all of us' experience are the same.

yea because there is only one player, playing one class with one build, right?what you can do only matters the minute you are willing to pay for my account too

Nope, but all the LS content are the same.All LS content are doable with each class, but if you're trying to kill bosses with Inspiration Mirage and fail, it's not the game's fault. I can provide at least 3 builds that you can faceroll LS for you.

I'm not sure that I understand your second statement¿

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

If this is really the worst gaming experience you've ever had in your life, then I'd say count yourself lucky, because it means you've probably avoided some seriously bad games in your time. XD

[Glacial.9516]

Shrugs If you're unhappy with the living story, skip it. That's one of the best features of GW2 imo, (almost) nothing is mandatory. The only exceptions to this might be the introduction story of HoT and PoF for Masteries and maybe some of the LS maps to unlock the map in the first place. But even then it's only with one character. I'd say there's very few gimmicky mechanics in the story bosses. The only one I can recall offhand is working with Aurene to disable a boss's shield. And I'd only call that gimmicky because it was trying to make Aurene more engaging without her actually being so. I think my biggest single frustration/annoyance with the Living Story would be enduring the lengthy gathering at the start of LS3 beyond the first playthrough.

That said, it's not without its faults. I'd love to be able to skip right to bosses when doing achievements. Sometimes there is this option (particularly when the boss is after a moderately lengthy instance) but sometimes there is not. Skipping cutscenes would also be nice but supposedly that would cause glitches. I much prefer the way GW2s story instances work to some other games where you don't even have the main story characters with you. Sure most of them contribute little to the fight, but that's because they're not supposed to complete it for us. Some instances are harder than others. Sometimes I fail miserably if I'm playing a class I'm not as experienced with. It's mildly frustrating but that's fine. It's a learning experience. And as far as I'm aware every instance allows you to ask for help and invite others to make it considerably easier.

[yann.1946]

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"Scrivs.4501" said:I wholeheartedly agree. I absolutely despise the story missions. All of them.

They drag on way too long ("thank god, took me half an hour but I finally killed that boss ... oh, I'm only halfway there, gotta kill another one"), the fights are horribly tedious and gimmicky, and on top of that you're dealing with the constant stress of possibly getting disconnected after a cutscene and having to do it all over again.

It's a good thing I really wanted to play PoF, because I barely had any hair left after Season 3.

Though I now find myself, once again, having lost complete interest in the PoF story and just logging in to do my daylies.Actually gave one of the Vabbi missions another go yesterday but out of frustration I just instantly exited to desktop after I died in another one of those impossible battles.

The worst part about them dragging on, is that they're linear. In GW1, cooperative missions were pretty long, but you could approach them in pretty different ways, they happened in huge semi-open world areas, and they weren't full of pointless dialogue.

@"samo.1054" said:Wait, am I reading this right? People are complaining that LS fights are too difficult? Thought I've seen it all.

This right here is the reason why modern games are dumbed down to the core. Kids aren't willing to put even 5% effort into beating something. Guess it's the "mobile games" generation, where you click and your character autofollows and autokills everything.

I can't really remember the Caudecus fight appart from the fact that I was really quite happy with how they made it. If you can't beat something use the energy that you would use to go and cry on the forums to figure out why you got rekt, instead of spamming the forums with nonsense.

I don't think they are hard, but they sure are an annoying chore full of bad mechanics and aoe spam.

They are not fun. They desperately need more attention, and maybe an easy/hard mode distinction so that we can get cool fights without scaring the newbies away. I'm fine with someone facerolling the story if they just want to experience the plot.

Most of the problems with the story would be solved if they started making them be dungeons instead. See the LW3-4 final story mission, that should have been a dungeon, with a soloable easy mode, and a 5-man normal mode.

@"EpicName.4523" said:I dislike the LW as well and have two problems with it:

1) Most boss fights rely on some gimmick in order to finish them off. It can be quite frustrating before you find what that gimmick is and it isn't always that apparent. To be fair, if those mechanics did not exist the bosses would be just pinjatas you have to dps down. And here is for my second point.

2)The biggest problem I have with the LWS is the writing. It is abysmal. Stop the bad guy. Kill everything that stands in your way. No twists, no deeper plot, nothing. None of the episodes interested me and some of your "allies" are quite annoying to have around.Take Braham, for example. They tried to make him interesting and failed miserably. He is neither kitten nor fun to listen to, just a big whiny brat.The only unique thing about the lesbian couple is their relationship and the fact that the blonde chick seems religious. Rox is also quite bland which leaves three characters with some kind of personality - Taimi, Canach and Rytlock. Everything else is meh.

A cool story makes you push forward in the game. It makes you motivated to kill that boss and finally unveil what is next. With the current storytelling, I prefer to have pinjatas for bosses so I can unlock the next map faster.

Yeah, the story makes no effing sense. Suddenly Lazarus is in Siren's Landing, inside the closed Abaddon's reliquary, with the pieces ready for the ritual. Suddenly Joko has found an Inquest installation and found portals to invade us and also stole a nuclear-tier plague, what a coincidence. And there's dozens of moments like that.

Ik have to agree on the Lazarus part. But the joko storyline has been well explained actually. Het was always working with the inquest. Which was the reason they had the scarab plague to begin with. He asked the inquest to create the portals zo je could keep everyone distracted.

[Pifil.5193]

I'd like them to add a Smuggler to the dock somewhere in Lion's Arch, a shady character who either sells the portal scrolls or who can "sneak" you onto the new map for a few silver. That'd solve a lot of the map access problems for those who aren't into the story, at least. The game would need to check if you have access to the LS episode or course but it does that anyway for the Teleport to Friend so that should be OK.

[Blocki.4931]

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'd like them to add a Smuggler to the dock somewhere in Lion's Arch, a shady character who either sells the portal scrolls or who can "sneak" you onto the new map for a few silver. That'd solve a lot of the map access problems for those who aren't into the story, at least. The game would need to check if you have access to the LS episode or course but it does that anyway for the Teleport to Friend so that should be OK.

I don't get why you'd want to skip the first episode the very first time you play it.

If you did play it and got access to the new map, buy the portal scroll/tome and the issue of having to play the first mission is gone entirely anyway?

[Pifil.5193]

@Blocki.4931 said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'd like them to add a Smuggler to the dock somewhere in Lion's Arch, a shady character who either sells the portal scrolls or who can "sneak" you onto the new map for a few silver. That'd solve a lot of the map access problems for those who aren't into the story, at least. The game would need to check if you have access to the LS episode or course but it does that anyway for the Teleport to Friend so that should be OK.

I don't get why you'd want to skip the first episode the very first time you play it.

If you did play it and got access to the new map, buy the portal scroll/tome and the issue of having to play the first mission is gone entirely anyway?

Well, I personally don't want to but it seems to be an issue for many people who just want to get to the new map or who have difficulty completing the story instances for gameplay or technical reasons (like crashes or frequent disconnects). I like playing the LS story and apart from bugs (and the camera in the Caudecus fight which made me a little nauseous) I don't tend to have many problems with them.

This would be a simple, standardised way of getting people to new areas, someone you know you can talk to to get somewhere, every time. Think of the Smuggler NPC as acting like an expensive Waypoint (as in maybe costing 15 or so silver). They could also expand their services to also, for example, allow people to skip the first story mission in PoF and get to the map on their second or subsequent characters.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Was Caudecus that bad? I barely remember the fight, and i'm pretty sure i finished it first try...

The only mechanic was CC + burst and avoid being hit.

This becomes a problem when the bloodstone shards don't drop to throw at him.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

I'll admit there were some frustrating encounters and some Episodes like Metal Gear Caithe which I'll never do again, I'd hardly call it a failure in content. Now not having Living Story Season 1 that's a travesty I'll admit, the dialog in Season 2 can be cringe worthy, but starting in Season 3 things really start to improve.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Was Caudecus that bad? I barely remember the fight, and i'm pretty sure i finished it first try...

The only mechanic was CC + burst and avoid being hit.

This becomes a problem when the bloodstone shards don't drop to throw at him.

I've never had such an issue.

[EdgarMTanaka.7291]

@Yannir.4132 said:These kinds of threads make me feel like a pro. Thank you!

Yea same! I am old and have reduced reaction time compared to the young 'uns, with a t3 silver in PvP.Since HoT, the deficulty of this game has been alot better. Bosses are not easy and boring 111111 fights and they usually require some planning. I am not saying I don't die on some story instances, but usually I don't, but if I do I do like it because the game is more interesting if you won't mow it down on the first try.

So this is coming from a not so very good player... Learn to play and get gud. ? (it usually takes more than the first try)

[Tsakhi.8124]

I don't know, I didn't find the Caudecus fight particularly hard, but then again you're looking at someone that made it reasonably far in a game like Baroque, despite having mediocre reflexes. It relied heavily on enemy mechanics and not just push "X" until you win. I had a hard time with the Mordremoth fight because of the launched into outer-space glitch. Scruffy 2.0 made me rage a few times because I have bad timing/ poor reflexes, but once I got into the rhythm of the fight, it became a bit easier. Yes, I'm rambling, I'm sorry.

(Wanna know my worst gaming experience EVER? Spectral Force 3 ! By the Six that made me swear off games for a day. XD)

[ReaverKane.7598]

@EdgarMTanaka.7291 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:These kinds of threads make me feel like a pro. Thank you!

Yea same! I am old and have reduced reaction time compared to the young 'uns, with a t3 silver in PvP.Since HoT, the deficulty of this game has been alot better. Bosses are not easy and boring 111111 fights and they usually require some planning. I am not saying I don't die on some story instances, but usually I don't, but if I do I do like it because the game is more interesting if you won't mow it down on the first try.

So this is coming from a not so very good player... Learn to play and get gud. ? (it usually takes more than the first try)

I think we older people ^_^ have grown up with games that were always hard and by today's standards extremely frustrating. No save points, no tutorials, just play and get over it, was more or less what you'd get from games back in the 80's and 90's.Younger players have grown in a world where there's more competition, where games have to strive to get people to buy them in a sea of other games. So they also become more forgiving (which isn't entirely bad) but on the other hand the struggle, which was part of why it was so awesome to beat a game, was toned down by much. I mean, beating a game for most people was the only objective, nowadays you need speed runs and other gimmicks to feel challenged since completing a game is a given.

I'm sounding like an old man, but it's kind of true, one of my favourite genres is RTS games and in the olden days (maybe because i was also less wiser and experienced) i used to struggle with finishing several campaign missions. Nowadays i just do the campaign as a prelude to multiplayer, or to unninstalling. With a very few games providing a challenge (usually because of gimmicks, like DoW3 last boss, which is challenging not because of strategy but because you're stuck with using only 3 characters).

[DarcShriek.5829]

I didn't like the last living story episode. I didn't like the puzzles, the length of time trapped in an instance felt too long, and I found the battle against the golem to be long and boring.

[Eater of Peeps.9062]

lol. this is the best thread Ive ever read on here.