Suggestion: Allow us to SKIP the story - [Merged]

[Kyrios.8736]

I play this game because of the combat mechanics, crafting disciplines, market system - All of this is extremely well done and better than most other games, but the biggest weakness of this game is story. I'm sure there are many players like me who don't care about story anymore (or never cared to begin with), so it'd be good if we were able to skip the dialogue like we were in personal story. 3rd expansion shouldn't be like the story we got so far with unskippable dialogues.

In my opinion, there's not a single decent character remaining in story that sticks around player and writing is very bad. Player character's personality is poorly crafted with limited to no dialogue. It's supposed to be in blank state because of that but it isn't. At this point it'd be better if player character had no dialogue at all. To sum it up, story is simply not worth the time to follow. I understand that some people like cheesy stories and characters, but I don't and many others don't either, so following the saying "To each their own", let us skip the story, get the rewards quickly by killing bosses and NPCs and save our precious time we'd rather use doing other things in game.

[Kyrios.8736]

Additional suggestion (Story Spoiler): Let us have an option to make NPCs in open world stop calling us

Commander. I don't want to be commander.

 

[Astyrah.4015]

im fine if they gave us a story-skip scroll/potion

or allow one to make a new character and have the option of "no story"

either should come with a good warning though that they'll be skipping one big part of the game and cannot be undone -- just to make it fool-proof for those people who might "accidentally buy/use" it

[Rex.3602]

I would use this option as I'm not really that interested in much of the story any longer. Just a personal thing for me as I'm not really a big fan of stories in games in general anymore.

I usually only do parts of the story now to unlock the map associated with the story chapter. So a skip option would be nice for me to be able to go straight into the map without ever having to do any of the story. At the least, a skip dialogue option would be great to be able to complete the required part of the story for the map to unlock quickly.

[Eraden.8740]

As much as I FEAR these storylines, especially the big boss fights (I am arthritic and have Parkinson's so this is a major difficulty for me) I can't honestly say that we should be allowed to skip the storylines. These storylines are what the game is about! After each finished storyline, I sit back, once my hands stop hurting and shaking so much, and reflect back on what I had actually experienced in terms of the story. While none of these stories is likely to ever give "War and Peace" a run for it's money, they ARE interesting. In the end, do you really want to toss all this hard work that the developers have done, just to get to a few new juicy tidbits?

[Fuchslein.8639]

@"Eraden.8740" said:As much as I FEAR these storylines, especially the big boss fights (I am arthritic and have Parkinson's so this is a major difficulty for me) I can't honestly say that we should be allowed to skip the storylines. These storylines are what the game is about! After each finished storyline, I sit back, once my hands stop hurting and shaking so much, and reflect back on what I had actually experienced in terms of the story. While none of these stories is likely to ever give "War and Peace" a run for it's money, they ARE interesting. In the end, do you really want to toss all this hard work that the developers have done, just to get to a few new juicy tidbits?

gw2 is not all about story and tastes are different, thank god. I find the story of gw2 absolutely NOT interesting, quite the opposite. It is predictable and full of cliché in my eyes ^^.But you have to play the story for achievements. The first time you play you can not make skippable. But after that, the story should be skippable as in any other mmo and as it was the case from the beginning in GW2 ...

Because for me this change leads to the fact that I do not play the story at all, just like the game. Because now 90% of the content is only made arround achievments nowadays.

[Parasite.5389]

if you don't want to play the story, then don't.nothing is locked off from the game in either the core game or the expansions if you haven't played a particular part of the story, with the exception of Gliding and Mounts, and even then it's a short 20min mission that you only have to play ONCE for your entire account.

[Fuchslein.8639]

@Parasite.5389 said:if you don't want to play the story, then don't.nothing is locked off from the game in either the core game or the expansions if you haven't played a particular part of the story, with the exception of Gliding and Mounts, and even then it's a short 20min mission that you only have to play ONCE for your entire account.

You will be excluded from achievements and even Masterypoints. From the very simple Tyria-Mastery thank God not, because a skipp-button was long part of the game and had never represented a problem.

[Strider Pj.2193]

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Parasite.5389 said:if you don't want to play the story, then don't.nothing is locked off from the game in either the core game or the expansions if you haven't played a particular part of the story, with the exception of Gliding and Mounts, and even then it's a short 20min mission that you only have to play ONCE for your entire account.

You will be excluded from achievements and even Masterypoints. From the very simple Tyria-Mastery thank God not, because a skipp-button was long part of the game and had never represented a problem.

Ok.... then do the story...

Being ‘locked out’ of other content is present in ANY single part of the game, I.e. sPvP, WvW fractals, dungeons, raids etc..

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

I like that skip button to be on every cinematic and dialog for other reasons.first because that is where disconnects often happen. I always hold my breath on cutscenesSecondly, some are MID combat (who thought of that???) and skipping lets us not waste cooldown(Nothing worse as a necro for example to go into shroud and SPLIT SCREEN!!!... unskippable, come out of it, lifeforce zero.)

[kharmin.7683]

But mastery points and achievements are account wide, no? Once you've done the story, there's no essential need/requirement to do it again on another toon?

[voltaicbore.8012]

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@"Parasite.5389" said:if you don't want to play the story, then don't.nothing is locked off from the game in either the core game or the expansions if you haven't played a particular part of the story, with the exception of Gliding and Mounts, and even then it's a short 20min mission that you only have to play ONCE for your entire account.

You will be excluded from achievements and even Masterypoints. From the very simple Tyria-Mastery thank God not, because a skipp-button was long part of the game and had never represented a problem.

"I don't want to do story, but want all the rewards associated with doing story."

To be fair to the OP, I don't think this is what @Kyrios.8736 was going for at all - they simply asked for a skip feature, and I agree it would be nice. There was no request for being able to get the story-locked achievements without actually doing story, as it should be.

[Kyrios.8736]

Clarifying what I'm suggesting: Let us skip dialogues and get right into the action during story missions, instead of having to stand around campfire listening to annoying NPCs then follow their turtle footsteps towards action while they speak cliché lines that makes people cringe. This game has many interesting parts, but story is not one of those, and characters are the worst part of it. Good characters either end up dying, or don't appear much so even if I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to care about the story.

If anyone's curious about why I think so, here are some story spoilers, in detail about characters:

Almost every single member of Dragon's Watch is either obnoxious, overdramatic, or has cardboard personality. Rytlock is OK and Braham has alright story, but I couldn't care less about everyone else. Logan didn't join so we don't see dynamic between him and Rytlock anymore. Canach, possibly the best character in entire game, didn't join either and we don't see him much anymore. Pact Commander has a forced personality, is forced into spotlight, is forced to care about Aurene and also forced to care about members of Dragon's Watch while I don't, so it doesn't really feel like my own character anymore.

 

Just let us skip the dialogues to save time, it's not that hard to do. It's possible in early game personal story, it should be possible for future expansion as well. Really not that much to ask for.

[Fuchslein.8639]

Uff, and here we are again, because blah-blah-skipping is equal to wanting the entire game for free.As always 100/100 discussion here in the forum ...

And where the heck did I write I want the achievements without doing anything? Where?There are so many achievements in the story where if you screw up you have to replay the entire story. I have some of them when it all started that the skip button was removed. If you enjoy that, okay, then just don't skip.

[Schimmi.6872]

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Parasite.5389 said:if you don't want to play the story, then don't.nothing is locked off from the game in either the core game or the expansions if you haven't played a particular part of the story, with the exception of Gliding and Mounts, and even then it's a short 20min mission that you only have to play ONCE for your entire account.

You will be excluded from achievements and even Masterypoints. From the very simple Tyria-Mastery thank God not, because a skipp-button was long part of the game and had never represented a problem.

Ok.... then do the story...

Being ‘locked out’ of other content is present in ANY single part of the game, I.e. sPvP, WvW fractals, dungeons, raids etc..

With the difference that it was very long, without problems possible to skip the story ...So why didn't they continue that way?Please do not answer, I know. We see it every day here in the forum, how all the forum veterans defend the laz**** of Anet ^^''.Well have a nice day, am not out of an Obtena-discussion-circle.

The reason given by anet, why they didn't implemented a skip-option in later stories is this one:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793There’s a bigger technical issue—during “in game” scenes, the NPCs are moving around and things are happening (gadgets might be activating, props may be animating, etc.) and if you just skipped all that, it could lead to some really bizarre behavior. Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone.That’s why the old style “dialogue cutscenes” (and the fancy but rare full blown l sequences, like the Order movies and racial intros) are skippable, because we aren’t doing anything to the world while the dialogue plays, so skipping it doesn’t have any effect. We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

[Fuchslein.8639]

@Schimmi.6872 said:

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Fuchslein.8639 said:

@Parasite.5389 said:if you don't want to play the story, then don't.nothing is locked off from the game in either the core game or the expansions if you haven't played a particular part of the story, with the exception of Gliding and Mounts, and even then it's a short 20min mission that you only have to play ONCE for your entire account.

You will be excluded from achievements and even Masterypoints. From the very simple Tyria-Mastery thank God not, because a skipp-button was long part of the game and had never represented a problem.

Ok.... then do the story...

Being ‘locked out’ of other content is present in ANY single part of the game, I.e. sPvP, WvW fractals, dungeons, raids etc..

With the difference that it was very long, without problems possible to skip the story ...So why didn't they continue that way?Please do not answer, I know. We see it every day here in the forum, how all the forum veterans defend the laz**** of Anet ^^''.Well have a nice day, am not out of an Obtena-discussion-circle.

The reason given by anet, why they didn't implemented a skip-option in later stories is this one:

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793There’s a bigger technical issue—during “in game” scenes, the NPCs are moving around and things are happening (gadgets might be activating, props may be animating, etc.) and if you just skipped all that, it could lead to some really bizarre behavior. Trying to manually set a “failsafe” to teleport the NPCs, fire off effects, etc. to replicate what the world state is if the cutscene plays is extremely tedious and error prone.That’s why the old style “dialogue cutscenes” (and the fancy but rare full blown l sequences, like the Order movies and racial intros) are skippable, because we aren’t doing anything to the world while the dialogue plays, so skipping it doesn’t have any effect. We’ve moved away from those, because the in-game scenes are a lot more satisfying, but there’s a trade off.

I know the reasoning. Which to me is the same energy as: we don't add xy because it might clip. In a game where there are tons of clipping problems.

Then they should introduce more checkpoints. There are also enough people who have problems with crash's and whom something like that would help.

[Ayakaru.6583]

My only rebuke is.. maybe not play an RPG of you don't want a story?There's plenty of sandbox fantasy fighting games.Maybe WoW is more your lane if you want to fight without any story at all

[Strider Pj.2193]

@Kyrios.8736 said:Clarifying what I'm suggesting: Let us skip dialogues and get right into the action during story missions, instead of having to stand around campfire listening to annoying NPCs then follow their turtle footsteps towards action while they speak cliché lines that makes people cringe. This game has many interesting parts, but story is not one of those, and characters are the worst part of it. Good characters either end up dying, or don't appear much so even if I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to care about the story.

If anyone's curious about why I think so, here are some story spoilers, in detail about characters:

Almost every single member of Dragon's Watch is either obnoxious, overdramatic, or has cardboard personality. Rytlock is OK and Braham has alright story, but I couldn't care less about everyone else. Logan didn't join so we don't see dynamic between him and Rytlock anymore. Canach, possibly the best character in entire game, didn't join either and we don't see him much anymore. Pact Commander has a forced personality, is forced into spotlight, is forced to care about Aurene and also forced to care about members of Dragon's Watch while I don't, so it doesn't really feel like my own character anymore.

 

Just let us skip the dialogues to save time, it's not that hard to do. It's possible in early game personal story, it should be possible for future expansion as well. Really not that much to ask for.

That makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification. With your clarification, having the option to forward through or skip dialogue would be a welcome change.

Whether it’s a lot or not is a different beast altogether. ?

Edit: I might even suggest you update the OP with some of this as some of us (guilty as charged) see the initial post and jump to conclusions. This clarifies what you meant as it is apparent that you don’t want to skip the steps of the story per se, just jumping over the dialogue that can be annoying as a young ?

[Kyrios.8736]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:My only rebuke is.. maybe not play an RPG of you don't want a story?There's plenty of sandbox fantasy fighting games.Maybe WoW is more your lane if you want to fight without any story at all

I want the story, but in GW2 it is plain and simple, bad, with characters being worst aspect of the game. However as it's impossible to ask for better story at this point, it's possible to have the option to skip it. This game has a lot of positive traits which outweigh the negatives. It'd make the game even better if we were able to skip worst part of it altogether. *Forced exposure to cheesy dialogues with poorly made characters isn't exactly a good thing for a game, especially for an MMO.

[Sinny.1267]

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Kyrios.8736 said:Clarifying what I'm suggesting: Let us skip dialogues and get right into the action during story missions, instead of having to stand around campfire listening to annoying NPCs then follow their turtle footsteps towards action while they speak cliché lines that makes people cringe. This game has many interesting parts, but story is not one of those, and characters are the worst part of it. Good characters either end up dying, or don't appear much so even if I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to care about the story.

If anyone's curious about why I think so, here are some story spoilers, in detail about characters:

Almost every single member of Dragon's Watch is either obnoxious, overdramatic, or has cardboard personality. Rytlock is OK and Braham has alright story, but I couldn't care less about everyone else. Logan didn't join so we don't see dynamic between him and Rytlock anymore. Canach, possibly the best character in entire game, didn't join either and we don't see him much anymore. Pact Commander has a forced personality, is forced into spotlight, is forced to care about Aurene and also forced to care about members of Dragon's Watch while I don't, so it doesn't really feel like my own character anymore.

 

Just let us skip the dialogues to save time, it's not that hard to do. It's possible in early game personal story, it should be possible for future expansion as well. Really not that much to ask for.

That makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification. With your clarification, having the option to forward through or skip dialogue would be a welcome change.

Whether it’s a lot or not is a different beast altogether. ?

Edit: I might even suggest you update the OP with some of this as some of us (

guilty as charged

) see the initial post and jump to conclusions. This clarifies what you meant as it is apparent that you don’t want to skip the steps of the story per se, just jumping over the dialogue that can be annoying as a young ?

Wherever the difference is, if someone wants a skip button because he doesn't like the story, because he doesn't want to play it a hundred times to get a achievement, or because you have internet problems.

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

Perhaps they can include a special action key in open world story dialog that when pressed skips the current dialog being done. Thus you keep pressing until the entire dialog for that story step is done you can effectively skip a lot of dialog you don’t want to spend minutes listening to.

[Ashantara.8731]

What does it say about the quality of the story when players start to ask for a skip option?

...

Exactly.

[mungozen.2379]

@Ashantara.8731 said:What does it say about the quality of the story when players start to ask for a skip option?

...

Exactly.

That the story is not for all players and that is okay? But I like what you are insinuating here, quality work.

[Fozzie.5370]

Personally I play a MMO for the "Massive-Multiplayer" bit, and play Gw2 for Team-play stuff: Fractals, WvW, Open-World Squads, having random fun with your guild mates. I'm a great fan of Combat Mechanics, Theory Crafting, new-build testing and perfecting speed-runs of Fractals with buddies etc. Storyline for me is just a nuisance at best.

It's extremely difficult to form a group that want to do the same bits of the story as you, even when I've openly asked in guild I get met with SILENCE nobody can be bothered with it, players say they don't want to stop doing the 100 times more interesting things they are doing in favour of the story pffft, and the ones that always complete the story ofc just knuckle down and do it solo, and good luck for all those that enjoy it. I'm all for live and let live, many players am sure enjoy the evolving story, and I'm happy for them but I'm definitely not one of them.

I think storyline gameplay is even less appealing to the WvW Community as I think the vast majority of WvW'ers could not care less about the storyline: Many of my WvW die-hard buddies have played from Beta, have very low Mastery numbers (Ofc WvW is a very social game mode // story-line is complete opposite and therefore as massive turn-off ). The fact of the matter is: If we enjoyed solo story-line content we would play an off-line game. I'd totally ignore the story altogether if it was possible, as one guy in this thread states it doesn't unlock anything: Well actually it does: It unlocks Mastery Points and Icebrood DRM's etc, and am sure you have to complete some of the first parts of the storyline in Icebrood to unlock the new map or NPC etc. so you can't bypass it as much as I really wish we could. To complete it on one character is torture enough: No intention ever of completing it on another character and don't see the point as the unlocks are account wide.

Pro-tip that may help others: The only way to survive the mind-numbingness of storyline is to set up 2nd screen , grab a cold beer, watch Netflix/Amazon Prime, just mouse-click or press F when you need to advance the Story. ......And when you finally finish a chapter the relief is oh so sweet...!

[Rex.3602]

@Dark Red Killian.3946 said:Perhaps they can include a special action key in open world story dialog that when pressed skips the current dialog being done. Thus you keep pressing until the entire dialog for that story step is done you can effectively skip a lot of dialog you don’t want to spend minutes listening to.

Interesting suggestion. The dialogues in Cyberpunk work like this and I used it all the time to skip the less interesting parts of the story for me. Worked well in this regard in my opinion.