New player finds personal story level req boring and confusing

[Moradorin.6217]

47 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

"New Player Experience" Was the release.

 

They also removed some events from low level areas(Including one my favorites, the arena fight out in Plains Of Ashford,) but left the UI text for "Do X" for heart progression in. It also changed around alot of the lower maps(Added hearts, changed heart requirements). The story order got shifted around at lvl50 and they reduced the total number of missions for the Orrian Frontier before Zhaitan.(if i remember correctly).

 

My guardian has a longer Personal Story log than my Ranger for example, and the Orrian story is one thats very different.

 

The patch was a mess honestly, and it really didnt make the experience any better imo for lower levels. Not having access to weapon swap, all your weapon skills, the downed state etc all came with that patch too.

Well I do think the new player experience achievements added some benefit to new and old players (some free boosts for vets, some stat selectable items for actual new players) etc. I did like being able to do the story underlevel too, but I do understand putting some limits on things. Especially, if it was allowing people to just reroll toons all day and farm keys with a level 4 like IIRC you could do back in 2012.

[Dante.1763]

4 minutes ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

Well I do think the new player experience achievements added some benefit to new and old players (some free boosts for vets, some stat selectable items for actual new players) etc. I did like being able to do the story underlevel too, but I do understand putting some limits on things. Especially, if it was allowing people to just reroll toons all day and farm keys with a level 4 like IIRC you could do back in 2012.

Yee, i get why, i just dont like some of the level limitations they put in(Weapons/Downstate etc, along with the changes to existing hearts and the removal of events.) Removing the unlimited keyfarm makes perfect sense, they just went to far honestly.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

4 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Level 1-79 is basicly a tutorial. Tutorials are boring by design because they are trying to teach you something.

Oh how GW2 has progressed from high standards to such low ones. xD I guess it was inevitable, in hindsight, but still. They started out with, "I don't want it to be boring and then same over and voer again" (paraphrased) to now us saying: "Oh well, it's just tutorial".

 

 

54 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

Yee, i get why, i just dont like some of the level limitations they put in(Weapons/Downstate etc, along with the changes to existing hearts and the removal of events.) Removing the unlimited keyfarm makes perfect sense, they just went to far honestly.

I don't think the NPE was supposed to fix the Black Lion Key farming. I believe that was an entirely separate update. *checks wiki* Seems it was an entire year later before they limited that to weekly. NPE was September 2014, the BLK farming update in September 2015.

 

But yeah, they should have picked something much more middle ground, where natural progression (ignoring level unlocks) would still be possible and other people could still use the extra directional tools. I think I only ever had the content guide on in the beginning for like 5 minutes, after which I demonstratively turned it off forever and never touched it again. Sadly, the level unlocks I couldn't ignore.

 

 

[Dante.1763]

30 minutes ago, FrizzFreston.5290 said:

 

But yeah, they should have picked something much more middle ground, where natural progression (ignoring level unlocks) would still be possible and other people could still use the extra directional tools. I think I only ever had the content guide on in the beginning for like 5 minutes, after which I demonstratively turned it off forever and never touched it again. Sadly, the level unlocks I couldn't ignore.

 

 

updated the game, got annoyed with the Content guide and its been off since, but yea. Didnt realize the key change was a year later, thanks for looking that up.

[Danikat.8537]

3 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

"New Player Experience" Was the release.

 

They also removed some events from low level areas(Including one my favorites, the arena fight out in Plains Of Ashford,) but left the UI text for "Do X" for heart progression in. It also changed around alot of the lower maps(Added hearts, changed heart requirements). The story order got shifted around at lvl50 and they reduced the total number of missions for the Orrian Frontier before Zhaitan.(if i remember correctly).

 

My guardian has a longer Personal Story log than my Ranger for example, and the Orrian story is one thats very different.

 

The patch was a mess honestly, and it really didnt make the experience any better imo for lower levels. Not having access to weapon swap, all your weapon skills, the downed state etc all came with that patch too.

 

The level 80 story was fixed a few months later, they restored the missing sections and returned everything to the original order, the only part which stayed changed is that Arah story mode went from a 5-player dungeon to a 1-player story instance (by popular demand). It took a lot of campaigning from players to make that happen (my first 'instant' level 80 was created to document how much of a mess the storyline was as a result of that update), but it was a relatively short-lived change and has been fixed for years now.

 

Also that patch didn't introduce restrictions on weapon swap and skills, it just changed how they're presented. Before that weapon swap unlocked at level 7 (so 3 levels earlier) but there was nothing to tell you it existed (because level up notifications didn't exist) and weapon skills had to be unlocked by using that weapon, which gradually unlocked each individual skill. For some professions (engineer for example) that might have been faster but for ones like warrior or elementalist with lots of weapon skills it was much slower. There has never been a time when you just started with those things unlocked right from level 1.

 

That patch did cause some problems but it's not nearly as bad as people say, especially not after the follow-up patches which fixed the things that got complained about.

[Dante.1763]

27 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

 

The level 80 story was fixed a few months later, they restored the missing sections and returned everything to the original order, the only part which stayed changed is that Arah story mode went from a 5-player dungeon to a 1-player story instance (by popular demand). It took a lot of campaigning from players to make that happen (my first 'instant' level 80 was created to document how much of a mess the storyline was as a result of that update), but it was a relatively short-lived change and has been fixed for years now.

 

Also that patch didn't introduce restrictions on weapon swap and skills, it just changed how they're presented. Before that weapon swap unlocked at level 7 (so 3 levels earlier) but there was nothing to tell you it existed (because level up notifications didn't exist) and weapon skills had to be unlocked by using that weapon, which gradually unlocked each individual skill. For some professions (engineer for example) that might have been faster but for ones like warrior or elementalist with lots of weapon skills it was much slower. There has never been a time when you just started with those things unlocked right from level 1.

 

That patch did cause some problems but it's not nearly as bad as people say, especially not after the follow-up patches which fixed the things that got complained about.

I was combining to different patches in my head actually. Is the story fixed? Cause i quite literally stopped doing stories after doing my rangers because of how badly ruined it was(Edit: once i got to Orr), havent done it since due to that.(I also might have been gone/deployed when they updated it and thus missed the patch notes for it.)

 

i liked the weapon unlocks through kills, versus the levels. just me though. Also they still havent fixed, or returned some of the events they cut out, a few did, but not all.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Dante.1763

[Xanadrine.4352]

Imo its jarring if coming from an mmorpg with linear quests that take you on a trip through the zone filling you in on the story of the area as you go. I think one thing that would be an improvement is a path, just running around looking at the map for hearts dont feel very involved in the story of whats going on. When players get into the zones there should be a lead in heart when you complete one that ties into what and where you are going.  

[Goldrock.9076]

Pretty sure the lvl rew is set up so you will be properly geared for said story sections and it really isnt all that bad its pretty fast when your out doin the hearts and completing maps.

[Dante.1763]

Just now, Goldrock.9076 said:

Pretty sure the lvl rew is set up so you will be properly geared for said story sections and it really isnt all that bad its pretty fast when your out doin the hearts and completing maps.

Its annoying for folks like me though who can A.) Do the content underleveled. B.) Have properly leveled gear, And C.) have already played through the story a few times.

 

Which is why i wait till i get to 80 now before doing any story.

[Linken.6345]

8 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

Its annoying for folks like me though who can A.) Do the content underleveled. B.) Have properly leveled gear, And C.) have already played through the story a few times.

 

Which is why i wait till i get to 80 now before doing any story.

You could just grab a stack of tomes to have with you and use as needed while doing story aswell you know.

[Crono.4197]

kitten these forum posts are funnier by the day. What's next, "ArenaNet won't give me full legendary as soon as I log in the game" ? People these days don't even have patience to play a game properly, geez.

[Astralporing.1957]

16 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

Pretty sure you originally could play the story as you gained levels, if you didnt mind being underleveled? Before the NPE it looked like this:

 

Part 1 was level 1-10, part 2 was level 11-21, part 3 was level 21-30, part 4 was level 31-39. Part 5 was level 41-47, part 6 was levels 48-61, part 7 was levels 62-71, and part 8 was levels 72-80.

 

You could do then all at once or play them as you level.

Yes. And then we've often got the posts complaining about the story being too hard, because someone didn't notice they went with the story way too fast and their level didn't catch up to it yet.

 

Basically, no matter which option you go with, someone will find it a problem.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[LSD.4673]

11 hours ago, Zuldari.3940 said:

Imo its jarring if coming from an mmorpg with linear quests that take you on a trip through the zone filling you in on the story of the area as you go. I think one thing that would be an improvement is a path, just running around looking at the map for hearts dont feel very involved in the story of whats going on. When players get into the zones there should be a lead in heart when you complete one that ties into what and where you are going.  

The problem that fanboys cling to is that "gw2 isn't about hand holding" and "gw2 isn't like other mmos", so this issue gets defended to the death -- despite being a glaring problem. 

The zones lack a defined story, and the PS is all over the place. Unless you specifically interact with every named NPC with dialogue, and do the Personal Story on every race, you're guaranteed ro be in a position of "wtf is going on now?" mulitple times along the way.

That isn't how it should work. The hearts and events should give you pointers (like "Jim needs help with the next story related thing").

 

Some stuff off the top of my head: you wander off at 60 to go do your contrived "personal choice" storyline. Then boom, next step at 70 is go to the vine-ruined fort at Timberline (unexplained LWS2..., which is magically fixed in the instance). Suddenly a bunch of named nobodies show up who you won't know unless you've exhausted every step of each PS, and magically "the pact" is formed because you wandered through a cave.

 

...what?

Why not tip the player off some way. Like "go see Almorra/Gixx/Whisper lady", and then she can point you towards working with your order/other orders on open maps? Or something. 

 

[Dante.1763]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

You could just grab a stack of tomes to have with you and use as needed while doing story aswell you know.

I dont tome level unless either i hate the class(engineer/Rev) or im making the character for story achievements(human/asura/Norn), and then usually just to level. I toss tomes constantly. Goes hand in hand with i enjoy exploring/mapping though. 

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes. And then we've often got the posts complaining about the story being too hard, because someone didn't notice they went with the story way too fast and their level didn't catch up to it yet.

 

Basically, no matter which option you go with, someone will find it a problem.

Also true. I get the reasonings, i just dont like that its not optional for veterans who can actually handle it xD

[Savoren.3910]

19 hours ago, ExCentya.4305 said:

"What? I have to wait for the story?"
 

 

This is something I'm also not a fan of. What I usually do is leveling until 65-70 without starting the personal story, then once I'm at that level gap I start the personal story. Personal story is a pretty decent source of exp which is enough to carry you from level 65-70 gap (depending on if you're exp buffs and such) to max level, and doing it this way means you are also doing the personal story without any interruption.

[Follyfoot.2803]

Level 80 boost is the way to go.  Kitten the story it's kitten.  Level 80 allows you to get above the BS and opens up the world for you.

Some say don't boost, learn your class.  To this I say poppy kok.  You learn better when your hands, feet, and kitten aren't tied to a level tree.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Follyfoot.2803

[Balgorath.2604]

This is a very confusing thread.  Progression is not progression because reasons?  I honestly don't understand the complaint happening as the game throws multiple ways to boost your characters level progression via scrolls/books of experience and a plethora of experience boosters and how dare they not allow you to continue the story mission meant for higher levels before you get to those higher levels.

[Dante.1763]

6 minutes ago, Balgorath.2604 said:

This is a very confusing thread.  Progression is not progression because reasons?  I honestly don't understand the complaint happening as the game throws multiple ways to boost your characters level progression via scrolls/books of experience and a plethora of experience boosters and how dare they not allow you to continue the story mission meant for higher levels before you get to those higher levels.

To be fair, they used to allow you to do so, and i enjoyed going in under leveled, made it more challenging.

[Balgorath.2604]

3 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

To be fair, they used to allow you to do so, and i enjoyed going in under leveled, made it more challenging.

I do remember that and I remember it being a huge turn off for me at the time but I also didn't understand a lot of the game mechanics back then being a WoW player.  I honestly don't know what's changed since the base game to Path of Fire but I got back into Guild Wars just at the beginning of the year and have been blown away by how good the game is.  From movement to combat.  Even the mounts feel good.  It's like everything has weight to it.

[Dante.1763]

3 minutes ago, Balgorath.2604 said:

I do remember that and I remember it being a huge turn off for me at the time but I also didn't understand a lot of the game mechanics back then being a WoW player.  I honestly don't know what's changed since the base game to Path of Fire but I got back into Guild Wars just at the beginning of the year and have been blown away by how good the game is.  From movement to combat.  Even the mounts feel good.  It's like everything has weight to it.

Oh lord alot has changed! Welcome back 🙂

[Balgorath.2604]

2 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

Oh lord alot has changed! Welcome back 🙂

Oh I'm sure lot's has changed but I was referring to why I'm enjoying it now and not then lol.  I literally had a, "Why have I not been playing this game?" moment when I got back into it.

[Vayne.8563]

It's not perfect now, but it wasn't perfect originally either. People from other games are trained to run star to star. If there's no mark on the map, they simply don't know what to do. Anet added hearts for this reason. People ignored events because there was nothing to tell them they could do it. Hearts were added to  keep people in areas where events spawned.

 

Originally we'd see fairly frequent posts about people running from star to star on the map but they were underleveled for the story. Then they'd do a story and had to wait 2 or 3 levels to be able to do the next one. But suppose the last one ended on a cliffhanger or something important. The bandits are going to poison the well.  On the old system you might need a couple of levels, so you'd have to go out and pick apples or kill wolves or whatever and you'd end up eventually being able to continue the story.

The downside of what we have now is the people who don't realize this game is centered on dynamic events and the open world. I'm going to do AB a lot more times than my personal story. They're not used to that. Not trained for that. The game is making them stay in the world to learn the world. If they find it boring it's because they don't have a star on their map. I always tell them play it more like skyrim these dynamic events are important. As important as the story in the open world end game. The game needs to do a better job of explaining this.

 

The good news now is that if you're doing a story arc you're not stopping in the middle to pick flowers. You play through entire story arcs in one go. It's a trade off.

 

But yeah this game has always done a crap job of teaching itself.

[Rasimir.6239]

1 minute ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The good news now is that if you're doing a story arc you're not stopping in the middle to pick flowers. You play through entire story arcs in one go. It's a trade off.

This is something that makes the "new" (if you consider a change from 2014 new by today's standards 😉 ) way preferable for me. I remember playing the personal story on my first few characters. There was a lot of frustration because I constantly ran into story instances that were way over my head. I was frequently forced to take a break from my story to level up. This made the story instances pretty disconnected and hard to even remember where I was in the story and what an instance was about by the time I dared retry it.

 

Since the NPE every story arc (or story chapter) is placed so you can do it in one go. It makes following and understanding the story itself much easier. You can still drop out and do something else anytime you like, but if you want to see that story arch through, you won't suddenly find yourself underpowered in the middle of a chapter.

[Vayne.8563]

2 minutes ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

This is something that makes the "new" (if you consider a change from 2014 new by today's standards 😉 ) way preferable for me. I remember playing the personal story on my first few characters. There was a lot of frustration because I constantly ran into story instances that were way over my head. I was frequently forced to take a break from my story to level up. This made the story instances pretty disconnected and hard to even remember where I was in the story and what an instance was about by the time I dared retry it.

 

Since the NPE every story arc (or story chapter) is placed so you can do it in one go. It makes following and understanding the story itself much easier. You can still drop out and do something else anytime you like, but if you want to see that story arch through, you won't suddenly find yourself underpowered in the middle of a chapter.

I like it better too.

[codedbykush.2019]

On 8/3/2021 at 9:14 PM, ExCentya.4305 said:

- My friends issue whit this was it felt boring for him. "What? I have to wait for the story?" was what he said and that he felt bored to "wait" for progression.

 

I may have 12 or 13 characters and probably used level 80 instant leveling tickets for all but 2 of those to level up. The one I didn't is my first character, the revenant which is also my strongest class because I had a lot of time to practice various types of gear, face various type of bosses etc.

 

For a long time until I started actively raiding, I had almost no clue how to play other classes effectively and do top 3 dps or provide good support.

 

Guild Wars 2 is almost 9 years old and getting started now means there are so many different avenues players can take to go about doing that.

 

In my personal opinion, trying to rush to 80 isn't a good plan. But, if your friend bored too early in the game, try other gaming modes like WvW or PvP where you can get leveling tickets.

 

On 8/3/2021 at 9:14 PM, ExCentya.4305 said:

 

- The issue for me was the lack of communication about how the story chapters was gonna get delivered and when. Can it be hinted at the top right corner? "Next story chapter will be unlocked at level 10" or can it actually be in the story journal? Or why not both?🌱

 

I'm pretty sure it clearly says in your story missions, "Next Story Chapter Unlocks at Level N". You may have missed that notification.