I only had time this week either to play or post. I chose to play.
For the first time, I think, since
The Living World began, I haven't finished or even attempted to finish a chapter right away. In LS3 I usually finished the story in the first session and the map in the first week.
This time I played through to the end of the first instance on the day it became available but I haven't touched the story since. The first "boss" fight was long and tedious and reading that there were several more like it was enough to put me off going any further. They need to stop doing this or I need to stop bothering with the story. One or the other.
I did open the new map, which is spectacular in places. I explored that for a while but the mob density is so overdone and the mobs themselves so tedious and annoying it sucks most of the fun out of exploring. I didn't finish opening the map and I haven't been back. If I don't want to do the story and I don't want to explore the map it makes me wonder if I still want to play at all.
Unsurprisingly, the most fun to be had by far was in the parts where nothing and no-one was trying to kill me. The Astralarium was particularly impressive. I could do with a
lot more non-combat content in GW2. It risks turning into a quasi-ARPG these days.
Whether I'd be more enthusiastic if I didn't have the EQ2 expansion to explore at the same time, who can say? What I can say, though, is that since they both arrived on Tuesday I have rushed through my dailies in GW2 and then logged out to spend all my available playing time in
Planes of Prophecy instead.
Anyway, enough of that. Off to Norrath I go!
For the first time, I think, since The Living World began, I haven't finished or even attempted to finish a chapter right away. In LS3 I usually finished the story in the first session and the map in the first week.
This time I played through to the end of the first instance on the day it became available but I haven't touched the story since. The first "boss" fight was long and tedious and reading that there were several more like it was enough to put me off going any further. They need to stop doing this or I need to stop bothering with the story. One or the other.
I did open the new map, which is spectacular in places. I explored that for a while but the mob density is so overdone and the mobs themselves so tedious and annoying it sucks most of the fun out of exploring. I didn't finish opening the map and I haven't been back. If I don't want to do the story and I don't want to explore the map it makes me wonder if I still want to play at all.
Unsurprisingly, the most fun to be had by far was in the parts where nothing and no-one was trying to kill me. The Astralarium was particularly impressive. I could do with a lot more non-combat content in GW2. It risks turning into a quasi-ARPG these days.
Whether I'd be more enthusiastic if I didn't have the EQ2 expansion to explore at the same time, who can say? What I can say, though, is that since they both arrived on Tuesday I have rushed through my dailies in GW2 and then logged out to spend all my available playing time in Planes of Prophecy instead.
Anyway, enough of that. Off to Norrath I go!
Posts
As I played through the Living Story, I kept falling over and dying at the boss fights, only to be rezzed by some NPCs now and then. Granted, having my ping spike from the normal 250ms to 700 or 2000ms irregularly because I’m a filthy SEA player who doesn’t count in Mike O’ Briens world of “improved latency” after the switch to Amazon servers, did not help matters.
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking, wow, mechanics much? I could only anticipate the unhappiness about to emanate from more casual GW2 players. But if even you are unhappy, that’s saying something.
I'm always unhappy with LS boss fights, though. I don't believe there has ever been one I could genuinely say I enjoyed. I don't really like instanced solo play in GW2 period - I play GW2 for the open world and the zerg mechanics primarily. I suffer the solo combat to see the new zones and follow the story but the motivation for both is less than it was.
DeleteThere are three bosses after Wyvern, but only the last one is long and tedious, the other two are pretty easy and die really fast. The first instance was outlier in difficulty, so you can safely give this episode another chance.
ReplyDeleteThe wyvern fight wasn't even the tiniest bit difficult - I was on my druid and and I barely ever even went under 75% health. It was just way too long. I quite enjoyed it for a while but it was so very obviously strung out to make it last longer so it would feel like the episode was long enough. It's a problem with boredom, not difficulty.
DeleteYes, we've not been happy with the extended and mechanics-intensive fights this expansion. Death-zerging such encounters seems de-rigeur thesedays as we lack the meta knowledge to build for them and, speaking for myself only, my fingers/hands just aren't up to the crazy amount of movement needed in these fights. Playing mirage now has helped somewhat as I can keep enough 'cloak' triggers to save me from at least half the stuff that would quickly kill me other-wise. I've only played this in a duo so cannot imagine what it is like to solo.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I made my heal-specced Druid, not too long after HoT launched, I put him in charge of the Living Story, just because he's by far the least likely to die. There are ways of designing instances and encounters so that it still feels like you won even though you got knocked down a lot but ANet's version isn't one of them. Very hard to feel any sense of immersion - or even involvement - with the narrative when your character finishes the big fight in her underwear after dying fifteen or twenty times.
DeleteAs a Druid I generally don't die much - often not at all - but the downside is every fight takes forever. I am absolutely certain there are many ways these fights - and the whole approach taken with the story - could be tightened up and improved. People make some excellent suggestions on the forums in every one of the "feedback" threads. ANet ignore them all and carry on as they have always done.
Especially now that there seem to be few practical reasons to complete the story - there's rarely anything desirable in the rewards, let alone useful - I'm increasingly tempted to drop it altogether. After all, in five years I've never completed the Personal Story on a single character so quite why I feel I have to bother with the Living Story I'm not at all sure...