[Suggestion] Personal Story Overhaul.

[Kynmarcher.2184]

EDIT: To avoid confusion, since multiple people have made this mistake in the comments (maybe I wasn't clear) this suggestion is ONLY for the personal story as you level from 1 to 80. I am not talking about post 80 content like Living World seasons, or the Heart of Thorns/Path of Fire story campaigns. Just your adventure from the moment you set foot in the world as a new character, to the moment you defeat Zhaitan in Orr.

 

So, I have a suggestion and I know, honestly that it probably won't be considered, but I'd figure I'd throw it out here anyway.

 

I'd like to see the personal story get a complete overhaul.

 

Now admittedly, that's quite a vague request. What do I mean by overhaul? Well, I've been thinking a lot about that, and first, I want to give some ironclad logic as to why it should be overhauled. The personal story is what new players are going to experience for the first time, and at the moment, it's jarring, with the player being taken out of the scene quite often as they're confronted with multiple small cutscenes where NPCs talk to each other as if they're standing on a stage. It's a night and day difference compared to how the dialogue and scenes have been developed since the start of Heart of Thorns, and as much as I tell those who want to jump into the game that the dialogue and story get better over time? Most of them aren't going to stick around through 80 levels of dialogue cutscene story just to get to where the story delivery vastly improves. A change like this, while it would take a lot of time, would absolutely improve the game for new players.

 

So with that logic bomb delivered, here are the points I've considered:

 

**1. Remove the dialogue cutscenes and replace them with the method that character dialogue and scenes play out from Heart of Thorns onwards.**

I covered this above, but as this is the introduction that new players will have to the Guild Wars 2 world, I think it needs to be on par with how the story is developed for the past two expansions and all living world content.

 

**2. Change the way the personal story is delivered. No more 10 level chunks.**

One of the things I remember way back in the day as an original Guild Wars 2 player, was how the personal story was initially handed out to players. Every few levels you'd get to do part of your personal story quest, and it meant that you were constantly progressing the story as you moved through the various zones. This was changed at some point _(I can't remember exactly when)_ to only getting large chunks of the story every 10 levels, which feels kind of jarring, especially with respect to the pacing of the story. Take the Battle for Claw Island as a perfect example. The story right now has you progress through the stages at a record pace. You fight the scout, go to Claw Island, get beaten and be forced to retreat, you gather allies, unite the orders and return to Claw Island to trounce the undead forces. But something this big should take time, and that was reflected in how the story was originally delivered because you'd need to get a few levels before you could take on the next stage of the story. So by the time you return to Claw Island, it makes sense that the undead have managed to entrench themselves because they've had time to build up their forces and create fortifications.

 

So I really think that the story needs to return to how it was originally delivered. Every few levels you get a stage of the story, building up your character as you work towards the goal of uniting the orders and bringing them to Orr to fight Zhaitan.

 

**3. Change the way the orders promote the player character.**

This part of the story always bothered me from the original days of this game's launch, and sadly the change of pacing due to story delivery hasn't made this better. As we know, each of the orders has three ranks that the player can obtain as they complete story missions, and one of these ranks _(Magister/Warmaster/Lightbringer)_ is considered one of the highest ranks of each order. That should mean that you, as the player, should have to do a lot of work or complete some mighty deeds to be worthy of that rank, but you don't do anything major to earn that rank. By the time you're ready to go to Claw Island, you've already reached the maximum rank in each order, despite only doing two missions.

 

So here is what I would suggest. As the orders are fully ingrained with the personal story from the moment you join them. Make it so that you earn the first rank when you join. You earn the second rank after you finish retaking Claw Island from the Risen _(a mighty deed worthy of promotion)_ and award the final rank when you defeat Zhaitan _(another mighty deed)_. This way, players will feel as if they've earned those promotions, and they won't be handed to the player at a rapid pace.

 

**4. Integrate all the dungeons into the story. Make the story-mode something that can be done solo.**

The dungeons each represent a key chunk of the story, as they tell the tale of Destiny's Edge and how they reform in time for the final confrontation against Zhaitan. But you're never forced to see that story, meaning that if you skip all the dungeons, the only time you see Destiny's Edge before the final battle with Zhaitan is when they're tearing each other's throats out in Lion's Arch before you join the order you chose to side with earlier in the personal story. This makes it somewhat confusing when you arrive at the start of 'Victory or Death' and see the members of Destiny's Edge fighting side by side as if they were never against each other in the first place.

 

So rather than just send the players a letter telling them about the dungeon and where it's located, I'd suggest making the dungeon stories part of the personal story. Make the story mode able to be soloed, with the difficulty scaling up as more people are in the party. That way players experience the story with each of these characters, and they may feel slightly more attached to those characters as their stories develop in later living world episodes and expansion storylines. And speaking of dungeon changes...

 

**5. Change the entire story instance for the Zhaitan fight.**

This is probably one of the biggest changes I'm suggesting, but it's also desperately needed. For those who aren't aware _(because you may be new players and did not experience the end of the personal story as it was originally created)_ you used to need to complete a 5 man dungeon to finish the personal story. And while the story mode for this dungeon is now something that can be done solo, it is still very much designed to be something that is done in a group, with multiple portions of the dungeon _(such as the portions of the dungeon where you're on the airship)_ being far easier to accomplish if you've got more than one person in the group with you. Additionally, when you get to the end of the dungeon, you never actually fight Zhaitan. At least with the Mordremoth fight, you fought the avatar of the dragon, which was a fairly engaging battle with multiple stages _(and there was even a hard mode for it which needed a full party)_. But with Zhaitan's fight, the majority of the work is done for you by NPCs and then you just pepper him with, honestly, what looks like fireworks getting shot out of a cannon, and boy does it take a while to whittle him down while you're doing this solo, made even worse by the fact that Zhaitan will drop goo under your feet, forcing you to abandon the cannon unless your character is tanky or lucky enough to dodge the goo because Zhaitan missed.

 

The fight with the Eye of Zhaitan is more engaging than the fight with Zhaitan himself, and this is a problem because it ruins the climax of the story. The epic battle with Zhaitan doesn't feel epic, it feels like you just shot fireworks at a helpless lizard attached to a tower. You also never confirm that he's actually dead. He falls into the mist, and you believe he's dead. Only for his death to be confirmed later.

 

My suggestion? Completely revamp the entire dungeon. Modify the portions that are clearly designed with groups in mind, and when you wound Zhaitan to the point where he can't fly, don't end the battle by peppering him with fireworks while he clings to a tower, instead shoot him down with a few well-placed shots, before descending to the ground and fighting him on foot alongside Destiny's Edge. That way you know 100% that you slew Zhaitan, and you get an engaging boss fight at the end which makes your victory seem all the sweeter.

 

--------------

 

Those were the major changes that I'd like to see, but, there are a few minor ones that I'd also like to point out.

 

**Minor Changes**

**Make it so that the NPCs from your initial stages of the personal story _(or those tied to your character creation choices)_ appear in later stages of the story.** For example:

**Asura:** The Crewe that you worked with during your personal story should be present as you progress through the story.

**Charr:** The Warband you assembled, along with your sire, should be present as you progress through the story.

**Humans:** Either Quinn, Petra or Faren should adventure with you as you progress through the story (assuming you saved Quinn) along with Riot Alice if you got her to abandon Two-Blade Pete. For those who chose the Centaur path, your sister should appear alongside you at key moments.

**Norn:** As Norn characters mostly acted on their own with the aid of Eir, it would be difficult to get them allies. Perhaps having Eir work with the player as they progress, except for the times when they canonically ventured off on their own would be something to consider.

**Sylvari:** The Firstborn character that aligns with your calling should pop up from time to time.

 

**Have the order leaders pop up at key locations after you've become a member of the order.**

They play no role after you convince them to join forces and then show up for the victory celebration at the end. At least having them appear during the fights in Orr would be ideal.

 

**Make Deborah's appearance conform fully to what option you picked at the start of the Shadows of the Past mission.**

I chose Elona for one of my characters, and Deborah had brown skin and black hair when I saved her from the bandits, but when I encountered her in Orr later she had white skin and blonde hair.

 

----------

 

There we go, thread completed. Sorry for the length. Anyway, this is just my feedback, as I said I don't think any of this will be implemented, but I personally feel it would improve the game as a whole if it were, especially for new players.

[maddoctor.2738]

Even assuming all the voice actors that did all the work on those story characters are available, I don't think it's worth the effort and money to bring them back together to have them appear later in the story. Other than that, you do meet many characters, for example Deborah makes an appearance in Orr and Lord Faren appears a LOT in the game, for example in Verdant Brink. But some other characters aren't really built for epic scale fighting, Petra for example is a commoner that works in a tavern, why would see join the Pact or come to the jungle?

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Deborah apearance change is a bug due to how hard its to change personal story without things bugging out

[Kynmarcher.2184]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> Even assuming all the voice actors that did all the work on those story characters are available, I don't think it's worth the effort and money to bring them back together to have them appear later in the story. Other than that, you do meet many characters, for example Deborah makes an appearance in Orr and Lord Faren appears a LOT in the game, for example in Verdant Brink. But some other characters aren't really built for epic scale fighting, Petra for example is a commoner that works in a tavern, why would see join the Pact or come to the jungle?

 

Okay, so, to clarify a point. This is for the personal story only, what you experience as you level up to 80. I'm not talking about post-80 content, like Living World Season 2 and beyond. You do make a point that Deborah appears, but, it's not really as significant as it should be. She is your sister, you saved her life, and then she only appears in one mission, and if by chance you chose the naval assault or the quest to find the research team, you miss out on seeing her entirely. Faren does appear, but only in Living World Season 2 and beyond, which, again, is not what I'm talking about here.

 

As for Petra enlisting, well it's something she said herself when she risked danger to help you fight the bandits in the mission 'Desperate Medicine'

 

> Petra: Families look out for each other. You're like family, too. I'm not losing either of you. Not without a fight.

 

Given her skill with Ms. Timber, she's not exactly incapable of fighting, so it wouldn't be completely out of character for her to enlist with the Vigil (and later the Pact) to fight for someone she sees as family, especially with her no longer needing to worry about her father, who you helped heal with the medicine you secured.

[Reynarth.4819]

I disagree with "1", I honestly like personal story style of dialogues and would not want to change that.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

As Laila Lightness has already alluded to, trying to change the Personal Story without breaking either it or something else in the game is very difficult thanks to how GW2 is coded. Taking said existential horror for coding alone into account what your asking for is literally just shy of being impossible.

[Incar.7358]

Difficulties of accomplishing all this aside, I've thought about many of these things for years.

 

1. Never enjoyed the 'talking heads' style cutscenes of story delivery. While artistic, and a nice way to see character models up close, I've always felt it rips you right out of whatever you were doing. There are times when it works, such as standing in someone's office, and times when it doesn't - the second the fight has ended, or generally in the field.

 

2. I don't mind the 10-level chunks so much, perhaps re-dispersed in 5-level chunks would alleviate some of the feelings of rushed pacing (or is that how it used to be? getting a vague sensation of that).

 

3. The arbitrary promotions, while it shows how skilled the player is to attain a high rank so quickly, to me it has always felt like the effort was little. I would have preferred the ranks to be something attained outside of the story, as side-content, something achieved in your time away from the campaign. I think people would bond with their orders better if it were done that way, and you might score some extra time with your mentor. (Separate achievements, daily/weekly missions etc)

 

4. It took me years to bother doing the other dungeon stories, so I can get behind this. I remember keeping up with all the previews before GW2 itself was released, and Destiny's Edge were such a large part of those previews that I was thoroughly confused they didn't actually turn up in the story more often, and a little let down.

 

5. +1 to overhauling Arah Dungeon Story. I believe this had been brought up multiple times.

 

As for the others, while a nice touch to see previous characters again for a sense of continuity, not entirely necessary. Many of them didn't join the orders or the Pact, so they wouldn't have reason to be standing beside you throughout those parts, or even in Orr.

To his credit, Trahearne is quite the 'front of the pack' leader, while the other order leaders always seem to be in some office somewhere doing paperwork. I don't see a need to add them in to any of the battles - maybe Almorra.

[Kynmarcher.2184]

> @"The Greyhawk.9107" said:

> As Laila Lightness has already alluded to, trying to change the Personal Story without breaking either it or something else in the game is very difficult thanks to how GW2 is coded. Taking said existential horror for coding alone into account what your asking for is literally just shy of being impossible.

 

But they've changed it before though. They changed the way the missions were given to the players, so instead of getting one mission every few levels, you'd get a chunk of missions every 10 levels. That didn't lead to any significant issues. As for bugs, aren't they supposed to get fixed? Shouldn't that be the minimum standard? If something is broken, it should be fixed. We shouldn't accept a bug as 'yeah this is just how it is'.

[Kynmarcher.2184]

> @"Incar.7358" said:

> 1. Never enjoyed the 'talking heads' style cutscenes of story delivery. While artistic, and a nice way to see character models up close, I've always felt it rips you right out of whatever you were doing. There are times when it works, such as standing in someone's office, and times when it doesn't - the second the fight has ended, or generally in the field.

 

Honestly, when I played through the story when Guild Wars 2 launched I didn't mind it. But now I'm spoiled by how the story is delivered from Heart of Thorns onwards. Cinematic cutscenes that show action sequences and key story moments, dialogue that happens in real-time without the cutaway to a puppet show. If that method of story delivery was never given to us, I wouldn't be asking for it now.

 

> @"Incar.7358" said:

> 2. I don't mind the 10-level chunks so much, perhaps re-dispersed in 5-level chunks would alleviate some of the feelings of rushed pacing (or is that how it used to be? getting a vague sensation of that).

It used to be every 2 to 3 levels. I remember when I played my first human character, I got the first personal story mission at level 2, and then I got another mission every few levels, with the finale for each chapter happening at around the level 10/20/30 mark. So it was something you were consistently working towards as you levelled up.

 

> @"Incar.7358" said:>

> 3. The arbitrary promotions, while it shows how skilled the player is to attain a high rank so quickly, to me it has always felt like the effort was little. I would have preferred the ranks to be something attained outside of the story, as side-content, something achieved in your time away from the campaign. I think people would bond with their orders better if it were done that way, and you might score some extra time with your mentor. (Separate achievements, daily/weekly missions etc)

That would be ideal, and honestly, I would prefer that myself, but at the bare minimum, I would like to see us earn our ranks through legendary deeds, rather than "Oh, you helped out some Skritt? Well, here you go, now you're a Warmaster"

 

> @"Incar.7358" said:

> As for the others, while a nice touch to see previous characters again for a sense of continuity, not entirely necessary. Many of them didn't join the orders or the Pact, so they wouldn't have reason to be standing beside you throughout those parts, or even in Orr.

Well, there's more than just the Pact fighting down there. Sure, they're the main force, but non-pact forces are present as well. I could see these characters being present for various reasons. The Charr Warband for example? Yeah, they'd want to support their Legionnaire. The Asura Crewe? I can't imagine they'd turn down the opportunity to study Orr and create new technologies to aid the Pact. Other characters like Petra or Quinn might be a harder sell, but if Havroun Gretchen could make her way down there, despite being critical to the Norn's worship of the Bear Spirit, I think others could make their way down there as well.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Here's a bit of reasoning about why the Personal Story was changed: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-fresh-start-the-new-player-experience-in-guild-wars-2/

You see, there were just as many complaints (or more) about it being disjointed, back in the day, as there are about the groups of missions.

As for 'talking heads', some much prefer that to the way it has been changed. Thus, either way, some will prefer the other.

 

The Devs did try changing the Personal Story once, and it caused a lot of bugs in the story and elsewhere. It had to, mostly, be changed back.

Some bugs can't be fixed without breaking other things; sometimes, many other things. Code, especially massive code, can be a finicky thing.

[Danikat.8537]

1) Both methods of story delivery have their pros and cons for me. The 'talking heads' from the personal story are jarring at times and sometimes makes no sense (someone saying "What was that? What happened?" when all you see is two people having a chat), I also think it emphasises problems with some of the voice acting - it looks like two people reading lines to each other, so if the delivery is lacking it comes across as even more artificial than it would otherwise.

 

But the major benefit for me is that it's easier to follow. When a cut scene starts I know I don't have to do anything except follow the dialogue until it's over. I often have to play with the sound off, or miss stuff because of other noise around me in real-life, and I can't read that quickly so when dialogue is appearing quickly, during combat or while we're moving (especially if a character is behind me or off to the side and their speech bubble doesn't appear) I often need to wait until it's over and then read it in the chat box, which is even more immersion breaking and harder to follow than the 'talking heads' cut scenes.

 

Of the two I prefer the personal story style. I think the newer version could be ok if they allowed space for the dialogue to happen instead of having it going on during action scenes or while you're walking but Anet seem to have no intention of doing that, so I'm just left reading the chat box after it's over.

 

2) I have no preference for how frequently new story steps are unlocked as I tend to save them up to play in big chunks anyway, even before the game did it that way.

 

3) I think you've misunderstood the Order ranks. The highest rank the player earns isn't the highest rank there is, just the highest one for general field operatives. For example the highest Whispers rank we get is Lightbringer, who are the ones who lead field missions and camps, but there's several ranks above them, including the Keepers, Creators, Preceptors and their assistants and ultimately the Master of Whispers. The specific structure is different for each Order (I think the Priory has entirely separate ranks for scholars and field agents for example) but it's the same with all of them - there are multiple ranks above the one we get, it's just the highest rank we can be given whilst still doing the same sort of missions.

 

4) Integrating the dungeons into the story would be good, although I think it should come with some kind of prompt that it's really supposed to be group content and to use the LFG tool if you want to do it with other people. I suspect Anet assumed everyone would want to do dungeons anyway and wouldn't need them to be built into the story.

 

5) This could be a good change but I don't think it's ever going to happen. They've already re-worked the story once, and they must have been aware at the time of the complaints about the Zhaitan fight, but they didn't change it that much. They'd have to completely re-build the entire thing - we'd have to be on the ground rather than on airships and somehow get Zhaitain onto the ground too, then have an entirely different kind of fight. I think if they didn't do it when they were already re-working the personal story (which happened twice, because the first re-work messed it up and had to be fixed) it's not going to happen now.

[ElijahFitzroy.5762]

I've been around since the first year this game was out and I still go back and play the personal story. Frankly I want to keep the cut scenes. I extremely dislike the new way they have made the new Living World episodes and everything after the personal story. The cut scenes allow you to see your character up close and personal with actual facial animations and proper emotional reactions. The new way has cut all that out and simply has characters doing emotes and their jaws opening and closing. There is no proper animation. I've never understood people liking to be able to hop around and move while a serious conversation is going on. As well doing it the new way has resulted in not being able to skip anything. Which means you go through all the talking just to do one achievement. At least in the old personal stories you can skip cut scenes if you really want to and it allows people in a group to individually skip cut scenes rather than having to stand there and listen to it all. As well having characters speak in the open world has been HORRIBLE for immersion. Having 20 or more people stacked upon the NPC so you can't see anything but the chat bubble above their heads.

 

As well this is an MMO many people before you have suggested making everything solo content. I prefer to keep dungeons to 5 man and the zhitan fight actually happens to be one of my favorites. I was very disappointed with it when they changed it to be single player especially since if you had a good enough group you could run it with 3 or less. Having it as a solo fight degrades it and makes it look to simple to kill this huge dragon that has been the bane of Tyria's existence for quite some time. This is a multiplayer game. Don't make it a single player game. There are many many RPGs that can be played on their own.

 

To add to that the original content is all spaghetti' code. It is extremely hard for them to update it without breaking many things. It is the reason why Dungeons were replaced with fractals. Its also why LW season 1 hasn't come back to the game except in fragments that aren't actually the original instances, instead they are remade to fit into strikes or fractal format and are literally built from the ground up. To do what you a proposing it would basically be a whole expansion worth of content for them to rebuild and if they had to bring back voice actors several voice actors have left over the years including both the female and male charr voice actors from the original story.

 

though I would love to see Living Worlds Season 1 back, i would prefer it not to be made into similar instances like the new living world. Instead have it like festivals and have it as close to the original as possible. The cut scenes that are in the original content are wonderful and have great art and animations. I would love more cut scenes like in the personal story or like the cut scenes for Ice Brood saga that are actually properly animated and you can see everything. Standing there listening and reading speech bubbles is immersion breaking and takes away from the beautiful art and animation that we once had.

[Incar.7358]

One of the big sells back in the day was that GW2 didn't require you to team up if you didn't want to, but at the same time you could still reap the benefits of team play. This was mostly in relation to the open world and story of course (if I recall this correctly). Locking some key elements of that story within dungeons which require a team then, was a little off-kilter from that promise - at least in my opinion.

 

[kharmin.7683]

I enjoyed the cut scenes as that was really the only time I could see my character (and NPCs) up close.

[DeanBB.4268]

I'm the opposite -- I preferred the cut scenes over the new dialog method. The game stopped so you could focus on what was transpiring, not have to move and maneuver the camera so you could see who was talking. I know I missed a bunch of dialog because of that.

 

You level so fast in this game, so the story every 10 levels is really a non-factor. Plus, if you are running the stories as you go, it encourages you to go explore and level up. I remember back in the day being under-leveled and having a hard time in one of the early stories.

 

Of all the OPs suggestions, I would only like to see the final fight be a team effort. All the "building the pact" "uniting the races" etc and then you are left to fight alone. Sometimes Caithe hops out to kill something, but where is the rest of her guild, let alone the pact? Heck, I'd be happy to see even the skritt/quaggan/hylek that we saved lend a hand, even if they got wiped out. There are gunners on part of the final battle, then they go away, so there's that. Not that the fight is too hard, it's just the fact of facing it alone after the alliance is stressed so much at the end.

[kharmin.7683]

> @"DeanBB.4268" said:

> Of all the OPs suggestions, I would only like to see the final fight be a team effort. All the "building the pact" "uniting the races" etc and then you are left to fight alone. Sometimes Caithe hops out to kill something, but where is the rest of her guild, let alone the pact? Heck, I'd be happy to see even the skritt/quaggan/hylek that we saved lend a hand, even if they got wiped out. There are gunners on part of the final battle, then they go away, so there's that. Not that the fight is too hard, it's just the fact of facing it alone after the alliance is stressed so much at the end.

I always imagined that these others were dealing with all of the other battles which left the commander to focus on the big guys.

 

[Zephire.8049]

1) Throw me in to the group that prefers the personal story cutscenes. I find it way easier to follow the conversation when there's no combat involved or having to follow NPCs assuming combat might happen, especially as I tend to play with the sound low. If people are talking in a guild or whispering me directly, that's yet more distractions and I can't follow anything going on. The "talking heads" also allow you to skip dialogue if you have no interest and get on with the instance, something that I sorely miss with the current state of things, especially when I want to grab an achievement but have to wait 5 minutes for the NPC to walk up to the area and give a speech every time I want to attempt it.

 

2) I'm fine with the 10 level chunks of story, too. While it was nice when you could push as far ahead as you could with the personal story, far too many people were complaining how they couldn't just keep going and had to spend time leveling up because it got to the point where the personal story instances were far too high for them to be able to solo. Even in single-player RPGs you have to level up to move on sometimes, so it doesn't strike me as strange that an MMO would also require this. Plus it's relatively easy to level up in GW2 and you get experience no matter what you do and what map you're on. So if you're trying to rush the story the gating of it every 10 levels can be annoying, but encouraging people to explore the MMO world is good.

 

3) Keep in mind you don't sign up for the order, you are personally recommended by a former Destiny's Edge member because they see that much potential in you. At that point starting at the bottom is more of a formality and as others said, you end up with a mid-high rank instead of the highest rank before you move on to The Pact. And even in The Pact you aren't the leader. This is also where gating the personal story every 10 levels helps as even though you only do a handful of missions before getting promoted, you have to wait for it and in this wait it's easy to think about your character doing other missions for them as MMOs require you to fill in the gaps sometimes because it is physically impossible for them to show everything—running dozens of missions for an Order would get boring, fast, and the game is about dealing with Elder Dragons, not reading books/eavesdropping/being deployed to a town. Sometimes you've got to suspend your disbelief in an MMO and that's fine.

 

4) It would be nice if they did something with dungeons. Scaling down the story mode mobs and/or scaling up the power of NPCs would help a lot there, especially if they updated the combat AI for the NPCs. Technically you can solo story modes but that really depends on your build and skill and having the time to keep throwing yourself at certain things until you get past it.

 

5) Can't really comment on that because the first time was so miserable to do that I have only ever done it the one time.

[Taril.8619]

> @"Kynmarcher.2184" said:

> **1. Remove the dialogue cutscenes and replace them with the method that character dialogue and scenes play out from Heart of Thorns onwards.**

 

Honestly, they should bring these back.

 

Not in the all or nothing way that Core PS is entirely cutscenes and HoT+ is completely void of them. But use them when it is relevant. (I.e. When characters are just standing around talking)

 

> @"Kynmarcher.2184" said:

> **2. Change the way the personal story is delivered. No more 10 level chunks.**

 

This was changed because no small number of players, where just doing the story quests and getting severely outleveled and thus glomped when they attempted things. This made them get upset and complain.

 

Now, the personal story has each arc given out at what was previously the highest level for the arc.

 

Beyond that, there's nothing stopping you from simply divvying out participation in the personal story yourself. Do the level 10 arc at levels 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. Do the level 20 arc at levels 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28 etc. You'd have very little difference from the old way of doing things.

 

> @"Kynmarcher.2184" said:

> **3. Change the way the orders promote the player character.**

> This part of the story always bothered me from the original days of this game's launch, and sadly the change of pacing due to story delivery hasn't made this better. As we know, each of the orders has three ranks that the player can obtain as they complete story missions, and one of these ranks _(Magister/Warmaster/Lightbringer)_ is considered one of the highest ranks of each order.

 

Those ranks are reserved for people whom have the ability to lead a group. Given that the mission you do before this is to befriend a beast tribe and protect them from a Risen invasion, it shows that you're sufficiently qualified to lead a group.

 

Also, it's worth noting that Tybalt is a Lightbringer despite his the first mission being literally his first field assignment. So it's not as if the orders seem to be stingy about giving out these ranks...

 

Finally, the entirety of the Order arc only has 20 levels worth of content (10 quests total) dedicated to it. Due to the original layout of the Personal Story being a new step every other level. This means that there's not really much time at all to actually progress through ranks in a reasonable pace.

 

> @"Kynmarcher.2184" said:

> **Have the order leaders pop up at key locations after you've become a member of the order.**

> They play no role after you convince them to join forces and then show up for the victory celebration at the end. At least having them appear during the fights in Orr would be ideal.

 

Almorra shows up a TON. She is leading many fights during LW4 and is featured in the IBS too.

 

Riel and the Master of Whispers as a whole, has this entire thing about having their identity kept secret, even from other members of the order (Besides Preceptors and of course, you). So her showing up randomly wouldn't make sense (Even more so for Order of Whispers members whom like subterfuge and intel gathering over fighting)

 

Gixx is most likely busy researching things to waste time with whatever matters the Vigil deem worthy to bash their heads into... Though it often does seem like his role as leader of the Durmand Priory gets superceeded by Ogden, whom ends up showing up frequently throughout the later story.

 

[Atomos.7593]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> I enjoyed the cut scenes as that was really the only time I could see my character (and NPCs) up close.

 

Same. The "talking heads" in the cut scene made the dialogue feel more personal and engaging to me than what we currently have. To me what we have now makes it more boring and I often just do something else while the npcs are chatting amongst themselves, by alt-tabbing out of the game. IMO ESO has a better dialogue system with NPCs than both of these ways though.

[Incar.7358]

At least making them into actual, generated in-game cutscenes, rather than the atmospheric stage backdrop or speech bubbles, would be desirable.

[Kynmarcher.2184]

> @"Zephire.8049" said:

> Far too many people were complaining how they couldn't just keep going and had to spend time leveling up because it got to the point where the personal story instances were far too high for them to be able to solo.

 

I don't really see how this was happening, given that you couldn't get the next part of your personal story quest until you reached the level it was designed for. But I may be misremembering. Either way, that's an avoidable issue. If the enemies in a given story instance require the player to be level 36, then only have that part of the story be available at level 36.

 

The real issue here is the pacing. Prior to the 10 level chunks change the various gaps in story delivery made sense. I used Claw Island as an example, and I'll reemphasize that. It used to take a good length of time for you to go through all the steps from beating the Risen scout in Lion's Arch to thrashing the Risen at Claw Island with the three orders at your back. That felt natural, it would naturally take time to accomplish all those things, and it did. With the change they made to give the personal story in 10 level chunks, the entire Claw Island arc can be done in under an hour. It feels rushed because all of these events that 'should' take time are now crammed together with no time gaps between them.

 

> @"Zephire.8049" said:

> You end up with a mid-high rank instead of the highest rank before you move on to The Pact.

You earn the highest rank possible for you to earn by the time you get to Claw Island, you are never promoted beyond that. In fact, Gixx and Doern Velazquez make it clear that it's the highest rank you can earn. Almorra Soulkeeper is the only leader that doesn't specify that Warmaster is the highest rank, but as there are only two ranks above that, those being Grand-Warmaster and General, it's fairly obvious that it is the highest rank you can earn.

 

> Gixx: As Steward, I'm pleased to promote you to the Priory's highest active rank: Magister.

> Doern Velazquez: Agent, it's time to promote you to Lightbringer, our highest class of operative. Congratulations.

 

It's worth noting that I didn't say 'add more missions' so that you can earn those ranks. I just suggested that you should earn them at different times. So instead of being a Magister/Lightbringer/Warmaster before you even step foot on Claw Island, you instead only earn that title as a reward for defeating Zhaitan, with your second promotion (to Explorer/Agent/Crusader) being earned after you save Claw Island. This makes sense story-wise as well. When you join the order as a fresh recruit, you are in need of a mentor to show you the ropes. You are then shown the ropes, work with your mentor until they sacrifice themselves at Claw Island, at which point you're no longer in need of a mentor, you're a full-blooded member of the Order, and you've earned that rank through your heroism at Claw Island.

 

> @"Taril.8619" said:

> Almorra shows up a TON. She is leading many fights during LW4 and is featured in the IBS too.

 

Yes, she does, after the personal story concludes. Again, I am talking about levelling content from 1 to 80, not post-80 content.

 

 

[Kynmarcher.2184]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> They'd have to completely re-build the entire thing - we'd have to be on the ground rather than on airships and somehow get Zhaitain onto the ground too, then have an entirely different kind of fight.

 

I actually explained most of this in my opening post. I never said we should 'always be on the ground' all of the times that we're actually on airships make sense. I just said they should be redesigned to make them more friendly to the solo player because, in their current implementation, it's obvious that the fights are still designed to be fought by multiple people at once (which is very obvious when you have to fight Fafnarin and Horrogos at the same time) but they've just been tuned down so that they can be done by a single person.

 

As for the point of getting Zhaitan to the ground. That's covered too. We actually do that (effectively) in the instance as it currently stands when the Glory of Tyria severs Zhaitan's tail. At that point, he can't stay in the air, which is why he clings to the tower as you pepper him with cannon fire. Instead of doing that, I'm suggesting that we shoot him only a few times to weaken his grip on the tower (maybe even just shoot the tower so that it crumbles and falls on his already battered body), then descend to the ground and fight him there in a climactic finale with Destiny's Edge by your side as you strike down the dragon once and for all.

 

 

[Seera.5916]

@"Kynmarcher.2184"

 

When the game first launched, you weren't hard blocked from doing any of the personal story quests, even if they grossly out leveled you.

 

You would eventually hit enemies that were so high that you couldn't really do much, if any, damage to them during the main leveling up progress and be forced to go level up in order to progress.

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

I would rather they spend their money and resources elsewhere (ALLIANCES!)

 

Other than that, as long as they keep "it starts with 'run for it' and generally goes downhill from there" I won't lose sleep over any story changes.