Personal story gotten very easy??

[TheGrimm.5624]

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"TheGrimm.5624" said:

> > Experience does go a long way. Have there been some buffs and nerfs, yes but **understanding game mechanics** I would say also players a big part.

>

> Which there are zero of in the core campaign's story missions. At least no life-threatening ones. The pre-Claw Island personal story missions are fun for their diverse story-telling, but everything thereafter is truly a sad sight to behold these days.

>

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > I think another thing many people overlook is the fact that back then you could rush through the entire story underleveled. Now it's segmented to a few instances and then you'd have to reach the next 10 levels before the next story step becomes available. That and easy access to gear we didn't have back then either.

>

> :+1:

 

I think we are saying close to the same thing, when you first encountered all of this it might have seemed hard but after everything else you run into afterwards, that would seem a cakewalk regards of if there had been any changes. Take HoT, that's what thru a lot of people off they expected Queensdale and got Orr.

[Excursion.9752]

It all boils down to time playing the game. AKA Experience . Perfect example recently for me. I used to do fractals every day. Then I started playing WvW for 6 months or so pretty religiously. When I went back to fractals it felt like it was like playing infantile mode in SAB. Bottom line I got better. I bet this is what is happening for you. So congrats on your upgrade in skill!

[Ol Nik.2518]

I started to play about a year and a half ago. I did all the story only after I had full exotics set with a proper build. I played a ranger at that time.

 

The last 3 story chapters were rather hard. I had to restart Arah several times (bugged cannons were the reason for a couple of restarts, though) before I finally managed to finish the instance. HoT, LW, PoF stories were also hard, despite my ranger having a full ascended set by the end of LW season 3. Recently, I was redoing core, LW, HoT, and PoF stories on other characters. Some of the builds I used were not optimal (exotic gear, but maybe weaker runes and sigils that would be recommended). However, with each new walkthrough, I had a much easier time regardless of the class.

 

The power creep in the past year was not sufficient to explain the subjective difficulty decrease. What made the most difference for me was familiarity with game mechanics in general and individual encounters in particular. The more I learnt about the fight the easier it was to kill the boss/mobs and to avoid damage. I have over a dozen characters and I am sure that by the time I do the story on all of them I will be able to do it half-asleep with my eyes closed.

[Asum.4960]

When playing Story or strolling around in the open world (which I very rarely do), at this point I often make purposefully weird builds or play full healers or something, just so everything doesn't die in literally 1-5 seconds (often by pressing a single button) without me ever being able to see a single mechanic.

 

Once you are good at this game, Open World and Story are frustratingly easy to a point where it ruins the experience.

Every time I see a cool mob in the open world and press one or two buttons and accidentally kill it instantly I think, aw man, I wish I could have seen what that thing could so. Oh well.

While there has been a lot of powercreep as well as content nerfs, most of it is about player skill and builds though.

 

There are people on the forums complaining about some story bosses being impossibly hard and how they tried to kill it for 2h before giving up, which can literally be bursted down in under 10 seconds without the boss getting to use a single mechanic by players being even just somewhat proficient at the game, making it a complete let down of a boss for others.

That's how much of a difference player skill and build craft makes in this game.

 

Hydras are a good example of this, where if you eat the knocking down meteors and don't do much damage they can seem like challenging mobs, but if you know how to dodge the first one and you got a decent build, you can keep them perma stunned while bursting them down, as they stagger every time they lose a head, making them a completely free kill.

 

The problem the game has is that there is very little incentive to get good at the game outside of wanting to get into Fractals and Raids, as all you achieve by getting better otherwise is invalidating all other content in the game as brainless snoozefest, which is a shame.

 

Not only does the lack of semi challenging open world and Story content ruin the experiences for proficient players, but it also keeps bad players bad, and unless they themselves have a internal motivation to get better at game because they already have their eyes on content like Raids, they are forever locked out of that more engaging content, thinking it isn't for them.

 

I'm somewhat hopeful for Strike Mission to provide some bridge for that, but still, imo Anet need to step up the game with Open World and Story as well to provide some minimum level of challenge.

If you don't know how to dodge roll or what breakbars are, you should not be able to get through max level content until you improve and a lot of players simply aren't going to improve until something stops them in their tracks and makes that improvement necessary.

Catering to those players by keeping that type on content brainlessly easy to they can keep beating it without improving does them a disservice, as it keeps them from ever learning how good and fun the combat system in this game actually is once you understand it.

[Sobx.1758]

> @"Shaktidev.5679" said:

> Although I've been playing awhile, I haven't done stories in a while. I leveled a new revenant for the fun and was amazed that there was literally no challenge to any of the storylines. I remember 'forging the pact', the timberline episode being difficult but boss died right away. The final Arah, victory or death story (which used to be a party experience) is now a breeze. Wow. Is that everyone's experience?

 

That was always the case.

[Knighthonor.4061]

> @"Acheron.4731" said:

> OP is OP...........

> nerf revenant

 

Nerf the Tablet!!

 

But on the topic, Living Story is getting easier because people are running it less and less. It's been a main part of the storytelling. Anet hasn't decided on if they want to change their methods of handling storytelling. So likely it will stay as is going forward. And because of that they need to keep it casual. They plan to have harder mode versions of them for groups though. I look forward to that

[Adiabatik.6714]

For added challenge, you might want to stick to your cultural armor set or lower.

Has anyone tried it? How did it turned out?

[Friday.7864]

It can't get too easy or end fast enough. Personally, I hate the story so frigging much.

I wish I could press a button and let the NPCs act it out while I go do something else.

If I wanted stories I'd read a book, having content in a game locked behind endless talking and annoying fights saps the life outta me.

Heck, my bf cared so much for story he didn't even catch Taimi's name or gender - he called her Timmy! That's the only fun I got out of story - when I asked who the heck Timmy is!