Group content required for story completion

[Cuks.8241]

So much drama because players need to enter an instance with other players.

Guess what? Skip it if you don't like it and leave it for those who do.

 

Also I see lot's of people are afraid of being evaluated while in group play. It is completely unfounded for gw2 at least at this lvl of difficulty. I had no issues getting into any strike by now without any checks (some groups could have requirements for Boneskinner). I went down plenty the first tries and no one ever commented and everyone was helpful. There is really no reason to just try it because it is as easy as open world events.

[Jilora.9524]

> @"PookieDaWombat.6209" said:

> > @"Jilora.9524" said:

> > > @"PookieDaWombat.6209" said:

> > > Good job Anet. Now you've added content I can't enjoy because I have to play it with others when I just want to experience the story. All because you want to force players into strike missions and eventually raids because you see less traffic in that content. So you also stick any and all rewards behind doing that content as well. smh. This trend continues and I'm not even sure going back to Cantha will be enough to keep me along for the ride.

> > >

> > > tl;dr make your actual PvE open world content actually rewarding with out absurd grind. If PvE's only real rewards come from the gemstore then you've failed.

> >

> > You can get everything solo as I got crystal frags from the new strike multiple times a day 9-11 with like 5 bonus once a day. numbers may vary. If you do the easy groth duo raven you get 3 bonus chests with chance at precursors and many other rare stuff but that isn't required. You can do it once a day or buy the armor flat out w gold and in the thread it's discussed so kinda maybe read thread instated emo rant

>

> First don't come with the chance at precursor nonsense as technically there is a chance for precursors from killing moa on starter maps, so thats not even a thing to tout. Second, while yes, I can solo this new content, it takes far longer to do solo AND new players most certainly could not do it in a timely fashion (hell even vet players can't do it fast alone), so it still makes the whole endeavor extra grindy. But yes, I am aware you can just grind out gold as well and buy things on the TP. Well except the cape. Thats another grind of a different kind.

>

> Also, you'd think that if they are going to reward people with a weapon at the end of it, they'd at least make the weapon you get from doing level 80+ content exotic, but no. They don't even do that. Its a rare. Yay?

>

> See nothing you described has anything to do with what I said originally. I couldn't *enjoy* the full content of the story because to do so *requires* a group. Now, to be fair to Anet, I did enjoy the feeling of it being harder, but that was mostly due to me having to wear all the hats while doing it solo, so I had to try to manage all of the aspects as we trotted along. To that end, it was great. At no point could i stop to take it in. That, unfortunately is the double edged sword. I know they put a lot into that area design, and i saw almost none of it since I could only focus on my actions. I might still run through there with my friends now as i don't have to worry about them talking over the dialog or story, which could make it easier to finish faster and see more of the level, but then it will be exponentially easier too.

>

> Ultimately nothing about this makes me want to play strike missions though, and that's a failing. Full stop. There is no reason they couldn't have given some parts of this some breathing room for story while giving other aspects the frenetic combat. More importantly they can stand to give some kind of in game reward in PvE without the need to grind either gold or widgets. Its about respecting player time, and recently that seems to be low on the priority list. I'm all for putting in time and effort, but the moment you stick it behind grind, I lose interest really fast.

 

Still wrong. Soloable. Chance at precursor better then killing moas. Easily get armor from crystal frags. And now I know never to respond to you after this again

[robertthebard.8150]

> @"Cuks.8241" said:

> So much drama because players need to enter an instance with other players.

> Guess what? Skip it if you don't like it and leave it for those who do.

>

> Also I see lot's of people are afraid of being evaluated while in group play. It is completely unfounded for gw2 at least at this lvl of difficulty. I had no issues getting into any strike by now without any checks (some groups could have requirements for Boneskinner). I went down plenty the first tries and no one ever commented and everyone was helpful. There is really no reason to just try it because it is as easy as open world events.

 

Sorry, but no. How do I know? Well, there's [https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1189800#Comment_1189800](http://https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1189800#Comment_1189800) where the OP is convinced that everyone has to run through their super ultimate tutorials to L2P. There was a thread a while back wanting to be able to view people's gear prior to Dungeon/Fractal/Raid parties as well. Of course, you can always read through this thread to find that this behavior really does exist in GW 2. I'm fine with group content, I have a blast with it when I do anything with groups. However, trying to claim that "GW 2 doesn't have elitists that will spend an entire party duration judging your poor choices (according to them)" is, and I can't think of a gentler word, so, delusional.

 

They do exist, and they're extremely vocal, and willing to mischaracterize what people say to prove their point. We can see examples of the latter on the first page of this thread, with a poster claiming the OP is wanting them to stop making group content at all.

[Esterie.7409]

> @"Zok.4956" said:

> > @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > > @"Jilora.9524" said:

> > > > @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > > > > @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > > > > > @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > > > > > > @"Mea.5491" said:

> > > > > > > _"Making group content required for the story is a step backwards."_

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Then you would cry in FFXIV, story is locked behind DOZENS of non-soloable dungeons and trials, lol. GW2 has a ridiculously LOW amount of FORCED group content for a massively **multiplayer** game. :tongue:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Yep and some people chose this game for that reason. This is a change that's introduced badly. Anet is trying to tell me well if you want to keep moving forward this is the direction we're going. If it is, you'll be going without me and players like me.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > It may not matter to you, but if there are enough of us, it will matter to the bottom line of the game. And that should matter to everyone playing.

> > > > >

> > > > > Sure it might "force" you to play with other players for that one mission but its taking care of the forming of a group for you if you just use the Public squad. The mission itself is fairly easy and doesn't require a ton of coordination beyond just ticking the boxes of the progressive objectives and then the boss fight at the end.

> > > > >

> > > > > Technically the game "forces" you to play with other players whenever you do an event in the world or a World Boss. Its not much different than that, you're just pressing a button to do it.

> > > >

> > > > But it's not forcing me to group with other people. I can rock up to a meta event or world boss without grouping and often do.

> > >

> > > The person above just said they duo it easily which could mean it's soloable so try solo or with a friend who understands your unique circumstances

> >

> > Yep I'm going to try it. You might be led to think I solo most of the time, but that's not the case. I just play with a few guldies most of the time.

>

> But I did not finish the last boss fight solo. Because I could not break the break bar completely with spamming tank-skill-3(harpoon) doing this alone. And without breaking the break bar the fight is way too long. So I left the instance when the boss was at 70%.

>

 

I ran into this as well during my solo run. I would press the harpoon skill to anchor it into the boss, then repeatedly press the skill over and over to try and break its breakbar to no avail. After a few attempts I tried to _hold down_ the harpoon skill instead, and it broke the bar super fast.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"coso.9173" said:

> How is this any different from previous story episodes where you're required to complete map events (who are done by groups most of the time) to progress in the story? ? Because it's a longer map event requirement?

I actually always hated those parts and was glad that they existed only in some LS chapters, not in all of them.

 

[Westenev.5289]

Honestly, this content is surprisingly accessable. It's easy to join in with randoms and just have fun mowing down icebrood with machine guns, sniper rifles and dwarven bazooka's. If that isn't your thing, you're not punished for talking to npc's, failing the jumping puzzles or doing the gathering events. Machine Gun-kun will carry you.

 

Honestly, just give it a go. This story has something for everyone, and I kinda want more content like this!

[thepenmonster.3621]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> So what happens a year from now when most players aren't playing on this map any longer and new players are struggling to find a group for this content in order to progress their story?

 

This is the greatest issue the game faces IMO. Even with a new expansion on the horizon the game will never have the same population it did back in 2012. It will continue to decline down to a core of devoted players like every other MMO as they age. Right now there are way too many pieces of content in the game that require a solid team, an uber player in uber gear, or a sizable zerg to complete. (I still haven't been able to finish Triple Trouble. Admittedly it's mostly due to it not popping during my play time, but half the time I'm online and it's active the map is dead.)

 

Making them part of the daily system so the map will be populated enough seems to me to be Anet's plan. I assume Bjora's Marches and these "Visions" will be added to the rotation as well. But this seems like a bandaid rather than curing the core problem of the future needing these to be done with only one or two players.

 

ETA; I do think that if they're going to do that all of the season maps need the "Finish Three Achievements" method attached to them. Grothmar has it. No reason the other dailies can't.

[Cuks.8241]

> @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > @"Cuks.8241" said:

> > So much drama because players need to enter an instance with other players.

> > Guess what? Skip it if you don't like it and leave it for those who do.

> >

> > Also I see lot's of people are afraid of being evaluated while in group play. It is completely unfounded for gw2 at least at this lvl of difficulty. I had no issues getting into any strike by now without any checks (some groups could have requirements for Boneskinner). I went down plenty the first tries and no one ever commented and everyone was helpful. There is really no reason to just try it because it is as easy as open world events.

>

> Sorry, but no. How do I know? Well, there's [https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1189800#Comment_1189800](http://https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1189800#Comment_1189800) where the OP is convinced that everyone has to run through their super ultimate tutorials to L2P. There was a thread a while back wanting to be able to view people's gear prior to Dungeon/Fractal/Raid parties as well. Of course, you can always read through this thread to find that this behavior really does exist in GW 2. I'm fine with group content, I have a blast with it when I do anything with groups. However, trying to claim that "GW 2 doesn't have elitists that will spend an entire party duration judging your poor choices (according to them)" is, and I can't think of a gentler word, so, delusional.

>

> They do exist, and they're extremely vocal, and willing to mischaracterize what people say to prove their point. We can see examples of the latter on the first page of this thread, with a poster claiming the OP is wanting them to stop making group content at all.

 

So you base your game experience on forum posts? If anything forums are never an indication on everything in any game because most vocals are complainers, people that think are entitled to everything and trolls.

 

What I told you is my own experience in the last 2.5 years.

You seem to play group content also, why do you bring forum posts as evidence. Tell me how many times have you met these people? And I am talking easy group content like Strikes not raids.

 

Anyway I have played many mmorpgs, I have been leading pug 25 man raids in Wow Woltk and TBC including the hardest, latest raids. The amount of elitism in this game is close to 0. Sure you will find a bad egg sometimes but in GW2 the likeliness is very low.

 

It is post like yours that makes people quit before they even try. This story Strike or whatever it is, is so damn easy that really anyone can join and will still succeed.

[aspirine.6852]

Group content in pve is fine, there is no elitism like in raids. At least not that I noticed.

[robertthebard.8150]

> @"Cuks.8241" said:

> > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > @"Cuks.8241" said:

> > > So much drama because players need to enter an instance with other players.

> > > Guess what? Skip it if you don't like it and leave it for those who do.

> > >

> > > Also I see lot's of people are afraid of being evaluated while in group play. It is completely unfounded for gw2 at least at this lvl of difficulty. I had no issues getting into any strike by now without any checks (some groups could have requirements for Boneskinner). I went down plenty the first tries and no one ever commented and everyone was helpful. There is really no reason to just try it because it is as easy as open world events.

> >

> > Sorry, but no. How do I know? Well, there's [https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1189800#Comment_1189800](http://https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1189800#Comment_1189800) where the OP is convinced that everyone has to run through their super ultimate tutorials to L2P. There was a thread a while back wanting to be able to view people's gear prior to Dungeon/Fractal/Raid parties as well. Of course, you can always read through this thread to find that this behavior really does exist in GW 2. I'm fine with group content, I have a blast with it when I do anything with groups. However, trying to claim that "GW 2 doesn't have elitists that will spend an entire party duration judging your poor choices (according to them)" is, and I can't think of a gentler word, so, delusional.

> >

> > They do exist, and they're extremely vocal, and willing to mischaracterize what people say to prove their point. We can see examples of the latter on the first page of this thread, with a poster claiming the OP is wanting them to stop making group content at all.

>

> So you base your game experience on forum posts? If anything forums are never an indication on everything in any game because most vocals are complainers, people that think are entitled to everything and trolls.

>

> What I told you is my own experience in the last 2.5 years.

> You seem to play group content also, why do you bring forum posts as evidence. Tell me how many times have you met these people? And I am talking easy group content like Strikes not raids.

>

> Anyway I have played many mmorpgs, I have been leading pug 25 man raids in Wow Woltk and TBC including the hardest, latest raids. The amount of elitism in this game is close to 0. Sure you will find a bad egg sometimes but in GW2 the likeliness is very low.

>

> It is post like yours that makes people quit before they even try. This story Strike or whatever it is, is so kitten easy that really anyone can join and will still succeed.

 

Really? So you think in about 20 years of playing MMOs, all I've ever done is read the forums? I provided a link to one discussion, and mentioned another, that happened on these forums because they are easily verifiable, and not simply anecdotal evidence. Facts before feelings. So which is it, are forums "never an indication of anything" or "the reason people will quit before they even try"? My instanced content was done while I was guilded. The sporadic nature of my play makes that virtually impossible, since players rightfully want active players, not players that are active for a week or so, and then gone for months at a time. My own personal experiences with grouping show me that there are plenty of these players, both here, hence forum posts linked or mentioned to look up if you want, and elsewhere. You seem to want to believe that people that are "in the pool" for Raids et al aren't in the pool for strikes. The thread I linked has dialog that indicates the OP is spending as much time worrying about what other players are doing in OW zergs as they are doing what they're supposed to be doing, if not more, based on the opening post of that thread. Am I, or anyone else, to believe that they're a "one off", or an anomaly? I'm not buying it, there were people in my guild that I wouldn't group with for content because of the amount of time they spent in instanced content complaining in guild chat about how some player that said they'd never been in the story dungeon before didn't know what they were doing in the dungeon.

 

That's my anecdotal evidence. Which one do you suppose carries more weight, your anecdote, or mine? Personally, my money's on the forum posts that show a clear inclination that can be readily demonstrated w/out having to have videos or screenshots. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've seen complaints about dragon fights, or event performance, so I won't even try. I can, however, point to a thread where I was actually a participant, and that you can readily peruse, at your leisure, if you choose to do so, to support my claims. It's much cleaner, and much clearer, and a lot less prone to someone reading it going "yeah, I think he's making that up".

[Wrong Device.3014]

> @"Wrong Device.3014" said:

> First of all, I don't like to be some stupid clumsy charr.

> Regarding forced group content... I'd like to decide myself - whether to do this solo or with friends, like almost any other story steps in this game.

>

>

 

Yeah, sorry. It seems I can really make squad of one and do this solo. I Just didn't pay attention to ingame menu.

 

 

But I still don't like being clumsy charr. :)

[Cerioth.7062]

> @"Wrong Device.3014" said:

> > @"Wrong Device.3014" said:

> > First of all, I don't like to be some stupid clumsy charr.

> > Regarding forced group content... I'd like to decide myself - whether to do this solo or with friends, like almost any other story steps in this game.

> >

> >

>

> Yeah, sorry. It seems I can really make squad of one and do this solo. I Just didn't pay attention to ingame menu.

>

>

> But I still don't like being clumsy charr. :)

 

Feeling clumsy as a charr is an user error :P

[Adul.1520]

It's always been established precedent that story missions and achievements were solo-play-oriented with a couple of notable exceptions (original Zhaitan, Migraine). I find it very unfortunate that in this season Anet just decided to start dumping instanced group content into these categories instead of giving it its own separate categories like they had always done previously. It feels like I'm being coerced into playing content that I don't want to play and don't enjoy playing, and it also feels like that content is overtaking the spaces where I previously always used to find content that I did want to play.

 

I think the people who designed and classified this content failed to properly take into account the preferences of much of their playerbase—the huge explorer player population that GW2 has because of what kind of game it is.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Adul.1520" said:

> It's always been established precedent that story missions and achievements were solo-play-oriented with a couple of notable exceptions (original Zhaitan, Migraine). I find it very unfortunate that in this season Anet just decided to start dumping instanced group content into these categories instead of giving it its own separate categories like they had always done previously. It feels like I'm being coerced into playing content that I don't want to play and don't enjoy playing, and it also feels like that content is overtaking the spaces where I previously always used to find content that I did want to play.

>

> I think the people who designed and classified this content failed to properly take into account the preferences of much of their playerbase—the huge explorer player population that GW2 has because of what kind of game it is.

 

Read the thread.

 

The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"jinxykat.6519" said:

> > I thought it was extremely fun (went with a public group) Honestly, players shouldn't be so turned off by group play, it IS an mmorpg, after all.

>

> But that's not the point. The point is forcing a play style that hasn't been required before.

 

Since the game has started, almost all side and support story has been group content.

During the main quest, the player can join Destiny's Edge in dungeons, group content, to learn more about the team and what goes on besides the pact activities.

Other side events and historical tellings are done via fractals, also group content.

 

The point is not that anet is forcing a play style that has never been required before, the point is that this playstyle has been almost consistently required, for this type of content. In fact, the living world journal is just about the only single player content in this game. Dungeons, fractals, visions of the past, raids, everyone is and will be group content.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > > The latest story requires 5-10 man instanced content in order to complete it. Anet has not required group content for story since the original Zhaitan fight which they later changed to be soloable.

> > >

> > > Making group content required for the story is a step backwards.

> > > I prefer my first playthrough of new story content to be done solo so that I don't have the distraction of another player. Now, not only do I need another player, but if my friends arent online and willing to do it with me I am stuck with randoms who are even more of a disruption to my enjoyment of lore and story.

> > >

> > > I know anet wants to push players into trying out strikes but this is not the way to do it.

> > > A chapter in my story journal should not require group content.

> >

> > Its a step forward, Reinforce people to join guilds and play an MMORPG together. For too long guild wars 2 has tried to be both a single player game, and a multiplayer and I believe it was to get people to try visions of the past. Im not against it, it was and is a lot of fun and I've enjoyed it quite a lot more so than I initially thought I would as its got a lot of lore and feels good to play.

> >

> > If you dislike this wait until the woodland cascades come next, its said to be a pve variant of WvW so I imagine its gonna require TONS of group content to actually work and get you to your story. I like this direction~

>

> Historically a game company making a sizable change to the philosophy of their games and how they are played does not work out well for them.

 

Except they're continuing what they're doing since day 1.

Living world journal is about the only single player content in the game.

Their philosophy has practically unchanged in that aspect. Side story is told in dungeons, fractals, raids, and now in VotP

[yann.1946]

What I don't get is why people don't classify this as a dungeon in their head. Sidestories required groups for a long time.

 

On top of that apperently it is a solo instance also.

 

But I guess this just proves that the truth doesn't really matter, only the perceived truth. As I'm sure people won't even try to do this as it is "group content" in their eyes.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"yann.1946" said:

> But I guess this just proves that the truth doesn't really matter, only the perceived truth. As I'm sure people won't even try to do this as it is "group content" in their eyes.

 

This could've easily been solved by having 3 options, solo, public, squad. The instance is perfectly doable solo and the enemies DO scale with lots of players, it appears that every event is using the regular event system of the game, so with 10 players in a public mission you will encounter elite mobs and mobs at level 81 and 82. When solo you will only face regular level 80 mobs. The champions also scale, I could beat all the champions when I was solo, but in a group their health scales up by a lot. So it does get easier with more players, but only if those players know what they are doing. For example, if some go afk the instance will be harder than soloing it.

 

> @"Zok.4956" said:

> But I did not finish the last boss fight solo. Because I could not break the break bar completely with spamming tank-skill-3(harpoon) doing this alone.

 

This is odd because if you spam your button 3 you will break the bar easily solo. It was when I went in a public mission that it was really hard to break that bar because the majority of my squad didn't know the harpoon mechanic. When the NPC says "tank in position", hop in, press 3, wait for recharge, spam it, it will break the bar even when solo.

[Healix.5819]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Zok.4956" said:

> > But I did not finish the last boss fight solo. Because I could not break the break bar completely with spamming tank-skill-3(harpoon) doing this alone.

>

> This is odd because if you spam your button 3 you will break the bar easily solo.

 

The pull is on a 1/4s cooldown, so if you're even a little slow at spamming it, you won't do enough break damage and will fail with 1% of the bar left. Holding down the button to automatically use the skill is how you easily break it.

[Zok.4956]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Zok.4956" said:

> > But I did not finish the last boss fight solo. Because I could not break the break bar completely with spamming tank-skill-3(harpoon) doing this alone.

>

> This is odd because if you spam your button 3 you will break the bar easily solo. It was when I went in a public mission that it was really hard to break that bar because the majority of my squad didn't know the harpoon mechanic. When the NPC says "tank in position", hop in, press 3, wait for recharge, spam it, it will break the bar even when solo.

 

Yes, I know, this is odd. I did make several tries with this and the timing was right.

 

Another person experienced the same and said, what worked was to press-3 and then not release it untill the break bar is broken. I will try this next time.

 

Or this maybe is related to the key-bind-error that some other players also have: Tank skills #2,#3 do not work when I press them with keyboard, I have to activate them with mouse clicks.

 

> @"Healix.5819" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Zok.4956" said:

> > > But I did not finish the last boss fight solo. Because I could not break the break bar completely with spamming tank-skill-3(harpoon) doing this alone.

> >

> > This is odd because if you spam your button 3 you will break the bar easily solo.

>

> The pull is on a 1/4s cooldown, so if you're even a little slow at spamming it, you won't do enough break damage and will fail with 1% of the bar left. Holding down the button to automatically use the skill is how you easily break it.

 

Thanks. Makes sense. Clicking with mouse maybe is a little bit slower than keypresses.

 

 

[Dante.1763]

> @"ShroomOneUp.6913" said:

> > @"Dante.1763" said:

> > > @"Mea.5491" said:

> > > _"Making group content required for the story is a step backwards."_

> > >

> > > Then you would cry in FFXIV, story is locked behind DOZENS of non-soloable dungeons and trials, lol. GW2 has a ridiculously LOW amount of FORCED group content for a massively **multiplayer** game. :tongue:

> >

> > Maybe thats why we are playing this game and not that one.

> >

> > I repeat. MMO =/= 10 man instanced dungeons. It means a bunch of players online together at the same time.

>

> actually that is exactly what MMOs are. an MASSIVE MULTI O with only solo content....?

 

No it is not. MMOS = a massive amount of players online at the same time, as one can find in Open World, or in WVW, that is okay and fine i love it. What i do not and have never enjoyed is being forced to have other players in my characters story in any game. I did all of GWs story solo, ive done all of this ones solo this was the first one where i needed to have other people.

 

NOW, had ANET made it obvious in the UI that even though its a strike mission it can be done 100% solo and scales down to one player as it does, i would never ever have posted on this thread or any other thread about the topic. But they didnt, they put it behind the standard strike mission UI which instantly makes people including me have the impression that 10 people are required.

 

Moving forward, if they do this again, and after playing through it solo and finding it way more fun solo i hope they make it obvious to -ALL- players that its fully capable to be done solo if a player has any skill at all outside of spamming 1.

[Dawdler.8521]

Hahahaha...

 

I've been hestitating for a week to join with a group but an hour ago I decided to say kitten it, I'm going in with my "squad" of minions.

 

LS completed. Running through this strike mission solo takes time, yes... but it's easier than many vanilla story dungeons, lol! The "champions" are barely even champions when scaled for 1 person, just slightly tougher veterans with a breakbar. Rest of the mob groups are tiny in scale. The most "difficult" part of both instances was finding a way up to those damn sniper spots. The first boss was dead simple to complete (took about 20% hp each melee pull, sprinkled with tank fire between). The second boss didnt even lower my hp below 80%, just facetanked.

 

This one is **easily** soloable.

[Adul.1520]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Adul.1520" said:

> > It's always been established precedent that story missions and achievements were solo-play-oriented with a couple of notable exceptions (original Zhaitan, Migraine). I find it very unfortunate that in this season Anet just decided to start dumping instanced group content into these categories instead of giving it its own separate categories like they had always done previously. It feels like I'm being coerced into playing content that I don't want to play and don't enjoy playing, and it also feels like that content is overtaking the spaces where I previously always used to find content that I did want to play.

> >

> > I think the people who designed and classified this content failed to properly take into account the preferences of much of their playerbase—the huge explorer player population that GW2 has because of what kind of game it is.

>

> Read the thread.

>

> The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player.

 

That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Adul.1520" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Adul.1520" said:

> > > It's always been established precedent that story missions and achievements were solo-play-oriented with a couple of notable exceptions (original Zhaitan, Migraine). I find it very unfortunate that in this season Anet just decided to start dumping instanced group content into these categories instead of giving it its own separate categories like they had always done previously. It feels like I'm being coerced into playing content that I don't want to play and don't enjoy playing, and it also feels like that content is overtaking the spaces where I previously always used to find content that I did want to play.

> > >

> > > I think the people who designed and classified this content failed to properly take into account the preferences of much of their playerbase—the huge explorer player population that GW2 has because of what kind of game it is.

> >

> > Read the thread.

> >

> > The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player.

>

> That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine.

 

How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics.

[Adul.1520]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"Adul.1520" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > @"Adul.1520" said:

> > > > It's always been established precedent that story missions and achievements were solo-play-oriented with a couple of notable exceptions (original Zhaitan, Migraine). I find it very unfortunate that in this season Anet just decided to start dumping instanced group content into these categories instead of giving it its own separate categories like they had always done previously. It feels like I'm being coerced into playing content that I don't want to play and don't enjoy playing, and it also feels like that content is overtaking the spaces where I previously always used to find content that I did want to play.

> > > >

> > > > I think the people who designed and classified this content failed to properly take into account the preferences of much of their playerbase—the huge explorer player population that GW2 has because of what kind of game it is.

> > >

> > > Read the thread.

> > >

> > > The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player.

> >

> > That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine.

>

> How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics.

 

It's not just semantics. Instanced group content requires use of the LFG tool and is generally a social experience where players are often expected to interact, bring certain builds, etc. Comparably, joining a zerg in the open world requires no LFG, can be done seamlessly by moving around in the in-game world without opening any menus or scrolling through lists, and is a much less social experience. Of course, those differences may not be meaningful to you, but they're meaningful to many other players.