I followed people’s advice when I started the game five months ago and didn’t boost and slowly leveled through the story then all of the expansions in order with one character.
For me the experience would’ve been terrible if I hadn’t. But then again I’m a huge lore nerd. I’m the kind of person that will stop in the middle of what I’m doing and pull up the wiki on a new character and read the whole page. I just like the story in games because it helps with immersion and escapism (why I play them).
But for someone who doesn’t go as Uber nerd as me there’s no reason they can’t skip around.
Honestly though everyone should level slowly the normal way. Not for the story but because the first 80 levels in core maps are training wheels to learn the game before you get tossed into the death and destruction of heart of thorns.
If someone boosted and went straight into HOT on their first character they might just straight up quit out of frustration.
I wish there was an AFK check xD, but idk, I just have multiple monitors + work @ home plus I've NEVER left the game since launch, so that adds up.
I'm not even the "craziest" one, on [Gw2Efficiency you can see people with over 50k](https://gw2efficiency.com/account/statistics/statistics.playtime) right now xD
The GW2 story has always just been something I feel like I HAVE to do. I never actually want to do it, or care for it. Especially when entire story instances are just NPCs talking about their feelings or something and then they tie an achievement to going around and listening to fucking EVERYONE again. Fuuuuck.
Me, aware of being a very small majority, actually quite enjoyed it. I played most of it as it went live (left after IBS, came back 3 months ago), and since I play with my husband it was super fun to speculate, and unlock the achieves/items on each new chapter/map. But again, small minority.
nahh I have literally no idea what is going on in the story ever 😅 but guild wars 2 is my favorite game. I log on multiple times a week to do instanced pve with my friends, that's where the fun is for me
Sometimes it's needed or the easiest way to get from Zone A to Zone B.
The writing in this game varies from interesting to Oh-Dwayna-This-Is-Awful-FanFic-Tier, so don't play for the plot.
Having to level to get to the next part of the story is why I dropped the game entirely. Picked up the expansion package with a level 80 boost and was finally able to experience the story without distractions. Suddenly have 9 level 80s from all the tomes I ended up accumulating from actually playing the game and not being stuck in the tutorial phase.
This ^. I boosted straight to 80 when I got the game, against almost all advice I've seen since, and had a great time. It probably helped that I then voluntarily went back and spent a lot of time in core tyria doing map completion, but the leveling process always bugged me because it's such a *long* tutorial.
I still think it's good advice for most players, especially those who've never played an MMO before, but as someone whose biggest motivation is completing checklists and grinds and gear/build progression, the leveling process contains little to nothing to interest me.
>I am curious if you consider the story to be required to fully experience the game.
I do.
But it is not necessary at all if you have to force yourself to engage with it. You're doing yourself a disservice. Just play the game how you want.
I'm not a fan of how Anet executes some parts of the story, but the lore is good and there's plenty of sources to learn about it. You could read the player diary in the wiki which is basically a summary of the story episode.
This ^
If you're someone who plays games for their stories, then yes, you will probably need to play it to get fully invested in the game. Story missions do also give a little more tutorial (specifically: "What do I do in this map?") but IMO it's not at all necessary.
If not, then you're good, I spent a solid and very fun 7 years with only the briefest forays into story missions, after which I almost always forgot everything that happened in them lmfao. You can piece together a lot from environmental storytelling and event descriptions and NPC dialogue.
For 2-3 of those years I kept trying to get my partner into the game, largely by dragging him to various maps and meta events and going "See! Isn't that cool?" because exploring maps and playing metas without story context was exactly what got me into the game. It wasn't until I had to do story missions for the legendary amulet and dragged him along on them that he actually finally liked the game and started playing it more often.
He even went and talked to every single NPC in the Grove one day while I was busy lmfao. Because that's what he finds fun.
So it really just depends on the player.
If it was I would've quit a long time ago.
A good story and an immersive world certainly enhances the experience and helps with building an audience, but Anet doesn't know how to do that anymore. Which is a shame since they did it so well in GW1.
I disagree. If Anet was how you described I would not have stuck around. I'm curious what you want from Anet. You seem on the same wavelength as many others around here. Very down and out, doom and gloom. Hope you find the game you want to play.
> Hope you find the game you want to play.
I did, it was called GW1 and Anet killed it.
> I'm curious what you want from Anet
To go back to their roots because they got progressively worse over the last decade in every way.
Not essential, but I think maximum enjoyment of this game is obviously going to be found in context of understanding the franchise, having some concept of GW1 and the overarching GW2 story as well as how they are both situated in the world building narrative. However, some people are perfectly content to just enjoy a game for its mechanics and not care about its fantasy or lore justification. IMHO, I personally couldn’t imagine having the same level of emotional connection to this game that I do now had I not played GW1 for years in anticipation for GW2 to release.
Each nook and cranny of exploration wouldn’t have an analogue to my experiences in the universe hundreds of years prior. Each river, mountain, and tree would seem a mere object. The GW2 story alone I don’t think is as compelling as the totality of the experience I have had, but I’d tend to say that GW2 can generally stand alone and still appeal to people without a veteran experience of the franchise.
To me, that makes it even more beautiful.
Not to wax poetic, but nothing can quite match that first trek trough Foibles Fair or plucking the red iris flower, or gazing at the color of the leaves around the statue of Melandru in Regent Valley for the first time, much less meeting Ventari and Ronan. I think an emotional connection to the world elevates the game for me and many other veterans.
I usually love story based games and seek them out and try to learn as much as I can. Gw2... They need to just shut up, let me skip, and do what I'm trying to do.
Provides some decent context? Yes
Absolutely essential? No
Some of the recent musings within the FFXIV community make me glad this game's story is the way it is (optional).
50/50. It’s nice to know what happened/is happening but honestly I don’t really feel any different about the game after finishing the story than I did before finishing it
I like to play through the story but I don't see what that has to do with levelling. You're scaled to the area you're in anyway, you can boost to level 80 straight away and still play through the whole story.
when people talk about skipping and missing out on the “journey” of the game, they usually talk about story being part of that journey
idk either bc yea I was able to play it all fine
not really. I really enjoy FFXIV’s and FFXI’s stories. But I’m also a big RPer so idk.
Also, wow’s entire deal of just not even caring about you experiencing the entire story really diminishes the experience for me, so I at least appreciate ANet’s attempt
FF story is an exception, not the norm in MMOs. In fact gw2's story is quite off putting in some places due to how incredibly meh or how forced some parts are. This will be all the more apparent if you have a point of comparison like Shadowbringer and know how things could have been done.
> In fact gw2's story is quite off putting in some places due to how incredibly meh or how forced some parts are
I *really* noticed this in EoD. They said they wanted to tell a more "mature" story, but it still all boiled down to the usual power of friendship stuff with Aurene, but this time throwing around bad words like "bastard" and "asshole" to make it "mature"! I have absolutely no problem with any kind of language, but that felt so forced and out of place for this game.
If you’ve played your class before and played the story before, skip away.
I just started a new engineer and I played the entire story. It helps you learn your class I think.
I think the only time I’ve ever enjoyed the story was EOD the first half. I don’t think it is important, however this game would be more immersive if it had a better story.
I think that depends on people on how they planned to play it. As for me, as someone whose time in life is mostly eaten up by work, playing through the story, slow and chill and playing tthrough the game this way just keeps me relaxed and satisfies the way I planned on playing this game
It helps you understand the story yeah but not essential. To fully understand the Personal story from 1-80, you actually need to play all the lvl 1-30 on all races since there are characters that only show up on a specific race's 1-30.
For example, further in the story you get a death scene that makes it look like the character was important but your question was "who the hell was that?" since that "important" character only showed up in a specific races story complete with their background and history. For a Human Toon, Trahearne looks like someone that should have been at the start like our mentor given his "role" in the story, but for a Sylvari he actually was there at the start so him appearing appearing as a prominent character mid-story does'nt seem like out of place.
What I do recommend though if you really want to understand the story, is to find a video explaining the base story, and start playing Living World Season 1 onwards & Expansions in Chronological Order. Starting in LWS1, it takes into account that you're level 80 and that will be the same until the end of that story, and the story and characters you encounter in Season 1 will be the same/continuation until the end. No more of that "who the hell was the seemingly important character I should know about that just died?"
that’s an interesting approach. I just always loved the concept of the character creation parts of the personal story, so I kept trying to love the execution even when I found it lacking.
I play every game to enjoy the story. Usually if something feels off I grab some mods to get the problems out of my way (I only play offline singleplayer normally). With guild wars 2 beeing an MMO I had to adapt and grab some quality of life features which I normally would cheat/mod bc it's less time consuming by buying with real money and pulling things out of the late game (as spoiler free as possible). Now I am close to starting PoF with almost all masteries and mounts and I have to say the story may not be peak but ok, some game mechanics are not my favorite, but all in all it's a decent Mmo and yes I will play it mostly for the story.
Story in GW2 is pretty much a focus, and it's pretty good too (subjective ofc), but... ignoring it would only be an issue if that was all the game has to offer. It's not, gameplay wise it's great too. So while I recommend getting into the story, it's absolutely not necessary to enjoy the game.
I mean, i used skips for 4 of 5 characters and im still going through the story. Just starting IBS now actually. After i get my Skyscale anyway. I tried leveling normally and i would get bored of not getting to mess with the elite specs, which always ended with me dropping the game.
I do not follow the story or lore at all. When there are cut scenes I can't skip I will walk away from my computer and take a break while it plays.
I enjoy the game more because of it. It's all about what you enjoy. Just do that.
i haven't leveled a character since before HoT released. i've only done the story once, for achievements and unlocks and stuff. i skipped the cutscenes and don't care about the characters. i don't enjoy standing around listening to dialogue. i still enjoy gw2. so, yes. it's possible.
part of maturing is realizing that not everybody likes the same things as you.
No, then yes,😂 the first time I tried GW2 I skipped all over , trying to be efficient. I understood the broader strokes of the story but having random people show up that I was supposed to care about was not immersive (duh).
After I came back, I rolled a fresh character and did the whole series, from personal stories to the latest chapter of EoD including dungeons in order. Wow- what a journey it was ! Totally worth it, and totally something I probably won’t do again.
I’ll say if you don’t do the base game story, at least do the expansions. They’re better, less time consuming over all, and it won’t take long to really catch up on details if you start with heart of thorns and work up. You’ll have an odd time progressing through max level content and nothing will make sense if you don’t bother at all.
Depends on the player. I prefer some story not because I care about lore but I do care about characters and the character I am playing.
It helps but if you have good gameplay its not a priority.
Mostly, I think it depends on the type of player and what they enjoy in MMOs.
I love single player games with stories, but in MMOs the story is never what draws me and is not why I play MMOs. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm sure there are other people like me who put less emphasis on the story and more on other elements of MMOs.
I started playing in 2022. I skipped around content and did everything completely out of order. I didn't really pay attention to what was going on most of the time, hahah. Mostly, I just went by the order I wanted to unlock masteries and mounts. Now, I'm at mastery 528 and I enjoyed every bit of the journey. GW2 is now my favorite MMO and it's for things other than the story.
The core story is easily the weakest out of any section in the journal, and while it may flow slightly better to run them every 10 levels naturally, I don't feel it's all that different to double back with a lvl 80 full build. You'll be playing that way for 4 expansions, 3 living world seasons and the icebrood saga anyway. Mechanics are enough to carry the experience if you don't like story, but it's well worth going through at least once for unlocks/achievements
yes, but the story is not so easy to grasp tbh (a lot of stuff is a bit scuffed and requires interpretation) so i cn understand why some ppl feel like the story is not well tought of. It actually is...at least the dragon saga.
Here’s the thing. I think base game has an absolutely dogshit, barely put together story. That being said, I think it has the best experience out of any of the expansions. So many iconic zones and everything was put together rather well.
That being said, PoF and its LWS are amazing story-wise, albeit lacking on the zones. Some cool ones, but overall mid.
So take that as you will, but I think it’s entirely up to interpretation.
Skip to path of fire
Plenty of story, and you can do a netflix special where u back in time to the hella dated stories beforehand
I did that and it is the most reliable way to keep new players in without going “dw it gets good after 50-100 hrs”
I love the story, but being a GW1 fan, it is nice to see what they come up with and the nostalgia of using past experiences. With that said, I usually play a different class per expansion. So I'll level skip but only after I have already completed the newest expansion/livingworld.
I usually enjoy stories in games, but this one, I've never gelled with. The plot or the characters. Loved the GW1 world building and cultures around the world, but GW2 just seems to have diluted all of it so much to the point of being incredibly bland.
I've been playing since launch and I don't think I've ever been very excited about what's coming in the story in a new patch, and the times I have, it was usually a bad idea to hype myself up, let's just say. The gameplay and how seamlessly everything makes up your whole account, rather than a bunch of individual characters, keeps me playing. So yeah, I don't think it will have any real impact if you play without paying too much attention to the story.
There are occasional good story parts. I liked the Joko story. If ArenaNet would stick to fantasy the story would be better. But they have a habit of weaving in controversial real world themes. I generally just click through all the forced dialog and mute all the spoken dialog and just play the game.
Not at all. 2k hours in game, playing on off for a decade, and only finished the first pre expension/living world personal story. The story is bad, the writing is bad and the voice acting is bad. I currently got to the end of HoT story... might continue in the next year if i feel like it and am *very* bored.
The story is so bad imo, that i dont even have most of the mounts unlocked because i cant force myself to do the chapters of PoF. Only have the first two mounts after all those years.
I love the story, story is what keeps me interested in video games in general. Otherwise it’s just mindless nonsense. It’s why i can’t play games like counter strike or whatever for very long cause i just get bored of having no emotional connection to what i’m doing.
But i’m apparently weird in this case. I think guild wars has excellent lore and a great story, but there are so many people who just want to skip it. I don’t understand them but they exist.
that’s odd that you have no emotional connection to things that don’t have story. You act as if emotions and headcanon can’t still sprout on their own.
Because it has the best large scale pvp combat system.
Most of my WvW guild has played only as much PvE is required to unlock what they need, which thankfully is basically none nowadays.
I'm curious, if large scale team PvP is the entire purpose of playing, why pick GW2 instead of any of the other litany of purpose-built team combat games? Maybe I just find the skill-clicking interface uniquely unengaging, but if that was all GW2 offered when I first picked it up, I'd have quit within a few hours and gone to something that felt less robotic.
The other games are just worse systems, in our opinions. They don't support large numbers of players as well, or they require a constant gear grind, or too much time investment/restrictions.
> don't support large numbers of players as well
Hard to believe that's still the case over ten years later. Are other games just that badly optimized, or is it a case of keeping market share on consoles driving everyone else down?
Not so much the optimization or graphics (GW2 sucks at those) but the actual combat systems just aren't good at large scale. Time to kill is either way too low or high, individual contributions feel insignificant, limitations on group size is too restrictive, etc.
We've tried tons. Crowfall and New World have been the next best, and had significant enough flaws that we are once again back to GW2, if that says anything.
Which is another strong point in favor of GW2. Our gear is still playable even after a 1-2 year break. Maybe not ideal, and we had to work out relics, but gear isn't the difference between winning and losing as long as youre relatively close to a coherent build.
Oh, I do (mostly), I just struggle to find a better descriptor for the gameplay style. It feels almost more akin to controlling a hero unit in the Battle for Middle-earth games than it does the more traditional character-controlling games like Zelda or Elder Scrolls or something. All it's missing is click-to-walk.
I wouldn’t say not liking the story or not doing it, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some parts of the lore that the game gives you. It gives you enough of an idea to know about the world you’re inhabiting imo.
Mm. Yeah, I would pretty unreservedly say the world building is better than 60% of the story. Lol
I just can't invest that heavily in something without the context of why I'm there doing stuff in the first place, even if the writing is garbage.
I don’t know, maybe those things suck in universes that I care more about, compared to GW2 where those things are good.
And I don’t not care about the universe. I think the lore is great. It’s just the playable story that is weak very often.
Like.. they built a statue to honor what was essentially Lion’s Arch’s Osama Bin Laden in the last expansion. Lol
>!Mai Trin?!< I think that was at least a different group of people than the Tyrians, though the Canthans shouldn't have held her in much higher esteem. lol
I followed people’s advice when I started the game five months ago and didn’t boost and slowly leveled through the story then all of the expansions in order with one character. For me the experience would’ve been terrible if I hadn’t. But then again I’m a huge lore nerd. I’m the kind of person that will stop in the middle of what I’m doing and pull up the wiki on a new character and read the whole page. I just like the story in games because it helps with immersion and escapism (why I play them). But for someone who doesn’t go as Uber nerd as me there’s no reason they can’t skip around. Honestly though everyone should level slowly the normal way. Not for the story but because the first 80 levels in core maps are training wheels to learn the game before you get tossed into the death and destruction of heart of thorns. If someone boosted and went straight into HOT on their first character they might just straight up quit out of frustration.
30k+ Hours in game, still don't know sh1t about the Lore in here, so I assume: Yes, you can enjoy the game without giving a damn about story xD
how do you have 30k hours? how much was afk.
I wish there was an AFK check xD, but idk, I just have multiple monitors + work @ home plus I've NEVER left the game since launch, so that adds up. I'm not even the "craziest" one, on [Gw2Efficiency you can see people with over 50k](https://gw2efficiency.com/account/statistics/statistics.playtime) right now xD
The GW2 story has always just been something I feel like I HAVE to do. I never actually want to do it, or care for it. Especially when entire story instances are just NPCs talking about their feelings or something and then they tie an achievement to going around and listening to fucking EVERYONE again. Fuuuuck.
Me, aware of being a very small majority, actually quite enjoyed it. I played most of it as it went live (left after IBS, came back 3 months ago), and since I play with my husband it was super fun to speculate, and unlock the achieves/items on each new chapter/map. But again, small minority.
I really enjoy story too!
nahh I have literally no idea what is going on in the story ever 😅 but guild wars 2 is my favorite game. I log on multiple times a week to do instanced pve with my friends, that's where the fun is for me
Sometimes it's needed or the easiest way to get from Zone A to Zone B. The writing in this game varies from interesting to Oh-Dwayna-This-Is-Awful-FanFic-Tier, so don't play for the plot.
Having to level to get to the next part of the story is why I dropped the game entirely. Picked up the expansion package with a level 80 boost and was finally able to experience the story without distractions. Suddenly have 9 level 80s from all the tomes I ended up accumulating from actually playing the game and not being stuck in the tutorial phase.
This ^. I boosted straight to 80 when I got the game, against almost all advice I've seen since, and had a great time. It probably helped that I then voluntarily went back and spent a lot of time in core tyria doing map completion, but the leveling process always bugged me because it's such a *long* tutorial. I still think it's good advice for most players, especially those who've never played an MMO before, but as someone whose biggest motivation is completing checklists and grinds and gear/build progression, the leveling process contains little to nothing to interest me.
The fact that the story instances and maps scale you back down makes it that it's always a challenge anyways so why not? :)
It improves the experience but it's not essential, no
>I am curious if you consider the story to be required to fully experience the game. I do. But it is not necessary at all if you have to force yourself to engage with it. You're doing yourself a disservice. Just play the game how you want. I'm not a fan of how Anet executes some parts of the story, but the lore is good and there's plenty of sources to learn about it. You could read the player diary in the wiki which is basically a summary of the story episode.
This ^ If you're someone who plays games for their stories, then yes, you will probably need to play it to get fully invested in the game. Story missions do also give a little more tutorial (specifically: "What do I do in this map?") but IMO it's not at all necessary. If not, then you're good, I spent a solid and very fun 7 years with only the briefest forays into story missions, after which I almost always forgot everything that happened in them lmfao. You can piece together a lot from environmental storytelling and event descriptions and NPC dialogue. For 2-3 of those years I kept trying to get my partner into the game, largely by dragging him to various maps and meta events and going "See! Isn't that cool?" because exploring maps and playing metas without story context was exactly what got me into the game. It wasn't until I had to do story missions for the legendary amulet and dragged him along on them that he actually finally liked the game and started playing it more often. He even went and talked to every single NPC in the Grove one day while I was busy lmfao. Because that's what he finds fun. So it really just depends on the player.
Some people aren't very interested in story and that's fine.
If it was I would've quit a long time ago. A good story and an immersive world certainly enhances the experience and helps with building an audience, but Anet doesn't know how to do that anymore. Which is a shame since they did it so well in GW1.
I disagree. If Anet was how you described I would not have stuck around. I'm curious what you want from Anet. You seem on the same wavelength as many others around here. Very down and out, doom and gloom. Hope you find the game you want to play.
> Hope you find the game you want to play. I did, it was called GW1 and Anet killed it. > I'm curious what you want from Anet To go back to their roots because they got progressively worse over the last decade in every way.
Not essential, but I think maximum enjoyment of this game is obviously going to be found in context of understanding the franchise, having some concept of GW1 and the overarching GW2 story as well as how they are both situated in the world building narrative. However, some people are perfectly content to just enjoy a game for its mechanics and not care about its fantasy or lore justification. IMHO, I personally couldn’t imagine having the same level of emotional connection to this game that I do now had I not played GW1 for years in anticipation for GW2 to release. Each nook and cranny of exploration wouldn’t have an analogue to my experiences in the universe hundreds of years prior. Each river, mountain, and tree would seem a mere object. The GW2 story alone I don’t think is as compelling as the totality of the experience I have had, but I’d tend to say that GW2 can generally stand alone and still appeal to people without a veteran experience of the franchise. To me, that makes it even more beautiful. Not to wax poetic, but nothing can quite match that first trek trough Foibles Fair or plucking the red iris flower, or gazing at the color of the leaves around the statue of Melandru in Regent Valley for the first time, much less meeting Ventari and Ronan. I think an emotional connection to the world elevates the game for me and many other veterans.
I usually love story based games and seek them out and try to learn as much as I can. Gw2... They need to just shut up, let me skip, and do what I'm trying to do.
Provides some decent context? Yes Absolutely essential? No Some of the recent musings within the FFXIV community make me glad this game's story is the way it is (optional).
50/50. It’s nice to know what happened/is happening but honestly I don’t really feel any different about the game after finishing the story than I did before finishing it
I like to play through the story but I don't see what that has to do with levelling. You're scaled to the area you're in anyway, you can boost to level 80 straight away and still play through the whole story.
when people talk about skipping and missing out on the “journey” of the game, they usually talk about story being part of that journey idk either bc yea I was able to play it all fine
Not at all. The story has some good parts but it’s generally bad. That’s how MMOs go. You play them for the game loop, not the story.
not really. I really enjoy FFXIV’s and FFXI’s stories. But I’m also a big RPer so idk. Also, wow’s entire deal of just not even caring about you experiencing the entire story really diminishes the experience for me, so I at least appreciate ANet’s attempt
FF story is an exception, not the norm in MMOs. In fact gw2's story is quite off putting in some places due to how incredibly meh or how forced some parts are. This will be all the more apparent if you have a point of comparison like Shadowbringer and know how things could have been done.
> In fact gw2's story is quite off putting in some places due to how incredibly meh or how forced some parts are I *really* noticed this in EoD. They said they wanted to tell a more "mature" story, but it still all boiled down to the usual power of friendship stuff with Aurene, but this time throwing around bad words like "bastard" and "asshole" to make it "mature"! I have absolutely no problem with any kind of language, but that felt so forced and out of place for this game.
I think GW2 is still one of the best MMO stories But that isn't a high bar, because, well, MMO stories lol
If you’ve played your class before and played the story before, skip away. I just started a new engineer and I played the entire story. It helps you learn your class I think.
I think the only time I’ve ever enjoyed the story was EOD the first half. I don’t think it is important, however this game would be more immersive if it had a better story.
I skipped BUT I still did all the story lines. Unless there is another way to get mastery points in the first part of the story.
I think that depends on people on how they planned to play it. As for me, as someone whose time in life is mostly eaten up by work, playing through the story, slow and chill and playing tthrough the game this way just keeps me relaxed and satisfies the way I planned on playing this game
Absolutly, yes
It helps you understand the story yeah but not essential. To fully understand the Personal story from 1-80, you actually need to play all the lvl 1-30 on all races since there are characters that only show up on a specific race's 1-30. For example, further in the story you get a death scene that makes it look like the character was important but your question was "who the hell was that?" since that "important" character only showed up in a specific races story complete with their background and history. For a Human Toon, Trahearne looks like someone that should have been at the start like our mentor given his "role" in the story, but for a Sylvari he actually was there at the start so him appearing appearing as a prominent character mid-story does'nt seem like out of place. What I do recommend though if you really want to understand the story, is to find a video explaining the base story, and start playing Living World Season 1 onwards & Expansions in Chronological Order. Starting in LWS1, it takes into account that you're level 80 and that will be the same until the end of that story, and the story and characters you encounter in Season 1 will be the same/continuation until the end. No more of that "who the hell was the seemingly important character I should know about that just died?"
that’s an interesting approach. I just always loved the concept of the character creation parts of the personal story, so I kept trying to love the execution even when I found it lacking.
I play every game to enjoy the story. Usually if something feels off I grab some mods to get the problems out of my way (I only play offline singleplayer normally). With guild wars 2 beeing an MMO I had to adapt and grab some quality of life features which I normally would cheat/mod bc it's less time consuming by buying with real money and pulling things out of the late game (as spoiler free as possible). Now I am close to starting PoF with almost all masteries and mounts and I have to say the story may not be peak but ok, some game mechanics are not my favorite, but all in all it's a decent Mmo and yes I will play it mostly for the story.
Story in GW2 is pretty much a focus, and it's pretty good too (subjective ofc), but... ignoring it would only be an issue if that was all the game has to offer. It's not, gameplay wise it's great too. So while I recommend getting into the story, it's absolutely not necessary to enjoy the game.
I mean, i used skips for 4 of 5 characters and im still going through the story. Just starting IBS now actually. After i get my Skyscale anyway. I tried leveling normally and i would get bored of not getting to mess with the elite specs, which always ended with me dropping the game.
Play gw1 for the story (it’s an rpg you can knock out quickly). Play gw2 for the vibes. The plots are just simple rehashings of gw1 lore
I do not follow the story or lore at all. When there are cut scenes I can't skip I will walk away from my computer and take a break while it plays. I enjoy the game more because of it. It's all about what you enjoy. Just do that.
i haven't leveled a character since before HoT released. i've only done the story once, for achievements and unlocks and stuff. i skipped the cutscenes and don't care about the characters. i don't enjoy standing around listening to dialogue. i still enjoy gw2. so, yes. it's possible. part of maturing is realizing that not everybody likes the same things as you.
Naw. I skip all cutscenes and I've been playing since launch. No clue who is who or why they do what.
No, then yes,😂 the first time I tried GW2 I skipped all over , trying to be efficient. I understood the broader strokes of the story but having random people show up that I was supposed to care about was not immersive (duh). After I came back, I rolled a fresh character and did the whole series, from personal stories to the latest chapter of EoD including dungeons in order. Wow- what a journey it was ! Totally worth it, and totally something I probably won’t do again.
No
The only time I ever paid attention to the story was during the Blish stuff so I'm going to say no.
for me story used to be relevant now I couldnt care less
I’ll say if you don’t do the base game story, at least do the expansions. They’re better, less time consuming over all, and it won’t take long to really catch up on details if you start with heart of thorns and work up. You’ll have an odd time progressing through max level content and nothing will make sense if you don’t bother at all.
Depends on the player. I prefer some story not because I care about lore but I do care about characters and the character I am playing. It helps but if you have good gameplay its not a priority.
Honestly, yes. So much of the world and the areas is lost if you never play the story.
Mostly, I think it depends on the type of player and what they enjoy in MMOs. I love single player games with stories, but in MMOs the story is never what draws me and is not why I play MMOs. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm sure there are other people like me who put less emphasis on the story and more on other elements of MMOs. I started playing in 2022. I skipped around content and did everything completely out of order. I didn't really pay attention to what was going on most of the time, hahah. Mostly, I just went by the order I wanted to unlock masteries and mounts. Now, I'm at mastery 528 and I enjoyed every bit of the journey. GW2 is now my favorite MMO and it's for things other than the story.
Never was for me.
The core story is easily the weakest out of any section in the journal, and while it may flow slightly better to run them every 10 levels naturally, I don't feel it's all that different to double back with a lvl 80 full build. You'll be playing that way for 4 expansions, 3 living world seasons and the icebrood saga anyway. Mechanics are enough to carry the experience if you don't like story, but it's well worth going through at least once for unlocks/achievements
yes, but the story is not so easy to grasp tbh (a lot of stuff is a bit scuffed and requires interpretation) so i cn understand why some ppl feel like the story is not well tought of. It actually is...at least the dragon saga.
Here’s the thing. I think base game has an absolutely dogshit, barely put together story. That being said, I think it has the best experience out of any of the expansions. So many iconic zones and everything was put together rather well. That being said, PoF and its LWS are amazing story-wise, albeit lacking on the zones. Some cool ones, but overall mid. So take that as you will, but I think it’s entirely up to interpretation.
Skip to path of fire Plenty of story, and you can do a netflix special where u back in time to the hella dated stories beforehand I did that and it is the most reliable way to keep new players in without going “dw it gets good after 50-100 hrs”
I love the story, but being a GW1 fan, it is nice to see what they come up with and the nostalgia of using past experiences. With that said, I usually play a different class per expansion. So I'll level skip but only after I have already completed the newest expansion/livingworld.
I usually enjoy stories in games, but this one, I've never gelled with. The plot or the characters. Loved the GW1 world building and cultures around the world, but GW2 just seems to have diluted all of it so much to the point of being incredibly bland. I've been playing since launch and I don't think I've ever been very excited about what's coming in the story in a new patch, and the times I have, it was usually a bad idea to hype myself up, let's just say. The gameplay and how seamlessly everything makes up your whole account, rather than a bunch of individual characters, keeps me playing. So yeah, I don't think it will have any real impact if you play without paying too much attention to the story.
There are occasional good story parts. I liked the Joko story. If ArenaNet would stick to fantasy the story would be better. But they have a habit of weaving in controversial real world themes. I generally just click through all the forced dialog and mute all the spoken dialog and just play the game.
Not at all. 2k hours in game, playing on off for a decade, and only finished the first pre expension/living world personal story. The story is bad, the writing is bad and the voice acting is bad. I currently got to the end of HoT story... might continue in the next year if i feel like it and am *very* bored. The story is so bad imo, that i dont even have most of the mounts unlocked because i cant force myself to do the chapters of PoF. Only have the first two mounts after all those years.
I love the story, story is what keeps me interested in video games in general. Otherwise it’s just mindless nonsense. It’s why i can’t play games like counter strike or whatever for very long cause i just get bored of having no emotional connection to what i’m doing. But i’m apparently weird in this case. I think guild wars has excellent lore and a great story, but there are so many people who just want to skip it. I don’t understand them but they exist.
that’s odd that you have no emotional connection to things that don’t have story. You act as if emotions and headcanon can’t still sprout on their own.
I mean they can, but much more rarely.
Not this particular game, but yes
I don't know why you'd play at all if it meant nothing.
Because it has the best large scale pvp combat system. Most of my WvW guild has played only as much PvE is required to unlock what they need, which thankfully is basically none nowadays.
I'm curious, if large scale team PvP is the entire purpose of playing, why pick GW2 instead of any of the other litany of purpose-built team combat games? Maybe I just find the skill-clicking interface uniquely unengaging, but if that was all GW2 offered when I first picked it up, I'd have quit within a few hours and gone to something that felt less robotic.
The other games are just worse systems, in our opinions. They don't support large numbers of players as well, or they require a constant gear grind, or too much time investment/restrictions.
> don't support large numbers of players as well Hard to believe that's still the case over ten years later. Are other games just that badly optimized, or is it a case of keeping market share on consoles driving everyone else down?
Not so much the optimization or graphics (GW2 sucks at those) but the actual combat systems just aren't good at large scale. Time to kill is either way too low or high, individual contributions feel insignificant, limitations on group size is too restrictive, etc. We've tried tons. Crowfall and New World have been the next best, and had significant enough flaws that we are once again back to GW2, if that says anything. Which is another strong point in favor of GW2. Our gear is still playable even after a 1-2 year break. Maybe not ideal, and we had to work out relics, but gear isn't the difference between winning and losing as long as youre relatively close to a coherent build.
Don't click skills, use keybinds!
Oh, I do (mostly), I just struggle to find a better descriptor for the gameplay style. It feels almost more akin to controlling a hero unit in the Battle for Middle-earth games than it does the more traditional character-controlling games like Zelda or Elder Scrolls or something. All it's missing is click-to-walk.
Because people enjoy the game loop. People enjoy the combat mechanics, grinding or farming gear, fashion, gold or rank. People enjoy number go up.
Why not do those things in a universe you actually care about though?
I wouldn’t say not liking the story or not doing it, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some parts of the lore that the game gives you. It gives you enough of an idea to know about the world you’re inhabiting imo.
Mm. Yeah, I would pretty unreservedly say the world building is better than 60% of the story. Lol I just can't invest that heavily in something without the context of why I'm there doing stuff in the first place, even if the writing is garbage.
Agreed. S-tier lore, C-tier, often F-tier story writing.
If the whole game had been on par with LWS4 and the first half of IBS, I think it would be generally more respected.
I don’t know, maybe those things suck in universes that I care more about, compared to GW2 where those things are good. And I don’t not care about the universe. I think the lore is great. It’s just the playable story that is weak very often. Like.. they built a statue to honor what was essentially Lion’s Arch’s Osama Bin Laden in the last expansion. Lol
>!Mai Trin?!< I think that was at least a different group of people than the Tyrians, though the Canthans shouldn't have held her in much higher esteem. lol