Originally posted by Deathstrike2

After playing this game solo since release, I find that the last mission is group only.  WTF ArenaNet?  What happened to play the way I want? 

 

I am absolutely disgusted at this point.  I've had a blast with this game right up until this moment, and now when I am ready to do the very last mission...

 

Damn it...   Logging off

 

The only WTF I noted, is why are you so disgusted?  You have to spend one hour (less than that actually) playing with other people to do a single part of the story line so you rage quit?  Remember that ArenaNet considers PvP and dungeons to be the "end game."  Both require multiple people and both are not required to enjoy the game.

I am fairly sure that other than personal story you have played with other prople just because of how many people are playing the game.  All I can say is "get over it." 

For my part, I spend most of my time playing solo, I enjoy it and find that more often than not other people mess up my plans for whatever event I am doing.  I have seen, more than one event fail because some idiot came running in and attacked a specific mob (usually the highest ranked one) and caused another wave to come crashing in before the previous wave was delt with.  So no, I don't willingly group up with people.  But Guild Wars 2 is an MMO, and we all have to deal with that fact.  The game was designed to be played by many players at the same time.  So my questions is; what part of MMO do you not get?

When I saw the topic I thought it would be another disappointment with the "epic" end boss fight that culminates the game's story arc. Now, knowing he is complaining even before having experienced that, I feel bad for the OP.

If you think having to group for it was bad, just wait for for what will come out of it, my friend.

Originally posted by Shroom_Mage

 

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Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

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Originally posted by Zzad

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Originally posted by elitero
Asian B2P =)

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ArenaNet is American. /facepalm

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It is owned by a Korean company and we do not to what extent that Korean company lets Arenanet have freedom.

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Apparently quite a bit since you don't even need an NCSoft account to play, unlike NCSoft's other games.

 

No no no.  You're doing it wrong.  You're supposed to just assume Anet has zero freedom without actually knowing at all.  

Originally posted by Deathstrike2

Originally posted by Homitu
I guess the only logical way to complain about having to socialize with other players for 1 hour out of 100 hours of gameplay is to do it publicly on forums.  

[mod edit]

From the ArenaNet website regarding personal stories:

"Your personal story is told through private, instanced chapters that are specific to your character. If you need a little help, you can always invite friends along to experience your personal story with you. As “guest stars” these players can help you, but it’s still your story and key decisions are yours to make."

Total bullshit.  I don't need a little help to finish the quest -- I need 4 other players or I won't be able to finish the quest.  The least the company could have done was be up front about the forced grouping in the last mission.  I wouldn't have spent the time getting to this point or be so annoyed had I known that I would be FORCED to group in an instanced mission.

Ah well... Either they'll fix this, and I'll finish it, or I'll move on to another MMO.  Lots coming out this year anyway.

 

 

Too bad I didn't get to read the mod editted parts.  I'm sure they were wonderfully polite.  

So your complaint really has nothing to do with grouping or not grouping, you just feel deceived by a company?  Is it the same complaint people have with Anet's MMO Manifesto video they put out years ago?  I honestly feel bad for game companies in todays critic internet culture.  There's such a demand for information on every game that's coming out; but then if there is EVER an inconsistency in information given--if, you konw, a design change decision is made at any point for what they believe is the betterment of their game--the company takes so much flak from people like you.  Anet didn't make a promise or a sacred oath to you.  They aren't intentionally saying one thing and then changing it just to piss you off.  It's not personal.  Get over yourself.  

Believe it or not, there are actually pros and cons to this particular design decision to have people group for the final personal story dungeon.  But because you're bent on feeling insulted, you insist on only dwelling on 1 of the cons.  For the love of drama!  You're preventing your own enjoyment of the game!

And if you really followed all of Anet's given information on personal story and dungeons leading up to the game's release, you would have been under the impression, like I was, that the story converged into group dungeons more frequently.  I was led to believe that the personal story introduced you to the game's heroes, then you follow those heroes through all of the dungeons of the game.  It sort of works that way, but the advancement of your personal story isn't contingent upon completing the story mode dungeons.  The dungeons are kind of just mentioned as an afterthought through your mailbox and aren't integrated into your story as well as they could be, which, in my opinion, would be a valid criticism of their presentation.  

I actually felt the same as the OP. Not because I despise grouping or anything like that, but because it goes against what you've been doing for 80 levels. It's bad design to condition a player to play a certain way (in this case fully soloable story content) for the majority of story gameplay, and then switch to something else out of the blue without warning.

If you want to force people into dungeons, do it early on don't wait 80 levels to spring it on people. Or make it completely optional. I'll never understand why developers think they need to straddle the line on these things.

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by Pivotelite

Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by Pivotelite

This is why MMOs suck now, people who are single players gamers are invading and ruining the social aspects of MMOs.

 

It's truly a sad time for gaming, just like for music.

Poor pitiful you.

 He's complaining because he had to group up once throughout the entire course of an MMORPG for a storyline, he's so mad about this that he's become "disgusted", feels betrayed and had to come here to post about it. He even had to ... log... off, GASP!

 

You want people like that influencing MMOs?

I just think making sweeping generalizations about "single player gamers" ruining MMOs is ridiculous.  Without a lot of those gamers you wouldn't see company's putting millions of dollars into MMO development.  The industry tech would be about 5 years or more behind where it is right now, and there would be a fraction of the available gaming options...and that's being generous.

 I'd rather the development budgets be low and the MMOs be good rather than budgets being stupidly high and the MMOs being garbage, like we're seeing right now. Take a look at SW:TOR, 200 million dollars didn't stop it from going F2P in under a year, yet many of the old out-dated titles with smaller budgets are still running on sub fees and highly regarded by most MMO players. Why? Because they were actually MMOs, developed for MMO gamers, not for single-player gamers who want to be spoon fed everything.

It's not a generalization, single-player gamers ruin MMOs because MMOs are Massively Multiplayer role-playing games, why is that hard to comprehend?

If they are going to complain about grouping in a massively multiplayer role-playing game they shouldn't be playing it in the first place, it's a given you will be playing with other people, it's in the genre name, if you don't want to play with other people play single player games.

Originally posted by NaughtyP

I actually felt the same as the OP. Not because I despise grouping or anything like that, but because it goes against what you've been doing for 80 levels. It's bad design to condition a player to play a certain way (in this case fully soloable story content) for the majority of story gameplay, and then switch to something else out of the blue without warning.

If you want to force people into dungeons, do it early on don't wait 80 levels to spring it on people. Or make it completely optional. I'll never understand why developers think they need to straddle the line on these things.

I'll agree with that.  Suddenly tacking the only group part on at the very end just stands out and may be distracting.  But it may also add to the direness of the moment, making it feel more special.  I mean, the entire story had been approaching an inevitable large-scale encounter with Zhaitan since level 10.   I generally approve of measures that would differentiate this ultimate fight from all the other *lesser* stuff you've had to do before it.  

All of this applies theoretically, of course.  That is, before you actually do story-mode Arah and experience THAT anticlimax. 

Also, if you read my post just above yours, I was under the impression from information given prior to release that the personal story would more frequently converge at dungeons, which would naturally lead players to group with other players, not necessarily to advance their own personal stories, but as a supplemental component to the game's overall narrative.  I feel like they either just couldn't make it all mesh together in time for release (you sort of experience this with Ascalonian Catacombs, but not so much with the subsequent dungeons), or they changed their design at some point.    

Originally posted by Kraylor
This is too funny.  I sincerely hope OP is under the age of 15, because I'm picturing an adult saying that and can't stop cringing.

Pretty much this. Thanks for the laughs all :)

Originally posted by Homitu

Believe it or not, there are actually pros and cons to this particular design decision to have people group for the final personal story dungeon.  But because you're bent on feeling insulted, you insist on only dwelling on 1 of the cons.  For the love of drama!  You're preventing your own enjoyment of the game!

There are pretty much no pros of this design, just cons (as OP is not only one that is pi**ed about it, nor will be the last)

The first 80 levels have "pros" as advancement is solo with optional dungeon every x levels. Thats how it should be with last mission. In the end, they could have made solo/group mission so everyone can do it how they like and THAT would be conistent design.

1 mission has no bearing on bigger picture, it only has bearing on pi**ing people off. AND it can actually put people of grouping altogether, because, lets face it, good PUGs are rare and these people are much more likely to end up in bad pug and have bad experience overall on top of everything.

Originally posted by IPolygon
At OP, don't feel bad about logging off before finishing this game. The last mission is horrible gameplay-wise. Actually, the whole story is bad in this game, even worse than in Factions.

Indeed, I took 3 months to do that last mission and when I finished I was like wth? And that is not the worst part, every single one of your characters has to do it. I have a Ranger level 80 that everytime he aproaches the dungeon's door starts scream "DO NOT TAKE ME THERE!!!!!"

Originally posted by elitero
Asian B2P =)

YOur trolling arent you - it was coded in Seattle, WA - so yeah that really is asian - *ROLLS EYES*

Originally posted by IPolygon
At OP, don't feel bad about logging off before finishing this game. The last mission is horrible gameplay-wise. Actually, the whole story is bad in this game, even worse than in Factions.

Finishing the game? It's an MMO, that's only finishing the personal story for that one line of choices, professions, etc.