BMP style play

What do you all think of BMP style play?

As I see it these are the problems with this mission type being included as GW:B content:

Game Mechanics:

Guild Wars is a multi-player game -- specially designed solo content is never good. I have guildies, allies, and a girlfriend that play Guild Wars and I enjoy playing with them. I was a part of a team last night when I clicked on that pool and suddenly found myself alone. Polymock, dwarven boxing, Norn tournament, all of that I could choose to completely ignore, but in this instance that isn't a viable choice. With Hearts of the North, like Tihark Orchard, I am forced to do the solo content if I want to continue the storyline, and there is no way for me to know whether, if I do ignore it, it would just be the wedding that I would be missing or if this story-arc has to be completed to begin the Canthan arc the way that WiK had to be completed to begin Hearts of the North.

In game play it's far more a puzzle than a game, and a bad puzzle at that. Stay out of aggro, let the egomaniacal assassin be a tank, and use every skill on recharge. There isn't even a choice of weapons, you must use a bow or no skills work. Fun?

As far as creativity goes there isn't any. At least not for the players. We can't decide what a character looks like, what armor they will wear, or what hairdo would best compliment the face... The skill bar in GW is usually all about creativity, but in this case it is completely static; the player can't decide which skills to take, which attributes to pump, or even what weapon set would best compliment it. Creatively speaking it's worse than boring.

Storyline:

Inside the mission I don't know the characters, and there isn't enough of an introduction to make me care about them one way or the other. I don't like the 'sin protagonist and I don't hate the villain. I've never before heard of Mika or Dothan, why would I care about what happens to them? The only way I even knew who's side I was supposed to be on is because one turned red and the other stayed green. Honestly, to me it looks like Mika is the aggressor -- she's the one hunting this guy down, and I haven't seen/heard anything particular about him that makes me want to help her hunt him down. And why would she automatically jump to believing that Thackeray is interested in her, or that the interest is sexual?

Outside the mission I'm promoting something that I don't even want to see. Gwen has been incredibly rude to Thackery, while he has been nothing but nice; and besides that she's completely insane. Sane people should not marry insane people; it doesn't work out well. If I were truly playing Thackery I'd be hitting on Koro or Nola and he would have a happily ever after type life instead of ducking everytime he walked into his wife's presence. Right now his consideration and generosity have invariably been met with nastiness. He needs to find someone who is capable of love and willing to watch a sunset.

Heroism:

Someone needs to force the live team to watch the GW2 design manifesto where they talk about always wanting YOU to be the hero. In this instance my character is in the Eye of the North playing in a wading pool while someone else is furthering the story and being the hero. This is even worse than Kormir; at least she "only" leeched. Thackery's soul disappears, he makes us literally do the work for him, and then history calls him a hero.

Reward:

The Medals of Honor are not tradeable, and can only be used for one thing: Weapons. Weapons are cool, and the fact that these particular weapons can also be used in the HoM makes them even cooler. But in truth there are a lot of people that have already completed the monument to valor. Now what? So far at least this story doesn't provide enough medals to trade for a weapon to sell, and there's nothing else to be done with them. If it had been War Supply rewards the player could have at least decided if they wanted to trade them for gifts or sell them to other players.

The biggest problem with the whole of the thing is no choice. No choice in anything.

Solo-content in GW was never a great idea and never will be.
It is a group-based game, even if you use heroes and henchmen.
Solo just plainly sucks, one lag and you are dead

I like the BMP style play. It's a nice change from time to time. True, it can sometimes be frustrating, but usually isn't that hard once you get the hang of it. I disagree with the OP's assertion that solo content is never good... I purchased the BMP and would most likely purchase a similar product again.

While its true that the Medals can not be traded, the weapons you get with them certainly can be. If you don't want to work that hard, delete them.

Also, stop complaining. If you don't like some piece of content, don't do it. There is currently no reason to be saying one "must" do this new content to continue with whatever comes next. Even if it does, that only compounds the eventual rewards. Would you QQ about having to ascend in order to enter UW/FoW because the rewards for ascending in game are crappy? Remember, part of the reward is ALSO the ability to do what comes next (which is also not required).

I'm consistently amazed by the QQing that goes on when Anet gives us something new and completely free. Anet hasn't gotten more than $10 from me in the last year and a half, yet they still provide me with new things to keep myself entertained. I personally think that's awesome.

That's an awful lot of effort you just put into complaining about free content that many other people are enjoying.

I find the missions interesting and fun, mostly because they are different from normal play. Don't like it? Don't play it. Simple. I rather enjoyed the BMP missions, and I think it's great that we're getting more missions done in that style.

Don't like the Medals? Get enough for an Oppressor weapon, and sell it, if you don't need another. Or there's a nice little garbage bin you can put them in, right under your paperdoll, next to your equipment bag slot.

You're the hero? Well, the GW:B content is designed to show what happens to the WORLD (which as you may have noticed is not populated solely by your character) between EotN and GW2. It can't ALL be about you/me/us. Unless you're just upset that we as characters don't get to marry Kieran or Gwen ourselves or something?

...Wait, did I just feed a troll?

Solo content wins, PvE is boring when u can take party of 8, roll a bunch of necs and a bunch of rts or just 8 humans using 3 pve skills each and gg guild wars is easy. Solo missions means the challenge is on YOU the player, none of them are hard, they are just fun. Stop complaining

And its NOT about choice. This WHOLE guild wars beyond is about telling THE story of many events that occured between gw1 and gw2. We the players might seem to have 'roles' in this but we are ACTING a story that from the developers perspective has already happened. Sit back as though you are watching a film. Enjoy the story, which u can do even if you dont have any choice on the outcome!!!!!

I like variety.

Most of GW is group play, except Pre-searing which is mostly soloable.

And I actually like playing solo occasionally... there are many solo farm builds, so I'm not alone in this.

But let's not get into a sub-discussion, and instead just focus on Hearts of the North:

So far, we have 2 missions. Two.

We have no idea if all the content will be solo, or not... (and technically, it's not "solo" as we are playing with Miku).

So far, I enjoy it more than the BMP. The rewards aren't just Medals and war supplies: You get 1 plat at least. You get all the drops. You get 1250 vanguard points.

So, all of this is worth the 10 minutes it takes to do the Arrowhead mission.

Is it fun? It's ridiculously easy for me now, so no, it's not "fun" anymore. I kill most things before Miku even calls, so not even the Headshots are as satisfying.

But I've been farming this, so I'm jaded: My first couple of time were fun. Maybe tonight I'll kill Rotscale and see how it goes.

I'll be honest: For the most part, GW is not challenging at all: You tab to enemy monk, hit space bar, and try not to over-aggro. This works in almost every area of the game. Yes, in Hard Mode you have to bring along Frozen Soil for groups of monks and rits, but for the most part, this game takes very little skill to play.

As for mashing buttons: welcome to PvE. I play a warrior, so I'm all about hitting the skills when the circle goes 'round. You get a preferred order on your skill bar, and it works itself out.


Maybe the problem with solo play is it exposes the simplicity of the game?

I don't know, but there must be something wrong with me, cause I still play it.

And I like Keiran. I love his little asides (This could be trouble... yep, it's trouble). The sexual references might be a little over the top, but this is Kerian's test to see if he really loves Gwen. I'm curious to see where it's headed (besides a wedding, duh).

Yeah I kind of prefer group activities vs. solo missions. I hope this whole keiran thing isn't 100% solo.

I prefer playing as Thackeray and do something than having to wait around like in Zinn's trial without doing anything at all.

Solo missions are a few. That's what makes them fun. I wouldn't have solo content for the whole game, but areas like Augury Rock, Tihark Orchard, Kilroy's dungeon and the BMP are fun in their own way.

The problem is, you need to do these soloquests to be able to advance in the story of "Hearts of the North"
You could skip all the solo-missions up til now.
This one you cannot, not if you want to see the whole story unfold and not read about it in a summary.

I'm not opposed to BMP missions, I have fun with them. I'm not happy having the GW:B content turn from group play to a suddenly forced-solo, though. Given a choice, I'd rather have the BMP missions actually be in a BMP; and I don't think that forced-solo storyline content is a good idea at all. (I'd also much rather see a new BMP than the next 5 new costumes, but thats a different story.)
With that being said, I'm very glad they didn't sell me *this* as a BMP, I agree that the story is weak in comparison to WiK, or any of the BMP missions we have so far. <Also, this doesnt match the reports we got of his disapearence at all...how did his tracks just disappear when we now know he ran into Maguuma? And I searched both lakes for a grave, there aint one. If it's going to later be Mika's grave, then where the hell is Langmar right now?>
I love this game, and I love it that we are getting any new content at all, and I sure don't want it to stop, and I can't wait for the next bit. But that's because I'm hoping for better, not because I think *this* part was good...it wasn't.

You could skip Augury Rock?

And Tihark Orchard?

It's not unique (thanks MithranArkanere for pointing that out).

Personally i loved the quests, not having to deal with silly heros (or humans =p) and as the 2 quests are about 10min each and crazy easy ... its not really a big issue is it.

So you would rather have your entire team of 8 people follow Thackery around with the Assassin? That would ruin the entire story and not make any sense at all.

Or would you rather go to EotN and watch a cutscene and not do anything at all? Seems rather boring to me and would make for a lame content patch if you just watched cutscenes.

I enjoy these solo play missions where you get to play as Thackery and experience what happened when he dissapeared. If you don't like it, then don't do it. It won't hurt your game in any way if you don't do it.

Well, it will hurt his game if he wants to see the wedding for example. (but why does he care about the wedding, and not Keiran?)


I agree it's not a big deal, Tihark Orchard is much more annoying (oh, god, the mime pissed me off), and it was a Mission in the main Nightfall storyline!

And that is an optional choice. If he wants to see the wedding, he has to do the work. We don't get to chose what we want to do to get to the end. We all have to do the work like everyone else, no matter what it is.

I would rather play as Thackery in a solo mission, then do the same ol' boring H/H through some mission and read dialogue. This mixes it up. People are so used to the way things are, they complain if anything new comes along that changes their gameplay. Cause now they can't use their cookie cutter builds and roflstomp mobs and instead have to try something new. So they complain cause it's not easy mode anymore.

That is my opinion on the matter.

BMP style, so play once and never touch it again?

Solo content in GW is something that I wish there was a LOT more of.

I'm so sick of having to drag a pack of bots along with me everywhere I go.

They shift positions all the time, they cast idle spells/buffs all the time. They make emotes and jokes. They never just sit and shut up.

So I like the times when it's just me, by myself, in peace. No Anthem of Flame and Fire Attunement constantly going off around me while I sit and chat with friends. Nobody constantly dropping Life for no good reason (we're 100 miles away from the nearest bad guy, olias, STOP IT!). No taking 2 steps in one direction and having a crowd of henchies RUN to the left, then RUN to the right, and reposition themselves, and then cast some random buffs, and tell a joke or two.

Here's to GW2 not relying on hench. More solo content for me!

No, you couldn't skip Tihark Orchatd. Yes, you can skip Augury Rock, but if you're playing a prophecies character, you won't be able to access UW or FoW, and you won't be able to do the second 15 attribute point quest. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Hero%27s_Challenge So, you kinda gotta do that one, too.

Personally, I've had fun doing the BMP type quests. Finding out about how certian lore type things come about by actually playing them out as the character is much more interesting than sitting around listening to a couple of NPCs talking about what happened in talk bubbles:

Gwen: Kieren! You're back! I heard that you blah blah blah...
Kieren: It's good to be home, but I'm sorry I couldn't save Capt. Lagmar
Gwen: What happened? She was so strong and brave. I'll never forget my friend...
Kieren: I'll tell you what happened.... blah blah blah
Gwen: So where'd you meet this assassin chick? Huh? ARE YOU CHEATING ON ME????
etc. etc.

UGH!

Besides, they're a nice change of pace.

Actually, we have a precedence to think that finishing this is needed to advance the storyline to the Canthan GW:B. It's not definite, yet, that's true. But there's plenty of reason to speculate in that direction, *because that's what we've seen so far*, and it is an assassin in Kryta, after all.

And "forced-solo storyline content" is a lot different than just playing alone, or farming; and the first BMP (which I also enjoyed and would buy again) was as optional as polymock, and choosing to skip those didn't keep you out of anything else. This will, (most likely) and thats a poor decision for the devs to make.

As for the mission itself, there was nothing hard, or frustrating to "get the hang of", it was basic tank-and-spank, where I don't get to be the caller, the caller cant choose a target that isn't C-space (take out the rit, please. no? okay, take out the warrior again, then. thanks.) we don't even get to see which target is called, so we're left to search out *which* enforcer she hexed. It isn't hard, but it isn't fun either, and the whole thing was poorly done, imo. Hell, I deleted my Ranger for a reason, I don't like them, but that's not the problem I have with this, at all.

Like I said, I love it that there is new content, and I do appreciate it being there, and I do get the idea that they don't have to do these things. I say thanks to Anet for continuing to update this game, but I also hope that they step it up for the upcoming parts, and I'm glad this part was free.

I honestly said, out loud, the first time I entered the game as Kieran:

"Ok, which one of these is Troll Unguent?"

Hold the phone here... This ranger's stance is a party heal, not a speed move or a dodge move, and he doesn't have troll juice?? My mind = blown.

Wait wait... I'm a ranger and I'M the guy with the party heal? I gotta watch the assassin's health bar? No no no, this is all backwards.

Dogs and cats... living together... mass hysteria!!