Guild Wars 2

I felt like the final boss fight of the finale was one of those rare moments where you really felt strongly like it was a team effort between you and your npc companions

Eeeeeexcept after the fight all they enthuse about is me and they all clap for me like I did all the work solo

Why can’t it be about “us”? That whole circle of clapping for the player character just felt very awkward for me and I wish they’d acknowledge their own efforts.

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

P.P.S. Kasmeer’s infinite time warp is so OP

Jzaku.9765:

I felt like the final boss fight of the finale was one of those rare moments where you really felt strongly like it was a team effort between you and your npc companions

Eeeeeexcept after the fight all they enthuse about is me and they all clap for me like I did all the work solo

Why can’t it be about “us”? That whole circle of clapping for the player character just felt very awkward for me and I wish they’d acknowledge their own efforts.

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

P.P.S. Kasmeer’s infinite time warp is so OP

Browse through the forums for a while. They did this because a lot of the complaints regarding not feeling like they are the hero, like the NPCs take too much credit, etc etc. Some people think they absolutely must be the center of the universe. That is why this is done, imo.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Browse through the forums for a while. They did this because a lot of the complaints regarding not feeling like they are the hero, like the NPCs take too much credit, etc etc. Some people think they absolutely must be the center of the universe. That is why this is done, imo.

Yeah I know. It dates back to GW1’s Kormir also stealing the spotlight from the player character.

Still though, even just a minor change in dialog from “you” to “us” would make such a big difference. They can still acknowledge your efforts, but don’t completely ignore their own in dialog, it’s just very jarring and completely breaks immersion.

Actually who cares though?

i’m sorry but what exactly did they do? I was trapped in there solo, without help. They threw the fire to me (which I have no idea why I wasn’t holding onto in the first place), and cheered for me, that’s it… they should be paying me and calling me their emperor for all the work I do for them.

Jzaku.9765:

I felt like the final boss fight of the finale was one of those rare moments where you really felt strongly like it was a team effort between you and your npc companions

Eeeeeexcept after the fight all they enthuse about is me and they all clap for me like I did all the work solo

Why can’t it be about “us”? That whole circle of clapping for the player character just felt very awkward for me and I wish they’d acknowledge their own efforts.

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

P.P.S. Kasmeer’s infinite time warp is so OP

Meh, I’ve been bugged about the whole thing since way back when they suddenly claimed I was the leader of the group. I’ve never been the leader of the group. This whole group came together because of Marjory, she was the one with the investigation, the skills and the knowledge. I was just some guy who wanders around a lot and gets where things are happening. I’m a useful tool, but Marjory is the one who should be in charge.

I would have accepted the reign if they’d actually killed her like they should have in Scarlet’s ship. Even then, I’m the one who killed Scarlet because I happened to manage to get a stomp in? Kasmeer is the one who went postal on her and made it possible.

The story of Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about the player. We’re supposed to be spectators, who also participate, in a series of extremely important events occurring in our time. So yeah, clapping is uncool. I’m not the leader. I’m ok with being second.

But it WAS the player who got trapped in a thorny arena of death with a giant dragon doing everything in it’s might to brutally murder you, crush you or bite you in two; and ending up slaying it. I’d say that deserves some more praise than standing outside of said arena in total safety while giving some minor support from time to time.

I like it more this way than in the personal story where you leave fields of corpses behind and get ignored, while Glorious Leader Trahearne whacks away on a trash mob for half an hour and everyone celebrates him like he just found a culinary application for Bloodstone Dust.

I was so busy dodging and frantically running to and fro trying to get all the fires lit that I didn’t even notice any NPC companions.

Kal Spiro.9745:

The story of Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about the player. We’re supposed to be spectators, who also participate, in a series of extremely important events occurring in our time. So yeah, clapping is uncool. I’m not the leader. I’m ok with being second.

I don’t like that philosophy at all, personally. I have no ‘need to feel like the center of the universe’, but if I wanted to watch a movie, there are better ones, and they also in no way feature anything that is a focus of my creative expressions or time-and-energy investments.

For my experience, a great deal of the personal story post Claw Island was rendered quite unlikeable, because it seemed to be to suddenly become Trahearne’s story, and my character was suddenly his overworked yet still pointlessly present intern.

There are excellent ways to tell a story in which whomever the player is playing is not the central, driving figure at the heart of anything (See: Final Fantasy Tactics), but they didn’t really do that either. It went from very much being ‘my story’ to all these other people I didn’t rightly give two spits about.

I wanted to know more about what my character was actually doing. All the decisions Trahearne goes on to make? Those either should have been ours, or the focus should have been something else entirely. As it was, we got to witness Trahearne making executive decisions, with our role being to go and do all the hard parts.

Any half decent tabletop GM will tell you point blank that players tend not to be enthusiastic about GM-NPC’s showing up and stealing all the thunder, taking all the credit and ’Gandalf’ing’ everything.

I vastly prefer game storylines to be about the character(s) the players are playing. Whether they’re major players in the world or insignificant specks doing whatever is important to them in a world infinitely bigger than they’ll ever see or know, I want it to be about them.

Not some feckless NPC that’s strutted out for me to…what, exactly? Admire? Its clutter, make it go away, I want to get back to the good part.

If I wanted to play a piece of scenery, I’d go try to be an uncredited extra in a film somewhere.

That’s just my take on it. I’m personally glad they’re angling things around to put a proper focus on ‘The main character’.

Because that’s us. And now, here in Season 2, they seem to be getting the idea for how to do the story focus so its on something I feel to be worthwhile.

US

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Jzaku.9765:

I felt like the final boss fight of the finale was one of those rare moments where you really felt strongly like it was a team effort between you and your npc companions

Eeeeeexcept after the fight all they enthuse about is me and they all clap for me like I did all the work solo

Why can’t it be about “us”? That whole circle of clapping for the player character just felt very awkward for me and I wish they’d acknowledge their own efforts.

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

P.P.S. Kasmeer’s infinite time warp is so OP

Browse through the forums for a while. They did this because a lot of the complaints regarding not feeling like they are the hero, like the NPCs take too much credit, etc etc. Some people think they absolutely must be the center of the universe. That is why this is done, imo.

Yes but they overcompensated in the worst possible manner.

It’s gotten from being acknowledged to it being obnoxious with people praising you every step you make. We get it. You want us to feel special.

We don’t need 10 NPC lines telling us we’re awesome. One will suffice.

It needs to be toned down.

I too feel like they should be recognized for their work.

Jzaku.9765:

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

It gives you stability so the attacks don’t interrupt the channel. That’s pretty useful

I don’t call it the Komir Syndrome. I call it the Skyrim Syndrome. It annoyed the hell out of me playing that game.

In a few days, a single character could be the head of every single guild in the game. Even the Magic guild (even though he never uses magic).

The problem is people come from popular games like that to games like this and they expect to be the hero. You can’t have it every way.

Before, when we weren’t the hero, there were complaint threads that Trahearne was taking credit for everything (which he never did).

Anet makes it so that you are more center stage and people complain that we’re too center stage.

Not much Anet can do about it.

I remember there’s a chapter of Personal Story which I send orders to kill the undead in Mount Maelstrom (I think?) but it turns out I’m under some kind of mesmeric effect and those undead are actually Pact forces. I feel guilty because I killed quite a lot of people there. Lore should balance these feelings. We can’t always be the hero, and we can fail by ourselves. Mistakes make up for great stories.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t call it the Komir Syndrome. I call it the Skyrim Syndrome. It annoyed the hell out of me playing that game.

In a few days, a single character could be the head of every single guild in the game. Even the Magic guild (even though he never uses magic).

The problem is people come from popular games like that to games like this and they expect to be the hero. You can’t have it every way.

Before, when we weren’t the hero, there were complaint threads that Trahearne was taking credit for everything (which he never did).

Anet makes it so that you are more center stage and people complain that we’re too center stage.

Not much Anet can do about it.

Vayne: I must respectfully disagree.

• Before, when we weren’t the hero but we did do pretty much everything with Trahearne doing almost nothing and still get the credit. That was one extreme.
• Now a whole team does all the work and WE take all the credit. That makes the character the NEW Trahearne. The other extreme.
• In between is the team does the work and the team gets the credit. There is no I in Team. That would have been a compromise that ANet could have done about it.

Harper.4173:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Jzaku.9765:

I felt like the final boss fight of the finale was one of those rare moments where you really felt strongly like it was a team effort between you and your npc companions

Eeeeeexcept after the fight all they enthuse about is me and they all clap for me like I did all the work solo

Why can’t it be about “us”? That whole circle of clapping for the player character just felt very awkward for me and I wish they’d acknowledge their own efforts.

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

P.P.S. Kasmeer’s infinite time warp is so OP

Browse through the forums for a while. They did this because a lot of the complaints regarding not feeling like they are the hero, like the NPCs take too much credit, etc etc. Some people think they absolutely must be the center of the universe. That is why this is done, imo.

Yes but they overcompensated in the worst possible manner.

It’s gotten from being acknowledged to it being obnoxious with people praising you every step you make. We get it. You want us to feel special.

We don’t need 10 NPC lines telling us we’re awesome. One will suffice.

It needs to be toned down.

But one obviously isn’t enough, because people continue to kitten (for this, that, or whatever reason).

Do they need to find a happy medium? Yes, I agree.

Is it likely to happen given the severe number of those special snowflakes? Probably not.

naiasonod.9265:

Kal Spiro.9745:

The story of Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about the player. We’re supposed to be spectators, who also participate, in a series of extremely important events occurring in our time. So yeah, clapping is uncool. I’m not the leader. I’m ok with being second.

I don’t like that philosophy at all, personally. I have no ‘need to feel like the center of the universe’, but if I wanted to watch a movie, there are better ones, and they also in no way feature anything that is a focus of my creative expressions or time-and-energy investments.

For my experience, a great deal of the personal story post Claw Island was rendered quite unlikeable, because it seemed to be to suddenly become Trahearne’s story, and my character was suddenly his overworked yet still pointlessly present intern.

There are excellent ways to tell a story in which whomever the player is playing is not the central, driving figure at the heart of anything (See: Final Fantasy Tactics), but they didn’t really do that either. It went from very much being ‘my story’ to all these other people I didn’t rightly give two spits about.

I wanted to know more about what my character was actually doing. All the decisions Trahearne goes on to make? Those either should have been ours, or the focus should have been something else entirely. As it was, we got to witness Trahearne making executive decisions, with our role being to go and do all the hard parts.

Any half decent tabletop GM will tell you point blank that players tend not to be enthusiastic about GM-NPC’s showing up and stealing all the thunder, taking all the credit and ‘Gandalkitten’ everything.

I vastly prefer game storylines to be about the character(s) the players are playing. Whether they’re major players in the world or insignificant specks doing whatever is important to them in a world infinitely bigger than they’ll ever see or know, I want it to be about them.

Not some feckless NPC that’s strutted out for me to…what, exactly? Admire? Its clutter, make it go away, I want to get back to the good part.

If I wanted to play a piece of scenery, I’d go try to be an uncredited extra in a film somewhere.

That’s just my take on it. I’m personally glad they’re angling things around to put a proper focus on ‘The main character’.

Because that’s us. And now, here in Season 2, they seem to be getting the idea for how to do the story focus so its on something I feel to be worthwhile.

US

All I got out of this was, “I don’t need to be the center of attention, but I do absolutely need to be the center of attention, or it’s not fun.”

Wait, me, like Kormir? Did I cause the Mordremoth problem and then take Mord’s place when he was defeated?

Leo G.4501:

Be thankful you didn’t see the original before the cut. In the original, they do stuff like bow at your feet and eat your poop.

breaking the NDC is gonna cost you

Vayne.8563:

Anet makes it so that you are more center stage and people complain that we’re too center stage.

Not much Anet can do about it.

I think in this instance, those grumbling can understand why it is done and can focus on the proper cause.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

There is no I in Team.

But there’s an M and an E in Team.

Jzaku.9765:

P.S. Braham’s sanctuary bubble does basically nothing, make him put a protection symbol instead or something

P.P.S. Kasmeer’s infinite time warp is so OP

what a surprise.

last time i logged in i didn’t change in to a god, was blinded even while i could see just fine, became the leader of the world by throwing a speer (and in GW the speer is one of the lamest weapons) and i didn’t say things that made no sense yet ppl worship me for it.

it’s true that in an MMO for the most time you’re the center of the game but then again, in GW2 you become the sidekick more often then not.
in GW your character was only the center of the stage when you deserved it, for the most part you are seen as a hero but not threated like the only fighter of the world.

i wonder why they stopped doing that in GW2…….

Because I’m the only one who actually does something in those story missions. Everyone else is either cannon fodder or support.

The pendulum seems to have swung to the other side now. I never felt that Trahearne was hogging the spotlight to begin with. But now it feels like I am hogging the spotlight. But I know that some other people want this.

This is where ArenaNet should really embrace the “RP” part of the MMORPG. Bring back the personality mechanics for our character, and allow us to pick slightly different dialog options which express and build upon that personality. If a player consistently picks the more “self-focused” dialog options, then your team should respond to you in that way (“You were AMAZING out there, boss!”). But if a player is consistently picking dialog that heaps praises on others, then your team should have a slightly different response to you (“You’ve guided us well, boss! We couldn’t have done it without you!”).

It doesn’t need to be completely separate dialog paths — just subtle differences in a few lines which emphasize your character’s personality and how other characters perceive you.

I’ve felt like the story has been on NPCs for so long, where what I’ve done was either irrelevant or not properly recognized, and I’m glad to finally have the story start to shift back to me. It’s okay to give them some credit, but in that last scene they really didn’t do too much compared to me.

Garrisyl.7402:

I like it more this way than in the personal story where you leave fields of corpses behind and get ignored, while Glorious Leader Trahearne whacks away on a trash mob for half an hour and everyone celebrates him like he just found a culinary application for Bloodstone Dust.

And here we go with this hyperbole again…

Hey… somebody show me in the game where everyone heaped praise on Trahearne, proclaiming him the savior of the world, and ignored you.
Tell me when, exactly, Trahearne just turned towards our character with a grin and said ‘This was all me…’
What story instance or cut scene was this in?

I’m sure I’m not the only one here that would love to finally see where this happens…

As for getting praised by the NPCs at the end of that fight with the Shadow of the Dragon…
I would have been happy with just having Jory simply say ‘Good fight there, Boss.’ and be done with it.
But like others have said… People whined that they didn’t feel like the center of the universe.
Because hey… screw just being ‘a hero’ who did what they had to do… It’s all about being /THE HERO!!/ who is obviously the biggest special snowflake in all creation and who /must/ be reminded of that at every single opportunity!

Kal Spiro.9745:

naiasonod.9265:

Kal Spiro.9745:

The story of Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about the player. We’re supposed to be spectators, who also participate, in a series of extremely important events occurring in our time. So yeah, clapping is uncool. I’m not the leader. I’m ok with being second.

I don’t like that philosophy at all, personally. I have no ‘need to feel like the center of the universe’, but if I wanted to watch a movie, there are better ones, and they also in no way feature anything that is a focus of my creative expressions or time-and-energy investments.

For my experience, a great deal of the personal story post Claw Island was rendered quite unlikeable, because it seemed to be to suddenly become Trahearne’s story, and my character was suddenly his overworked yet still pointlessly present intern.

There are excellent ways to tell a story in which whomever the player is playing is not the central, driving figure at the heart of anything (See: Final Fantasy Tactics), but they didn’t really do that either. It went from very much being ‘my story’ to all these other people I didn’t rightly give two spits about.

I wanted to know more about what my character was actually doing. All the decisions Trahearne goes on to make? Those either should have been ours, or the focus should have been something else entirely. As it was, we got to witness Trahearne making executive decisions, with our role being to go and do all the hard parts.

Any half decent tabletop GM will tell you point blank that players tend not to be enthusiastic about GM-NPC’s showing up and stealing all the thunder, taking all the credit and ‘Gandalkitten’ everything.

I vastly prefer game storylines to be about the character(s) the players are playing. Whether they’re major players in the world or insignificant specks doing whatever is important to them in a world infinitely bigger than they’ll ever see or know, I want it to be about them.

Not some feckless NPC that’s strutted out for me to…what, exactly? Admire? Its clutter, make it go away, I want to get back to the good part.

If I wanted to play a piece of scenery, I’d go try to be an uncredited extra in a film somewhere.

That’s just my take on it. I’m personally glad they’re angling things around to put a proper focus on ‘The main character’.

Because that’s us. And now, here in Season 2, they seem to be getting the idea for how to do the story focus so its on something I feel to be worthwhile.

US

All I got out of this was, “I don’t need to be the center of attention, but I do absolutely need to be the center of attention, or it’s not fun.”

Then your reading comprehension is in the toilet. Try again, bookah.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Garrisyl.7402:

I like it more this way than in the personal story where you leave fields of corpses behind and get ignored, while Glorious Leader Trahearne whacks away on a trash mob for half an hour and everyone celebrates him like he just found a culinary application for Bloodstone Dust.

And here we go with this hyperbole again…

Hey… somebody show me in the game where everyone heaped praise on Trahearne, proclaiming him the savior of the world, and ignored you.
Tell me when, exactly, Trahearne just turned towards our character with a grin and said ‘This was all me…’
What story instance or cut scene was this in?

I’m sure I’m not the only one here that would love to finally see where this happens…

As for getting praised by the NPCs at the end of that fight with the Shadow of the Dragon…
I would have been happy with just having Jory simply say ‘Good fight there, Boss.’ and be done with it.
But like others have said… People whined that they didn’t feel like the center of the universe.
Because hey… screw just being ‘a hero’ who did what they had to do… It’s all about being /THE HERO!!/ who is obviously the biggest special snowflake in all creation and who /must/ be reminded of that at every single opportunity!

For me, NPC’s lavishing us with hollow praise is moot – I think it’s over the top how emphatic that went, but still somewhat better than yet another episode of The Trahearne Show, with us practically as the studio audience expected to actually perform most is the working roles in the production.

Their focus is getting better on a player character driven narrative rather than us playing some ‘And Bob Was There Too’ random nobody.

Hero of Shaemoore? Yeah, nobody had cared about that in forever. We’ve moved on to bigger and better things.

Commander of the Pact? After claw island, we were pretty much reduced to the role of Biff the Understudy being dispatched like we were the NPC’s and Trahearne was the player character.

Imo, we don’t have to be super important chosen ones or children of prophesy about which the cosmos do hang in orbit.

If my character is some grunt soldier, one amongst many, I want the focus to be on what he or she and their squad do. I don’t want to be a captive audience forced to watch some NPC be The General when all its going to amount to is my character being sent off kill ten more boar kitten anyway.

I want to see my just-another-soldier alongside other just-soldiers, dealing with the hard choices they might have to make when on the spot in the field, the relationships they form, the hardships they endure and to see how THEY overcome THEIR trials.

I do not want to see some Elminster of an NPC ride in after we’ve done everything and thoroughly dominate the entire narrative like the whole point of there being a story at all was to convince us that Trahearne is both a Chosen One and the real player character here.

The personal story felt a lot to me like the adventure of a GM that was running his own character with the party and wound up making everything revolve around his own character.

If anything was going to be solved, it was only by the might/grace/wisdom/presence/whimsical mercy of the GM’s personal Gandalf.

Gandalf was an interesting character. Tolkien did wisely to keep him out of almost everything, ’ away on other matters’, though.

Trahearne? Just fine. But if we’re to essentially be the Merries and Pippins in this dog and pony show, at least let the narrative chiefly focus on the adventures of our fellowship.

Not how Gandalf does all this cool stuff, and we were there too.

Now? We’ve got our own fellowship!

It’s a mighty leap in the right direction, says I.

Though the worshipful praise is so over the top.

Sigh, first the complaints about Thrahearne (and Kormir many years ago). And now its the other way, and complaints again. Just enjoy the content and give the developers some praise for a change. They did very well i must say.

I get the feel that Anet basically said, “You want to be the centre of attention, well here you go! Don’t you feel silly now!”

Personally, I’m not too fussed about playing second fiddle. My character is merely one (warrior/guardian/necro/ele/mes/thief/ranger) among thousands if not hundreds of thousands. What makes me special among the myriad others?

When my character was made a commander, I felt that it wasn’t so much Trahearne’s second in command as merely a senior officer, maybe a battalion commander or a company commander to lead the hordes of Vigil, Priory and Whisper soldiers to their deaths.

GW1 did this much better. Your character was -a- hero, one among many adventurers who set out to join other heroes to battle the White Mantle, the Vizier, Shiro, Abaddon. You weren’t special in any way except that you had some martial skills that enabled you to survive in the world. Beyond that, you were just another adventurer.

I never had a problem being a second in command, a major supporting character, or whatever.

I just didnt/dont like Trahearne.

I’m not overly fond of the new core NPCs either but my main issue with them is not who gets the credit but rather, “who the kitten are these people that are suddenly supposedly my friends and how is it that I am their boss ?”

Azrael.4960:

I get the feel that Anet basically said, “You want to be the centre of attention, well here you go! Don’t you feel silly now!”

Personally, I’m not too fussed about playing second fiddle. My character is merely one (warrior/guardian/necro/ele/mes/thief/ranger) among thousands if not hundreds of thousands. What makes me special among the myriad others?

When my character was made a commander, I felt that it wasn’t so much Trahearne’s second in command as merely a senior officer, maybe a battalion commander or a company commander to lead the hordes of Vigil, Priory and Whisper soldiers to their deaths.

GW1 did this much better. Your character was -a- hero, one among many adventurers who set out to join other heroes to battle the White Mantle, the Vizier, Shiro, Abaddon. You weren’t special in any way except that you had some martial skills that enabled you to survive in the world. Beyond that, you were just another adventurer.

They made us second in command via dialogue alone. At no point did the narrative make us much other than Teahearne’s NPC minion.

It works have been a much more effective narrative is the focus has never set us up to be done sort of local hero relative to our species in the first place.

Dragon Age 1 does a great job of telling a compelling story about just some grey warden that’s only special because of his or her choices and circumstances in pretty much every regard.

Narrative focus isn’t the same thing as setting focus.

Amazing stories can be told about plain, ordinary people and who they are, why they do what they do and what their struggles are.

Amazing stories can be told about chosen snowflakes of super-prophecy.

It’s nice to see that were getting into the are of a narrative focus that actively encourages me, at least, to want to care about what I’m dicing my character around doing.

In the personal story? I stopped caring kind before the pain stopped. It had turned into a story about some guy I didn’t care about.

I felt very much like saying… Just phone it in. Tell me how it turns out. I’ma go get in on cursed shore farming.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t call it the Komir Syndrome. I call it the Skyrim Syndrome. It annoyed the hell out of me playing that game.

In a few days, a single character could be the head of every single guild in the game. Even the Magic guild (even though he never uses magic).

The problem is people come from popular games like that to games like this and they expect to be the hero. You can’t have it every way.

Before, when we weren’t the hero, there were complaint threads that Trahearne was taking credit for everything (which he never did).

Anet makes it so that you are more center stage and people complain that we’re too center stage.

Not much Anet can do about it.

Vayne: I must respectfully disagree.

• Before, when we weren’t the hero but we did do pretty much everything with Trahearne doing almost nothing and still get the credit. That was one extreme.
• Now a whole team does all the work and WE take all the credit. That makes the character the NEW Trahearne. The other extreme.
• In between is the team does the work and the team gets the credit. There is no I in Team. That would have been a compromise that ANet could have done about it.

When did Trahearne get or take any credit at all. I’ve love a quote or two, because I’ve looked and looked.

The only thing anyone can say about Trahearne is he became the commander of the pact, but that’s not credit. It was down to circumstance. You belonged to an order and no order representative could have leadership because the other orders would see that as being somehow lesser. Trahearne was trusted by all the orders, but it’s clear even from the beginning, they respect you more than him.

There never was any problem with Trahearne. He essentially supreme commander of the Pact… meaning 90% of what he did was paper-work, meetings, diplomacy, and so on. Does anyone really want to RP logistics in an MMO? Anyone excited for Personal Story Chapter 9: “The Pact’s Budget”? Not really, mostly, players want to run around and kill stuff. That means you don’t get to be Marshal.

There was even less problem with Kormir. All she did was become a God. While, yeah, I’m sure a lot of people would have taken the choice had it been offered them, it’s obviously something impossible for the PC to do, in terms of continuing gameplay.

So, yeah. It does sometimes feel like they’ve gone too far in the other direction recently. But only sometimes. Typically, I’m not bothered.

Vayne.8563:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t call it the Komir Syndrome. I call it the Skyrim Syndrome. It annoyed the hell out of me playing that game.

In a few days, a single character could be the head of every single guild in the game. Even the Magic guild (even though he never uses magic).

The problem is people come from popular games like that to games like this and they expect to be the hero. You can’t have it every way.

Before, when we weren’t the hero, there were complaint threads that Trahearne was taking credit for everything (which he never did).

Anet makes it so that you are more center stage and people complain that we’re too center stage.

Not much Anet can do about it.

Vayne: I must respectfully disagree.

• Before, when we weren’t the hero but we did do pretty much everything with Trahearne doing almost nothing and still get the credit. That was one extreme.
• Now a whole team does all the work and WE take all the credit. That makes the character the NEW Trahearne. The other extreme.
• In between is the team does the work and the team gets the credit. There is no I in Team. That would have been a compromise that ANet could have done about it.

When did Trahearne get or take any credit at all. I’ve love a quote or two, because I’ve looked and looked.

The only thing anyone can say about Trahearne is he became the commander of the pact, but that’s not credit. It was down to circumstance. You belonged to an order and no order representative could have leadership because the other orders would see that as being somehow lesser. Trahearne was trusted by all the orders, but it’s clear even from the beginning, they respect you more than him.

That pretty much sums it up. He’s basically a compromise. Your character went out and got the deeds done, a field commander. One doesn’t expect a general to take to the field directly. He/she assigns a commander to lead the companies and resources into combat.

@naiasonod. The dialogue said that orders that your character passed to the forces bore the same authority as if Trahearne issued them himself; that does not necessarily make you second in command. Your character was granted field command on the missions you went on.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Wait, me, like Kormir? Did I cause the Mordremoth problem and then take Mord’s place when he was defeated?

Kormir didn’t cause the problem, and I really get upset when people try to pin it on her. You know, instead of Varesh Ossa and her General Kahyet who were actively working to weaken the prison.

The other Gods caused the problem by locking up Abaddon in the first place. They’re the only ones to blame for “causing” the problem. Anything else is just a symptom of that first step, and ripples spreading out from it.

Garrisyl.7402:

I like it more this way than in the personal story where you leave fields of corpses behind and get ignored, while Glorious Leader Trahearne whacks away on a trash mob for half an hour and everyone celebrates him like he just found a culinary application for Bloodstone Dust.

I swear by all that is holy I will start looking for my old screenshots where the Pact rank and file know you’re the one doing things and talk about how honored they are you’re fighting with them. I had someone want to name their firstborn after me, for Dwayna’s sake.

Braham’s bubbles -did- do things, though. They gave you Protection and Stability, meaning that if an orange ring showed beneath your feet while you were channeling, you could just ignore that.

Rox threw the fire into the ring, with an Audio cue so you knew when to look up for it. Kasmeer did what she does best and spammed Time Warp whenever the boss was vulnerable, I ended up killing it faster than my brain could catalogue (I was too busy checking my skillbar for CDs to notice how fast the Shadow’s Health went down).

The only one whos presence I missed was Marjory.

TheSwede.9512:

Braham’s bubbles -did- do things, though. They gave you Protection and Stability, meaning that if an orange ring showed beneath your feet while you were channeling, you could just ignore that.

Rox threw the fire into the ring, with an Audio cue so you knew when to look up for it. Kasmeer did what she does best and spammed Time Warp whenever the boss was vulnerable, I ended up killing it faster than my brain could catalogue (I was too busy checking my skillbar for CDs to notice how fast the Shadow’s Health went down).

The only one whos presence I missed was Marjory.

Braham’s stability was great sometimes, but didn’t always seem to work. I wasn’t sure if I was lagging, or just ultimately being rubbish, but I was channeling in those bubbles when the dragon tossed me up in the air on more than one occasion. It is very likely I was being rubbish.

Rox’s fire went in some comical places – for example, in the middle, with the rocks, when the rocks are doing their thing. Thanks, Rox! I mean, her eyes tell me she’s fully caffeinated, but still…

Kasmeer did fine, though I used my own Time Warp too, and Marjory actually was sending bone minions in, though I don’t think they ever lasted too long, sometimes it seemed like they might do.. well, something. Not really sure.

I was pretty awful at it, but I’m not a good indicator of how good/fun/worthwhile the experience was.

:::

That said, Trahearne’s okay. He did a lot of paperwork whilst I went out and had fun doing stuff. Best was using a golem battle suit during Air Drop. I want that suit with me at all times. Trahearne just had to do boring stuff back at the office. And he never did steal any glory for it, either.

I don’t personally like too much praise, so I just ignore the people I have to hang around with now. I sometimes wonder if they’re sycophants, or if they’re planning to stab me in the back at some point. “Et tu, Frostbite?” I’d say, and be rightly justified.

TheSwede.9512:

Braham’s bubbles -did- do things, though. They gave you Protection and Stability, meaning that if an orange ring showed beneath your feet while you were channeling, you could just ignore that.

Rox threw the fire into the ring, with an Audio cue so you knew when to look up for it. Kasmeer did what she does best and spammed Time Warp whenever the boss was vulnerable, I ended up killing it faster than my brain could catalogue (I was too busy checking my skillbar for CDs to notice how fast the Shadow’s Health went down).

The only one whos presence I missed was Marjory.

Marjory’s a Necro so just like player character Necros, they have no team support whatsoever

Just kidding Marjory summoned bone minions to explode at things where applicable. They kind of blend into the floor though.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Browse through the forums for a while. They did this because a lot of the complaints regarding not feeling like they are the hero, like the NPCs take too much credit, etc etc. Some people think they absolutely must be the center of the universe. That is why this is done, imo.

It was probably done due to that. But they surely overdid it. It’s completely awkward to walk around receiving flattering praise for everyting you do. That’s been the case throughout ls season 2 and part of 1, but this finale was embarrassing. It’s like they have a warped understanding of player’s needs:

- Players want better loot? let’s fill their bags, bank and pockets with tons of useless junk!

- Players feel upstaged by an annoying character? (i think the main complaint was that trehearne is just annoying, not that he upstaged us so much): let’s probably kill that mean character and treat the player like he is the only son of a sterile couple.

- Players want challenging content? let’s give them events that can only be played at certain hours so they will not probably be able to play at all and, if they do, then the event requires to coordinate 100 people and, if they manage to do so, then the event will bug so they cannot complete it. Eat this challenge, suckers!

It’s like an evil genie in a bottle, that comes out and gives the guy very twisted versions of what he wants.

Aenesthesia.1697:

- Players want better loot? let’s fill their bags, bank and pockets with tons of useless junk!

Oh that’s been going on for a while. I should show you the full list sometime of little items which probably aren’t needed anymore but aren’t consumed when their task is done. “Candy Powered Matter Meter” anyone?

- Players feel upstaged by an annoying character? (i think the main complaint was that trehearne is just annoying, not that he upstaged us so much): let’s probably kill that mean character and treat the player like he is the only son of a sterile couple.

The main complaint(s) about Trahearne were how he became the Grand Marshall of the Pact instead of us (special snowflakes we are), and how his voice sounded a trifle bored all the time. Of course, I find most sylvari sounded that way unless being stimulated (laughter, pain, terror, madness).

- Players want challenging content? let’s give them events that can only be played at certain hours so they will not probably be able to play at all and, if they do, then the event requires to coordinate 100 people and, if they manage to do so, then the event will bug so they cannot complete it. Eat this challenge, suckers!

Nothing new there. Though I’ve heard tell some of the “super bosses” don’t require all that many people and after a point people only make it harder without actually being able to be a help.

It’s like an evil genie in a bottle, that comes out and gives the guy very twisted versions of what he wants.

This could be helped if a lot of people could write more detail to their grievances, rather than varied permutations of “X sucks, fix it”. At least some topics get discussed fairly well, but some of these?