Guild Wars 2

First off, not quite sure if this necessarily needs to be put into the “Living Story” forum since this story is part of the expansion pack and works like our Personal Story to a degree. If that forum is the more appropriate one, I’d be more than happy to have a moderator move it for me.

Now, I’m sure I’m pretty far behind compared to a bunch of other players, but over the weekend I finally beat HoT’s story. Here are my thoughts, and anyone is free to chime in on these topics:

1.) The string of boss fights in “Hearts and Minds” were absolutely brutal. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. It felt like a one-man-army equivalent of the group boss fights. For this mission chapter, I chose Braham and Caithe. Eir/Garm wasn’t too bad, though I kept getting caught in fire that magically followed me. And the Pale Tree…holy crap! She was terrifying! I bet if I went in with a group, we could have killed the minions before they could reach her, and therefore keep her from spamming her ring attacks on steroids, haha. But Mordy himself… That was rather intense.

One thing I will say is that the boss fights in “Hearts and Minds” actually had the best music I’ve heard in all of HoT. Definitely makes me want to find those tracks on YouTube and listen in detail.

2.) I still do not understand the hate towards Caithe. Every time my character would say something rude to her, about not trusting her, and how he’ll make her pay if she crosses him again, I groaned out loud and told my toon to shut up. I’ve played all of the LW stories so far, and really never saw one hint that my toon was angry at Caithe. Confused, yes, not knowing why she was taking the egg or where she was taking it, but never anger and feeling “betrayed”. It was the one aspect of the HoT story that made zero sense to me.

3.) I disliked how the story ended with a cliff-hanger. And it wasn’t even a good cliff-hanger. I expected, after the final cutscene, that I’d get a little instanced bit to talk with my team and follow-up with them, but not even that happened. The ending just felt “empty”, regardless of the big stuff that happened. We seriously need to wait for LWS3 to start (in a day) to get a follow-up to beating Mordremoth, saving Glint’s egg, and killing Trahearne? For me, I guess it’s not so bad since LWS3 is starting shortly, but for people who ran through the story right after HoT’s release would have been waiting all these months with that awful cliffhanger hanging over them. I just think it could have been implemented better.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. What are yours?

Spoilers below (obviously).

The reason we are distrustful of Caithe is because she stole the egg that we were tasked to protect. It’s part of the Living Story Season 2, so you might have missed it, but we were tasked by the Pale Tree to protect the egg and Caithe stole it.

We had no knowledge of her motive for stealing it, because she never told us. So yes, we have good reason to be made at her.

As for cliff hangers, that’s a matter of preference, but since the LS began we’ve had cliff hangers. I mean we defeated Scarlet, but we saw Modremoth wake up at the same time and then, the end. Okay wait for the next one.

I personally like cliff hangers, so I don’t mind, but I could see where it would annoy some people.

My thoughts…

Agree on the bosses. I liked it. I used Canach and Braham so I saw a different pattern but I thought it was fun. It did challenge me. I did it on rangers, elementalist (never succeeded on this one), and condi necro (easiest). Loved the need to keep moving and react to changing conditions. Thought the flying part was kinda buggy but seems to be sorted out now.

As for Caithe, my recollection is that she stole Glint’s egg. Recall that we came into the egg after the pursuit of the Master of Peace and, as “the commander,” we ended up with it. She grabbed the egg, as I recall, after the fights in the maze. After that, we went on a journey through the past to look for clues to her whereabouts. Anyway, I think the rub is that she stole the egg, essentially betraying the group.

I also would have liked a cut scene or even sequence of talking to the team after the fight. I especially wanted more interaction with Canach as this seems a bit of a turning point for him. If nothing more, just a sense of where things might go from a team perspective.

All in all, I have consistently liked the LW and this episode certainly didn’t disappoint…although I have to admit I hurled many strings of epithets at the screen.

One thing I’ll add is that, even though I did play through LWS1, 2, and now HoT, I never understood Canach. He kind of came out of nowhere for me, and I don’t remember hearing much about him in the past Living Story seasons. Marjory, Kasmeer, Taimi, Braham, and Rox made more appearances, and even if I am not a huge fan of most of them, I still know way more about them than I know about Canach. He seemed…boring, too. Nothing to interest me. And thinking everything my toon said to him was in reference to being a Sylvari in Mordy’s domain. (Can’t it be that I honestly wanted you to join me on this leg of the mission due to your skill, and not out of fear that you’ll turn?)

But, yeah, even at the end of LWS2 I never saw outright anger against Caithe. She’s a First Born and a member of Destiny’s Edge – surely she has her reasons?

To me, if anything, our character was too soft on Caithe. The fact that he brought her along, and allowed her to be armed during the deciding moments of the story, was confusing, to say the least.

Commander has every right to be highly distrustful of Caithe. She pretended to be on board with our plans, acted as she’s a part of the team, yet she completely undermined our efforts at the most crucial of moments.
This fact gets even more despicable when you remember a moment when she blatantly follows you around the Silverwastes, just to learn what’s your next move in order to undermine it.
Look at it from the perspective of a military leader, responsible for hundreds if not thousands of lives; after many sacrifices, your goal is within your reach, yet one individual steals it away from you, and her only excuse (at a later date) is incredibly vague to say the least. The commander had to, once again, risk the lives of their friends, their soldiers, and themselves, in order to reach the egg once more, just to hear Caithe be completely ignorant of the fact, and offer an explanation of “i just got too deep into that Wyld Hunt thing”. And if she didn’t drop the egg, she’d probably still be on the run, since she never turned down an opportunity to sneak out while everyone was fighting for their lives.

If it was up to me, she’d be stripped of any rank/status.

/rant over.

Having your reasons for betraying comrades doesn’t make it less of a betrayal.

I was more put off by the fact that I didn’t have the option to put her down rather than have her anywhere near the egg.

Moyayuki.3619:

One thing I’ll add is that, even though I did play through LWS1, 2, and now HoT, I never understood Canach. He kind of came out of nowhere for me, and I don’t remember hearing much about him in the past Living Story seasons.

He was actually quite important in season 1. As you can read here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Canach

Diovid.9506:

Moyayuki.3619:

One thing I’ll add is that, even though I did play through LWS1, 2, and now HoT, I never understood Canach. He kind of came out of nowhere for me, and I don’t remember hearing much about him in the past Living Story seasons.

He was actually quite important in season 1. As you can read here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Canach

That felt like so long ago, I guess I never really noticed him. I feel like some of the story telling in the Living Stories are hit and miss, with character development also ranging in quality, but that’s just my opinion. If a character didn’t catch my attention, eh, that’s just me I guess.

Ashen.2907:

Having your reasons for betraying comrades doesn’t make it less of a betrayal.

I was more put off by the fact that I didn’t have the option to put her down rather than have her anywhere near the egg.

When I finished LWS2, I never got the impression that there was a “betrayal”. I guess it didn’t tell its story or presented the scenes well enough. Heck, I barely remember any of it even though I played through it on two different toons. Maybe I’m too spoiled by other video games’ story-telling.

Oh, and I forgot to list my biggest peeve of all in the entire HoT story: The pronunciation of “Tarir”. They keep saying “TAR-ir” and it is the worst sounding pronunciation I’ve ever heard. It’s like an American butchering Japanese words, to my ears. When I see “Tarir”, I hear “Tar-IR” in my mind. Maybe I’m just odd…?

Tomas.5029:

If it was up to me, she’d be stripped of any rank/status. whatever passes for skin on a Sylvari.

Fixed that for you.

Moyayuki.3619:

Ashen.2907:

Having your reasons for betraying comrades doesn’t make it less of a betrayal.

I was more put off by the fact that I didn’t have the option to put her down rather than have her anywhere near the egg.

When I finished LWS2, I never got the impression that there was a “betrayal”. I guess it didn’t tell its story or presented the scenes well enough. Heck, I barely remember any of it even though I played through it on two different toons. Maybe I’m too spoiled by other video games’ story-telling.

Hmm, she stole the egg, which was fated for us to take, leaving us to chase her down. Its covered pretty explicitly in the last three chapters of season 2.

I just replayed through it again for the second time now, and WHY IS THE HEARTS AND MINDS FIGHT STILL SO BUGGED?!

Seriously! I’ve gotten the same bugs as when this broken expansion was released!!

Ashen.2907:

Moyayuki.3619:

Ashen.2907:

Having your reasons for betraying comrades doesn’t make it less of a betrayal.

I was more put off by the fact that I didn’t have the option to put her down rather than have her anywhere near the egg.

When I finished LWS2, I never got the impression that there was a “betrayal”. I guess it didn’t tell its story or presented the scenes well enough. Heck, I barely remember any of it even though I played through it on two different toons. Maybe I’m too spoiled by other video games’ story-telling.

Hmm, she stole the egg, which was fated for us to take, leaving us to chase her down. Its covered pretty explicitly in the last three chapters of season 2.

I just don’t remember the characters being angry at the end of Season 2. All that I really recall from the end of it was beating the shadow of the dragon, and then another abrupt ending. There just seems to be a big disconnect between events, character development, etc. in the Living Story that is making it easy for me to not remember or notice certain things. Like nothing is really grabbing my attention in a good way. I can’t quite explain it. So far, the boss fights in H&M is really my only positive feedback of the Living Story series, even if the fights frustrated me to no end.

I’ve already ranted about my dislike for the story… many times. Suffice to say, it fell way short of what I’d expect from an RPG. Having said that, since LS3 is coming out tomorrow, I’ve decided to be more positive.

Here’s what HoT’s story did well:
-Canach. I found myself invested in his struggle to maintain control and genuinely cared about what happened to him. There are very few characters who I can honestly say that about from even the base game.
-The Commander actually seemed to be commanding!
-The boss fight against the mind of Mordremoth (at least, when it actually worked).
-The actual idea that Mordremoth couldn’t be physically defeated since he essentially IS the jungle (somehow going into his mind and defeating the Elder Dragon of MIND with your own MIND is magnificently ridiculous, but I’m supposed to be being positive so forget about that).
-A bit of the stuff with the Itzel and Nuhoch.

Those are the things I liked about the story.

I felt sad for Mordie. Even in his own mind, he’s a pudgy over-sized iguana. Talk about self-esteem issues.

Vayne.8563:

Spoilers below (obviously).

The reason we are distrustful of Caithe is because she stole the egg that we were tasked to protect. It’s part of the Living Story Season 2, so you might have missed it, but we were tasked by the Pale Tree to protect the egg and Caithe stole it.

We had no knowledge of her motive for stealing it, because she never told us. So yes, we have good reason to be made at her.

As for cliff hangers, that’s a matter of preference, but since the LS began we’ve had cliff hangers. I mean we defeated Scarlet, but we saw Modremoth wake up at the same time and then, the end. Okay wait for the next one.

I personally like cliff hangers, so I don’t mind, but I could see where it would annoy some people.

Actually, the reason Caithe stole the egg is mentioned by her toward the end of the HoT story (by the spinning tree). You have the opportunity to talk to Caithe and she tells you that she saw the egg as part of her “Wild-hunt” and thought she could protect it herself. If you missed that opportunity, you’ll have probably noticed that your character started being nice to her again and that’s why you can take her with you to fight Mordremoth.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Spoilers below (obviously).

The reason we are distrustful of Caithe is because she stole the egg that we were tasked to protect. It’s part of the Living Story Season 2, so you might have missed it, but we were tasked by the Pale Tree to protect the egg and Caithe stole it.

We had no knowledge of her motive for stealing it, because she never told us. So yes, we have good reason to be made at her.

As for cliff hangers, that’s a matter of preference, but since the LS began we’ve had cliff hangers. I mean we defeated Scarlet, but we saw Modremoth wake up at the same time and then, the end. Okay wait for the next one.

I personally like cliff hangers, so I don’t mind, but I could see where it would annoy some people.

Actually, the reason Caithe stole the egg is mentioned by her toward the end of the HoT story (by the spinning tree). You have the opportunity to talk to Caithe and she tells you that she saw the egg as part of her “Wild-hunt” and thought she could protect it herself. If you missed that opportunity, you’ll have probably noticed that your character started being nice to her again and that’s why you can take her with you to fight Mordremoth.

Of course I didn’t miss it. I’ve done the story on eight characters already. But we still don’t completely trust her and there’s plenty of evidence in the story that suggests that’s the case.

My character doesn’t care if it’s her wylde hunt or not because The Pale Tree gave us a task and Caithe stole the egg from under our care. Maybe it was her Wylde Hunt, maybe it wasn’t but she’ll have to come a ways before anyone is going to trust her again.

Since we’re talking about Caithe and the Egg, I have one question: Was Caithe around when the Egg was given to the Commander to protect? If not, then it’s possibly reasonable that the two characters ended up on the mutually-exclusive decision of “Only I can protect the Egg!” and it’s a genuine misunderstanding

But if she was around at the time, then, kitten I really wish I could have had my character rough Caithe up over that if not outright kill her, given the character of my Commander – After all, said commander was a Charr who killed her own father for the “I swear I betrayed everyone and lead you all on a godkitten goosechase for a good reason!” bullkitten, and her greatest fear was suffering a major, credibility destroying defeat (Which not being around during the disastrous invasion of Maguuma certainly would qualify as)… yeah.

I think the dissonance in the character, though, comes from the writers trying to backtrack. I wasn’t around during LS2, but if the fan reaction was “What? No! Why is my character being ‘I trust Caithe’ over this betrayal?!” then they might have ended up trying to rewrite it.

Sartharina.3542:

Since we’re talking about Caithe and the Egg, I have one question: Was Caithe around when the Egg was given to the Commander to protect? If not, then it’s possibly reasonable that the two characters ended up on the mutually-exclusive decision of “Only I can protect the Egg!” and it’s a genuine misunderstanding

But if she was around at the time, then, kitten I really wish I could have had my character rough Caithe up over that if not outright kill her, given the character of my Commander – After all, said commander was a Charr who killed her own father for the “I swear I betrayed everyone and lead you all on a godkitten goosechase for a good reason!” bullkitten, and her greatest fear was suffering a major, credibility destroying defeat (Which not being around during the disastrous invasion of Maguuma certainly would qualify as)… yeah.

I think the dissonance in the character, though, comes from the writers trying to backtrack. I wasn’t around during LS2, but if the fan reaction was “What? No! Why is my character being ‘I trust Caithe’ over this betrayal?!” then they might have ended up trying to rewrite it.

I actually felt a disconnect over the “Why does my character NOT trust Caithe?”. She goes from being a vital member of Destiny’s Edge, to being viewed as a back-stabbing traitor? I still trust Caithe, personally, and don’t think she deserves the hate the characters gave her. No one even tried to get an explanation out of her, they just outright made an assumption and labeled it as a “betrayal”. I do not agree with this, even after playing LWS2 and the HoT story all the way through. If I really wanted to, I could easily replay Season 2 and try to see what I might have missed. Reading a summary of S2 wouldn’t give me the context.

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Spoilers below (obviously).

The reason we are distrustful of Caithe is because she stole the egg that we were tasked to protect. It’s part of the Living Story Season 2, so you might have missed it, but we were tasked by the Pale Tree to protect the egg and Caithe stole it.

We had no knowledge of her motive for stealing it, because she never told us. So yes, we have good reason to be made at her.

As for cliff hangers, that’s a matter of preference, but since the LS began we’ve had cliff hangers. I mean we defeated Scarlet, but we saw Modremoth wake up at the same time and then, the end. Okay wait for the next one.

I personally like cliff hangers, so I don’t mind, but I could see where it would annoy some people.

Actually, the reason Caithe stole the egg is mentioned by her toward the end of the HoT story (by the spinning tree). You have the opportunity to talk to Caithe and she tells you that she saw the egg as part of her “Wild-hunt” and thought she could protect it herself. If you missed that opportunity, you’ll have probably noticed that your character started being nice to her again and that’s why you can take her with you to fight Mordremoth.

Of course I didn’t miss it. I’ve done the story on eight characters already. But we still don’t completely trust her and there’s plenty of evidence in the story that suggests that’s the case.

My character doesn’t care if it’s her wylde hunt or not because The Pale Tree gave us a task and Caithe stole the egg from under our care. Maybe it was her Wylde Hunt, maybe it wasn’t but she’ll have to come a ways before anyone is going to trust her again.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound condescending. I nearly skipped past the part where you can ask Caithe why she stole the egg and that’s why I said, “If you missed that opportunity”.