Guild Wars 2

I’ve played all of the Living World seasons up until the beginning of Rising Flames (just got to Ember Bay), and I have been really irritated by the attitude of our player character ever since late Season 2. Our character has always had a semi-defined personality and role in the main story, but more and more it feels like the writers are shoving their own idea of the PC onto us, when before we could have many opportunities to build our character’s choices the way we want.

My biggest complaint is the grudge the PC has against Caithe. As I’ve said, I’ve played the whole story up until the newest episode, but I never saw why the PC and the other characters allowed themselves to get so unbelievably, irrationally, upset with Caithe. They immediately assumed she was being nefarious. Sure, I get the whole “Mordremoth can mind control Sylvari” fear, but I would never view Caithe, a Firstborn and Sylvari PC mentor, as being that weak-minded. I knew deep down that she took the egg for a good purpose from the beginning. So when my toon practically screams at her throughout HoT and LWS3, it really aggravated me and I wanted to yell at my computer screen. It’s not at all how I imagine my PC acting, no matter which toon I’m playing. They also go so far as to insinuate that Caithe’s stealthiness is some shady behavior! WTH! And not giving her a chance to explain herself, and she only does so by having to cut the PC off from their irrational rantings.

If anything, that is my biggest complaint of the entire LWS3/HoT story, on top of Rytlock being irrationally tightlipped about his experience in the Mists, to the point that he gets himself demoted and arrested. Seriously? No character is using any common sense in these Living World stories. Taimi is the only one who has genuinely grown on me. Personally, I now see her as the best of the new characters.

Rant over, but hopefully I’m not the only one feeling so peeved by what the writers have done to the PC and Caithe.

its not just the PC… Marjory gets a dig in too. But at the same time, marjorys response to the PC about what she does with a demi god on the groups behalf is just stupid and childish…

JaddynnStarr.5201:

its not just the PC… Marjory gets a dig in too. But at the same time, marjorys response to the PC about what she does with a demi god on the groups behalf is just stupid and childish…

I agree, that was the weakest point of the story writing wise. It seemed off, especially coming almost right after DW was officially “created” (even though they had been acting together for far longer before that happened in Episode 1) how she essentially disses it

I agree that there should be some dialogue choices for the pc, including being able to pick how the pc reacts to other characters at key points.

Eh… if you play as a Charr who killed their own father for being a traitorous runaway, it makes perfect sense.

Especially considering Caithe’s actions indirectly lead to the Commander not being present during the greatest military catastrophe the pact has ever suffered.

I don’t think the PC was irrationally upset. Remember that Caithe distanced herself from the Commander, snatched the egg, and ran away from the Commander when roads crossed. The Commander at the time didn’t know did that Caithe was getting the egg to Tarir, all the Commander sees is ‘a sylvari who steals the egg that could’ve been our saving’.
So with all things considered, I think the PC was very rational in their decisions. Even though Caithe redeemed herself, a hurt pride is not easily fixed, and we see now with Lazarus that the Commander is no longer willing to take the little risks

I personally think the commander is much too soft with Caithe and should dismiss her at every opportunity. She can stay a shadow and help from afar, but not close to the commander.

Why?
Unreflected:
She let her sister get killed by her lover. Neither wise nor very strong willed, no other known firstborn is of that mindset. I don´t buy either “I killed her to keep the secret” and “Oh, the Centaurs that did nothing to Wynne for months attacked Faolain all of a sudden” rationale.
Secretive:
She stole the egg and never said why until lately. Trahearne at least was very honest with his wild hunt and was basically dragged kicking and screaming into the whole afair. Staying cryptic is not helpful if you´re a confessed murderer of your own close kind.

I’ll admit, the personalization of the player character has gone down since the personal story, and probably even more when the voices came back for Heart of Thorns. Part of this is because it’s expensive to have multiple lines recorded, needing to cover every situation that could possibly arise from the choice. Plus, we as people are sometimes going to have different reactions to things than other people. The fact that the story has been streamlined means that specialization must be sacrificed, even a little bit.

That said, if it were any of the other DE members, I’d say that’s probably fair. But this is Caithe we’re talking about. Even as a member of Destiny’s Edge, she was secretive and seen as distrustful. I wasn’t happy about her stealing the egg, and then having to chase her all over to the Wastes to catch up with her and she STILL gives us the slip. Then when we do finally catch up with her, she doesn’t offer to help, doesn’t try too explain herself, and with sylvari being turned into mordrem left-and-right, it would’ve been easy to assume she’d been corrupted. She made a mistake and we can’t always rely on narrative tropes to ensure that she’s on the right side. Heroes do some pretty dumb things, too; some even betray their friends if they think it’s for the greater good.

So try not to take it personally when your avatar starts berating Caithe, as Caithe is very used to taking on the blame and there’s only so much story the writers can reasonably implement at a time. And things do get better by the end of the chapter (if you haven’t gotten that far, I’ll try not to spoil things further).

I still don’t trust Caithe. I’m upset that the PC would leave her alone with the baby.

Torolan.5816:

I personally think the commander is much too soft with Caithe and should dismiss her at every opportunity. She can stay a shadow and help from afar, but not close to the commander.

Why?
Unreflected:
She let her sister get killed by her lover. Neither wise nor very strong willed, no other known firstborn is of that mindset. I don´t buy either “I killed her to keep the secret” and “Oh, the Centaurs that did nothing to Wynne for months attacked Faolain all of a sudden” rationale.
Secretive:
She stole the egg and never said why until lately. Trahearne at least was very honest with his wild hunt and was basically dragged kicking and screaming into the whole afair. Staying cryptic is not helpful if you´re a confessed murderer of your own close kind.

I completely agree with you.. Id personaly go further than just screaming at her.. considering the connection, the commander could be murderous with her for taking the egg away from them.
Wish Trahearane survived instead..

I agree with Ohoni and i would personaly send her away just like Lazarus.
I dont even understand why cant we leave the hatchling in the care of the exalted or in our own..

I dont agree much with the OP, it seems like we are the polar opposites in our feelings,
Id personaly be far more strict with Caithe (if i couldnt kill her) and be mad with Taimi, not because of what she does, but because she became arrogant and did these things behind pcs back too.
But yeah.. Rytlock tell us about the sword already.. I am starting to hate him for stealing Ruriks sword..

But our disagreement eventually leads to an agreement: while i dont think we ever had much choice in reactions, id like to get some.
Especialy given that further we get in ls3 the less interaction (press F) we get with the npcs.
The decisions can stay the same. While i would want to recruit lazarus, storytellingly wise it would be hard to expand on 2 choices: instead if you had the choices in the way you say it, like we had with (charismatic, diplomatic, ferocious) or just 2 (calm or violent). You could end up with the same result, but it would give the player some ability to feel more like theyr pc.
It would be perfect if they were voiced, but at least written is something.

Honestly, the PC doesn’t feel much like a PC to me anymore after PS. None of my PC’s would have let Caithe go near that egg after what she had done.

Good thing I’m a role player and I don’t play any of my characters as ‘commander’ at least. :v

There’s already a discussion about this. I don’t trust Caithe because she’s proven herself untrustworthy.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Caithe-LVS3-Possible-Spoilers/6293643

Torolan.5816:

I personally think the commander is much too soft with Caithe and should dismiss her at every opportunity. She can stay a shadow and help from afar, but not close to the commander.

Why?
Unreflected:
She let her sister get killed by her lover. Neither wise nor very strong willed, no other known firstborn is of that mindset. I don´t buy either “I killed her to keep the secret” and “Oh, the Centaurs that did nothing to Wynne for months attacked Faolain all of a sudden” rationale.
Secretive:
She stole the egg and never said why until lately. Trahearne at least was very honest with his wild hunt and was basically dragged kicking and screaming into the whole afair. Staying cryptic is not helpful if you´re a confessed murderer of your own close kind.

The memory seeds are presented as a reasonably accurate portrayal of events. So Caithe did kill Wynne to keep the secret. (Which may not have been the best thing she could have done, but she was young, confused, in love, and had just been told her lover wasn’t who she thought she was.)

When it comes to the centaurs, Wynne points out later that Faolain picked that fight. Basically, Caithe was blinded by her love enough that she didn’t recognise what Faolain was really like. What probably shocked Caithe out of that blindness was Faolain saying in a matter-of-fact way that she’s going to torture Wynne for information.

We go back to Twilight Arbor story mode and the advice from Logan about Caithe.

L: She always has some trick up her sleeve, and never thinks to tell anyone else what it is. Still, I trust her. Mostly.
PC: I’ll take that as a guarded recommendation. Thank you.

Our reaction about her seems logical.
Regarding Marjory : I’m glad she’s able to defy our way of thinking. She’s not a random mercenary. She’s a member of Dragon’s Watch, and a person.

To elaborate on my post, and after reading the responses here, I will say that what bothers me the most about what was done with the PC and Caithe, is that Caithe is a major character, a member of Destiny’s Edge, and the mentor to any Sylvari character you create. I’ve never seen her in a negative light, she just has flaws like the rest of us and has shown great determination to not give in to evil, especially after what she experienced with Faolain’s treachery. In fact, she was one of the characters who initially opened conversation to bring DE back together during Vanilla GW2. How can anyone think that someone like that would be up to anything nefarious? I just can’t stand how the PC and the rest of the characters made blatant assumptions about CAITHE of all people. They jumped to conclusions with no factual evidence.

As I said in my original post, I never, ever assumed that Caithe stole the egg for evil, and did not view her as responsible for Faolain’s poor decision-making (the blame lies solely on her, she was in charge of her own destiny, after all. And Caithe killing that one Sylvari before Faolain could torture her was a sign of mercy). I just can’t udnerstand why the writers would make all of the characters view Caithe evilly, when I saw no evidence of evil in her. It’s really making me hate my PC’s personality, because IRL I would never be so cruel to someone when I had no idea what happened. I would ask for an explanation instead of being in such deep denial.

Amaimon.7823:

I don’t think the PC was irrationally upset. Remember that Caithe distanced herself from the Commander, snatched the egg, and ran away from the Commander when roads crossed. The Commander at the time didn’t know did that Caithe was getting the egg to Tarir, all the Commander sees is ‘a sylvari who steals the egg that could’ve been our saving’.
So with all things considered, I think the PC was very rational in their decisions. Even though Caithe redeemed herself, a hurt pride is not easily fixed, and we see now with Lazarus that the Commander is no longer willing to take the little risks

But that is the thing, just by looking at the replies in this thread alone, let alone the others, you should be able to tell that not every player thinks like you. I know I don’t. I don’t have any problem with Caither whatsoever, because I understand why she made the choices she did. Its jarring to me to then have my PC have the complete opposite reaction literally every time Caithe appears in the story.

Its a really minor thing for me (even though it would be a substantial amount of work), but I would love it if ANet could somehow implement different dialogue options at key points in each episode. It could either be an actual choice that your character makes, or the choice is automatically made based on which one of your personality trait scores is higher (charisma, ferocity, diplomacy).

OriOri.8724:

Amaimon.7823:

I don’t think the PC was irrationally upset. Remember that Caithe distanced herself from the Commander, snatched the egg, and ran away from the Commander when roads crossed. The Commander at the time didn’t know did that Caithe was getting the egg to Tarir, all the Commander sees is ‘a sylvari who steals the egg that could’ve been our saving’.
So with all things considered, I think the PC was very rational in their decisions. Even though Caithe redeemed herself, a hurt pride is not easily fixed, and we see now with Lazarus that the Commander is no longer willing to take the little risks

But that is the thing, just by looking at the replies in this thread alone, let alone the others, you should be able to tell that not every player thinks like you. I know I don’t. I don’t have any problem with Caither whatsoever, because I understand why she made the choices she did. Its jarring to me to then have my PC have the complete opposite reaction literally every time Caithe appears in the story.

Its a really minor thing for me (even though it would be a substantial amount of work), but I would love it if ANet could somehow implement different dialogue options at key points in each episode. It could either be an actual choice that your character makes, or the choice is automatically made based on which one of your personality trait scores is higher (charisma, ferocity, diplomacy).

I’m actually glad that I haven’t gotten to HoT and LWS3 with a Sylvari, because it would be even more jarring for me, after the trust and rapport that that character built with Caithe. And I, too, miss being able to make decisions in the story, even if the eventual ending is the same no matter what. I also still am upset about Charisma, Ferocity, and Diplomacy being essentially taken out of the game. They still exist, yes, and you can pick one of the three in character creation, but they play absolutely no role in the entire game, now. If you pick a “Noble” or “Charismatic” dialogue option, it doesn’t affect you whatsoever. I still don’t understand why they nullified those choices.

I don’t have issues with Caithe - I think she’s been in something of an impossible situation for many years where either which way she goes in terms of her secret she’s wrong, and she knows it - and definitely on my Sylvari main it seems odd to be so cagey with her as she (my character) I figured as understanding how difficult it’s been for Caithe. Now Caithe’s trying to make it up, and even with the best will in the world, that’s going to be tough.

I can understand a character of other races being a bit more on edge, but as we operate on a "one-size-fits-all" dialogue, I think it’s one of those times I just go with it and hope the Commander mellows out eventually. Alternatively, the Commander goes completely barking from the bloodstone farming, being all paranoid and short with everyone whilst hallucinating rainbow unicorns and sad souls.

That said, have quite enjoyed the voice acting for all involved, and I do genuinely think the dialogue is improving. I’m very interested in seeing where all of this ends up.