Guild Wars 2

Greeting fellow humans, kittens, barbaric humans, gnomes, and plant-like creatures.

First of all let me tell you all that I have played and enjoyed the living story, but if there is one thing that turns me off the story when I try to immerse in it is being forced into the hero rule.

I hate being forced into the hero rule it is just something I dislike. Now I understand that creating a chance for the player running around killing everything in sight might be problematic, however maybe something slightly less good, less heroic, because I know that sometimes I do not want to be the hero and hate being forced into that rule.

Wanted to hear what the community thinks about this.

tl;dr option to not be as heroic, thoughts?

Thanks for any thoughts or opinions you share here!

Long live Tyria!

Actually A-Net should force their devs to play at least 30 hours of Dragon Age origin.
That would fix absolutely everything in GW2

Looking at your threat’s title I guess you want to be “less good” and not “more mundane”?

In the past, you had the change to react to NPCs differently and choosing that Personality is still part of character creation. Its use in game has just vanished.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scoundrel#Personalities

The home instance would have been the place to reflect your personality, but it looks like Devs have given up on that idea.
How would a home district look like for a Brute? NPCs could run away from you in fear. A noble? NPCs could bow. A Captivating one? NPCs could wave at you and throw kisses.

I don’t think you should have more “evil” choices. What we need are the emotional and moral consequences of what we are doing in game. The game does not have a lot of those.

I don’t know why you think not being heroic is what you want. Perhaps you want more of a Byronic Hero rather than a non-hero?

Thanks for the link, Tobias! I’ve come across this archetype before, but I never knew there was an actual term for it.

Zaxares.5419:

Thanks for the link, Tobias! I’ve come across this archetype before, but I never knew there was an actual term for it.

It’s not commonly used, most people tend to lump them into “anti hero” which is . . . not the same.

Also not the same as “designated protagonist” which is something else – not that it’s a bad thing. There was a series on TNT I enjoyed where the group involved were definitely “designated protagonists” – “Leverage”.

I’m not even sure what the OP exactly is asking about. If they’re talking about having “kill this kitty or kick the puppy” choices getting added to the game? I think that’s a completely unnecessary and bad choice to drop into the game. (Much less the traditional “good as harp-playing, tree-hugging angels while evil are puppy-murdering, candy-stealing, shortsighted thugs”).

Or as we call it around the tabletop: “Paladin vs Chaotic Stupid”.

Ahh Paladin vs. Chaotic Stupid (murder hobos as we call them), haven’t had a talk about that since… Last week as I attempted to explain to our paladin that there is more than one way to role play that concept…

I do agree with you that making it completely black and white is a bad idea. What I was trying to say was that I believe the game needs some more grey. Not necessarily right out evil, however maybe slightly more greyish. Maybe a choice in our action, as Gorani pointed out, there was one hardly used system in the game where your choice kinda mattered and they removed even that, I also agree with him that there are no moral consequences to our action.

Also Tobia’s link to the Byronic hero might be more in-line with what I hope. Maybe even a couple of tree-lines with multiple endings depending on your choice…

Gotta say I wouldnt mind a bit more chaotic approach. My favorite character is my ranger. An entity in which (in my mind atleast) shouldn’t give much of a kitten about other people in general. Oh if he sees a little girl about to be killed by a bandit sure hel put an arrow in his face and take her home. But he wont stay for dinner and he certainly wont decline the reward for finding her before going off to collect the bounty on the bandit head he has tied to his belt.

So when I see him say some of the lines he does in the game its kinda… well it kinda feels like. “This is NOT the character I raised from level one”

Shadelang.3012:

Gotta say I wouldnt mind a bit more chaotic approach. My favorite character is my ranger. An entity in which (in my mind atleast) shouldn’t give much of a kitten about other people in general. Oh if he sees a little girl about to be killed by a bandit sure hel put an arrow in his face and take her home. But he wont stay for dinner and he certainly wont decline the reward for finding her before going off to collect the bounty on the bandit head he has tied to his belt.

He won’t even hide it when getting the little girl safely home?

On my side, I play my ranger more as a scout, or someone who is more comfortable acting alone or with a smaller group than as a soldier in a strictly regimented arrangement. That’s why he told the Vigil to go jump off a bridge when they tried recruitment

So when I see him say some of the lines he does in the game its kinda… well it kinda feels like. “This is NOT the character I raised from level one”

I got over it when I facepalmed hard several times during Prophecies. “Put an arrow in Markis’ back now . . . now . . . NOW . . . aw darnit, you know he’s going to betray you later.”

RIGHT?! good god so many problems in tyria can be solved with a preemptive arrow to the face. Crazy charr shamans? Arrow to the face. Creepy ghost thing? Arrow to the face. Evil god coming to rend the souls of mortals? Multiple Arrows to the face. Scarlet? Liberal application of arrows to the face.

You are quite fortunate. Few experience so much of arrow-do so soon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Shadelang.3012:

Gotta say I wouldnt mind a bit more chaotic approach. My favorite character is my ranger. An entity in which (in my mind atleast) shouldn’t give much of a kitten about other people in general. Oh if he sees a little girl about to be killed by a bandit sure hel put an arrow in his face and take her home. But he wont stay for dinner and he certainly wont decline the reward for finding her before going off to collect the bounty on the bandit head he has tied to his belt.

He won’t even hide it when getting the little girl safely home?

On my side, I play my ranger more as a scout, or someone who is more comfortable acting alone or with a smaller group than as a soldier in a strictly regimented arrangement. That’s why he told the Vigil to go jump off a bridge when they tried recruitment

So when I see him say some of the lines he does in the game its kinda… well it kinda feels like. “This is NOT the character I raised from level one”

I got over it when I facepalmed hard several times during Prophecies. “Put an arrow in Markis’ back now . . . now . . . NOW . . . aw darnit, you know he’s going to betray you later.”

See? Exactly what I mean. I play my Mesmer as an insane person who creates clones of herself because she is the only one who will get the job efficiently done. If she finds that little girl, she will kill the bandit for kittens and giggles, she might even help the girl depending on her mood. She isn’t however by any means a nice person.

Now imagine if you will that during one of the missions, you had an objective to do. You would have three options, to send all your forces to rush the main gate, to go on a solo scout mission to get as much information as you can get about the weakness of the keep, or go in as a small strike team, to remove the leaders quickly and quietly. I believe that would be much more fun and give most people the chance to do what they want. After all the roleplaying part of the game should be about roleplaying if nothing else.

I have my own internal story of my characters forming their own little adventuring band (now alongside the Biconics), and while they generally still oppose the Dragons and are “heroic”, their motivations can be quite varied.

I, too, would like us, along with the biconics, to be more “person-before-hero” in the sense that we are not perfect Mary sue or Marty Stues which are all so benevolent and altruistic. Maybe if we can choose three new personal story paths to develop our personal reasons for joining the fight instead of something like “For the Queen~” when you’re a street rat and must not really like the nobles and ministers alike.

Hell, even if our character was given a mental disorder to explain why he’s so hellbent on killing forces of nature might be cool[Luckily, there are dragons, or else he might be swinging a sword at passing gusts of wind.]. Simply put, we need clear and consistent(<-this is important) motives for all characters for the plot to feel relevant to everybody(despite being a dragon that will eventually destroy the planet. People don’t care about that kind of stuff a lot, look at global warming for inspiration).

The now removed personality options could have been used for something like that to a degree. I don’t see this happening anytime soon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I got over it when I facepalmed hard several times during Prophecies. “Put an arrow in Markis’ back now . . . now . . . NOW . . . aw darnit, you know he’s going to betray you later.”

I felt like that about that friendly elderly guy with that accent, the one from Orr. I wanted to throw him overboard during that voyage to the Crystal Desert, but the undead ship crew may have reacted strangely.

Jokes aside, a friend of mine no longer feels comfortable in the game because it is getting too dark for his taste. I would be happy about having more dialogue choices as a character though, very often “my dialogue” is nothing i would have said at all. I miss the old Personality system, they should at least bring that back.

Would be a very interesting idea, but require a great deal of pathing and writing that may not work that well in an MMO. I think that darker themes can be achieved without our character devolving into pure evil scum by presenting us with more morally ambiguous choices and bringing to light certain character flaws. Take for example the thief profession. From a general standpoint being a thief isn’t what we would consider a noble occupation. However even as a thief you can be an idealistic hero, think Robin Hood, or a self-interested anti-hero, think Garrett from the Thief series. Both can join to fight Zhaitan for different reasons, one for his own interests and survival and another to protect his friends and family. Those type of nuances can keep professions, from a story standpoint, seem more unique and fresh

Overall, I think that the player character shouldn’t be such an idealistic hero. Honestly I thought this was what Anet was trying to do with the various branching origin stories for the player character. A street rat human origin story or the sorcerous shaman charr story arc shows a player character with a difficult upbringing and lots of adversity. It’s possible but unlikely that these player characters become the idealistic hero that is the player character. It’s kind of a shame that these various backgrounds don’t meaningfully impact how the player character develops and who they become.
Okay wall of text over.