Guild Wars 2

As someone with almost 3000 hrs clocked in my lv80s…this was a refreshing change. Come on now, it was only 1 hour. Was 1 hour of playing as a new character THAT bad?

I’d love to see how people will lose their kitten if ANet had Bonus Packs like they did in GW1 ha…Although given the direction ANet is taking, I really hope they can nail the firstborn story right…this one seemed blah. A bonus pack for the “Story of the Firstborns” would be so perfect.

Avster.1935:

As someone with almost 3000 hrs clocked in my lv80s…this was a refreshing change. Come on now, it was only 1 hour. Was 1 hour of playing as a new character THAT bad?

It was for me. I don’t plan on repeating the experience. If a guildie asks for help, sure, I’ll do it. Otherwise, bah. Humbug.

Avster.1935:

I’d love to see how people will lose their kitten if ANet had Bonus Packs like they did in GW1 ha…

As previously stated in this very thread, that’s ‘hey, bonus stuff!’ and not something that one must do in order to progress through the story. I, personally, probably wouldn’t spend too much time on it, just as I didn’t spend much time on the Bonus Pack in Guild Wars, but a GW2 Bonus Pack would be great for people who enjoy that sort of thing, and I would not be opposed to it.

FrizzFreston.5290:

As for artifically imposed complexity, lol, this whole game world is artificially complex, I don’t see why we would keep holding on to our shiny fork when we are met a memory of a knife wielder. It’s like saying “Oh hey I worked so hard for my fork, so I should use a fork at all times. It’s just artificially complex to use a knife.”

For me, it felt like “Hey, you grinded for your gear, weapons, traits? Nice, now take it all off, get this stick and go poke some enemies for achievements with it!” I agree that a single episode is okay and totally doable, I just didn’t really enjoy. Probably I’m just too conservative and sometimes obsessed with efficiency; so I enjoyed experimenting with my character’s builds and tactics to conquer all Queen’s Gauntlet bosses including Liadri, but I considered Caithe’s transformation to be annoying.

Yes, having Caithe’s skills for playing as Caithe makes sense. Yes, the instances are easy enough to spam buttons and still complete everything without dying. But I just didn’t think it was appropriate to become Caithe in the first place! I agree with Tachenon here:

Tachenon.5270:

That’s all Caithe’s past misadventures should have been: cutscenes.

In my opinion, of course.

There was plenty of opportunity for ‘interaction with the game’ using our own characters. We could have fought our way into tremendously dangerous places, fought horrific bosses, maybe even fought the ghosts of the centaurs, in order to plant the memory seeds in the right spots. Imagine if we’d had the option to find some way to put those centaur ghosts to rest, which, for a sylvari character especially, might have been a very cool thing to do. Restoring the family honor, so to speak.

That would have worked much better for me.

Helping Caithe as a subordinate who is inclined to follow the leader’s orders would’ve made more sense story-wise and gameplay-wise. Why are we Caithe, and not some kind of ghost-warden? It’s a memory, but we should only be able to see it. Why can we make decisions? It’s past, it already happened, the amount of killed asura supervisors is set. Why should we be handed an idiot ball and act as we don’t like, instead of observing and doing as we’re told as a subordinate?

The answer to everything is “because the game designers thought it would be fun”. Okay, it was indeed fun for some people, and I’m even fine with it as long as it’s just one episode. I just personally didn’t really enjoy it.

I think some people are also missing out on something possibly interesting regarding the game design when playing as caithe: stealth missions. While I get that people didn’t like it, this is probably the first public implementation of a stealth based mission where NPCs have a cone of vision. That being said, I get the feeling that Anet is testing out a lot of possibly uncharted territory here.

Critique more than complaints…I didn’t mind playing as a different character so much as :
a) lighting for scenes, some of us have visual difficulties that we’ve already dealt with in our settings. Switching it up all the time had me needing to go into settings for each instance to make it so I could see subtle things like the visual fields for the asura, etc. The different sand traps, etc., in the centaur fight were just a crap shoot if I could see them or not, even after adjusting gamma and other settings. I wish they would have faded back into normal colors once the fights started. Or maybe that’s what they intended…perhaps no one can see the ground effects.
b) “Blink” aspects on skills that I’ve never used before thrown at me in relatively tough instances. I hit the heal, and end up blinking back into the pack of mobs or into one of the sand traps…well, that was worthless. Ok, now I have to be sure which direction I’m headed when I heal, in addition to having to learn other skill “blink” actions. It was a bit much to have that on a heal when the other skills have transports where I end up zipping into unintended space and wasting damage. IMHO, just a bit too much bouncing and zipping around for a set of skills we have never used before. I pretty much ended up kiting a lot, caltrops, and the “whirling blades” skill for most things.

Ditto on giving her a couple of bow skills. Something with a shorter timer and some range would have given those of us with a lower “twitch” rating some breathing room.

Tachenon.5270:

Avster.1935:

As someone with almost 3000 hrs clocked in my lv80s…this was a refreshing change. Come on now, it was only 1 hour. Was 1 hour of playing as a new character THAT bad?

It was for me. I don’t plan on repeating the experience. If a guildie asks for help, sure, I’ll do it. Otherwise, bah. Humbug.

Avster.1935:

I’d love to see how people will lose their kitten if ANet had Bonus Packs like they did in GW1 ha…

As previously stated in this very thread, that’s ‘hey, bonus stuff!’ and not something that one must do in order to progress through the story. I, personally, probably wouldn’t spend too much time on it, just as I didn’t spend much time on the Bonus Pack in Guild Wars, but a GW2 Bonus Pack would be great for people who enjoy that sort of thing, and I would not be opposed to it.

But this is bonues stuff… You can skip a chapter if you want to and still progress two weeks later…

Can I please ask who the kitty cares? This episode literally takes an hour to complete. Trust me, it is not the end of the world if you can’t lolfaceroll mobs with your precious lv80s. This is how video games work sometimes; you just have to play the game and get over it.

I don’t get why people are saying that they are being ‘forced’ to “play caithe” or “play the bad guy” when nobody is forcing you to play at all.

I, for one, found it incredibly refreshing to play as Caithe (who is OP as hell). I mean we play our lvl 80s during the whole game. Why not change it up a little bit?

I think this is one of those things you just have accept if you don’t like it. You can’t deny original (for GW2) mechanics that offer something new to 95% of the player base just because 5% are feeling parochial. Anyone who doesn’t like it can do the instances with the help of friends and then forget about them. It’s not like Caithe shows much particular personality that anyone can object to. She just blindly follows events much like our own player characters.

People who want ascended armor but don’t like crafting have a much worse time of it.

I have seven fully developed level 80 with mostly ascended armor and I am very to somewhat familiar with those seven professions. My eighth character is my level 3 pack mule and is you guessed it a thief. I despise thieves and what is the first character they force you to play? A kittening thief.

I managed to skill spam my way through the story OK, but now I need to get the achievements so I can get the armor skins. I see much frustration and anger in my future. Thanks ANet.

(Yes I can go with a party and get carried through, but that takes the personal accomplishment out of it for me.)

Tachenon.5270:

If you want me to know what Caithe did in the past, please just show me a cutscene.

Thanks.

I disagree. Playing as Caithe was far more fulfilling than watching a cutscene. If I wanted to watch a cutscene, I’d go watch a movie instead instead of playing a game.

Thanks.

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

I have seven fully developed level 80 with mostly ascended armor and I am very to somewhat familiar with those seven professions. My eighth character is my level 3 pack mule and is you guessed it a thief. I despise thieves and what is the first character they force you to play? A kittening thief.

I managed to skill spam my way through the story OK, but now I need to get the achievements so I can get the armor skins. I see much frustration and anger in my future. Thanks ANet.

(Yes I can go with a party and get carried through, but that takes the personal accomplishment out of it for me.)

Sigh …the odds of someone disliking thief vs the majority …you see where I’m going with this? Yeah. This argument can be used by anyone with a particular dislike for a certain profession, it’s such a niche issue that it’s almost meh…

I’m sorry that you don’t like that profession, however from what I read, you like personal achievement, so why not attempt to be good at playing an OP thief and get your rewards?

“I couldn’t play this particular chapter with my own skills, my own skins, soloing all achievements, operating the mouse with my left foot while balancing a cherry on top of my head in RL” = “ANet won’t let me play the way I want”

Avster.1935:

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

I have seven fully developed level 80 with mostly ascended armor and I am very to somewhat familiar with those seven professions. My eighth character is my level 3 pack mule and is you guessed it a thief. I despise thieves and what is the first character they force you to play? A kittening thief.

I managed to skill spam my way through the story OK, but now I need to get the achievements so I can get the armor skins. I see much frustration and anger in my future. Thanks ANet.

(Yes I can go with a party and get carried through, but that takes the personal accomplishment out of it for me.)

Sigh …the odds of someone disliking thief vs the majority …you see where I’m going with this? Yeah. This argument can be used by anyone with a particular dislike for a certain profession, it’s such a niche issue that it’s almost meh…

I’m sorry that you don’t like that profession, however from what I read, you like personal achievement, so why not attempt to be good at playing an OP thief and get your rewards?

If there was a replay mote that might not be to bad, but that topic is in another thread. Dodge master plus cinematic replay plus thief skills equals fury. Do I really need to jump backwards into who knows what every time I need to heal?

Everything about this LS makes the gameplay frustration be almost unbearable….like literally. I honestly never felt this level of frustration in any mmo i’ve played. Not only are u forced to play something u detest, but if u want to finish the challange achievement for the wannabecool “horse people” be ready to face the most literally retrded mechanics and gimmics ever invented…cripple…50 sand storms whatever, laggy skills, and on top of that INVULNERABLE stage of the mob over and over again.

I have no clue who in the history of gamers that turned dev ever literally EVER thought throwing random invulnerabilities FOR NO kittenG REASON would make the game more “competitive”. It literally makes a horrible frustrating experience literally nobody would ever repeat.

Be sure if a guildie comes for my help i will politely tell him to GTFO.

Worst LS by far, a record just when u thought there are no more records to beat.

I actually liked playing as Caithe. The flashback mechanic is a good way to get backstory, to get a feel for a character’s capabilities, etc. Her skills are reasonably fun to use.

The best thing, though, is that there can’t be any complaints of this class or that class being screwed by the mechanics. You all get the same skills, so (choice of armor aside — and attributes, equipment, and traits should really be overridden in content like this too) any complaints are mostly going to be L2P issues.

I wouldn’t mind having some sidequest (ie, non-mandatory) flashbacks with the biconics or other key characters to help introduce the characters to new players and familiarize the player with their skillset.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Manasa Devi.7958:

I cringe at the idea of doing this 7 more times, whereas I enjoyed playing previous story instances with different professions.

Can always play with a friend…

Several problems:

• Finding people who are also interested in doing the story 8 times. I don’t know any.
• Finding a subset among those people who want to do it as Caithe so I don’t have to. Won’t be easy I bet.
• Getting over my aversion of standing around doing nothing while people click through dialogue options when I’m not the instance owner.

Designing content with terrible replay value defeats the purpose of making these instances repeatable to begin with.

Manasa Devi.7958:

• Finding people who are also interested in doing the story 8 times. I don’t know any.
• Finding a subset among those people who want to do it as Caithe so I don’t have to. Won’t be easy I bet.

While I prefer to play the story instances with my own group of friends, this isn’t always possible, so I resort to LFG sometimes. I have had absolutely NO problems at all finding groups to run story or achievements with. I haven’t even had to create the LFG listings myself as in most cases I just joined existing ones. So, I think you “bet” wrong, and you should give it a chance and actually try it before making a judgement there.

Manasa Devi.7958:

• Getting over my aversion of standing around doing nothing while people click through dialogue options when I’m not the instance owner.

I can’t help you with that.

I played my lvl 80 chars for 2 years …. i loved to play something else…But yea…this forum is full of “I DON’T WANT THAT SO THAT SHOULD NOT BE THAT WAY” …just accept it or avoid it….

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Manasa Devi.7958:

• Finding people who are also interested in doing the story 8 times. I don’t know any.
• Finding a subset among those people who want to do it as Caithe so I don’t have to. Won’t be easy I bet.

While I prefer to play the story instances with my own group of friends, this isn’t always possible, so I resort to LFG sometimes. I have had absolutely NO problems at all finding groups to run story or achievements with. I haven’t even had to create the LFG listings myself as in most cases I just joined existing ones. So, I think you “bet” wrong, and you should give it a chance and actually try it before making a judgement there.

Manasa Devi.7958:

• Getting over my aversion of standing around doing nothing while people click through dialogue options when I’m not the instance owner.

I can’t help you with that.

Talk to me 3-9 months from now, that’s when I’ll want to do those instances on other characters.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Several problems:

• Finding people who are also interested in doing the story 8 times. I don’t know any.
• Finding a subset among those people who want to do it as Caithe so I don’t have to. Won’t be easy I bet.
• Getting over my aversion of standing around doing nothing while people click through dialogue options when I’m not the instance owner.

Designing content with terrible replay value defeats the purpose of making these instances repeatable to begin with.

It’s story, the story is key here, not the gameplay. The replay value of story is as good as it gets for reading a book three four or in your case 7 times. I mean, you say it as if you want the story to fully encorporate “replay value” and not let story run it’s natural course just because it might be the same story over for 7 times? Might as well make fully random story every time you go through it because that would make perfect sense using that argument.

Even though I didn’t like the story aspects of the previous chapter, I still wound up playing five of my guys through it all, and then going back getting all the achievements. I did it partly because of the key reward, and partly because it was short, and partly because the bosses weren’t as annoying as usual. I played through it with my NPE ele (scepter/dagger), my 1st mesmer (greatsword – sword/focus), my 1st guardian (sword/focus – staff), my 2nd ranger (greatsword/longbow), and my 1st warrior (axe/mace – longbow). I ran the heck out of the Silverwastes stuff with these guys, too — well, except for the labyrinth, which I didn’t like. Over all I had a pretty good time with it.

This one, though, no. No replays. As previously stated, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Caithe’s misadventures as cutscenes, I think that would have been just as informative as ‘playing’ them, but as for ‘playing’ them, it was kinda like how Quantum Leap would have been, if Sam couldn’t take control of whoever he leaped into, and could only ‘ride along’ and observe.

And another thing! Why the heck did Jory go along? It would have been, in my opinion, much more interesting to have a secondborn sylvari go with us as a guide, maybe even one who’d survived the encounter with the asura. Imagine playing an asura and revisiting that scene with one of the sylvari who’d actually been there…

Living Story? Meh. Lost opportunities.

Seems to me like there was a lot of work put into those skills – animation and all that good stuff. I don’t know why I think that wasn’t done just for one relatively little section of the game.

Are we to expect an assassin class?

Otherwise, I join the ones who hated playing Caithe. I don’t like melee. As others did, I honed my own characters and love to play them and definitely more efficiently. I.e. the Asura lab – I first entered with a group and someone else was the instance owner. My necro prepared some seasoned mincemeat of the stuff in there. To make a long story short, the instance owner blundered and we all got out before mission was done. We went back inside, this time I was the instance owner. I hated it. Hated, hated, hated it, every single time I was fighting something I was thinking “OMFG, I would have killed this thing 10 times over on my necro.”

Also, didn’t see anyone making this observation, but, considering Caithe’s “young” look, it seems that Sylvari age, don’t they? And also they can change the color of their glow as they age, right?

Otherwise, let me compare the LS to another world acclaimed and most wanted cliffhanger story: Song of Ice and Fire. Big difference? Yea. That fat guy knows how to make things darn interesting. You don’t mind that you got to wait a little bit more (and hope he doesn’t eat himself to death before coming up with the next book) because so much STUFF is going on in the meantime. GW2 has so many open possibilities it is, honestly, unbelievable that they couldn’t find someone to write the stories better. Heck, I am sure any of the most active and most knowledgeable players would be able to give a suggestion or two. For free. Or who knows, maybe make some kind of story-making contest for each episode, and give an in-game prize for the winner.

Vesuvius.9874:

Tachenon.5270:

If you want me to know what Caithe did in the past, please just show me a cutscene.

Thanks.

I disagree. Playing as Caithe was far more fulfilling than watching a cutscene. If I wanted to watch a cutscene, I’d go watch a movie instead instead of playing a game.

Thanks.

I disagree. History like this is better told through cut scenes as the outcome and actions are predetermined. If there was any chance for deviation it would be a game, as is it’s more of a visual novel. I adore visual novels but this one just felt forced and clunky.

In this instance immatation was not the best form of flattery and im sure while some people love playing MGS:Caithe or Assassin’s Creed: Nightmare Court, it wasn’t for me.

Wow… such incredibly extreme opinions on this issue… I thought playing as Caithe was really fun and an interesting diversion from the same old monotonous content where I kill yet another thing with my zerker mesmer for the 10,000,000th time. It took all of 20 seconds to read the skills and get a feel for fighting as Caithe. As long as they don’t do this too often, I think it’s fine. It’s a perfectly valid form of gameplay, it’s fun, and it breaks up the monotony. I wouldn’t mind doing this again in Season 3 or 4 for one episode.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Several problems:

• Finding people who are also interested in doing the story 8 times. I don’t know any.
• Finding a subset among those people who want to do it as Caithe so I don’t have to. Won’t be easy I bet.
• Getting over my aversion of standing around doing nothing while people click through dialogue options when I’m not the instance owner.

Designing content with terrible replay value defeats the purpose of making these instances repeatable to begin with.

It’s story, the story is key here, not the gameplay. The replay value of story is as good as it gets for reading a book three four or in your case 7 times. I mean, you say it as if you want the story to fully encorporate “replay value” and not let story run it’s natural course just because it might be the same story over for 7 times? Might as well make fully random story every time you go through it because that would make perfect sense using that argument.

I couldn’t give half a wag of a dead dogs tail about the story. I can’t stomach Destiny’s Edge, suffering through their infantile bickering and horribly clichéd reconciliation while doing the story mode dungeons has put me off those characters forever.

I’m in it for the gameplay. GW2 is a game, its first consideration should be the quality of its gameplay. And especially when going for replay value, story is a secondary consideration. Why do you think people complain about having to sit through dialogue again and again when going for the achievements in these LS instances? Once you know the story, there’s no value to that at all anymore for repeated playthroughs.

Interesting idea. Some semi-fun stealth puzzle moments (which would have been better if it had been about cut in half).

The cutscenes were neat enough, but the moment I felt like I was truly inhabiting Caithe, it just felt… wrong. I am not Caithe. I didn’t play this game to be Caithe.

Also, Faolain is an annoying kitten, but rather than her being my enemy, she is somehow my lover or something (cause I’m inhabiting Caithe’s perspective). She has “abusive manipulator” written all over her. I would have preferred a “stab Faolain” option.

Thanks.

TexZero.7910:

I disagree. History like this is better told through cut scenes as the outcome and actions are predetermined. If there was any chance for deviation it would be a game, as is it’s more of a visual novel. I adore visual novels but this one just felt forced and clunky.

In this instance imitation was not the best form of flattery and im sure while some people love playing MGS:Caithe or Assassin’s Creed: Nightmare Court, it wasn’t for me.

Great every game with only one story line is a visual novel now. Why even make games at all. Everything should be cutscenes! throws hands in the air
Not to mention that you name two games right after, basically countering your own point.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I couldn’t give half a wag of a dead dogs tail about the story. I can’t stomach Destiny’s Edge, suffering through their infantile bickering and horribly clichéd reconciliation while doing the story mode dungeons has put me off those characters forever.

I’m in it for the gameplay. GW2 is a game, its first consideration should be the quality of its gameplay. And especially when going for replay value, story is a secondary consideration. Why do you think people complain about having to sit through dialogue again and again when going for the achievements in these LS instances? Once you know the story, there’s no value to that at all anymore for repeated playthroughs.

Some of the greatest games have fairly simple gameplay while having great story, so that’s a pretty iffy statement right there. Even though the problem here is that you hate the story and only do it for the game play. However, the gameplay isn’t all that different from the rest of the game, except that it’s more uniform because it uses but one character.

The complaints about skipping dialogue are, to me, obviously about having to hear every single line again after failing time and again. But it’s not the sole purpose of the story instances to provide such -extra- challenges, it’s first and foremost to provide story. Then, in order to -add- replay value, they have made these achievements, but they are not “going for replay value”.

Sure, “replay value”-wise this episode obviously less than optimal, way too point out that elephant in the room, but this is living story, it’s about the story. You can hate the story or like the story. But story modes like this one aren’t generally made for the replay value.

It would be great to make a storymode take players into consideration that dont like the story, but eventually you’re trying to tell a story, not make the most appealing gameplay session. If you’re heading in not giving a rats kitten about it then the whole thing will lean on it’s gameplay side while those are made with story in mind. Story sucks? Gameplay will need to be able to stand on it’s own. I haven’t seen any Guild Wars 2 story instance where that was the case. Meaning that the gameplay is generally quite okay, but mostly in conjunction with the story and not as a stand alone thing.

What I think the problem is more than anything else, is that you don’t really have a choice but to play as Caithe, which makes the whole thing stand or fall with Caithe. Because you’re “forced” to relive Caithes memories. Which just clashes being your character with being Caithe. Which could be a great leap which goes beyond certain players.

I think the whole thing is fine, the story is fine, the execution is fine, and I suppose if they only had added the option to play Caithe or not, it would be all fine to everyone else as well on this specific point. To me though it’s no difference from switching from third person view to first person view though.

Well, we have been playing gw2 with our own characters since launch. The change is nice.

Playing through Caithe’s past did not make me like her any more as a character. It did the opposite, it made me feel even more distanced from the story, and made me dislike her more.

I especially hated how the fact that Faolain basically slaughtered a bunch of centaurs was not acknowledge by Caithe, or even suggested at any point. And the only eye witness conveniently runs away, without telling Caithe. That is bad writing.

Tachenon.5270:

After writing and deleting a vitriolic rant that was not in the least constructive, but boy howdy did it make me feel better, I’ll just say I don’t want to play Caithe or any other NPC in this game, ever again.

I’ve got my own characters, thanks. Level 80 and geared up and built to my own specifications. If you want me to know what Caithe did in the past, please just show me a cutscene.

Out of hundreds/thousands of hours playing your own character, surely you can tolerate playing an important, iconic NPC for 1-2 hours to tell the story.

I had fun playing Kieran Thackeray in GW: Beyond and quite liked this story with Caithe to learn more of the Sylvari origins.

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

If there was a replay mote that might not be to bad, but that topic is in another thread. Dodge master plus cinematic replay plus thief skills equals fury. Do I really need to jump backwards into who knows what every time I need to heal?

Replay Mote. Yes, that would definitely help a lot.

Regarding the heal move. If you use it properly it’s actually really good. It allows you to stand and do dmg while taking a bit of heat, and then instantly disengage from combat with a heal, which you can then combo it off with skill #3 and leap back into action.

To those of you, whom would prefer to watch Caithe’s adventures as cutscenes… do you guys know how long those would take? The course of this episode would have taken at least 10-30 minutes of video footage to complete (including -but limited to- the traveling, talking, and fighting that occurs in the instances)… and putting aside what such an undertaking would do to ANet’s budget and 2 week deadline… few players want to spend that long watching a game, they want to PLAY it.

Furthermore, we were not simply watching a memory, we were reliving it, we were Caithe -and for that- it only makes sense that we play as her. Anything else would have been out of place in the context of the story, and would have failed to progress its development as much. No, this was a much needed plot device, but do not fear that it will occur often, if ever again; it was only employed because it would be the BEST way to show/play this segment of the story, it is unlikely that another episode will do so again, and if so, this type of content will be few and far in between. Thus there is no need to worry about ‘wanting to play your own character’, you have done so until now, and will continue to do so after this -one or two episodes played as a different person, do not change the fact that you play your own characters 99% of the time.

On another note, this was quite refreshing to those of us who played GW1, filling us with warm ‘feels’ of the time we played as Togo, Gwen, and the other NPC’s who had bonus missions. Unlike the bonus missions however, this was actually woven into the plot of the story, allowing us to experience lore, but in a matter that did not ‘put us out of game’ so to speak.

I felt this was quite challenging, to me, and all players that do not have a thief -and even to thieves- who do not necessarily have the skill set Caithe uses. I also found the game mechanics deployed during the assault on the Assuran complex to be both an interesting and enjoyable change of pace.

I’m in the “Wish I didn’t have to play Caithe ever again” crowd as well, although it’s not necessarily because of the gameplay of this LS segment. Sure, playing as something different might have been refreshing, but the alt I usually go to for story besides my main is a thief already, so if I had really gotten the desire to play something non-main for me, I already had that option. Still, diversity wasn’t so bad as it mean I could take characters I was worse with/didn’t like as much to the LS and not have to worry about getting thwomped on by baddies – but that’s a purely person-to-person experience. Some folks may find that they don’t like thieves, or be bad as thieves and not want to play them. I’m fine and understanding with that.

My main problem comes from all the story itself. I mean, yeah, it’s an MMO so I know I’m going to be railroaded into things story-wise, and I love linear games so that much isn’t such a big deal – but when Caithe suddenly wanted to come with / stalk me in the living story when she had better things to do, it really made me feel like “Hey, Pact Commander Guy, you’r a full blown idiot. Best go back to kindergarten and learn some things!”

Again, whatever, it’s forced so they can progress their story the way they want to, I can live with that. Next up, we get this one, where we get to be Caithe – the one member of the entirety of Destiny’s Edge I disliked the most. I mean, that love story is about as bad as Twilight, and I’d rather have nothing to do with it. Stealth play was kind of cool, I was down with it and found myself doing better as I kept going about the LS, so that wasn’t the issue – although having to re-watch the unskippable dialogue I’d already seen once or twice (after the second time) was only intensifying in annoyance. Again though, that terrible Twilight-grade love story that I wanted nothing to do with was suddenly forced upon me – I can’t choose to be smart as I am and be like “Oh hey, stop starting stuff with these totally friendly centaurs who obviously think we are the bee’s knees until you started being racist”, no, I just get to be Charlie Manson’s sidekick.

I did the story, I did the dungeon, I know enough about Caithe from that to know what’s going to happen there. I can live with watching cutscenes, or reading text, or interacting with objects and getting different skills – heck, I can even live with my Pact Commander bigwig being a rather insignificant guy when it comes time to getting credit or importance – but I still would like to be that guy. He’s been crafted to look how I want, act as close to how I want as he can, and fight how I want – story wise, I want to feel like my character (however insignificant) is actually involved in the story.

The missions could still have required interaction – you could have a thief-based NPC or even Marjory provide stealth support so you can do the stealth mission to get inside the Asuran base, then plant the seed to watch it play out. You could (as someone else suggested) have to wade through vengeful centaur ghosts (vengeful ghosts totally being a thing, proof be Ascalon) to get to the next location, and see the memory). You could have my character do almost anything besides turn it into the Caithe Twilight story that I had no interest in – and I’m sure others do, given comments here and just common sense.

TL;DR – My main complaint is that I want my character to have more involvement in the story outside of “go from A to B to play as a different person.” It’s an MMO – I didn’t spend all the time I did crafting them the way I wanted just to use someone else. It might have been refreshing gameplay (as in the missions themselves), but I personally don’t care about Caithe and would rather have had it delivered in a less “obtrusive” manner.

KorbanDallas.7389:

TL;DR – My main complaint is that I want my character to have more involvement in the story outside of “go from A to B to play as a different person.” It’s an MMO – I didn’t spend all the time I did crafting them the way I wanted just to use someone else. It might have been refreshing gameplay (as in the missions themselves), but I personally don’t care about Caithe and would rather have had it delivered in a less “obtrusive” manner.

…Your character is Involved in the story, YOU are witnessing the past, to understand whether someone you thought was a friend: is a friend, an enemy, or something in between, a friend with a delicate and complicated dark past that is forcing her to do something shady; to understand whether she is doing something wrong for pitiable reason, something she believes is right, but is not necessarily so, something that IS right, but you are not yet aware of it, or something on lines so gray, it is impossible to judge what is right and wrong; where she is and what she is doing; and most importantly, what YOU are going to do about it. Understanding and dealing with the present requires YOU to see the past, and puts YOU in the right frame of mind, to know just how to deal with it.

Sometimes to further one character’s development, you have to step back and strengthen another’s. Read an epic fantasy, like the Wheel of Time, and perhaps you will understand, how one event, one character, will impact a hundred others; and a hundred others, that one in return. A good story does not focus on one person. And a great character is developed not only by their actions, but by the actions of others. Well, that’s not to say the quality and depth of this story is even a hundredths of Jordan’s, as IT IS NOT, but reference still stands, a story lives and thrives through the acts of many characters, not just one.

I personally did not really like playing as Caithe. It was interesting and different but not what I would have chosen, given the choice between Caithe or my own character.

Having said that, I do not have a problem with it. Everything in this game does not always have to revolve around me as a player. I fully expect there will be things in this game that are not 100% to my liking. I would also hope that the dev’s continue to add a wide variety of interesting content that I may or may not jump up and down about.

If some people enjoyed it, then why be selfish and want that taken away from them?

I just played the Asura Meeting this morning. Not having a Thief character, I was totally befuddled about how Caithe’s skills worked at first, as well as how to properly manage stealth, but after a few close calls at the beginning, I got the hang of it and breezed through the rest of the instance.

TIPS: Skill 5 and Skill 8 are your most powerful options. Use them whenever they are off cooldown. Skill 3 should be your mainstay skill while the other 2 are recharging. If you get in trouble, use Skill 0 to stealth up and either retreat to a safe distance, or just keep attacking. Unlike normal stealth skills, Skill 0’s stealth does not break even if you continue attacking.

I think it was great playing as Caithe. The skills are fun and the Story is cool. Even the stealth aspects were implemented very well.

It would have been better if there had been the option of playing the missions as Caithe, following Caithe, or just watch it as a cutscene.
I often don’t have much time to play GW2, so when I do I intent to fully enjoy whatever character and proffesion I choose to play at that time. When a Living Story mission then forces me to play a different character with a different skillset it just leaves me feeling rather frustrated, and only wanting to rush through it even faster, not paying any attention whatsoever to the story.

(I now also dislike Sylvari even more)

If playing games makes you frustrated you should maybe find a more suitable hobby.

This Living Story episode was same as Guild Wars Bonus Mission Pack in Guild Wars 1.

In this Bonus Mission Pack you could live thru:

• The Battle of Jahai (Turai’s Story)
• The Flight North (Gwen’s Story)
• The Rise of the White Mantle (Saul’s Story)
• The Tengu Accords (Togo’s Story)

Players used those characters skills (Turai, Saul and Togo), threw rocks and played dead (Gwen). It was fun after all when players learn to use those skills.

Same was in Caithe’s Story, it started to be fun when I learned to use all those skills. I just hope that real Thief would have that kind of animation and skills too. Man that would be really acrobatic profession after that. After the Caithe’s talent, I think Sylvari Thieves have been get lazy and use those lame thief skills like other races too. Or maybe Caithe just didn’t want to teach newborn Sylvari thieves to use her skills.

But yes, I liked this episode just because it remids me so much about that GW1 Bonus Mission Pack.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

…Your character is Involved in the story, YOU are witnessing the past, to understand whether someone you thought was a friend…

I’m not witnessing the past, I’m playing the past – something that’s a fixed event that already should have happened, but gives me the illusion of having some sort of control over it, which is false. My character’s only real interaction is “go to place X, and come out of the experience with a single-track mind when it comes to explaining to Jory.” I know that it wasn’t a clear cut case of ‘being attack by centaurs’ as I witnessed it as Caithe, but apparently my real character is prone to not telling Jory what he knows already – that Faolin isn’t nice and Caithe loves her anyways. I mean, I get it, I do, but my characters involvement still ends at “plant seed.” It would be the equivalent of having him pick up and read a journal from Caithe’s bedroom. It’s involvement, but not the level of it I would have liked to see – my character’s involvement is literally having a daydream of the past.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

most importantly, what YOU are going to do about it. Understanding and dealing with the present requires YOU to see the past, and puts YOU in the right frame of mind, to know just how to deal with it…

I guess the main problem here -as far as I’m concerned – is that I was shoehorned into her involvement in the egg at all (as others have said, to the point of her stalking you regardless of if you told her to stop, which would have been a red flag to anyone who would find that behavior suspicious as it obviously is). If she just mysteriously popped up and decided to steal it, it’d be one thing (at least then my character should reasonably be surprised by the turn of events), but as it is all this story has done was shown us how we needed to go to a locked door. From the start, it was a case of either “she’s doing it because of being misguided by Faolin, whom she still loves” or “Caithe wants to make up for something dumb she did before while with Faolin.” Both of which really don’t offer any alternative ways of how to deal with the situation – as what really matters is the conversation when we catch up with Caithe that is undoubtedly going to happen. The newest part hasn’t really made me feel any different about the actions of a person who’s supposed to act like a hero and yet steals from a guy who helped get the gang back together and deal with their personal issues (in dungeons) without so much as a shorthand explanation.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Sometimes to further one character’s development, you have to step back and strengthen another’s. Read an epic fantasy, like the Wheel of Time, and perhaps you will understand, how one event, one character, will impact a hundred others; and a hundred others, that one in return. A good story does not focus on one person… a story lives and thrives through the acts of many characters, not just one.

RIght, I understand that. However, let me use another game for an example, alright? When I played through Mass Effect, I learned about my characters and their entire cultures, but not once did I end up having to play as them – I was my character the entire time. Bonds were formed, I had my favorites, I had history I learned that made me feel different about a character and realized that without them the universe would never be saved – but I wasn’t forced to play that person’s history.
I’ve read plenty of stories, many with intertwined characters and a show of impacts abound. I’ve played games and watched movies where there was massive repercussions for others because of a single persons actions – but what i’m against here is how it’s presented mainly. I do not need to be Caithe to understand this information, particularly what was given to us here. I’m not even asking that Caithe cease to exist or everything gets rewritten – I’m just saying there has got to be a way to deliver this information without ripping me from my body and thrusting it into Caithe as a playable person even though for intents and purposes I really only “control” her for combat, and not for thinking. I enjoyed the gameplay, I just don’t care to be Caithe – and I understand others will, and others did – and feel that there must be a better way around the forcing of it.

Sorry if that was a bit long, but I just wanted to make sure what I was saying wasn’t misunderstood.

I finally got around to finishing the chapter. I’d never played a thief before (full time scepter ele). I didn’t like it, I won’t ever make one now.

KorbanDallas.7389:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

…Your character is Involved in the story, YOU are witnessing the past, to understand whether someone you thought was a friend…

I’m not witnessing the past, I’m playing the past – something that’s a fixed event that already should have happened, but gives me the illusion of having some sort of control over it, which is false.

I’d just like to point out that Ubisoft sold 70 million copies of a game that lets people play the past, so Anet can be forgiven for thinking that people might like that sort of thing.

Brow.9425:

I’d just like to point out that Ubisoft sold 70 million copies of a game that lets people play the past, so Anet can be forgiven for thinking that people might like that sort of thing.

I’m sorry, but that’s a horrible defense. Assassin’s Creed made no pretense about being a game where you play anything but the past, nor did it ever try to give the illusion that you choose how the story plays out.

Its “choice” is in how you approach a particular stealth situation and what strategies you use to complete it.

GW2, on the other hand, started out as a game that gives you some influence in how your story plays out. Over time, they have moved away from that in a lot of ways, but they can hardly throw us a bone anymore at all. The closest they come to it now is two different dialogue options once in a while, that of course have no influence on how the story plays out.

And even that is missing sometimes in vital situations, where the ability to feel the illusion of agency is highly desired.

Honestly, I feel like the living story has identity issues – major ones. It seems they can’t even consistently deliver episodes that are loved and hated in one particular way. The longer I follow it, the more I get the feeling like we are test subjects for a series of experiments. Which I would be ok with if this wasn’t their flagship content.

Brow.9425:

I’d just like to point out that Ubisoft sold 70 million copies of a game that lets people play the past, so Anet can be forgiven for thinking that people might like that sort of thing.

And others have sold millions of copies of games that let you play the past, or the present, or as aliens, or even as goats. If I really wanted to play the past of Guild Wars 2, I’d go back to playing Guild Wars 1 (which I played for many a years, and had an immense amount of fun with it’s instanced content that felt like it scaled to the number of people I brought around, never making me feel like I needed at max more than 7 other people (who by the end could be filled out with AI).

I understand it, really I do – Caithe is somehow going to have a plot twist in the current story that is (oh god I hope) better than an M. Night Shyamalan twist that’s going to revolutionize how I and my character perceive her, totally making me be completely okay and fully trust her after she flat-out stole something that needs to be carefully raised by someone who’s already put aside their own desires of killing trophy animals and drinking booze at moots in order to help mend all the issues of not one but two groups/organizations and their members, as well as mend interracial hatreds.

Instead of going about it in a way that seems reasonable (hey, I’ve done all this stuff to help you guys, you could easily trust me like you seemingly used to and just talk to me), we set it up like shes going to be a BBG, which quite frankly I feel we may have already had our fill of Sylvari-based evil for a while. Despite the story, which doesn’t bother me that much, the fact that it’s delivered by making me control Caithe (implying I have complete knowledge of everything she sees – which is a lie based on my text responses talking to Marjory – as well as some semblance of control over the situation). I enjoyed the content itself – the stealth mission was a cool change of pace – but I would have been just as content watching a painted-background cutscene of the “memories” while having gameplay elements that centered around my actual character instead.

A few points really. Not that many will read another wall of text, so I do apologize in advanced and will give a TL;DR version at the bottom.

I think throughout GW1 history the implementation of “Monster skills” were added to make the bosses more of a challenge. These allowed the developers the freedom to add skills to give specific abilitys to a monster they didn’t want the players to have.

For example they gave giants:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tundra_Giant

Giant Stomp (monster skill)
Stun Immunity (monster skill)
Stun on Critical Hit (monster skill)

This introduced an element within the game that separated enemy NPCs from any Ally or PC in the game. Just from a quick browse through GWW I was unable to find (I really didn’t look that hard) of any instance in which an allied player (NPC) used a skill that wasn’t readily available to the player. Even Summoning Stones used skills that the player could adopt into their bar. There were no special skills that were locked away from players.
The one slight discrepancy might be that I think there are some enemies in the Winds of Change update (again enemy mobs) that could use three professions rather than two.

So why have the developers in GW2 decided that NPC allies have skills that are fundamentally different to their PC counterparts.
Are we as PCs not as good as the characters in Destiny’s Edge? Do Zojja, Logan, Rytlock and Eir also have special abilities?

Furthermore, during these challenge modes (the achivement sections of the living story) why is it only the PC that created the instance is able to use the new skill set. Surely everyone should be forced to use it or none at all. It’s hardly fair to say to someone “you have to open because I don’t like the skills”

I believe in GW1 it was to create a sense of realism. What I mean by that is the characters you are playing are characters in the world you are playing in. There aren’t allied NPCs fundamentally stronger or better than you. There aren’t skills you can’t use just because you are a PC over a NPC.
—————————————————
I enjoyed playing as Caithe in this chapter. I think it was fresh and fast paced and the skills, when I got my head around how they were different to a PC Thief, were strong enough to breeze through the instances.
I disliked the idea that others joining didn’t get similar skill restrictions (or bonuses, however you look at it)
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I disliked the lack of the Replay Mote we saw in Hidden Arcana.

Now while I understand Hidden Arcana was a particularly long instance, the final battle with the Centaur could certainly have had a replay mote next to it since having to restart the instance over and over takes far too much time if you aren’t managing to avoid all the sand storms etc.
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The forums are a place to discuss our opinions on the living story. These forums are (however much we may not believe it) looked at by the developers (or at least someone who takes notes and passes it on) so displaying rage, disappointment, heartbreak or anguish is acceptable. It’s constructive criticism and I really don’t think telling people to “get over it” is something people should do here.
If its shown this living story chapter gave positive feed back then thats good. If it gets negative feed back, then that is bad.
—————————————————-
I agree with whomever above said Anet were probably testing a lot of ideas. I think this is very true, alternative ways on passing through story quests could be seen at some stage in dungeons or fractals. Attacking mobs or luring them while other mobs aren’t looking could be implemented too. Who knows.
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TL DR-
Was a shame they changed how allied NPCs relate to PCs
Shame only one person got “forced” to play as Caithe with special skills
I enjoyed playing as Caithe.
Wanted the replay mote for the Centaur boss
Don’t bash people giving opinions on the forums
Think this was a test of features they want to try out in the future.

KorbanDallas.7389:

I’m not witnessing the past, I’m playing the past – something that’s a fixed event that already should have happened, but gives me the illusion of having some sort of control over it, which is false. My character’s only real interaction is “go to place X, and come out of the experience with a single-track mind when it comes to explaining to Jory.” I know that it wasn’t a clear cut case of ‘being attack by centaurs’ as I witnessed it as Caithe, but apparently my real character is prone to not telling Jory what he knows already – that Faolin isn’t nice and Caithe loves her anyways. I mean, I get it, I do, but my characters involvement still ends at “plant seed.” It would be the equivalent of having him pick up and read a journal from Caithe’s bedroom. It’s involvement, but not the level of it I would have liked to see – my character’s involvement is literally having a daydream of the past.

No, It doesn’t give you the illusion that you are controlling the past, it gives you the illusion that you ARE Caithe, and can recall her past exactly as if it were your own, to remember everything she’s done, from the lightest flick of her wrist to release a dagger, to the very thoughts and emotions that course through her mind as they occur. That’s the kind of memory this is, you are immersed in it, not simply watching from the sideline, but rather from within her body, living it, not watching it, seeing what Caithe sees, feeling, what she feels.

And yes, all you’re doing is reliving memories right now, but that is so YOUR character can act later. Its like an officer cadet studying old battles at school, so that when they graduate, they may properly direction real ones on the field. That doesn’t make them any less in charge on the actual battle field, the time spent studying the past, was to strengthen themselves as leaders and strategist. In that same way, we are strengthening ourselves as commanders by learning of Caithe’s past.

I guess the main problem here -as far as I’m concerned – is that I was shoehorned into her involvement in the egg at all (as others have said, to the point of her stalking you regardless of if you told her to stop, which would have been a red flag to anyone who would find that behavior suspicious as it obviously is). If she just mysteriously popped up and decided to steal it, it’d be one thing (at least then my character should reasonably be surprised by the turn of events), but as it is all this story has done was shown us how we needed to go to a locked door. From the start, it was a case of either The newest part hasn’t really made me feel any different about the actions of a person who’s supposed to act like a hero and yet steals from a guy who helped get the gang back together and deal with their personal issues (in dungeons) without so much as a shorthand explanation.

I don’t believe it would have been as ‘obvious’ as people are all claiming it to be without Wooden Potatoes predicting this turn out, because it put us in the sate of mind that ‘this might happen’ so we weren’t surprised when it did, more over, it gave the story the appearance of being predictable, because well, one player with a lot of media attention, predicted it.

I personally remember coming out of the last boss fight on Episode 4, and stating in map chat that I thought Caithe might be a traitor, due to what Trehearn said in the instance, and Scarlet said in the TA Aether path dungeon. But at that time, no one in map chat agreed. And then one week before the release of episode 6(after the trailer), Wooden Potatoes made the same perdition, and then suddenly everyone was sure it would happen. Thus, when you read Caithe’s dialogue and watched her behavior, you were LOOKING for something suspicious, and when you look for signs you WILL find them.

If however, you take a step back and look at it from the perspective of your character, who is a good friend of Caithe’s and trust her judgement, having fought at her side against Zhaitain AND Faolain, your life having been in her hands and hers in yours countless times, then its not suspicious at all that she wants to come with you, especially considering the gravity of the situation. This egg could mean the absolute destruction of Tryia or its salvation; rather than being surprised at Caithe joining us, I’m shocked the others didn’t come too. Though we could chalk that down to them having other duties/responsibilities.

but what i’m against here is how it’s presented mainly. I do not need to be Caithe to understand this information, particularly what was given to us here. I’m not even asking that Caithe cease to exist or everything gets rewritten – I’m just saying there has got to be a way to deliver this information without ripping me from my body and thrusting it into Caithe as a playable person even though for intents and purposes I really only “control” her for combat, and not for thinking. I enjoyed the gameplay, I just don’t care to be Caithe – and I understand others will, and others did – and feel that there must be a better way around the forcing of it.

True, there are other ways, instead of being her, we could have watched from the sideline… but then it would have been impossible for us to join the fight -no, forget fighting, we wouldn’t even have a physical form in her memory, because we weren’t present back then, she never saw or interacted with us, and thus any interaction we make would skew the true memory. If we in any way helped or hindered her to succeed or fail, then that would mean, we physically had to be there in the past, otherwise the events would not have flowed as they did. But as we do not wish to see a false memory, and we are not time traveling, that is impossible. Thus for this content there is two options, watch an extremely long series of cut scene -like a true TV episode- or play as Caithe… and as this is a game, and most players want to play it, it is obvious that playing as Caithe is the only real option.

I don’t mind playing as other characters. I didn’t even mind playing as caithe, until the last quest. I’m unhappy with ANet for making me play this. The option I was forced to take with Caithe is one that I never would have chosen, in fact, if given the choice I probably would have done the exact opposite. After completing the mission, I felt dirty about playing it.