Guild Wars 2

Ausfer.1853:

Gaile Gray.6029:

It’s really interesting to read the various thoughts on the story and the role that we, as players, played in the update. We’ve highlighted this thread (and a few others) so that the developers can see the various opinions about the Living World updates.

I sure hope you devs have a thick skin when it comes to the forums. It seems like no matter what you guys do, there will be people complaining about it.

Not so. I was constantly heaping praise for art work, voice acting and the general feeling the world felt alive. More praise came through the inital armor sets and hair styles through the gem store of which I bought them all. The SouthSun Cove event was bold and creative, albiet laggy.

I recommended GW2 to over 20 of my friends, of which 12 of them bought in and enjoyed themselves.

Bug fixes and balancing was frequent and appreciated. But then we were introduced to the Living Story, Anet’s attempt to sate our thirst for new content. That’s when the rails fell off.

I can play the game as one of my own characters that I created perfectly fine, none of them are a Thief though. For one simple reason, you try to play as a Thief when you only have the use of one hand. It’s nigh on impossible!

Whatever happened to the ‘Play the way you want to play’ mantra?

You can still play Caithe with one hand. Her number 5 skill will hit everyone around her, and hit it hard. Her number 8 skill, will set conditions and cripple everyone inside the circle. Two skills, thats all I used on Caithe.

For the fools that are complaining about playing Caithe simple because the story, well, for those I will keep saying learn to play, and not just the mechanics, games have us playing different characters all the time. Games have us experiencing different stories all the time. Games are interactive stories, where we the players get to participate in the action. If all you people want is cutscenes, go watch a movie or two.

Anet did a great job with Caithe storyline, by showing us how unbeliavable stupid she is (or was). I applaud Anet for managing to make some people feel sick when they had to kill an entire centaur village. That means the story, emotions, all came accross like they should.

And for those that complain about our character only saying small stuff and not discussing the topic further, it makes sense (at least for me)

If I was in my character place, I would not explain what I saw, I would not discuss those things for others, since I’m seeings things that Caithe possibly don’t want to talk about, I would remain quiet as well.

Wolfeng.3784:

I applaud Anet for managing to make some people feel sick when they had to kill an entire centaur village. That means the story, emotions, all came accross like they should.

No.

All anet did was show us a scene depicting senseless violence and slaughter.

There were no emotions to ‘come across’ in the story, because even though they put us in Caithe’s shoes and allowed us to participate — by proxy, as it were — in the slaughter of the centaurs, they didn’t bother to let us in on how Caithe felt about what she had done.

Without that, there’s no point to any of it.

Wolfeng.3784:

For the fools that are complaining about playing Caithe simple because the story, well, for those I will keep saying learn to play, and not just the mechanics, games have us playing different characters all the time. Games have us experiencing different stories all the time. Games are interactive stories, where we the players get to participate in the action. If all you people want is cutscenes, go watch a movie or two.

I’ve played enough games to know that there are games that cast you as characters, and there are games that are supposed to let you be your characters to the best of their abilities. Alternatively, sometimes a cutscene is the better (or due to gameplay limitations, the only) way to show something. What you do by saying “go watch a movie or two” is simply brushing it off and not being open minded about counter-points. If anyone opposed to you said “if you want total involvement in gameplay, go play a board game,” is it helpful or understanding? Not at all.

Example: Metal Gear Solid 4. Is the number of cutscenes excessive? Certainly. Could they have pulled off as rousing an ending sequence with just gameplay alone? Never.

Anet did a great job with Caithe storyline, by showing us how unbeliavable stupid she is (or was). I applaud Anet for managing to make some people feel sick when they had to kill an entire centaur village. That means the story, emotions, all came accross like they should.

I do suppose everyone still considers Twilight a great story so I shouldn’t argue about that – but I already fully understood the whole “love a person regardless” thing from the PS/Dungeons, and this hasn’t added anything new for me, so I guess the story worked for some people (in regards to the emotions), and I certainly give at least some form of recognition that I can agree on part of what you said here – despite personally not experiencing any of those things.

If I was in my character place, I would not explain what I saw, I would not discuss those things for others, since I’m seeings things that Caithe possibly don’t want to talk about, I would remain quiet as well.

If I was in my characters place, she wouldn’t have been following me around when she had an important world-saving task of her own to be dealing with and I would have immediately picked up the egg after dispatching the boss (because with an invincible dog stalking me through a maze, it seems negligent for me to do otherwise), but alas within the realm of storytelling that isn’t possible (or rather, would lead to being a lot more lame). As far as disclosure of Caithe’s memories – the only thing my character cares about at this point is “She went to X place, we need to go there.” Again, he already knows her relationship with Faolin from the rest of his journey, and all this does is just re-elaborate on what my character already knows. At this point, I’m more interested in what Destiny’s Edge is thinking about Caithe up and vanishing from them – knowing them, I wouldn’t be half surprised if they all showed up when I get to Caithe because they all decided they had better things to do with a dragon egg than getting ready to defend the world like they were supposed to be doing.

At least the big T is probably still trying to save the world, someone’s got to.

TexZero.7910:

Talk about missing the point. Those games have meaningful choices that impact the story and cause the plot and character to progress. This did none of those and was a forced flashback with no change our outcome that was player driven. Cinematics are the perfect tool for that. Being thrust into an unchanging outcome, where the players actions are for not is redundant. The entire point of any RPG is to give the players control over a character they are attached to not some random side character.

Sorry, I basically meant, bad analogy is bad. Even so, the point you made here is completely different from the one in your previous post.

Also not all games have meaningful choices or have any impact on what you do. Not everything you do in your life has any meaningful choices, nor don’t you always have control over what you do. Things sometimes just happen.

If anything, this episode had alot more effect on people’s characters than anything else so far. If it wasn’t so then there wouldn’t this whole discussion about Caithe being such a traitor at all. People wouldn’t say “my character will hate Caithe forever” and such things. I have seen more players showing a certain disgust over what happened and that they had to kill centaurs. I dunno if Caithe felt that too, whether that was my character, or anything else. I personally believe if it just had been a cinematic this effect would have been sidetracked as “Oh Caithe murdered a few centaurs” and no one would have been talking about it. No one would have felt how wrong that felt, and people would’ve cared marginally less.

That is why this story part is more than worthy to be portrayed as is. And some here are merely complaining you’d have to play through it 8 times through the same sequence. While I would say that is an amazing opportunity to (re-) develop your character’s stance on what Caithe has done and felt.

Because you witness something out of character, by standing exactly in another person’s shoes, because the lore actually can sort of explain that, that is an extra interesting point in any RPG and I would be appalled that for the vague reason that “RPGs are meant to only give control over your own character” I would say that I rather welcome artistic freedom rather than such conservative thoughts.

However, these story instances are not without some problems, sure. Like the problem with these story instances could be that the things witnessed maybe aren’t discussed well enough with Marjory after playing through them. How does such a thing feel, how does your character feel going through all that, etc. But regardless of that, I welcome the insight, even as a character, to understand who Caithe really is. Even though, it’s quite hard to portray another character’s feelings as well.

There are no rules in any RPG that you must always be in control of your character and must have the feeling of your character alone in order to progress your character through a story. I think the way Anet did this was original to many other games. A bit daring perhaps, sure. Not without mistakes, sure. But that it shouldn’t be done at all like this is a great oversight, and that is what many of the people that hate such things don’t quite grasp or understand in my opinion.

I didn’t feel anything in that part other than “Why is Caithe such an idiot? Again.”. As for the killing of centaurs … pfft the number of centaurs she killed is nothing compared to the numbers my character has killed for these scraps of wool and cotton.

FrizzFreston.5290:

-snip-

I think the people who are being vocal over the centaur body count would have been the same way if it was our characters that did the actual killing – it’s not about how Caithe tied in, it’s about how they don’t like having to kill massive amounts of things that didn’t want to fight in the first place. I mean, obviously I’m not them so I can’t really speak on their behalf, but that’s kind of how I gathered what they were saying.

Braham backstory Mace-Shield Guardian! Confirmed 2015!

At first I hated it but then the lightbulb went on … the whole reason is to make that content challenging and broaden player experience; perhaps there are some hints of skills to come being tested in that instance too.

That content would have been a joke if we were allowed to play our premade, optimized PVE characters. Can’t wait to play OTHER NPC builds.

Wolfeng.3784:

For the fools that are complaining about playing Caithe simple because the story, well, for those I will keep saying learn to play, and not just the mechanics, games have us playing different characters all the time.

Lolwut. I don’t know what games you play, but the majority of story/RPG-oriented games I have played in memory give you one character to play, almost exclusively – if not completely exclusively.

Your attempt at acting superior to other people for having different opinions is asinine to begin with by virtue of trying to act objectively about a matter of opinion. And then on top of that, you can’t even get your facts straight. I’d bet that if you go through RPG/story games, and especially MMOs, you will find that 99% of the gameplay is done from the perspective of a single character in 99% of the games.

MMOs especially are all about making you feel special for being you, your character. Not another character… your character that you have invested time into. To act like it’s strange that MMO players would want to stay within the boundaries of something that is a staple of the entire industry is more mind-numbing than brain-freeze.

Wolfeng.3784:

games have us playing different characters all the time.

Interesting point. GW2 always did that. I could always log off and log in as a different character.

With this content, it doesn’t anymore. When I pick a different character, I’m still playing Caithe. What a terrible step back, reducing my stable of different characters to a single character with a single skill set and a single playing experience.

TexZero.7910:

I agree. This part of the story felt excessively forced.
I stated earlier that even gameplay elements felt like they were added due to a dev being overly infatuated with other franchises and that in GW2 this just doesn’t fit.

Not only that, i must be the only tired of seeing NPC’s be superior to players. It’s an extremely sour taste. The player character should be the focal point systems are designed around. The fact that virtually every NPC now has their own Deus Ex device for combat is annoying. Anet should remember the universal scope, if I a player cannot do something, no NPC should (bearing extreme circumstances that should be explained) be able to. Looking at you 400 bone fiend, massive bone bridge, instant portals without sight etc….

These are glaring story and gameplay issues that leave you the PC (hero) feeling stupidly inadequate and frankly useless for anything more than a director.

TBH i like having things that are less powerful then me, cause if i am a god entity which cannot be stopped by any character in game why can’t i just murder the king/queen/leader of my respective race and eventually take over the world?

WoW as well as other stories with powerful player characters have others that are more powerful then you to sort of keep you doing the story without you being like “why the kitten can’t i just kill these people?” (some exceptions apply) but also it’s an MMO story GW2 is better then every other MMO i have played so i can accept this personally.

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.

Thanks.

Absolutely agree
Cathee is weak and dumb, even with her low cooldowns. And always tons mobs around.
If I’d wish to play thief without stealth – I would play that, trust me. But this stuff are forcing me to do that.

Another part of this “cool” stuff: what with that Splinter Cell in Gw2? O.o

KorbanDallas.7389:

FrizzFreston.5290:

-snip-

I think the people who are being vocal over the centaur body count would have been the same way if it was our characters that did the actual killing – it’s not about how Caithe tied in, it’s about how they don’t like having to kill massive amounts of things that didn’t want to fight in the first place. I mean, obviously I’m not them so I can’t really speak on their behalf, but that’s kind of how I gathered what they were saying.

Well, of course they would have been the same way if our characters did it, but that would obviously not make any sense story wise. While they might not see it as such, playing as Caithe certainly ties into the whole thing of showing that Caithe did this instead of our characters.

Also I’m not saying the reaction is the same as for everyone, but that there is a reaction in itself is quite something. Especially regarding a fantasy race in a fantasy world.

As for myself, I was reluctant to play through it by killing everything but there was no other choice. So I took it as is rather than something else.

I had a lot of fun playing caithe until i needed to get those achievements. Then nobody in my group wanted to play her XD

FrizzFreston.5290:

Well, of course they would have been the same way if our characters did it, but that would obviously not make any sense story wise. While they might not see it as such, playing as Caithe certainly ties into the whole thing of showing that Caithe did this instead of our characters.

I understand that part, I’m just saying in the “different situation, different time” sense, if our characters had to roll into town and slaughter friendly skritt, centaurs, quaggan, or whatever, it would have had the same impact to the player as having to do it as Caithe – so as far as emotional impact to those players, I don’t think it matter that Caithe was there at all.
I personally would have rather watched the memories play out, and had gameplay mechanics before hand as myself to counterbalance them – watching Caithe kill a hundred centaurs in a more spectacular way than I could pull of with in game mechanics would have made me at least have more respect for her as a warrior than I do now. I know there’s (probably) just as many people anti-cutscenes out there as there are anti-playing Caithe at this point, but in a game that’s about being my character, the fact it’s alluded to that this is going to happen at least one more time (we still have one seed left), and potentially could continually happen for every single character we ever meet that has any “relevance” to the plotline (anyone ready to be forced to play Rytlock and experience his mysterious vanished days?) is something that I don’t look forward to – primarily because it means I am thrust into less and less "me"ness, and more and more “why don’t you play as this character instead” instances.

I’m also not saying this is the only game to ever do it – remember that huge backlash when Halo made people play as Arbiter? I do. Some people loved it, but a lot of people didn’t want to play Arbiter, they wanted to play MC (as they did in the first game). As far as MMOs though, it’s usually about your character and the things they do, and Lore is fleshed out through interactions with others. It’s only reasonable that people who have been playing MMOs for years would conceivably be upset about this sudden change of “play this character or don’t experience the story,” which is only more shocking in something so story-driven. Imagine if SWTOR suddenly turned you into Jabba the Hutt for an episode of it’s story? It might be interesting, but it’s generally not what (some/most) people wanted.

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.

Thanks.

Speak for yourself. I loved it. It was awesome. I reminded me of Thackeray missions in GW1 EOTN

I didn’t mind being Caithe.

However…

I did mind the instant death and no downed skills. That sucked for challenge mode.

I didn’t mind playing as Caithe up until the centaurs. The Asura deserved what they got, but the centaur part made me cringe. When their leader told me to stay out of it I literally typed /sit and waited. I know Caithe is in love and all, but as we were playing her it didn’t feel like enough was done to convince us that we needed to save Faolain from them. Love might call Caithe to action, but I was prepared to watch Faolain rot.

Vv W.7821:

I didn’t mind playing as Caithe up until the centaurs. The Asura deserved what they got, but the centaur part made me cringe. When their leader told me to stay out of it I literally typed /sit and waited. I know Caithe is in love and all, but as we were playing her it didn’t feel like enough was done to convince us that we needed to save Faolain from them. Love might call Caithe to action, but I was prepared to watch Faolain rot.

This, mostly.

I really like the idea of the Caithe episodes (though I really hate the skills and that centaur fight for a different reason: one veteran should be enough, no reason to add 3 more), but the Caithe character should have been watching in horror as Faolain was killing the centaurs with her friends.

KorbanDallas.7389:

I personally would have rather watched the memories play out, and had gameplay mechanics before hand as myself to counterbalance them – watching Caithe kill a hundred centaurs in a more spectacular way than I could pull of with in game mechanics would have made me at least have more respect for her as a warrior than I do now.

I understand what people mean with being their own character and such as well. Although I think that in this case specifically, playing Caithe or forced to playing Caithe helps us understand her more. It’s not particularly meant to make her more impressive, but more that we as a character went to the Pale tree in order to understand Caithe more. The Paletree happens to have these memory seeds that let’s our character’s experience what Caithe is like, her feelings and all that. Although it is a very precarious to pull off how a memory is being experienced, of course, but it does fit right in with how the story was written. Thus as a character we feel like we are being Caithe in these seeds, we’re not bystanders.

It would’ve been different to me if it suddenly said. For this story, you’re playing as Rytlock, because Rytlock’s story is awesome. But that wasn’t the case. To me it felt like being Caithe, as much as it takes you away from your character, was expected from my character. I just see the whole Caithe thing as a memory that my character is experiencing, which includes all the things that it includes as it is in the game.

There are even numerous heart quests that require you to use a different skillset and even, Jormag forbid, a different player model! What horror!

Mal.1670:

Sigh. The more I think about it the more I just can’t understand how somehow could go on a long vitriolic rant about the most creative mission design we’ve seen from Arenanet in a long time. Seriously if you enjoy the story enough to be playing the new content, you should enjoy discovering more about the most important characters to the story. And cut scenes don’t hold a candle to actual gameplay. I don’t get why it has to be any more difficult than that.

I played it hoping I would enjoy the story. I didn’t. Aside from Episode 5, LS2 has been a huge storytelling let down.

FrizzFreston.5290:

…more that we as a character went to the Pale tree in order to understand Caithe more. The Paletree happens to have these memory seeds that let’s our character’s experience what Caithe is like, her feelings and all that. Although it is a very precarious to pull off how a memory is being experienced, of course, but it does fit right in with how the story was written. Thus as a character we feel like we are being Caithe in these seeds, we’re not bystanders…

See, from what I read of it it was less to understand Caithe, and more to just figure out where she may be hiding. Since nobody has any ideas, the PT’s like “have some memory seeds, maybe she’s hiding somewhere she used to go. Now I need to nap.” Reasonable interaction on her part, I’d want some naps to if a mini-dragon just ate up my roots.

That being said, it’s a lot of elaboration on a character without actually (thus far) introducing any new concepts to her (Caithe) to the player (assuming we’ve played the PS/Dungeons). I assume that the next chapter (whenever all the christmas-hold of the story is done) will deliver something more substantial and character building for her outside of “Faolin is bad, but Caithe loves her anyways. Those silly love-plants!” Probably in the form of her finally realizing how bad Faolin is, and having a change of heart that makes her question herself and become a good guy. I feel like it could have been a lot more than it is is all.

It was just for one episodes, get over it.

Barabbas.8715:

It was just for one episodes, get over it.

This comment isn’t helpful in any way – for debating pros/cons or sharing if you liked it for that matter. Also, you should be aware that there is one seed left, so the statement isn’t even technically true (as it will have at least one occurrence in the next episode).

Case in point, this topic is less about now and more about the future – a lot of folks don’t want this to become a super-reoccurring thing, where we end up playing more as every other character in the game than our own when it comes to story. Would you like to see this happen more often, or less often? Share some opinions if your going to take the time to post, contribute to the actual discussion in some way, you know?

Not trying to come off as attacking here, I’d just rather see something productive be posted.

I was enjoing by playing Caithe as a member of legendary Destiny’s Edge.
Don’t you think it was nice to know why were they so good to be able kill the dragons? what skills they were using? what makes them so special? ofcourse i get used to play my own main character but i see no problem by playing with someone else.

For those who don’t like to play all other characters except their own i sujest to be more patient because ANet trying to satisfy all player and everyone has it’s own opinio and thoughts.

Exo.2965:

I was enjoing by playing Caithe as a member of legendary Destiny’s Edge.
Don’t you think it was nice to know why were they so good to be able kill the dragons? what skills they were using? what makes them so special? ofcourse i get used to play my own main character but i see no problem by playing with someone else.

For those who don’t like to play all other characters except their own i sujest to be more patient because ANet trying to satisfy all player and everyone has it’s own opinio and thoughts.

It is cool in 1st time
It is competely sucks when you are doing it in 8th time (I have 8 characters) or even more if focused on achievments

SilverWF.4789:

Exo.2965:

I was enjoing by playing Caithe as a member of legendary Destiny’s Edge.
Don’t you think it was nice to know why were they so good to be able kill the dragons? what skills they were using? what makes them so special? ofcourse i get used to play my own main character but i see no problem by playing with someone else.

For those who don’t like to play all other characters except their own i sujest to be more patient because ANet trying to satisfy all player and everyone has it’s own opinio and thoughts.

It is cool in 1st time
It is competely sucks when you are doing it in 8th time (I have 8 characters) or even more if focused on achievments

8 times ? LOL Why would you do that ? i was completely fine with Caithe gameplay – 1st on LS completing (with 3 diff. char’s) and 2nd – on doing achivements (with 1 character).

Exo.2965:

SilverWF.4789:

Exo.2965:

I was enjoing by playing Caithe as a member of legendary Destiny’s Edge.
Don’t you think it was nice to know why were they so good to be able kill the dragons? what skills they were using? what makes them so special? ofcourse i get used to play my own main character but i see no problem by playing with someone else.

For those who don’t like to play all other characters except their own i sujest to be more patient because ANet trying to satisfy all player and everyone has it’s own opinio and thoughts.

It is cool in 1st time
It is competely sucks when you are doing it in 8th time (I have 8 characters) or even more if focused on achievments

8 times ? LOL Why would you do that ? i was completely fine with Caithe gameplay – 1st on LS completing (with 3 diff. char’s) and 2nd – on doing achivements (with 1 character).

Bcs you can’t read.

I think its pretty much a non issue.

I don’t see anyone complaining that they are forced to play as Big Nose Ted in the human ‘common’ storyline.

GuzziHero.5104:

I think its pretty much a non issue.

I don’t see anyone complaining that they are forced to play as Big Nose Ted in the human ‘common’ storyline.

Were our characters riding along inside Big Nose Ted’s head in a memory of the past without even the illusion of being able to affect the outcome, or were they disguised as Big Nose Ted in order to spring a trap?

I just finished the current LS last evening. I did not particularly enjoy playing Caithe. In all honesty, most of my problem is that I am not a particularly fast learner. Starting a new profession, it takes me a while to get it all “figured out” and become somewhat effective. In the LS, we are thrown in to Caithe’s body with a full set of skills. I read through the tool tips but when I entered combat, I was still horribly ineffective and inefficient. So…it was kind of frustrating for me.

Add to that the fact that there was a lot of other, quirky stuff going on, it was even more frustrating. For example, trying to disable the shields, knock out NPCs, fight when I had to…all on the spur of the moment with no real background in those skills. I muddled through (many deaths) but eventually finished. Since it was kind of a one-time thing (I hope) it is not really a big deal for me. I am sure that others enjoyed it immensely, which is good. I might be a bit more pessimistic if I thought that this was going to be a regular model.

Playing this for the first time and I dislike having to play thief. Thief and Mesmer were the 2 classes I hated leveling the most.