Guild Wars 2

Scarlet did it in the Thaumanova Reactor with a candlestick!

What happen to our elder dragons -.-

Rhialto.8423:

Grimwolf.7163:

deepwinter.9015:

Hopefully this thread maintains the constructive criticism these forums require and not be deleted.

I really enjoy this game for a lot of reasons, from dodge rolling to WvW. The world was rich an immerse the moment I stepped foot into it. Once I caught up on the lore by playing Guild Wars 1, I really appreciated the story.

Then a weed named Scarlet was introduced. Sure, she felt a bit wacky, but I was okay with it at first. Then she started cropping up in everything, and it began to feel forced and unoriginal.

Now she is behind the Thaumanova Reactor and there are aether-looking items around the world with a sign saying “DO NOT TOUCH” (clearly of Scarlet design), and I’m just done.

ArenaNet writers, your players are speaking to you.

Listen closely; this is the important part:
We do not like Scarlet Briar!

I originally voted for Evon, but now I’m glad he lost; I swear to god, the Abaddon fractal would have shown how Scarlet invented a time machine at some point, and was the one who originally defeated Abaddon.

Spoiler alert: Scarlet is Kormir.

Double Spoiler Alert: Scarlet is all of the Elder Dragons.

AKGeo.6048:

deepwinter.9015:

Hopefully this thread maintains the constructive criticism these forums require and not be deleted.

I really enjoy this game for a lot of reasons, from dodge rolling to WvW. The world was rich an immerse the moment I stepped foot into it. Once I caught up on the lore by playing Guild Wars 1, I really appreciated the story.

Then a weed named Scarlet was introduced. Sure, she felt a bit wacky, but I was okay with it at first. Then she started cropping up in everything, and it began to feel forced and unoriginal.

Now she is behind the Thaumanova Reactor and there are aether-looking items around the world with a sign saying “DO NOT TOUCH” (clearly of Scarlet design), and I’m just done.

ArenaNet writers, your players are speaking to you.

Listen closely; this is the important part:
We do not like Scarlet Briar!

Don’t speak for everyone. Just because (in my opinion) most players lack the attention span to appreciate a slow build-up to a climactic encounter with an arch-nemesis (the lack of which, before she arrived, was lamented ad nauseum by the same community you’re speaking for), doesn’t mean everyone does.

Her story is being fleshed out gradually…we don’t need to know the entire story and beat her in one update. Want an end-game? You’re getting it. Want an arch-nemesis? You’ve got it. You can’t choose your enemies, you know.

I’m with you on this, OP. Include me in this “We”. This guy is in the minority.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, deepwinter. I used to actually like the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades before, as it turned out, they were just thugs hired by a leafy Mary-Sue to stir up trouble. Yes, I know it’s more complicated than that, but that’s how it feels to me. It feels like everything cool and great about the Frost and Flame arc, still my favourite part of the living story, has been completely invalidated because this Twiggy’s come along and shoved herself into it, tainting everything that I ever liked about the Molten Alliance and all the strife it caused.

I can let her non-Sylvari name slide because she made it up herself. I can almost let the attendance of all three Asuran colleges go because they stated that she only took part courses. I can even accept that she took over the Watchknights because, honestly, if she didn’t, someone else would. I refuse, however, to accept that the Inquest would allow her to join (and later leave) their ranks , despite them being notoriously xenophobic Asura supremacists whose members are members for life. I refuse to accept that someone this irritating and awkward could possibly convince the Dredge and Flame Legion, as well as the Krait and Nightmare Court, to put aside their long histories of xenophobia towards other races and work together. I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to be convinced that she can just dump infinite armies all across the world from apparently nowhere for absolutely no reason but to cause pointless mayhem.

I saw this coming. I knew they’d shove Scarlet into the Thaumanova fractal. I assumed that it had something to do with the Steam Creatures, largely thanks to a youtuber by the name of WoodenPotatoes. When she debuted, I felt my joy for finally getting some more Asura lore turn to horror as I slowly realized that, if Scarlet was using Steam Creatures in her attacks, and the Aetherblades use steam weaponry, then all of the purity and wonder of the coming Thaumanova fractal would be polluted by this perversion of what one might call lore.

I won’t be leaving the game because of Scarlet. I don’t hate her quite enough for that. However, I hesitate to acknowledge her involvement in some things as canon. That’s just me, I don’t expect anyone else to. Hey, I’m actually glad that I at least care about this. It means that I still care about the game and its lore.

Overall, Scarlet has been awarded the Warmaster Efut Seal of Disapproval.

AKGeo.6048:

Don’t speak for everyone. Just because (in my opinion) most players lack the attention span to appreciate a slow build-up to a climactic encounter with an arch-nemesis (the lack of which, before she arrived, was lamented ad nauseum by the same community you’re speaking for), doesn’t mean everyone does.

And when those of us that DO have the attention span, but simply hate awful writing say we’re sick of her?

I’m sorry, but this is seriously not good writing. Do some people like it anyway? Yes. But don’t assume that those of us that dislike it are simply too immature or impatient to enjoy good writing.

summarizing my sentiment for this character

Heta.8629:

Who is we? I like scarlet and know others do too

I’m here to cancel out the vote/influence of this pro-Scarlet guy. Include me in with the “we”. I encourage people to keep up the anti-Scarlet movement to let Anet know that the story have become ridiculously forced and rigid.

Palador.2170:

b) The reactor failure and Scarlet were not linked to begin with, and they’ve simply shoehorned her in. If the vote had gone for Evon, they wouldn’t be telling this story at all, so it can’t be an important plot point in their plans for Scarlet OR the reactor.

Not really.
For the fall of abaddon, we could be stepping into a fractal where Scarlet already is, studying it herself. This would make a lot of sense given how if Dessa can do it, we have to assume Scarlet can do the very same.

And the relation to magic would be of interesting to her, so…

DarcShriek.5829:

deepwinter.9015:

Josip.8267:

I Do Not Like Scarlet Briar

Here op, I fixed it for you.

Thank you, but I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark. As you can see, the “we” in the title refers to the many who have posted here expressing their dislike of Scarlet Briar. There are a significant amount of players who are giving good, constructive feedback which, hopefully, ArenaNet is reading (I always assume they are).

Whether players like her whole package or find her story unrelatable, the sort of feedback presented here hopefully serves as a good mark for developers to process and adjust to keep their audience satisfied.

To summarize this thread (up to this point), the majority of posters, both lovers and haters of Scarlet, feel that her popping up in everything is becoming overly redundant.

Kind of like all those undead that are supported by Zhaitan? Like that isn’t overly redundant. I don’t believe for a moment that your issue is redundancy.

are kittening kidding me?! are you serious? you compare an elder dragon thats has been established with its motives and power since the very first kitteninng secound of the games teaser trailer with a mary sue of a charcater?
first of all the undead are not SUPPORTED by zaithan, they are his kittening minions, puppets at best only a few are ALLOWED to think strategicly. he owns them controls them, he raised them from the dead, zaithan is the elder dragon of the undead.
It´s like saying the lichkings undead army is redundant. ARE YOU INSANE?

i just could never wrap my head around as to why having so much lore to choose from they decided to provide us with a half cooked no reason evil doer…. the LS at this point in time has ceased to be interesting for me. there is no emotional attachment to the plot anymore, i just hope this arc ends soon and we can go back to slaying dragons.

Hell, make it so scarlet kills trehearne and we avenge his death by slaying her…. and lets just carry on with THE BIG PICTURE….

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Here’s an update: You are not supposed to like the villain. You’re supposed to hate the villain, hate what they do, hate that you don’t understand why or how they’re doing it and get so emotional that you call for their early demise.
Judging from the majority of the reactions on these forums here, I think ANet have done a pretty good job with achieving that.
Kudos.

This horse is long past dead, but people don’t hate the Scarlet as a character because she’s a good villain, they hate her because her writing is terrible and the things she does are immersion-breaking and lore-breaking. Someone said it well in this thread already: she’s the kind of evil character that a new roleplayer would come up with, and well below the level of writing people came to expect from playing GW1.

You want a good “pulling the strings” type villain? Check out Professor Moriarty of Sherlock Holmes fame.

Professor Moriarty is nothing like any modern-day villain (Walter White et. al.). He’s ruthless and has no redeeming qualities. He is, however, an awesome, top-hat-wearing, monocle-shining evil villain, because you hate him for what he does and want to see him lose.

People don’t want to see Scarlet lose, they want to not see her anymore, period. That’s not a job well done. Do you say “job well done” when a show is cancelled because its storyline makes no sense and people don’t want to watch it anymore?

My opinion on Scarlet:

Pro

1. Tara Strong as the VA.

Con

1. She feels forced upon me. To clarify: she was responsible for the starting events of the asura personal storyline (her and Teyo), she’s “super-duper-uber smart and in your face about it,” and she’s uniting all sorts of separate baddies into Saturday morning cartoon style alliances.
2. Her personality is annoying.
3. All the mumbo-jumbo about controlling reality or shaping it or something involving the eternal alchemy. That’s basically giving a villain something akin to ultimate power. I’ve had enough thank you.
4. Her “story” feels long and drawn out. I spent about 3 months taking my time to beat Zhaitan in the personal story, and that felt just right for me.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

Some of the Living Story developers gave an interview where they clarified that Scarlet never completed any course of study anywhere.

It really seems like the writers trying a hastily patch up holes in a very poorly written story. So now we have to take her background story not only from a website story but developer chat from various social medias to boot.

A good story does not need clarified, it is impervious to criticism and has no plot holes, effectively it is a testament unto itself. The constant changing, clarifying and comments by writers outside of the game is proof enough that the whole Scarlet fiasco was poorly conceived to begin with.

Boggles the mind how anyone can defend such trashy writing.

Carighan.6758:

Aedelric.1287:

Each to their own, but be warned you are in a severe minority.

And you know this because….

Complaints.

Specifically the sheer quantity of them and the fact that every living story she is involved in, the more people hate her. The quantity of I hate Scarlet topics has risen exceptionally since the introduction of her character.

In game players consistently complain about her, I am not sure about you but I have literally never heard a kind thing said in relation to her name. Even when I did the Fractal with a random group the strangers they freaked out with her presence asking “FFS! Why is she here?” and saying “Scarlet should just go die”.

This forum does not have a single “I love Scarlet” topic, we used to get one or two but now even people who used to be fans are seeing the error of their ways and are starting to turn against her. Read this topic thoroughly and you will see several have changed their stance to disliking her.

People have less desire to defend her character, this topic alone is proof of that. The vast majority of posts in the I hate Scarlet topics are complaints and only one or two saying “I like her” or “I do not understand the hate” Usually just the same few people over and over again.

All this indicates an extreme minority that like Scarlet and a majority that dislikes her. Only a fool would even question this as it is blatantly obvious that she is nearly universally disliked. If you are not capable of coming to the same conclusion due to the overwhelming evidence then I doubt anything would convince you.

Scarlet is fine.

Obsessing over her and involving her with everything that goes on in the world…endlessly…is not fine.

It’s time to put her to bed and move on to the next crisis. She’s not even threatening. She’s just annoying at this point. Give us more dragon-level-threats. Not some immortal James Bond knock-off villain from the 1970s.

She was a cute and interesting character when she was first introduced, and only then. She’s overstayed her welcome enormously. Now every time I see her I just roll my eyes and try to finish the meta achievement.

This game desperately needs a real villain with a real threat. Enough with the childish garbage.

Yea I’ve been a proponent of tolerance for Scarlet for a while now. I’ve felt that her character isn’t awful, just that it was poorly executed. How her character can too easily be dismissed as an evil-for-the-sake-of-evil-insane-villain but upon closer inspection is more than that.

However…

It’s just getting ridiculous how her hands are in literally everything. She’s smart, but can she really be that influential, that omnipresent? No…and while I’m sure the players’ feelings toward Scarlet are mixed, I’d have to guess the resounding majority is sick of her. And yet she continues to crop up, laugh maniacally, & then escape without effort. Can we have a new villain? Can problems arise that aren’t her handywork? After all, even Gotham had more than 1 villain. And Metropolis. And…Detroit.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

If I were a writer at ArenaNet, I’d really be congratulating myself on a job well done.
People claim that Scarlet is poorly written, but the truth is that over the past decades, thanks largely to Hollywood writing, we’ve become far to accustomed to sympathetic villains. Antagonists, who are often the antithesis of the hero, troubled by deep psychological trauma, whose actions are to a certain degree understandable or at leat comprehensible to the reader or viewer. This developement has lately reached a point, where the “gentleman” villains often become the protagonists themselves (e.g. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Pirates of the Carribean etc.)
Scarlet isn’t that. She isn’t likeable, her actions aren’t comprehensible, she’s annoying because she meddles with everything and people are spewing venom and bile because they don’t like her.
Here’s an update: You are not supposed to like the villain. You’re supposed to hate the villain, hate what they do, hate that you don’t understand why or how they’re doing it and get so emotional that you call for their early demise.
Judging from the majority of the reactions on these forums here, I think ANet have done a pretty good job with achieving that.
Kudos.

EDIT: I don’t want to say this is the case everyone. I can tell from reactions to this thread that there are also people who see right through what is actually happening here. But there are far more people on these boards who claim to be disinterested in the Scarlet story-arc, yet the emotionality in which their posts are usually written reveals that this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Geez how do I tackle this

1. People do not hate Scarlet for what she is doing. People dislike Scarlet because she does not make sense in the context of the story.
2. ‘Villain’ or ‘antagonist’? (Also, which villain/antagonist character becomes a protagonist in Pirates of the Caribbean?)
3. By saying you are supposed to ‘hate’ the villain/antagonist, you are writing off a huge amount of villains who do not engender hate. A narrative causing an emotional connection with the player is good.
4. With Scarlet, we are not being angry with the story, we are being angry at the story.
5. The game is not a murder mystery. It does not invite us to solve the mystery it lays out, and it does not have the tools or build-up to do it. If it is trying to do that, it failed spectacularly as soon as Scarlet was introduced. Scarlet is no longer a useful tool for the narrative; she may as well be thrown out.
6. People are emotional because they like the game, think it has great potential, and it’s being spoiled on this muck.

ArenaNet is stubborn. Sometimes it’s a good characteristic. Used to mean they didn’t bow to bad player pressure.

I have friends leaving, however, over the state of the living “story”. I think it doesn’t matter how much life support you put Scarlet on, it’s not going to make us want to know more about her, want to see her come back or even care whether she dies or not. I wouldn’t mind if the whole Scarlet rubbish was put to one side and forgotten about, with no conclusion. I’d rather see a carbon copy of a GW1 story played out in the GW2 living story to any more of what we have now. At least those stories were compelling; for me, anyway.

“Scarlet did it.” Three words to sum up about a year of GW2 living stories. Anyone feeling short changed?

Here is the thing. People don’t hate Scarlet because she’s a good villain who fulfills the role of being unlikable due to her actions, they hate her because she’s a very poorly handled one. Take for example Umbridge from the Harry Potter series. She’s absolutely despised, even more than Voldemort, for her cruelty and her actions. She is a very well written villain whom we can see every teacher who treated us unfairly, every bully who humiliated us and every person in our lives who inflicted evil upon us in. She is relatable, she is a personification of personal injustices and things that are wrong with the world.

When people say “I hate Scarlet”, they aren’t meaning it in this way because Scarlet isn’t written as well as Umbridge.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of Scarlet Briar. That idea being that here we have an intelligent antagonist who would rather harass and cause big problems than try full out world domination and who enjoys playing different factions against each other to do the dirty work while always giving herself a realistic “way out”. We’re supposed to wonder what’s wrong with her, what her motivations are, what her deal is. We’re supposed to care even though we despise her.

That’s the idea but… that’s not how she’s being written at all. She’s not “real”, she feels fake and cartoony. The real feelings of seething hatred and personal identification aren’t there. The reaction isn’t “KITTEN! Scarlet Briar! How DARE you hurt those people! You need to die for all your sick meddling!”, it’s “Oh. It’s Scarlet. Again. Kitten, why? Ugh… well this story stinks now. She’s just gonna poof away and ruin some other story…” No one cares about her motivations because she was written too “larger than life”, given too many boons that made no sense against the backdrop of lore, given no realistic reasoning for her constant escapes, not gifted with decent personality traits and inserted into stories like a last minute scapegoat.

When I picked the reactor fractal over the Abbadon one, I did so because I wanted to see Asura history and learn more about what happened at that reactor. I wanted expanding on Asura lore in GW2. I did not want “SCARLET DID IT!”

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Here’s an update: You are not supposed to like the villain. You’re supposed to hate the villain, hate what they do, hate that you don’t understand why or how they’re doing it and get so emotional that you call for their early demise.

Again, you don’t seem to understand. We do not hate Scarlet for being a “good” (well-written) villain. What we hate is her writing. That’s something completely different. And i do understand why she’s doing what she’s doing – it’s because Anet has problems writing a good and compelling storyline and defaults to most simple, repeatable plots, and “monster of the week” approach.
And i don’t want her dead. I want her removed from the game.
So no, i’d hardly call that a “success”.

With so many struggling writers out there in need of a job, Anet should simply kick this utterly poor team who produced Scarlet and employ someone with even an ounce of sense and skill.

From update to update, I just wish they would give us something worth the original game…

To be brutally honest bordering on a little mean, Scarlet Briar seems like a character someone who’s new to roleplaying thought up. She has that obnoxious, “prankster” I-Do-What-I-Want-Because-I-Can attitude, she has a lot of power and knowledge seemingly out of nowhere in a very short amount of time that she’s been alive, she controls a whole bunch of bad guys, and she doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses.

Scarlet is boring. I mean, at first, she seemed “okay”(?) but now she’s apparently orchestrating every really bad event in the history of Tyria? Making alliances with Charr and Dredge, Krait and Court; what, is she going to ally the Sons of Svanir and the Centaur in the Frozen Alliance? Come on. Scarlet Briar is not a villain. Scarlet Briar is that annoying side character henchman who hangs on the tails of the real villain. Also, for the record, don’t let that statement give you guys any ideas. “Scarlet Briar has wreaked havoc across Tyria, but now revealed is her true master!” Please.

Scarlet isn’t a villain. You can’t relate to her. You can’t empathize with her. You can’t try to see things from her perspective, because she’s unrelatable, can’t be empathized with, and has no perspective to see anything from. Her motivations are really obscure, and if I had to guess, superficial at best. “I want to change the world in my image!” isn’t a really compelling plot hook for me. Or, at least, the way Scarlet is going about it. Her image must be “a bunch of races banding together under elemental titles”. Scarlet lacks anything close to resembling a villain. I can’t find a reason to hate her for what she does. I hate her because she’s a bad character.

I want a villain that keeps me guessing. I want a villain that’s so dangerous that it’s scary to even try to think about what they might do next, what terrible atrocity they might commit. I want a villain that’s relatable, where you almost, ALMOST are able to root for them in some way. A good villain has REASON to do the things they do; it’s not randomized chaos like Scarlet’s “I’m doing this because it’s fun” charade. I also want a villain that doesn’t hamfist (hamfist; verb — to approach a situation without any semblance of tact) the lore as badly as she does.

Before you do any more irreparable damage, thing about Scarlet accidentally catching fire. Plants burn pretty easily.

I’m a die hard Scarlet fan! I love her. She’s entertaining and hilarious with a ruthless, evil genius pulling everything together. She’s great.

However, this Thaumonova Reactor stuff is really pushing the line for me. She’s not the only villain Tyria has or ever had. Hopefully it will all make sense in the end.

This topic is acceptable to me. I do not like the Invasive Weed.

Hopefully put this way they might actually understand we DO NOT LIKE HER simple short words

I still neither like nor dislike Scarlet. I remain positively uninterested… and that’s actually in many ways worse than either extreme.

I mean, Bobby Stein, guys… I get it. You’re TRYING to get us all wrapped up in the mystery of who this woman is, what her motivations are, why she’s doing this… you want us to wonder “There’s gotta be something more than this random seeming mad woman doing random things. What’s her angle?”

You want us speculating, you want our minds running through theories… in the hope that once the big reveal hits, all the pieces will fall into place and we’ll go, “Wow.”

Unfortunately, it’s not working. Like… at all.

I think this is where the “expansion” route makes more sense. You’re throwing out a single bread crumb every two weeks… and it’s not enough to slake anyone’s hunger. It’s just annoying at this point. Maybe if all this was being dumped on us at once, it’d be more palatable. Maybe.

I’m sorry, but this plan with Scarlet isn’t up to snuff. Wrap it up. Really quickly. Because right now, the problem isn’t the people who hate it. The problem is the people who have stopped caring one way or the other.

The only issue I have with Scarlet is that if she is going to appear before us, she shouldn’t be literally standing right there in front of us. If she is, there is no reason why our characters wouldn’t try to subdue her since she is wanted for all kinds of crimes.

Yet whenever she appears, she is invulnerable, talks a lot, and then poofs off without anyone bothering to even try to stop her.

Put her someplace we can’t physically get to. Then I would be happier with no one attempting to jump and restrain her.