Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

Make the Personality System Matter:

I totally agree. But I think your personality should change your idle animation & in-combat yells. Honestly I wish there were an entire conversation/personality system that could be used for in-town DEs.. I think that would be so cool. I mean.. noone goes to the cities. why not make a whole other type of non-combat adventure system for towns.. where your personality makes a difference.

This is probably the main step that needs to be taken before cosmetics become an organized progression.

• Make skins Into an Easy to Use Collection
  This is one area I was extremely surprised that Anet is years behind the current MMO standards. DCUO is the prime example of how cosmetics should be handled. Having individual items with individual looks feels like nothing more than a reason to sell more bag slots. When I get an item, I should be able to use a transmutation stone to unlock the skin. once. I’m not talking about having skins like in the achievement panel or the pvp locker. I should be able to right click an arrow next to an equipped item & see a window of my skins, like the skill bar. then I can just click the one I want to currently use. Anything else just seems like a waste of UI space & time. This is a current MMO convention.
  I added a mock-up of this UI system below. The items you’ve unlocked should fill up from the top down, as to get rid of unnecessary scrolling. The reason I think this UI is better than the current lockers is that it is easier to use & requires less clicks. Currently the PvP/Achievement Locker requires:

• open locker>scroll to find item>double click>open inventory>double click item>open hero panel>drag item to skin window>click ok.

Whereas it could be:

• Open hero panel>click on item arrow>scroll to fin item>click item

• Tyria looks nothing like Tyria I get that there was supposed to be destruction & it’s 250 years later(which is hardly a long enough time for this kind of erosion), but it’s like this was an excuse to make the game world look absolutely nothing like the previous game world. They made sure to obliterate every importantly place we remember from GW1. This makes absolutely no sense since it’s Guild Wars 2. fans want to see the old places updated not a a crater with a solitary statue from the previous game smashed in a corner.
• Retcons & the new Lore direction this is like an extension of what they did with the game world. The modernized speech, the marginalization of past events & characters, the over-focus on Sylvari, awful & obviously personal-agenda-driven character designs, the sci-fi-ization of the universe (the Eternal Alchemy is the only truth now & everything can be reasoned & explained. Because of this the world loses it’s magic & mysterious quality & it is replaces with ambiguous characters in an attempt to be “realistic”). Again, it’s like they are showing disdain for the previous direction of GW & use the “it’s evolving” excuse for this.
• Archaic Cosmetic System Armor & weapon skins should be unlockable/collectable & separate from stats. MMOs should use DCUO cosmetic systems. Anything else out of date. This is especially bizarre for a game that is supposed to be revolutionizing it’s features.
• Not Enough Non-Combat Game Features Activities just don’t cut it. A big reason is that they are instanced & therefore not really part of the game world. GW2 is a very non-social MMO. it needs things like Housing, Mounts, world-building interaction, guildhalls, more emotes.. etc… The world needs more meaningful interaction than just combat.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Leveling crafting and ascended weapons. I have been collecting it since it was released and still do not even have a single stack of bricks.

lolwut? that gives you like 1/1000 of of the needed xp. It would take you a year to lvl that way. a stack of bricks? what the hell would you need a stack of bricks for? the truth is the bloodstone dust is dropped WAY too often & used for way to little. It’s kinda nice that you can use it in the fractal thing, but still.. not useful enough.

My view on progression:

• Legendaries Should Have Cosmetic Progression
  Like the Mad King’s Tome & the Fractal Back skins, Legendaries should have a satisfying progression to their looks. This does 3 things: makes it feel less grindy, shows how much you’ve accomplished & gives people who would otherwise not bother at all, a reason to try for them. Plus it’s just more fun. Heck, I may like the stage 2 Legendary more than the stage 4, either way, i’ll play your game more.
  I also think this should be done with the simple LS cosmetic rewards (backs/gloves/minis) make a much harder tier of Achievements so that your back piece glows. This makes the art end much easier & shows that you had additional commitment to particular LS releases that you really liked.

• Releasing 1 Skill/Skin/Item At a Time Doesn’t Feel Like Personal Progression
  When my next “progression” is simply about waiting for Anet to release that 1 thing that everyone will get at the same time, it doesn’t feel like I’m growing or progressing because of my adventures, it feels like everyone just goes up one notch on the set “progression day”. Unfortunately this is an inherent problem with Non-Expansion Development. Players need a large enough pool of activities so that everyone isn’t just unlocking the same things at the same time. This may also be the reason that permanent content needs always needs to be accumulating.

• I Want to SEE My Progressing
  I know this was discussed earlier in terms of how expensive the production of art assets is. Anything worth getting will have to be considerable in the making, this is unfortunately how things work. So players will always like Armor sets more than a helm. Unfortunately, because armor sets are sold & not earned, they have yet to be part of the horizontal progression. Ascended is the first set of earned armor in a game with cosmetic progression. This is good for revenue, but bad for progression. Also, there is a marked difference in the quality of the art on the Ascended armor & the Jem Store armor & the required use of Transmutation which is also bad for progression.
  However, there are some alternatives that help show your progression without as much asset production:

• Medals This would require going through all gear & placing 2-4 nodes on each set of armor where you could place earned medals & decals. similar to WH40k seals & skulls, a veteran player could have all sorts of cool medallions, awards, seals & fx located on either side of the chest or shoulders. It would be front loaded work to have to place these nodes but the work on making medals would be even easier than making back items & yet make your character look like a true vet without resorting to something as bland as titles. which many people find so boring they don’t even count as progression.

• Armor Progression Instead of selling the kind of cheap fx flavored reskins & garnering the “money grab” press, let us upgrade existing gear in the same way. I’m guessing doing those fx was extremely easy since you just need to make shaders particle emitters & some masks. Well, why not allow players to work towards upgrading current armor to have Grenth, Dwayna, Melandru, Balthazar, Lyssa& Kormir versions of existing skins. This is also a way to let people kind of tweak armor they might not like to be more flavored the way they do like instead of having to make more full sets.
  I don’t really expect this to happen because; why give away easy to make skins when you can sell them? Most importantly:

• Remove Repetitive, Archaic, Cosmetic Gating/Make skins Into an Easy to Use Collection
  This is one area I was extremely surprised that Anet is years behind the current MMO standards. DCUO is the prime example of how cosmetics should be handled. Having individual items with individual looks feels like nothing more than a reason to sell more bag slots. When I get an item, I should be able to use a transmutation stone to unlock the skin. I’m not talking about having skins like in the achievement panel or the pvpvlocker. Even that is pretty clunky. I should be able to right click an arrow next to an equipped item & see a window of my skins, like the skill bar. then I can just click the one I want to currently use. Anything else just seems like a waste of UI space & time. I have to say, I’m surprised Anet missed this MMO convention. They usually seem to want to be on the forefront with features & focus on cosmetics. But this time around it seemed 2 steps back.

I added a mock-up of this UI system below. The items you HAVE should fill up from the top down, as to get rid of unnecessary scrolling.

PeterThomas.7243:

She’s a cool looking character with great voice talent, and there’s nothing wrong with villains who are overly chaotic – they can be interesting. The problem lies with her motives (or lack thereof), her nonsensical backstory and the suspension of disbelief we require as players to take her seriously.

I think she looks awful. Varesh? She looked awesome. was menacing & strong & a good leader. & had a very believable insanity.
About chaotic characters, because I keep hearing this excuse. Scarlet is not chaotic or insane. She’s a quippy, “sassy” strong-girl trope that spouts some token “crazy” dialog. The cheesy “i’m crazy” whispers. The “chaotic” things she does are silly & rediculous for the sole purpose of making people think she’s “fun”. It’s all a veneer of crazy that rps like to use because it has all of the “fun” elements & none of the horrifying, crippling ones. That might work as a small time villain with no powers, but when you get to the galactic power level or hyper intelligence & omni-proficiency it just turns into an rp fantasy.
There are very few successful crazy/zany villains.

Personally, my favorite kind of progression in MMOs is new armor styles, new weapon skins, animation customization (choosing my character’s idle animation) Housing customization, Mounts etc.. I want visual progression. Unfortunately GW2’s visual progression is “buy our armor” so it has nothing to do with progression at all. Mounts & housing help to define my character. I can go into someone’s home in EQ2 & see the history of their events & representation of their style. In GW2 I go into my “home” & I literally go into some else gigantic house with tons of people walking around & I guess there is supposed to be an unmarked “spot” or something that is my bed? I have no idea how it’s a home.

in terms of skills/stats I want more ways to play with new skills, more synergy, new weapons.

While the article has some good criticism, it really only talks about half of the problems with Scarlet. Her awful dialog, her level of power, her really poorly presented “insanity” & her extremely annoying personality are just a few things they ignored.

Sobiech.9613:

Getting tired of threads like this. The moment Anet mentions Scarlet everyone feels they need to make a thread laying out in a carefully thought out post saying why they hate her. We get it. Anet gets it. Scarlet wasn’t a particularly well written character for whatever reason.

What Anet has done in the announcement the OP is adamantly calling out is the light at the end of the tunnel everyone else is calling for. The problem the OP can’t live with (and I can’t imagine why – this is a game after all) is that it’s going to take four more updates.

I don’t care for Scarlet much like the rest of us however I’m pleased to know there’s a light up ahead and it’s approaching fast.

You’re getting sick of threads like this & people are already sick of Scarlet. We get it, Anet loves Sylvari & overpowered fan-fic Lolitas, yes. I’m sorry, but as long as something dumb is in the game, people should be free to moan & complain. If it’s coming all that fast then you shouldn’t mind a few more months of people explaining in painful detail why she’s beyond repair.

I don’t want a “light at the end of the tunnel” for excruciating stories & characters, I want to hear that that something good is coming. I want to hear that Tengu are being worked on, I want to hear that housing, a real cosmetics system, guild halls, capes, Cantha.. all that stuff.. instead.. “Hey! So Scarlet is gonna be around for quite a bit longer! We know she’s awful & people would rather hear that Tengu & Cantha are upcoming but we love her so, whatever!”

So much Elonian Wine in this thread. Its only 4 more updates. And honestly things are starting to get very interesting if you’ve been paying attention. I kinda think people are just hating Scarlet now because its the cool thing to do. Hell I’ve seen brand new players hop on the band wagon. Two months worth of updates and shes all wrapped up yea?

Maybe she’s actually awful? I guess that’s just not possible. People who don’t like her (even though it’s such a huge amount) they must be wrong because… why exactly? like I said before.. some people think JarJar binks is a great character too.

PopeUrban.2578:

DarksunG.9537:

VOLKON.1290:

I tell you right now you ungrateful little brats, back in the day we couldn’t just grab us a roll of cloth and smear some blood on it and call it ascended or infused or whatever you dang kids are calling it these days. We had to do it like MEN! We stormed up a mountain in the middle of winter carrying the gear we wanted to infuse with us just to talk to some old hag so ugly she’d make your eyes puke, only to have her direct us to some vile, nasty beast we had to kill, slice open and carefully remove some despicable organ full of some reeking goo and carry it back to the hag so she could smear it on our gear while we stood around in the bone chilling cold waiting, then wear that stinking gear back to town while it dried! Half the time half the party would wind up half dead, and the other half wholly half dead! We did it like MEN and were proud of it! You brats have it easy these days! Now git off my lawn! I’m going to take a nap and expect QUIET!

Wait a sec… Are you trying to make it sound like it was harder in GW1, or easier? I’m getting conflicting messages here!

He’s making a joke, about how it was thematically harder for characters “back in my day” not attempting to compare the two, because trying to compare ascended GW2 gear with the function of infused armor in GW1 is apples and oranges, and would be a pointless discussion.

& the joke I was making was it’s actually harder to do in GW2, so I thought he was being ironic.

Neishi.5309:

You do realize the majority of the updates are already in the works and have been for months now? The last should be started soon now that the Wintersday patch is live. The teams have four months to work on the content. One of those teams should be just about done. There’s no logical way they can just scrap the rest of the Scarlet arc.

Except people pointed out how stupid she is 3-4 months ago.

VOLKON.1290:

I tell you right now you ungrateful little brats, back in the day we couldn’t just grab us a roll of cloth and smear some blood on it and call it ascended or infused or whatever you dang kids are calling it these days. We had to do it like MEN! We stormed up a mountain in the middle of winter carrying the gear we wanted to infuse with us just to talk to some old hag so ugly she’d make your eyes puke, only to have her direct us to some vile, nasty beast we had to kill, slice open and carefully remove some despicable organ full of some reeking goo and carry it back to the hag so she could smear it on our gear while we stood around in the bone chilling cold waiting, then wear that stinking gear back to town while it dried! Half the time half the party would wind up half dead, and the other half wholly half dead! We did it like MEN and were proud of it! You brats have it easy these days! Now git off my lawn! I’m going to take a nap and expect QUIET!

Wait a sec… Are you trying to make it sound like it was harder in GW1, or easier? I’m getting conflicting messages here!

FlamingFoxx.1305:

This gives new players a chance to get things that they would have missed out on as well as old players who also didn’t manage to get all the skins they wanted.

Reusing the skins has nothing to do with letting people get “what they missed” or we’d have the same things happening with Halloween. It’s because they need to shift devs over to work on other things. that’s it.

Lampshade.7569:

After December 10, there will be just four releases left in the current major world story arc, which we like to think of as season one of the Living World. Our first release in the new year will be on January 21 as we begin our countdown to the end of this story arc. We’ll use the longer break to spend extra time to ensure that our final four releases are as polished and exciting as possible.

Four more updates of Scarlet. NO.

But if you give us just four more patches, we will turn it around and it will be great and . . . NO.

I understand that you want to make it work, “save” her in the eyes of the players and I say NO.

I also understand that a lot of it might already be finished. I do not care one bit to see any of it. Trash it.

As many have pointed out, the problem with Scarlet was the lack of backstory, lack of dialogue, writing revolving around content when it should be the other way around.

In the next update, instead of any content, give us a 10 minute cutscene explaining her tragic past, her misunderstood motivation and how she DIED.

My suggestion:

All the experiments left her with little time left to live, so she lived it to the fullest, wishing to leave no regrets.

Scarlet Briar died peacefully, in her sleep, January 21st 2014.

---

It was an experiment, you did the best you could, you learned a lot, you will do better next time.

Now kill her.

Agreed. I’d rather have a death for her that is equal to the idiocy of her character. Every single thing she did, should backfire & she should find out that she really had no comprehension of anything as it all comes crashing down on her, cowering in fear.
Anet is absolutely unwilling to accept that they made a mistake & move on. They want to try to “develop” this idiot. I gave up on the story finally because of the fail that is Scarlet, so all I can hope for is better features in the updates. Because every time they do ‘story’ it makes me want to claw my eyes out. Watching people’s in-game reactions to more Scarlet story is enough for me to think that the players, for the most part, are not in line with this awful character.

The reason I like both of you is because you actually support the game and are the voice of reason and common sense much of the time. I hate to see a misunderstanding like this.

This is so disingenuous… They aren’t “supporting the game” or the “voice of reason and common sense”. They just have another opinion that lines up with yours. I think people that don’t like Scarlet are providing waaaay more constructive feedback on the game. They’ve given tons of logical reasons as to why the character doesn’t fit the game & is essentially a bad rp fantasy. Even Anet admitted (in an extremely toned-down & politically-deflective way) that they character had problems. Sorry, but they aren’t “supporting the game”, they are eating up whatever comes out the chute. If you have a bad element in a good product, pretending that everything if great, is the opposite of helping.

No, it is some people’s public opinion that Scarlet is too poorly written to be salvaged according to them.

That’s true. & some people think JarJar binks is a masterpiece.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Sorry for the confusion, I’ll try a different phrasing to see if that helps.

Each gift earns you a discounted purchase, even of a different stack size.

So for example you can gift 1 black lion key to a friend, and get 40% off a purchase of the 25 stack of keys.

Note, Collection expanders are not gift-able due to being account limited purchases. So sorry no discount on those.

Unfortunately I would have purchased a 5 pack if I had know this. Instead, trying to get 3, I only got 1.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Kits are now available

The update note is advertizing in a misleading manner:

“From now through December 31, players who send a gift to a friend can purchase that same item in any quantity for themselves at 40% off! Let the sharing begin! All discounts must be claimed by 11:59 p.m. PST on December 31.”

As soon as I purchased an item after gifting the price when back to the regular price.. this does NOT allow me to purchase 3 of them at the new price.

yeah, this is really bizarre. Don’t send me an add for something then not make it available

Jrunyon.3012:

Asia Skyly.7198:

Do away with Soulbound items in favor of account bound items, and you have a point.

And destroy plenty of markets in the process?

No.

well, there are things like LS skins & such that should never become soulbound. tbh though, I think skins should just unlock in your account collection when you use a stone to unlock them.

when I found out we have 4 more releases of this idiot I was definitely sad.

looked really cool. Don’t understand why it exploded though.. weird.

They should have made a unique god armor for each temple to have a reason to keep running Orr.

They really needed to add a Wardrobe or a free transmutation before they release Ascended armor. Making it so it’s essentially necessary (especially with the silly looking armor) to use transmutation stones.. it’s kind of a toolbag move.

eekzie.5640:

The biggest problem I have this armor is that it simply doesn’t live up to the quality I expect of a game. It’s not a stylistic choise, it simply is too far of what I expect a game should present to you. I can not support designers who willingly make you look like you’re working on a street corner.

A simple alteration to the armor would still leave it skimpy, but it’d remove the impure aspect of the armor.

Not buying it doesn’t solve the problem. This is not about me personally buying it.

The level of immaturity that is explicitely adhesive to the design of a showing underboob is one I do not wish to have in a high-standard game.
It also does not belong to the fantasy world that is Tyria.

Please keep this discussion civil and on topic.

The following attachment shows how to solve the problem without undermining the overall look and feeling of the armor.

Yet you didn’t complain about any of the male armor that is bare-chested with shorts on. I can’t take your comments seriously, sorry.

Singer.8740:

And this biased nonsense is why I am done here. have a good day folks.

To be fair, most of what you’ve given as reasons she isn’t just an over-powered fan-fic character are just damage control. Small degrees as to why she’s just a master, not a grandmaster. No one but maybe the gods have her proficiency at everything. & noone has her annoying personality to make them infuriating. They showed restraint & focus in terms of power on other villains like Palawa Joko & Shiro. Here she’s just an npc fan character for no good reason. Varesh very nearly brought about the destruction of the planet & there was no need to make her “super-awesome-great” at everything.

I think people like her because she fulfills the same need in people as Mary Sue fan-fic character does. It doesn’t make her a good character.

JNetRocks.3652:

I think that Scarlet has a lot of potential. She is a fun, interesting villain and definitely different from anyone else in the game. I feel like the flaw isn’t with Scarlet as a character but more with the very long arch and lack of meaningful story.

I absolute disagree. I think her character & personality is an extreme flaw. It doesn’t fit the world it’s in, its not believable, it makes what she’s accomplished laughably impossible, she’s supremely annoying in dialog & attitude, & her abilities marginalize that of past villains & that of current heroes in a broad-stroke-wish-fulfillment way.

most of all, she’s just annoying.

Oh I agree they are very different in character and motives. My point was simply that the same people who gave us “Abaddon’s behind everything” are the same ones who gave us Scarlet.

This is a prime example as to how the problem with Scarlet’s character is with her character, not only that she’s connected to everything or isn’t “deep enough”.

wookiee.4631:

1. “We” means nothing. You can’t know how every other player feels. Speak for yourself.
2. Scarlet’s not going away, no matter how many “pleases” you tack onto your demand. And apparently, her story is largely set in stone now.
3. Why is this it’s own thread? It could have easily been posted here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Does-anyone-actually-like-the-living-story/first
4. Maybe you should have read the CDI – Living World thread (it’s locked now, sadly) before making such a long series of posts that contain complaints that dozens of others (even including me) have made, much shorter in length, on the forums.

EDIT: And no, I’m not trying to say your opinion is wrong or anything, I just see no point in it being so long and it’s own thread.

He spoke pretty well for me on Scarlet. So that makes ‘we’ perfectly accurate.

Thobek.1730:

They could redeem her by answering some questions about her to give her some depth. We need motives, we need to understand her plan so we feel compelled to stop her. We need to understand the reasons for her strange personality.

Unfortunately none of that would make her less annoying. I don’t understand this preoccupation for “if we just knew more about her background!” That is totally secondary to a good character. Han Solo is one of the most fun, cool, flavorful & memorable characters & he has ZERO BACKGROUND. If JarJar binks had Citizen Kane as his backstory it wouldn’t make his actual personality more tolerable. Some of the best characters never have their backgrounds & motivations revealed because it adds to the mystique of the character. If I ever have to “wait for the motivation & backstory” to enjoy a character, something is wrong.

BobbyStein.2315:

Truth be known, devs don’t generally have a lot of spare time to comb the forums. I’ve been making more of an effort to check in on a daily basis, though. I’m also a lot more responsive to constructive threads than overly negative ones.

I think a lot of people have a huge problem with this because overly negative & constructive are not contradictory. Some of the most constructive information you’ve had on Scarlet is extremely negative & has VERY actionable feedback.

feedback: Scarlet’s personality is annoying a hell
action: remove annoying dialog, make her act less “cute”, stop using such modern, “sassy” speech.

feedback: Scarlet does not act like a person who is really insane
action: Again, dialog. make her more focused on her mission than spouting cheap one-liners. make her act like someone who actually belives that what she is doing is what must be done, rather than “Wah! I dont wanna be like da pawe twee! meeeh, you can tew me what to doo!”

feedback: There is NO WAY Scarlet could bring those races together. She has the commanding presence & menace of an inflatable clown.
action: Look to Varesh. Varesh was awesome. Strong, determined, commanding, had a history that she wanted to live up to. She felt like a real leader, but actually felt truely insane at the same time.

feedback: Scarlet is WAY to kitten ed powerful. her mastery of everything & huge army of dimension-hopping factions marginalize great villians like the Mursaat, Palawa Joko, Shiro, Varesh & almost the dragons.
action: Stop. reduce her significance & tone back how smart & effective she really is.

feedback: Retcon Scarlet out. she’s already ruined much of the lore we loved
action: Have us go back in time & wipe her out before she’s born, Dr Who style. seriously. This honestly is the most significant because it’s too late to fix how much she has ruined based on the previous points. “revealing her back story” is not going to make her less annoying, marginalizing,out of place & ridiculous. It doesn’t change what she is & how she acts. It’s trying to make us accept the mistake as somehow valid.

This is the main problem with how you refer to threads like that as “overly negative” & not “constructive”. We get a very distinct feeling that there are specific feedback you absolutely will not take into consideration & it’s not based on actionable feedback. It’s a matter of what the personal preference is of the person that reads the threads. Do I want to keep this character?=pro Scarlet threads are constructive, anti are overly negative. Am I willing to accept that Scarlet is a mistake?=positive & negative Scarlet threads can be constructive.

What I don’t understand is the unwillingness for the writers to accept that she may be a failure. & that maybe it’s best to retcon her out. I mean you’re retconned the gods to be OP wizards that throw “tantrums” & really are less significant & powerful than these world-ending dragons that no one knew about even thought they make up mountain ranges. I don’t understand how it’s “inconceivable” or “non-actionable” to remove her entirely & yet you essentially did the same with the most (previously) most powerful beings in the universe.

Arnath.2319:

Stop creating multiple threads on the same topic.

I really hope they start perma banning those spamming the forums about this topic.

Reskinning an old thread with a different title? Nah.. Anet’s cool with that.

Saulius.8430:

there are no trinity roles here. and game was advertised as such

This is incorrect. It was advertized as having Damage, Control & Support as roles.

Right now Control is laughable. Many MMOs control characters can drop entire sets of mobs out of a fight for a minute. in GW2 I can turn a mob to stone for 1.5 seconds. or root a guy for 3 seconds while a team mate gets 5 more feet away. The balancing in this game is absolutely PvP minded.

Support is …. i dunno.. it’s spotty.. from none to ok. Occasionally you’ll get aegis to help everyone block that massive boss attack, but most of the time the number of hits people are taking makes it humorous. Regen.. I don’t know how I feel about it.. so much of support is like 3% here 1% there.. it’s not very satisfying. I certainly don’t feel like notice my support is making a big difference.

I voted Evon, but in the end i’m glad we got the reactor because it (most likely) removed an opportunity for the GW2 writers to screw over(even more) the awesome lore with the gods.

As for Kiel voters being happy, lol. In terms of mechanics, yeah it’s actually kinda fun. The puzzles are kinda neat, the boss fight isn’t fantastic but it’s fine, & the fractal is short. (except for the pointlessly drawn-out ooze fight)

As for lore, lol. yeah there is almost NOTHING at all here. it’s: Scarlet did it. There is no in-depth explanation of what they were doing at the reactor, who was in charge, watching any events that lead up to it, what specifically caused it to go critical, what it ACTUALLY did when it went critical, nothing. it’s a freaking black hole of answers. We learned the are ley-lines.. omg.. really? this is the “reveal” this is the “research”? the funny thing is we don’t even experience the meltdown. we just run around after the fact pressing buttons then die. heck, it doesn’t even LOOK like the reactor! & worst of all, by far.. they had to put Scarlet in it. Because she wasn’t annoying us enough just existing in the story.

I cant really believe anyone who says they are satisfied with the story of this fractal. The only thing we truly had zero info on was that there was an energy man & Scarlet did it. (although with how much the writers are hot & bothered over Scarlet is no surprise at all) Every other thing in the fractal was hinted at already & was about as much of a surprise as saying there is an underwater dragon.

It IS possible they are planning to show more & more detail on the reactor incident, but tbh, now that I know Scarlet is in it, I don’t care. Every time I give the story another tiny chance it’s like the writers go out of their way to make us hate the story.

Some of us who voted for Kiel really wanted the Fall of Abaddon fractal (even if it probably wouldn’t have lived up to our expectations). But we weren’t shallow enough to vote solely based on the WP/BLK prices or the fractals, we instead voted based on the character of the individual.

yeah, I think that’s the issue most of the Evon voters are talking about. The only important impact is that we get a fractal. like.. lore wise. you really think they’re gonna do something significant with the candidates? com’on. we’ve seen their story MO: “We love Scarlet, shut up.”
Gameplay wise, I want whatever is more fun. But seeing massive dragon-sized gods obliterating the landscape in an epic battle with world-rending powers.. like.. how is that less interesting then being in a big square with lightning? i don’t get i.

Rangersix.1754:

Just heared the following:

Show Spoiler

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Scarlet blew up the reactor

Dear Anet, abandon Scarlet please. She’s not only poorly written and a marysue, but she’s also increasingly annoying. Do away with her and retcon her out of GW2. You are seriously writing a bad character that’s heavily compromising the integrity of your lore.

-signed, ditto, agree, yes & whatever else is applicable..

Iason Evan.3806:

My therapist says that I have blocked someone called Scarlet from my memory. She says I should be happy not having to deal with that “abomination” (her words not mine) in my life.

I wish I had your powers of awful-blocking.

Yes I’m happy. You should be too, regardless of who won. You get some interesting and fun content. If you’re not having fun, then that’s your problem for holding such absurd expectations.

On a side note, these Evon fanboy threads are in no way productive. Please stop with these pathetic attempts to justify your sense of entitilement by ridiculing and segregating those who don’t share your opinion.

You guys lost. That’s the bottom line. Get the kitten over it already. We’re talking about a video game here. This isn’t a real life problem. It’s a fiction one. So this kind of behavior is irrational and therefor unwarranted.

so much irony.

at any rate, people have as much right to express disappointment at satisfaction. so, in your words, " Get the kitten over it already"

Spawne.3128:

DarksunG.9537:

Ok,so now I’m even more confused… so… you take the time to remake a suit of armor because a few ppl complained. SOOOOO confused. I can’t grasp what motivates anything anymore.

I can think of other things that WAYYYY more ppl are upset about. Feels more like damage control for Scarlet & her amazing friends.

It’s funny listening to people defend a mistake that undermines the methodology of the game.

I know, Scarlet undermines pretty much everything.

Currently the only thing that will restore my faith in the GW story at all will be when we retcon Scarlet out with time travel, or humiliate & emasculate her to the point that she’s a talking head we can play soccer with. At the end of her story I want to feel like the writers are saying “I’m sorry, you’re right she’s dumb & we are going to act like she’s dumb. here’s something to make up for it.” It would be a nice change from “We hated everything you loved about GW1 & we’re going to make a character so annoying that it will be frustrating to even play the content”

Ok,so now I’m even more confused… so… you take the time to remake a suit of armor because a few ppl complained. SOOOOO confused. I can’t grasp what motivates anything anymore.

I can think of other things that WAYYYY more ppl are upset about. Feels more like damage control for Scarlet & her amazing friends.

They should have made all faction armor unlockable for all races by doing faction-specific DEs a long time ago. It’d give us more reasons to go back & do DEs in zones people stay away from & would be a great gold/karma sing. But for some confounding reason Anet can only focus on adding more Scarlet.

Akari Storm.6809:

I feel like I’m being trolled. Everything up until the invasions I could deal with. This Scarlett character is destroying my fondness for this universe. A universe that I have been apart of since starting in the Pre-Searing all those years ago.

About 70% of the decisions being made with this game is actually starting to make me dislike it. I don’t know what this is anymore. This game is beginning to feel a lot less like an MMO and more like a train wreck.

I’m getting a very similar feeling. I find the game itself is really fun, but man. I never would have though lore could make me dislike a game world so much.

I used to lover Tyria. I would brag to people how much better the story in GW was than other mmos, and how story centric it was. Now that Scarlet has infected so much of the world I get depressed just looking at certain things. I used to feel nostalgic about certain things, now it’s like the writers are angry that I liked the old lore & are trying to get back at me for it. Like they want to destroy the stuff i liked. The gods are now op wizards, humans made up all of history, the only accurate portrayal of magic is the Eternal Alchemy, Scarlet is behind everything & probably has more insight & sway than the gods, magic wasn’t really from the gods, blahblahblah…. I don’t buy the whole “oh you’re learning more of the truth now!” that’s a cheap way of saying “nothing you ever experience in any story we make can be trusted to be the actual story. Retcon is always an option.”

Sometimes you can slide in this or that to match up lore with old stuff, but this broad-sweeping retcon of everything is ridiculous. And I can’t see any reason they needed to do this. having the dragons be villains didn’t require any of that. & having Scarlet be in the story was just a bad idea anyways.

Sons.5493:

I love Scarlet Briar and i can see her story becoming something much more relevant than what we all thing.

That’s what I’m afraid of.

The more significance they give her the worse the whole fiasco gets. Having a slap-happy teenager with i-can-do-everything-better-then-you powers who says “later tater!” be a significant character is the WHOLE PROBLEM.

lordkrall.7241:

DarksunG.9537:

Here again we have people equating “makes sense” to “good character”.

I would say it is more of a case that people need to stop shouting about this not making sense, no matter how much you hate the character you should at least consider the facts.

You could have the Enterprise D fly down to Tyria & photon torpedo Scarlet & it would “make sense” because the mists lead to all possible opportunities in all possible timelines. When people say “make sense” they don’t always mean “there is zero possible logical connection”.

Again: it doesn’t matter how much “sense” it makes. In fact, the more they connect Scarlet to the lore the more & more I hate the lore I once loved.

KorKor.9452:

Darksun it doesn’t matter even if the writing team can see it. If you go read the interview section with the head writer and see the kinda powers she was given over GW2’s story. Combined with her intense love of the Sylvari it doesn’t matter how bad it gets or what a majority of the fanbase thinks or even what it does the long standing lore of so many other writers involved with this series.

She will just do whatever she wants and at risk of just getting this post deleted. I’d compare that mentality more to that of a fanfiction writer then a professional of their craft.

I don’t know exactly who created Scarlet, but I do get the distinct feeling that you describe. I think that’s why people even brought up Villain Sue. it just fits. it feel like a fanfic that is fulfilling a personal fantasy. Its obnoxious.

If her story ends with us defeating her & as she’s dying she spouting exposition about how she did everything she wanted & how it all worked out in her favor & she’s laughing, that’ll be the confirmation, It was a personal wish-fulfillment character. If the writers care even a little about the players, they’ll have Grenth drag her into the Realm of Torment forever or have us go back in time & erase her existence.

Here again we have people equating “makes sense” to “good character”. It doesn’t matter how much sense it makes that Quigon & Obi-Wan ran into & were helped by JarJar. JarJar is still a dumb character.

Scarlet is dumb because her character is dumb. Her dialog, her personality, her visual design, her proficiency at everything, how she marginalizes past villains by being so powerful. The reactor story makes sense? so what? a million other explanations would have made sense too. In the end, it’s not cool & it’s not a surprise. It’s a way to have this awful character be behind everything in the universe.

Agreed. She’s awful.

Devildoc.6721:

If they managed to put Scarlet in the fall of Abaddon and imply that she was the reason for Abaddon’s defiance, it’d be a reason to quit GW2 permanently.

If the Story were the main reason for me play GW2 I would have been out a while back. I can’t believe the writing team can’t see how much fail Scarlet is. I can understand the person who created her might have been fulfuling the whole Sue thing, but for multiple ppl to not say “woooow.. this.. this is not a good character.” yeah, don’t get it.

Devildoc.6721:

Dear writing team: The best thing you could do is get her killed off and retconned out of the Thaumanova fractal, she’s not a good villain and all and if you really want to make it up to people, hand her creator a pink slip. The fact that even if she does die in the next living story she’s permanently in fractals is a mistake.

We thought Guild Wars 2 was going to be about Elder Dragons, not Mary Sue Sylvari, and so far we’ve had a Gary Stu AND Mary Sue Sylvari dominating the story of GW2.

We get it, you’re proud of your little plant elf race, but honestly I’m getting sick of them.

agreed. “Finishing what you started” doesn’t matter anymore. It should be apparent that every time Anet wants us to “wait & see” the result is a much deeper more pathetic hole of Scarlet. The only way to make progress is to go back in time & Terminator her out of existence, which we have an opportunity to do by using the instability of the reactor to hop back & time & wipe out her existence.

Qawsada.4251:

Crovax.7854:

After seeing they destroyed this part of LS by making Scarlett
the mastermind behind all this again I think it is better to
make a new piece of bad lore instead of destroying a formerly good
part of the GW story.
I bet anet would have involved Scarlett somehow in the fall of Abbadon
so considering that, we are better off with what we have.

Be thankful Evon supporters!

There is a problem. The person that made Scarlet is in charge of writing the lore for Guild Wars 2. This include REWRITING Guild Wars 1 material to make it less human centric. This also mean they made the Human God like Abaddon a glorified OP wizard. I am not kidding.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Angel-McCoy-Interview

There you go. Angel McCoy is in charge of making this happen.

Yep, she’s killed the lore in this game. I love how she called the war with Abbadon a “tantrum” & then says her favorite character is Scarlet. It’s good to show contempt for your audience!

I’m gonna call it now, the stupidest possible idea they could have is going to be true:

Scarlet woke up/caused the dragons.

& when they announce it, GW lore will be done.

Kanto.1659:

We got what we wanted. So.. er.. you’re boasting about us who voted, getting what we voted for.

Y’know, if only RL politics worked this well….

You want RL politics to be determined by how many times a single person can vote? GG.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Danikat.8537:

So people who voted for Kiel based on the Fractals offered got exactly what they expected and voted for.

What’s the problem with that?

The fact that we all have to now suffer the permanent loss of the Abaddon Fractal.

Go read the lore on it. Yay, you now know what happens in the Abaddon Fractal. It’s old news, already written in stone. The Fractal won’t change that.

Sorry but I’d rather experience new stories and new lore, instead of reliving old lore that we already know what happened.

This is the worst logic I’ve seen as a reason to vote Kiel. So are you saying that if they wrote a paragraph explaining what happened in the reactor, you’d be fine with having neither? We know just as much about the Reactor Incident as we know about the fall of Abbadon. The 5 gods, got together & defeated abbadon & threw him in the realm of torment. The Thermanova reactor exploded & caused reality to be turned inside out in various locations & timelines. Actauly, we may know more about the reactor specifics than the Abbadon. Yeah, you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

The truth is, Kiel won because of waypoints & being a human, rather than a Charr.

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s kind of funny that we routinely get two types of feedback on the Living World story. From some people it’s, “Stuff feels random. I don’t know these characters.” From others it’s, “Stop using X character. I don’t like them.” So we’re presented with two competing bits of feedback (usually from different people but it’s hard to track opinions on a forum).

This is disingenuous, as it’s very much not conflicting.
People say “Stuff feels random” because you have bizzare lore-breaking conglomerations of certain enemy factions joining because of a character that came from nowhere is attacking two other characters that came from nowhere that we are instantly supposed to care about how it effects them. It also feel random because with the gaggle of far-cooler enemies you could have used from GW1 you went with a new one.
People then say “Stop using X character” because you bash us over the head with the worst character we’ve yet to have in GW being responsible for everything in the LS in the same ridiculously impossible way every time.
There is nothing conflicting about it.

I’m sick of the Sylvari-themed everything. Sylvari main Antagonist, Sylvari Main character in primary story, Sylvari Dungeon update, Sylvari Nightmare tower, Sylvari weapon sets, Sylvari are the best at crafting & 2nd most intelligent race & immune to corruption & are possibly dragon minions.. blah blah blah….

They are the 2nd least player-chosen race yet Anet is infatuated with them. Even though Charr being the least chosen is a good reason for them to not focus on things like awful clipping & stuff on Charr.

We did have Flame and Frost, which is norn/charr -driven.

I’d hardly call it norn/charr “driven”. I’d say they added 2 minor characters (instead of using existing, established ones ones for some random reasons) & have done nothing significant with them with them since.

Mesket.5728:

They can give Scarlet all the depth they want and even if they end up making an interesting story, it doesn’t have to like me.

I don’t like her conceptually, I don’t like made up on the go “armies”, I don’t like her smile, her joker wanna be attitude. I don’t like what she might be looking for, I’m just not interested. She behaves like a spoiled teenager, desperate to get some attention. Everything around her was forced in the story, her knowledge, her way of manipulating factions, her powers… nothing is believable and it has to be explained through very unlikely scenarios. It’s a character I simply cannot buy.

The only damage she is really causing is to the game lore if this character ever becomes representative of the Guild Wars franchise. For all we know, Scarlet had much more impact on the world than Zhaitan, many times more; it just doesn’t make any sense. Even if at the end an Elder Dragon was behind Scarlet, it can’t be more powerful than she already is. She controls everything from everywhere at any time, it’s stupid. It’s also stupid that we are still beating her, just let us finish her and move on with a real story about Tyria.

Not that we haven’t been giving many many reasons Scarlet is awful (& that people just ignore), but thank you for articulating it so well.

So this in-game cutscene confirms that Scarlet was behind all of it. We still don’t know all the details of her big plot, but that’s ok, because who wants the ending of a movie spoiled.

Who cares if you spoil the ending if everything before it is awful? The damage is done.

Dr Ritter.1327:

scarlet teleports away for what the 5th time now?

OMG SUCH SUSPENSE!!

Please wrap this garbage of a story up for good next patch.

Nope, they are going to keep hammering on us with Scarlet until we admit she is amazing.