Guild Wars 2

I have created a support guardian. I tank, heal, buff, dps… its not a support class per se more of a hybrid build which is about as good as it’s going to get towards a pure support class

Aarean.5398:

Theres obviously a ton of hate for scarlet right now and people are sick of her but perhaps this is what anet wanted? We all hate her REGARDLESS of the reasons why, this gives anet an emotional reaction out of us and they have the perfect platform for giving us some good LS content tied to her downfall.

I don’t really like this explanation. Getting people to hate the villain through bad writing, and bad character development is NOT a good way to design the main villain.

She as a character is not even annoying. What is annoying is how she is used to drive ALL the content we have – Scarlet did it. I would even prefer it if Mai Trin received more of the spotlight so its not all Scarlet.

So out of the two ways to get people to hate Scarlet this is the worst. She more like a mosquito buzzing around your face, you just want to swat it away.

Razor.6392:

Is actually the puppet of a bigger foe that has been doing all of this from the shadows. Perhaps a dragon?

This is my theory as well, and in my eyes the only way that it can explain her meteoric rise to power. It was given to her.

It explains her madness and her ability to grow red vines from her body.

It doesn’t explain anything else though: the alliances, her experimentation with the magical ley lines (dragons can soak up this power without extra help)

Quote from Angel McCoy (Anet Writer) The natural role of the dragons is to keep this magic balanced. From time to time, in the long history of the world, the dragons have awoken and begun to draw the world’s magic into themselves, reducing the level of magic flowing through the ley lines.

So if Scarlet is using these machines to draw in power she certainly isn’t doing it under the influence of a dragon. So that is one major hole in my theory.

Although people who have a very good understanding of GW1 lore have already said that McCoy is rewriting the lore to suit her own stories.

Ravenmoon.5318:

WoW has a story? o.O

it did, but that was a long time ago.

DaShi.1368:

Lord Kuru.3685:

There is no such reward — and yet there are about that many threads. Anet: this is how much your customers dislike your storytelling.

Or it just reflects the online culture. Frankly,even if there was a different villain, we’d see the same amount of relatively few players of the game making just as many threads about how much they hate it.

So wrong. I used to play WoW/Warcraft3 and I didn’t see nearly the same kind of hate towards the Lich King, in fact it was normally the opposite. But that’s because the story developed at a nice pace, you knew Arthas’ motives from the very start, sure they were twisted when he finally put on the helmet of the Lich King thus transforming him. But at that twist new motives were put in place. He was an interesting character, first he set out to defend what he loved (his people) but it drove him to almost madness, he was so confident he could control the power of the blade he didn’t listen to his friends. Even the Nightelves tried to stop him, he fought Illidan in a titantic fight at the base of the Lich King’s tomb in which he won and took up the crown, becoming the new Lich King… I could go on but you see a character develop through encounters with other characters, events, struggles, desires.

Anyway currently we have Scarlet, very little is known about her, no motive its just a repetitive cycle of forming alliances, no new development to Scarlet, she just laughs and teleports away. She has no real archenemy, her personality is completely one-dimensional (there is no range of emotions)

Honestly most people would struggle to create a worse villain yet here we have a group of professional writers that not only failed but have gone on to make her the centerpoint of 8 months of the Living Story.

Cassio.9507:

I wanted to calmly explore the wonderful world! Get hooked on the lore and fantasize about the dragons. Look forward to difficult fights that required coordination.

So much this…

Already the world is fantastic, I am constantly reminded when I venture out how amazing Tyria looks. Enough of Scarlet and her boring story, which had soured my experience with the LS. Get rid of her and start bringing in a gripping high fantasy story which is carefully paced as to not turn into this repetitive mush.

Gabby.3205:

I hate Kiel very much, btw, but that’s because she steals credit of other npcs and her attitude makes me cringe.

I can’t stand her attitude either, she not likeable at all.

wow I’m super impressed that they are going to fix this.

All gems should be refunded just in case the new look isn’t what people wanted. Its like buying a car then the dealer comes over and replaces it with a van. “Yeah sorry we weren’t supposed to sell you that car, here’s a van instead” – ahhhh, No.

Sytherek.7689:

But to constantly harp on Scarlet is ridiculous. It’s a game, folks.

You know what I get tired of hearing… when people say “It’s a game, folks”

People invest time and money supporting Anet so their product becomes successful and their company continues to grow. If they make boring characters and horribly written story then I will harp on about it until I’m blue in the face.

Why? because I actually like this game and so do the others that are constantly posting their feedback. People want to see this game succeed, and to do so they want a compelling story.

So bring it on. the more complaints the better until we hammer into the writers heads that they need to step it up a notch. They are supposed to be professional writers after all and should be used to criticism. I just hope they take on board what has been said so the next major story won’t be such a mess.

Luckily for them this current story won’t be too hard to beat.

Jerron Blacksilver.8629:

They could redeem Scarlet Briar, and make her less lame.

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. Also we need this in-game, not some short story tucked away somewhere in this website. Just reveal something solid about her.

Even though you still could make Scarlet a decent villain the problem is not only in the character but the poor pacing of the storytelling.

Hatred for Scarlet has now gone global.

Yamagawa.5941:

Expectations:

• has access to a number of potent mesmers… To um persuade/mislead individuals.

Supposedly Scarlet was part of Teyo’s Krewe who invented the Floating Grizwhirl, an entry to this years Snaff prize. A device that hypnotises people to allow them to be controlled. Scarlet was kicked out of Rata Sun after her and Teyo were found breaking in to the city archives looking for designs.

Perhaps she uses this device to “persuade” leaders of different factions to do what she wants.

I know its a weak theory but its a possibility.

So it makes sense that she was tricking the Inquest to experiment with the magical ley lines. I still don’t like it how she controls/convinces every race to do what she wants, we still don’t know why she is doing this? what are her motives? what is she trying to achieve? Even if this arc of the story is to channel the magic into her what will she do with this power? Is she even wanting to use it or deny the dragons from soaking it up?

Throw us a kittening bone Anet and stop dragging us through this pile of kitten. At least reveal something of her plans so we feel compelled to stop her. At the moment everyone is just blindly doing achievements with no clue as to what is going on.

Mek.2947:

The only way dev can prove to me that they tested this is for them to post videos of them playing the new content.

They did a Twitch stream of a fractal run and also the Thuamanova Fractal, I just wish they filmed themselves trying to respawn after they wiped. “Ummmm, where is the waypoint?! Ummm can’t find it…” – stream suddenly cuts out.

I was hoping this thread would be full of people who actually like Scarlet explaining why they think she is a good character. But alas… not many of them around.

go to the living story section, you could easily organise a 50man assassination squad with the amount of hate she’s getting.

Risingashes.8694:

What if: Instead of Scarlet appearing for 5 seconds and monologue-ing at the end of the fractal we were escorted through the instance by a young Sylvari called Ceara. Fresh out of the academy we and Ceara battle through the facility to get her to the core, that she explains she has the knowledge to prevent from going supernova.

She helps us with tips for the puzzles, and explains why a Sylvari is in a place you’d expect only to have Asura (actually get some of that short story in to the game).

You battle the anomaly with Ceara’s help. She explains that the facility was built too close to magic laylines, and future facilities should be built as far away as possible.

You bid the helpful Sylvari farewell, and are able to talk to her after the rest of the party leaves for some backstory/foreshadowing.

I like it! I like it a lot.

well there are bug catchers popping up all over the place, normally I get quite curious about this kind of stuff but I know its just scarlet and will be another lame story where you stop her and she appears at the end, spouts some random dribble about absolutely nothing important, has a laugh and then teleports away… you won’t learn anything new either.

lost interest now.

DrPhro.5976:

People don’t like her because it’s bad writing. There’s no mystery. Nothing is unexpected. She’s not exactly hindering us. Worst of all it doesn’t feel like anything we do matters, which is especially important in a game story.

Spot on! They never tie up lose ends, or try to add some kind of mystery to it. Its like a detective on a murder case but there are no clues, no hints, no developments. The murderer just teleports in, confesses to the crime, then teleports away again without leaving a trace… And what’s worse this murderer is teleporting everywhere and admitting to all the crimes.

Shiren.9532:

Heta.8629:

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

I agree there are plenty of people who seem to like her.

I can see that in all the threads talking about how great she is… oh wait.

thetoetag.5183:

Aedelric.1287:

thetoetag.5183:

I love Scarlet! I don’t understand why everyone hates her so much.

Easy, try reading the countless topics that explain why she is hated.

So people hate her because they dont know how to follow along with the living story? OMG SHES THE WORST!

I guess most of us are stupid then, or the fact is we can follow along with the living story and its an uncompelling repetitive pile of rubbish with a disgustingly one-dimensional antagonist who talks like a teenage brat, and has godlike powers and intelligence. For months now her motives are unknown, she forms all these alliances which break the original GW1 lore. What’s there to like about her?

McSlappy.1372:

Credit where credit is due…..The art department is singlehandedly carrying the company. The art in the game has always been amazing.

quoted for truth!!

BobbyStein.2315:

Dunan Atreides.5436:

My only disdain with lore in this update, is that discussion of the lore is being stifled because of the Scarlet Hate. There are IMO much more interesting reveals this update that are just utterly buried by the never-ending stream of scarlet vitriol.

True.

Related to your comment, what reveals resonated with you?

I also want to hear about these “reveals” from Dunan Atreides. What did I miss that was so revealing to the mystery of the Thaumanova Reactor??

Finnway.2183:

Thobek.1730:

You would be wrong to assume this. I explain why. A couple of months ago two popular tv series had their finale. Breaking Bad and Dexter. The writers from both those shows had two different approaches.

But writing in a TV series is completely different than video game writing. In a video game they have create the models and skins months in advance and they have to record the voice actors months before the patch comes out.

The Scarlet model/skin was already made, it was a simple case of just removing her from the fractal dungeon. She is not liked and having her the cause of everything is wearing a bit thin with some people.

This fractal has been in the works for months now, the countless ‘I hate scarlet’ threads have been around since her arrival and are picking up in frequency. Plenty of time to simply remove a small part of the fractal.

ThiBash.5634:

BobbyStein.2315:

Fractal work started back in August, which is when players first encountered Scarlet and around when the votes were tallied.

That makes sense…I suppose the story is among the first things to be developed and once it gets underway, ít’s basically too late to change things.

You would be wrong to assume this. I explain why. A couple of months ago two popular tv series had their finale. Breaking Bad and Dexter. The writers from both those shows had two different approaches.

The Dexter writers stuck to what was planned a long time ago and unfortunately the finale was not very well received.

The Breaking Bad writers were much more flexible, they got together constantly and adjusted the script as they went along. The end result was a truly great piece of writing. The numerous rewards reflected that.

Just because a story has be planned out does not mean you need to stick to it. Removing Scarlet’s cameo appearance in the Thaumanova reactor would of been a step in the right direction.

Lord Kuru.3685:

A totally wild guess, but: I think Scarlet may be behind this.

I think that’s a pretty good guess.

werebeagle.8537:

I don’t agree on the temporary content thing, but I can see people not liking it…but Scarlet, which I notice 2 out of three pages pointing things out were about, yes. Very yes.

I’m with you on this one. The temporary content is fine with me but Scarlet has to go, she’s basically a steel wool pad scratching off all the shine this game has. A horrible character, disgustingly juvenile dialogue, ridiculously amateurish pacing of the story arc’s.

The Design/Art team are doing a fantastic job, the music is epic. Everything looks and sounds great but the writers are ruining it. How many more months of constant complaints from the player base do you have to receive before you finally get it?!

Yeah Traherne, Canach, Scarlet – we get it. You writers are quite proud of the sylvari. Enough of them already or at least make them so they are not hated. Actually I don’t mind Canach as much at least he’s an anti-hero.

MithranArkanere.8957:

• Added “Show Rarity” option to the Inventory window which shows a border around the item based upon it’s rarity. (Activate it in the gear icon in the inventory where show/hide bags is, also works for bank icons)

Oh wow! this is a really nice touch.

Qawsada.4251:

Oh, and Angel McCoy was the one that came up with Scarlet for the whole Living Story, if you are wondering.

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

thanks for the info, I am wondering that – where is the quote that says she was the person who invented Scarlet? It worries me if this is what she thinks a good villain is what other characters has she come up with?

Crovax.7854:

Ezekiel.1985:

Not exactly helping me on the details…lol

You come in – trashmobs – ooze bossfight – collect some parts from around the reactor and bring them in a room – you then see scarlett in the center saying how she did all of it – bossfight with a human shaped energy thing – the end

seriously, there isn’t anymore to it

I got annoyed just reading how correct your summary is. There isn’t anymore to it. Out of all the possibilities this fractal could of been they picked the worst one – Scarlet did it.

It would of been better if it was as straight forward as the Inquest make an error and scarlet was not involved.

Who was that figure you fight in the end? Where was the connection between the steamcreature standing on the floating platform in the current Thaumanova site and the explosion? What did we learn about the Chaos energy?

We learnt absolutely kittening nothing! except Scarlet was again involved…. /cry

Qawsada.4251:

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

So yeah, the person that created Scarlet is basically rewriting GW 1 lore.

Did she create Scarlet? I’d like to know which one of the writers did come up with this character.

From what I read on Bobby Stein Wiki page: Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb take turns crafting the world setting and story arc for each Guild Wars campaign. I’d really like to hear their explanation on why Scarlet is such a good villain.

Now it taints the Thaumanova in its current state. Going there now is just another reminder of the worst villain ever created.

Anet – for the love of GW1, you don’t have to use her for everything!!

When the forcefield appeared over the lake in Kessex Hills I thought what a great way to introduce the next LS chapter, then I found out it was scarlet. So yeah I’m not getting too excited about this one or any other hints in the future until Scarlet is finished with.

Crovax.7854:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Cynz.9437:

who tested this?

Meanwhile at ArenatNet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2ZkJd4u0Us

LOL!! omg that was funny, but sadly true.

lol no waypoint, and also don’t blink in this fractal if your a mesmer — you get stuck in the walls.

DanteZero.9736:

Dear Kiel voters,

Thanks to you, Scarlet is now permanently part of our fractals experience. I hope you guys like her, because I don’t like her.

Warm regards,
Evon Gnashblade supporter

you should be thanking them, at least we didn’t have to see Scarlet turn up and kill Abaddon.

If they do it for the human cultural armour then it should be for all cultural armours. Either open them up for everyone or not at all….

adubb.2453:

I get that the game needs to continue making money

You answered you own question. They need to make money. You can work towards these ingame by making gold through dungeons, events, LS, Fractals etc, converting gold to gems and there is your armour. case closed.

Even though I’m disappointed in it being just a story of the Inquest Breaking and Entering, I hope they at least explain what the connection is between the reactor and the steamcreatures.

If its the simple case of an Inquest blunder then I’ll be back on the forums tomorrow posting a tirade of anti fractal posts, and like always I’ll probably be praising the art team on a good job and criticising the writers on yet another bland story.

grave of hearts.7830:

Gather people together ,appoint one as “commander” and ctrl-T on him.
Commander problem solved.
There are inherent problems with human nature and commanders though.
The scrubs that arrived to do achievements have no patience and DEMAND the commander to zerg around so they can get spoonfed profit.

Unfortunately the commander tag system has been around for so long people are so accustomed to “following the blue tag” – crtl-T wouldn’t be effective. Also crtlT does not appear on the map.

Another thing is people use the target system to keep track of their target which is normally an enemy, NOT the commander. Its an interesting option but I doubt Crtl-t would work at all.

“Scrubs” that arrive to do achievements and “DEMAND” the commander to zerg around should basically be muted by the commander if it annoys them so much but I fail to see how this has anything to do with the issue of not having a commander on the map.

For people that say “just buy a 100g tag”, that’s not a solution. If I need to move something large once I’d rent a truck not buy one. Nominating/voting a commander is just a fix for when a real commander is not in the map, its not permanent and would just help those willing to step forward and organise so kind of resistance. There also should be a vote to remove the tag just in case the player voted in starts to troll.

Also I agree that all allied dots should be visible. It would help commanders and players know where the distribution of allies are.

I think commander tags should be colour coded only within WvW maps and not just blue. This would help commanders and pugs to at-a-glance know which group to join.

Chris.3290:

As the official commander for SoS’s “Happy Hour” (3 drink minimum) ; I’d appreciate it as well.

I had no idea they did a happy hour session. I might have to investigate this

skullmount.1758:

Thobek.1730:

Manuhell.2759:

I will laugh if the thaumanova reactor’s fallout is caused by the player characters themselves.

From what I just saw in the Dev twitch stream be prepared to laugh.

Yup, he said we were the inquest strike team, correct?

Inquest Infiltrator Squad – first thing they did was blowing a hole in the reactor wall allowing themselves entry.

I remember theories on chaos magic opening rifts in time and maybe we would see the creator(s) of the steamcreatures (oddly enough there is one above the reactor if you have the keys) and it was their doing that the reactor explodes. But there was/is an opportunity to learn about their origin and explain why it currently sits above the reactor.

But alas it could just be the Inquest that causes the explosion which would be a disappointment considering the other possibilities.

Manuhell.2759:

I will laugh if the thaumanova reactor’s fallout is caused by the player characters themselves.

From what I just saw in the Dev twitch stream be prepared to laugh.

Vick.6805:

No, I voted for Kiel primarily because I wanted to see the Reactor fractal and the chance at totally new lore as opposed to lore where we already know most of what happened.

I know what happens – it blows up. Sorry to ruin it for you. Not exactly totally new…

The only thing that bugs me is the server numbers imbalance. I don’t know if its good for any server.

When people get stomped they either transfer to a top server causing even a greater imbalance or they stop playing WvW as much. Either way its a lose/lose situation.

Right now SoS seems evenly matched with Maguuma, and both of us are completely outnumbered by SoR, JQ, TC and BG.

I enjoyed it before this league setup because at least we had weeks where we weren’t a punching bag for the top 4 and had some interesting fights where our numbers were more evenly matched.

Just an observation but when there is no commander on the map people just have no idea what to do or where to go. Some times you get a few vocal people on mapchat but nothing really happens. This is from a gold tier Server (SoS)

I hate to say it but constantly getting crushed by the top 3 servers seems to have turned people away from WvW. Either that or people are just losing interest in WvW but the drop does seem to coincide with the start of this competition so I’m guessing its the former. So no commanders seem to be turning up, we’ve become too reliant on them to organise the masses.

BL’s are just places to hang out while waiting to get into EB as massive enemy zergs circle around waiting for groups to venture out of the safe areas.

*Perhaps people could ask to be nominated for a commander tag if no commanders are on, and it is removed as soon as you leave the map.
*Or have some kind of toggle/overlay on the map that lets you see what the player density is so at least you can see at a glance where the main groups of teammates are and go help them.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

You are forgetting or ignoring the simple fact that over the past 11 months (not all of which have been devoted to her specifically no less) Scarlet has had only a relatively small amount of screen time.

You don’t have to have Scarlet present to find out information about her. But even after Frost and Flame, Dragon Bash, Sky Pirates of Tyria, Queen’s Jubilee, Clockwork Chaos, Twlilight assault, Tower of Nightmares, Nightmares Within… what have we learnt about her motives? Nothing. Some people who found the short story on this website have learnt a little about her origins, and that’s it.

8 chapters and how has her character developed? Just another failed alliance where she teleports away in the end. I’m worried at this level of pacing Scarlet could be boring us for years before anything new is discovered.

The content is good but the lead antagonist has the depth of a puddle. I just wish the writers would step up to the level of the art/design team.

Shriketalon +1

redhand.7168:

If Mr. E is analogous to Mystery, then I wonder if it has any relationship to “Mysterious Stranger” presented in the Asuran Infinity Ball storyline, which turns out to be a future you. This can be sort of explained in Wooden Potatoes’s video here where he talks about that particular mission. I just finished a post about Scarlet’s involvement with future updates, referencing this same story mission. This post can be found here. What do you think? Maybe totally a stretch, but it would be really cool if everything was this huge.

The mysterious stranger is you from the future, that actually could be interesting. You are guiding yourself along.

hedix.1986:

Huh, looks like Anet finally acknowledged the flood of complaints about storytelling LS characters introductions, and tried to fix it up.
Thumbs up for doing it ingame, rather that in a random blog post. And thank you for listening to your playerbase.

I agree, I think this is more due to the complaints but I’m glad they did it, although I wish they did it earlier so Scarlet would actually fell like she had history instead of ‘poof!’ suddenly her she is.

I hope they do this in the future, its helps give the characters more depth.