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Lack of epic characters in story


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I am talking in comparison to other popular IP fantasy stories in media/video games. In GW2 we have Living Story, pretty much to tell the current storyline of the game, but thats built around making the player character alone the sole hero to beat pretty much everything. This to me takes away a lot of the threat that the true final bosses have on the game world if I can solo this boss, yet a group of normal players one on one can beat me in in a PvP match. It just takes away from the immersion.

Also I noticed the story doesnt really allow major epic champions to emerge in the storyline in regard to NPC characters. At first when the game was new, I though the Destiny's Edge heroes would be these epic heroes to admire in the story, but that fell off quickly. These Heroes became lamehats! I mean come on, I though Rytlock Brimstone was going to be a badas, but he lame even after becoming a Revenant. I just cant get into the story through this method of storytelling. I believe the Living Story model would be a nice way to tell story for smaller scale side stories, but for the main storyline in the game, it takes away a lot of the potential for epicness and takes away a lot of the potential to be immersed in this universe. Right now I only do them to progress in the game, not for sake of enjoying a great fantasy storyline.

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@DeanBB.4268 said:So... you'd prefer to be a sidekick to some NPC hero?

Yes. I rather a character than cant be slowed by other players, be the Lead Hero in the story to fight against some major threat. Example: in Warcraft lore, Tirion Fordring with aid of a magical signature weapon, the Ashbringer took down the Lichking with aid from heroes (players). Now how would that threat look if a single player soloed the Lich King in a world full of other players equally as strong if not stronger?

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@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@DeanBB.4268 said:So... you'd prefer to be a sidekick to some NPC hero?

Yes. I rather a character than cant be slowed by other players, be the Lead Hero in the story to fight against some major threat. Example: in Warcraft lore, Tirion Fordring with aid of a magical signature weapon, the Ashbringer took down the Lichking with aid from heroes (players). Now how would that threat look if a single player soloed the Lich King in a world full of other players equally as strong if not stronger?

They would end and had to start another character so if we would do the same one of our npc followers would take the lichking characters place in gw2

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@Linken.6345 said:

@DeanBB.4268 said:So... you'd prefer to be a sidekick to some NPC hero?

Yes. I rather a character than cant be slowed by other players, be the Lead Hero in the story to fight against some major threat. Example: in Warcraft lore, Tirion Fordring with aid of a magical signature weapon, the Ashbringer took down the Lichking with aid from heroes (players). Now how would that threat look if a single player soloed the Lich King in a world full of other players equally as strong if not stronger?

They would end and had to start another character so if we would do the same one of our npc followers would take the lichking characters place in gw2

but makes no sense for players to 1v1 a elite level threat like that that is threatening the world, but somehow 1 avg person no different from thousands of other players in the same universe, somehow strong enough to solo it all. loses immersion.

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That's what I prefer about my Lotro character. He's a player, but not the player in a much wider story forming around him. The quality of the story doesn't really rival GW2 because it's all text dialogue and a bit on the basic side at times in terms of writing, but I still prefer to be a bit part hero, not the hero.

That ship has long since sailed though and it is what it is at this time. I get why players and the writers prefer this direction, it's just not my personal preference

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@Knighthonor.4061 said:Also I noticed the story doesnt really allow major epic champions to emerge in the storyline in regard to NPC characters.I prefer the GW2 idea of (mostly) ordinary people doing something extraordinary. Just look at the evolution of Taimi or Faren or Canach or even Ho-ho Tron. They have emerged, in their own way, as NPCs critical to the commander's successes. I think that's plenty interesting.

There are lots of things I dislike about ANet's storytelling; the lack of worthwhile NPCs isn't one of them, fortunately.

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It feels a little dull to be "the chosen one", "the only one capable of saving the world" and all my loyal companions can only assist the commander. If you look a little closer, there are a couple of epic heroes which remain mostly untouchable, no matter how powerful we become.

Note: The following paragraphs contain spoilers about the story.

Rytlock, Logan and the rest of Destiny's Edge. They are still alive and willing to contribute their part. Caithe is quite annoying but I still hope there will be a meaningful appearance for her in the future. On the other hand, a good story needs allies you never really associate to. So I think she has her part. The only real epic hero of them is in my opinion Logan. Rytlock is a Revenant, but he is so extremely tied to the mists and to the story itself, he is too important to be a hero again. In the battle against Caudecus, Logan was even battling the White Mantle barely able to move, although he knew that the almighty commander was around. Where we are, it is dangerous as hell. Even Logan knows that. I know his current job makes another meeting impossible, but I'm still looking forward for another backup-airship when we are in desperate need of one.

Koss is definitely an epic hero, at least after the last Living Story episode. I mean, he 1-shot Mr. Indestructible. In our first encounter we were not able to get rid of the Archon. In our second encounter we actually ambushed him. In our third encounter he was already powerful enough to fight a small army of commanders. And now he was stomped into the ground by an Awakened Sunspear with a single strike, while the Archon was holding us.

Braham is an epic hero as well. The community does not really like him, but he saved our life a few times. Mostly with an epic intro and ... yeah, he needs to grow up. But judging from the Living Story, I think we have crossed the bottom of the curve. His legacy is about to rise and with a little luck he will surpass Canach & Rytlock in no time.

Zaeim is an epic hero, not as powerful as Koss. But he earned himself the title "Hero of Istan." Every greater move we do in Elona, he is involved. He leads the Sunspears. He plays an important role in the story anyway.

And there is Zalambur. He is extremely powerful and in my opinion even more influential than Caudecus was in Kryta. I think we are going to have a lot of fun with him later in the story.

All of the NPCs I listed are important to the storyline. Each of them was more than once the reason our adventure continued. Without them, the almighty commander would be nothing more but a better bruiser. We know how to kill extremely powerful enemies, fear almost nothing and for the rest we need allies. Trahearne taught us how to lead people and to distribute the tasks to the right ones. We do the dirty work and pull some of the strings. The more we rely on scholars and Asuras, the more people pull on our strings. The pact is mighty and resourceful, but inflexible. Dragon's Watch is small, but fast.

 

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You ARE the epic hero that all the NPCS admire...this is how the story goes most of the current mmos that even attempts to tell a decent story.

FFXIV: You are the blessed hacker "Warrior of Light" that everyone depends on to defeat the Garlean/Primal threat....or do Eorzea's chores.B&S: You are the super famous Hongmoon warrior that defeated the Black Rose yet infamously can't stop getting your clan destroyed.GW2: You are the wimpy nobody that rose to become a legendary commander who led the armies that slayed 2 Elder Dragons and a fallen God.

Not sure what the story is in ESO, and I haven't cared about WoW in over 5 years, but wouldn't be surprised if those game's stories are similar to this as well. Games like BDO and Tera don't care about their story, so neither do I.

Everyone wants to be (or eventually be) a hero of some sort in a fantasy game, nobody likes being a nobody especially since we are all peasants irl anyway, if you weren't then you probably wouldn't be playing video games right now :p

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trahearne was cool, he was an extremely powerful necromancer and cleansed the whole of orr. He was the leader of the pact and commanded at claw island. while dicking around with scarlet and what not he was off working to beat the crystal dragon, until mordremoth came. In a way he was the main character of the first chapter, and you were his sidekick.

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I'd only point out that we are not "1v1ing" any of those "great threats, and if you ever got a feeling we are you were not paying attention.

Zhaitan - a standing army of all 3 orders combining all their strenght - and campaign of starving dragon out and zojia's dedicated anti-zhaitan laser.living story season 1 - arise ofnew allies (even if some were not liked enought by community) and for all I recall for each "stage" we had at least one major powers of tyria involved.

living world season 2 - pact and all major powers of tyria gets involved again.

Mordremoth - believe it or not but despite first failure of a head-on assault the pact still played major role alongside with a bunch of new allies found in the jungle - while team of heroes is sneaking by and end up entering dream of dreams to assault mordremoth's mind there is huge assault going on in dragon's Stand

Living world season 3 - our sidekicks are still there, Pact is still recovering from mordy's fight but despite that contributes in certain places, in Lake Doric we are assisted by seraph forces, in draconis mons by druids, bitterfrost frontier and ring of fire islands are more of investigation expeditions than killing anything "epic" and in one path ends we are assisted by shining blade and in more direct way - by very old "epic" character (this one plays funnily into OPs WoW comparision - except lazarus is not killed with a help of full player squad and in the end it is player who grabs the legendary weapon to deliver finishing blow).

PoF - in this one we have again whole arc dedicated to snatching awakened army to confront the forged, and even final fight against balthazar is not anyhow 1v1 (as far as storytelling goes you have elder dragon, dragon and commander standing off against a fallen god)

season 4 so far: in dawbreak we are assisting sunspears in uprising, in sandswept isles we are providing asistance to oalmakhan tribe, we gather army of ghosts, pirates, sunspears, oalmakhan, and certain "troops from tyria" for an assault and while you could argue we 1v1ed Joko himself please consider following: braham was there all the time (he actually enables the fight to happen in the first place) Joko was still holding up that barrier over braham for whole duration of the fight itself, and in the end he demonstrated that commander AND braham at once are not really threat to his well being, and then the dragon happens. in Jahai bluffs we have again, pretty much every major player from elona, tyrian pact forces, and junundu wurms with their overvisor - and even in all of this we actually fail to "kill" anything of importance in the story chapter itself (after the story chapter there is the death-branded shaterrer but that's again pact, assisted wurms, assisted by players)

as for players being sidekicks to NPCs - go and type in google "kormir" - I bet you'll be surprised how playerbase liked that development.personal story? treahearne? let me remind you that quite a chunk of community here was dubbing him as "kormir 2.0" and despite trehearne beign very vocal on praising commander on his deeds alot of players were still complaining that he is the marshal. So again what do you actually expect to happen? to AN to make for the third ime exacly same thing as they did twice already and twice they had to deal with major dramas in community over that?

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@Knighthonor.4061 said:I am talking in comparison to other popular IP fantasy stories in media/video games. In GW2 we have Living Story, pretty much to tell the current storyline of the game, but thats built around making the player character alone the sole hero to beat pretty much everything. This to me takes away a lot of the threat that the true final bosses have on the game world if I can solo this boss, yet a group of normal players one on one can beat me in in a PvP match. It just takes away from the immersion.Well funny you see it that way because I never felt like the hero in the story. When you start the game at level 1 you have one mini quest where you fumble around a bit and defeat some monster with help generally using your skill 1. Suddenly you're the hero of Shaemoor or whatever. Just cause they call you a hero, doesn't make it so. That's totally not epic at all. Then you start working for the queen and there are all these npcs around that determine what happens and you're basically their errand boy/girl. And you go from one organization to another and end up sidekicking the story of Trahearne.

After that it's from one Dragon to the next and you know, there are usually other npc's around you so it's never really just you or you get some massively powerful sword for a fight that does half the work for you. And all the while in LS stories you have a group of npc's and you split tasks between you. And of course the likes of Taimi are vital in the story or you wouldn't be able to progress either. I actually never feel heroic at all in this game because it tends to feel like it wasn't you at all or the fights are silly rather than epic.

Also I noticed the story doesnt really allow major epic champions to emerge in the storyline in regard to NPC characters. At first when the game was new, I though the Destiny's Edge heroes would be these epic heroes to admire in the story, but that fell off quickly. These Heroes became lamehats! I mean come on, I though Rytlock Brimstone was going to be a badas, but he lame even after becoming a Revenant. I just cant get into the story through this method of storytelling. I believe the Living Story model would be a nice way to tell story for smaller scale side stories, but for the main storyline in the game, it takes away a lot of the potential for epicness and takes away a lot of the potential to be immersed in this universe. Right now I only do them to progress in the game, not for sake of enjoying a great fantasy storyline.Well I always felt the story telling in the vanilla story was very childish. It got better afterwards but it still often gets silly and feels very contrived. I only play the stories through on my main and she's a female character. So in that respect I also feel that her lines make her sound more like mother hen than a wintered hero a lot.

And I think that this approach also makes everything you do feel less epic and gritty even though it really should be considering what you're actually doing. Now, this is of course also a matter of taste because there are people who love the story etc. Still, one main problem I see with the story telling is that the tone and style of the story telling simply doesn't match what's happening. In the end, when someone says you're a hero but it doesn't feel like it, it just falls flat. Just saying it, doesn't make it so in other words.

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Only that the PC is not some Ultra Powerfull dude.He is very strong yes, but name me One fight he didnt had help from NPCs.The last time that happend. We died.Also we are NOT saving the world. We fuck it up.Calling the Gw2 Commander a hero is a faaaar stretch.

The Commander is as strong as a character who is fighting for over 6 years straight.

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@"DanAlcedo.3281" said:He is very strong yes, but name me One fight he didnt had help from NPCs.

does "dueling" joko count in here?I mean braham was somewhat caged during that part....

 

(but then storywisely that "duel" could just as well not happen - as apparently joko can summon handy cage-wave while so beaten he needs to drain his awakened to even be able to stand up >.> I wonder why he didn't try that trick on turai ossa after THAT duel didn't try for long enougth for them to actually try out various methods of killing him and ended up imprisoning him in the tomb - I won't believe for a second that he'd allow for that if he had any ability to put any resistance.....)

 

when you hink about it there was a situation tho were commander achieved "unlikely" victory on his own.....

ghosteater in realm of the lost - as long as you were not doing the story in party with friends you had no assistance in this fight and the judge was not giving us much hopes for win...

 

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@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:when you hink about it there was a situation tho were commander achieved "unlikely" victory on his own.....

ghosteater in realm of the lost - as long as you were not doing the story in party with friends you had no assistance in this fight and the judge was not giving us much hopes for win...

 

Ha! The last time I did that, I had the help of four NPCs. In fact, they did all the work, and I do mean all of it. Their names were Blood Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Bone Fiend and Flesh Golem.

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How do you define them not being as heroes? How do you decide who is or isn't a hero?

Its a group of people who took down a dragon. They are not some random no names.

I honestly prefer this more realistic and down to earth characters, and not some random fantasy tropes. Characters in other MMOs seem like some random deus ex machines or lazy plot devices, where they simply snap their fingers and whatever plot needs happens.

The fact that characters in this story are "normal" citizens is what precisely makes them heroic when they do something

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@"kasoki.5180" said:The fact that characters in this story are "normal" citizens is what precisely makes them heroic when they do somethingExcept a group of normal citizens would never ever be able to beat demons, dragons and gods. They would've died early on or say f this s, I'm outta here.

Besides, if you think GW2 doesn't have its share of tropes, deus ex machina moments and lazy plot devices already then I'm not sure what to tell you.

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@Gehenna.3625 said:

@"kasoki.5180" said:The fact that characters in this story are "normal" citizens is what precisely makes them heroic when they do somethingExcept a group of normal citizens would never ever be able to beat demons, dragons and gods. They would've died early on or say f
this s
, I'm outta here.

Except that they did, and constantly do. Simply playing the game quite clearly shows that.

@Gehenna.3625 said:Besides, if you think GW2 doesn't have its share of tropes, deus ex machina moments and lazy plot devices already then I'm not sure what to tell you.

I never said that it doesn't have those. Its just that its mostly not the characters surrounding us (with obvious exception of Taimi)

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