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Don't you just hate being the hero all the time?


Cynder.2509

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@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:If you think the PC is the hero all the time you haven't been keeping up with the story. They're a military leader who has made many mistakes and lead many people (hundreds, if not thousands) to their deaths. And that's just in the Pact & Dragon's Watch storylines, in open-world you also do alot of very questionable things even just for regular hearts and events here and there.

At best, the PC is an anti-hero, especially after commiting a warcrime in No Quarter.

How is the PC a anti-hero in No Quarter? Which warcrime that we commited?

The "grenade" that they throw down in a science lab and kill a bunch of civilians (not soldiers) was a fragment of a Searing Crystal, which was what the Flame Legion used to destroy Ascalon and is considered the equivalent to a WMD in Tyria.

What? There were no civilians on No Quarter, were did you got that?? Everyone that you killed were Charrs that defected to the Dominion forces...

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@"vier.1327" said:How many people has the commander killed during his adventure?

I mean, if you think about it, maybe we are truly the bad guy.

Think this way, how many people would had died if my Norn Commander decided to instead of go out and become a adventurer just stayed his whole day driking on Hoelbrak? He would never become the Slayer of Issomir and never meet Eir, would not become a menber of one of the Orders, would never meet Trahearne, the Pact would not exist, Zhaitan would never be stopped, etc...so no, the Commander is not a mindless murderer killing everything on sigh, people can twist as much as they want, but in the end the PC is one of the "good guys".

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@Felipe.1807 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:If you think the PC is the hero all the time you haven't been keeping up with the story. They're a military leader who has made many mistakes and lead many people (hundreds, if not thousands) to their deaths. And that's just in the Pact & Dragon's Watch storylines, in open-world you also do alot of very questionable things even just for regular hearts and events here and there.

At best, the PC is an anti-hero, especially after commiting a warcrime in No Quarter.

How is the PC a anti-hero in No Quarter? Which warcrime that we commited?

The "grenade" that they throw down in a science lab and kill a bunch of civilians (not soldiers) was a fragment of a Searing Crystal, which was what the Flame Legion used to destroy Ascalon and is considered the equivalent to a WMD in Tyria.

What? There were no civilians on No Quarter, were did you got that?? Everyone that you killed were Charrs that defected to the Dominion forces...

It was established that the people in the bunker were scientists, not soldiers, aside from one Ash spy. Civilians serve alongside the military all the time in the real world. It still doesn't make them military, and killing them is generally illegal.

Granted, the Charr seem to have no conventions for war (as seen by Smodur outright killing defectors), but the PC is not always Charr, and if they are Charr they're technically a gladium (most of your warband died or defected) and they're no longer part of the Legions, having moved on long ago to the Orders, the Pact, and Dragon's Watch, and thus is generally held to a racially-neutral standard.

Also, they're not villains, no matter how much it seems so to us; they're acting under their Imperator's rule.

Remember that these Charr have friends and families and the PC (or Rytlock) will be held responsible for their deaths. That's exactly why we don't outright kill Bangar or Ryland, because its not our place to do so, and it'd create alot of problems.

That's not even taking into account civilian or military status or the use of a Searing Crystal.

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@"Hannelore.8153" said:

It was established that the people in the bunker were scientists, not soldiers, aside from one Ash spy. Civilians serve alongside the military all the time in the real world. It still doesn't make them military, and killing them is generally illegal.

Granted, the Charr seem to have no conventions for war (as seen by Smodur outright killing defectors), but the PC is not always Charr, and if they are Charr they're technically a gladium (most of your warband died or defected) and they're no longer part of the Legions, having moved on long ago to the Orders, the Pact, and Dragon's Watch, and thus is generally held to a racially-neutral standard.

Also, they're not villains, no matter how much it seems so to us; they're acting under their Imperator's rule.

Remember that these Charr have friends and families and the PC (or Rytlock) will be held responsible for their deaths. That's exactly why we don't outright kill Bangar or Ryland, because its not our place to do so, and it'd create alot of problems.

That's not even taking into account civilian or military status or the use of a Searing Crystal.

But, you know, they were part of the enemy forces in the middle of a war zone doing scientific research to create weapons for the enemy army. That's military enough for me. Even if they were not exactly villains, they were still enemies. Had we blown up a hospital, now that would be seriously ugly, detestable and war-crime-ish. But a weapon lab is a military target even if you buy the kitten about group of charr (the ultra military nation) in the middle of war field not being soldiers.

As for "friends and families" - you can say that about every single sapient (non minion) mob we've ever cut down. And that's not even speaking about the fact that these dudes might even have betrayed said friends to join Bangar...

Did it feel bad to "sear" them? Hell it did, at least for me/my PC. However it's just one more piece of mulch on the quite big pile he's bearing on his shoulders by now.

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This is why I always hold off on inventing a backstory for my character (or adding to the one they have) until I know what kind of story the game offers and what's going to be imposed on me. I made that mistake with Baldur's Gate - creating a new backstory for my character which proved totally incompatible with the game's storyline. Especially for 'evil' characters since even in games which allow that you usually have to do the main storyline to get anywhere and your options are likely to be limited.

Sometimes I've had a really cool idea for a character which just wouldn't work at all in the game which inspired it because the game story or mechanics don't allow for it (for example it requires them to have a specific personality in a game with very limited/no dialogue options) and then I end up holding onto it until I find a game where it will work. or in some cases saving it for pen-and-paper or free-form roleplaying because that's the only format where I can make it work.

I don't like to completely ignore the games story (unless it's a very open-ended game where that makes sense, and then only for alts), I much prefer to work around it, adding to what's already there rather than trying to overwrite it or getting frustrated when I can't.

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@"Hannelore.8153" said:

It was established that the people in the bunker were scientists, not soldiers, aside from one Ash spy. Civilians serve alongside the military all the time in the real world. It still doesn't make them military, and killing them is generally illegal.

Granted, the Charr seem to have no conventions for war (as seen by Smodur outright killing defectors), but the PC is not always Charr, and if they are Charr they're technically a gladium (most of your warband died or defected) and they're no longer part of the Legions, having moved on long ago to the Orders, the Pact, and Dragon's Watch, and thus is generally held to a racially-neutral standard.

Also, they're not villains, no matter how much it seems so to us; they're acting under their Imperator's rule.

A big "eh" from me on these fronts. Modern mercenaries are civilians as well, but I think the nature of their participation in conflicts means they are valid targets. Scientists working on military projects - not even 'science that might be used for military application' but 'weapon to be used in the current conflict right outside this bunker's door' - bear the same risks, imo. Such individuals' work could easily surpass any gun-toting mercenary's impact, when it comes to destructiveness and strategic importance. All of that makes them prime targets. If capture is not feasible, ending their projects violently seems perfectly reasonable within a war.

If there's any objection about the whole bunker sequence, I guess it would be that there was no spec ops capture option. I think they could have made it very interesting. If the Commander, after finding out what the bunker was, insisted on leading a team to breach the facility and capture the workers, you could have had a story branch there where one of the researchers escapes with a prototype that adds to the difficulty of the story fight later on. Ultimately the narrative result would be the same (all the bad guys get theirs, courtesy of the Commander) but it would still offer us a meaningful choice.

I personally had no problems with the Commander dropping a grenade into an enemy weapons development facility. I actually resented that my character seemed so horrified.

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@Cynder.2509 said:I don't know but I find myself wanting to be a supervillain in most RPGs and even though I enjoy the storyline of the game I sometimes feel that this isn't right for all my characters as I have backgrounds and canons for all of them and sometimes I just want to wreak havoc and watch the world burn.I hope that in the future we'll get choices that actually matter for the story.

I wish we were a nobody, just one more faceless soldier. The whole Commander thing is one of the game's worst story decisions, if not the very worst.

Having NPC companions such as the Steel Warband would feel far better than having a team of superheroes working with us too. The Marvel mentality approach to narrative of these last years is an absolute cancer to storytelling. We need to go back to the likes of the Lord of the Rings as a reference.

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I don't mind being the hero. What I do mind is not being treated like a hero. After all, The Commander has "only" led the way in saving the world about half a dozen times by this point, so I'd appreciate it greatly if characters like Anise and Rytlock would start keeping their backhanded "compliments" and negative "jokes" to themselves. As Jormag suggested, it's time The Commander started being treated with the respect we deserve.

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@Lonami.2987 said:

@Cynder.2509 said:I don't know but I find myself wanting to be a supervillain in most RPGs and even though I enjoy the storyline of the game I sometimes feel that this isn't right for all my characters as I have backgrounds and canons for all of them and sometimes I just want to wreak havoc and watch the world burn.I hope that in the future we'll get choices that actually matter for the story.Having NPC companions such as the Steel Warband would feel far better than having a team of superheroes working with us too. The Marvel mentality approach to narrative of these last years is an absolute cancer to storytelling. We need to go back to the likes of the Lord of the Rings as a reference.

Implying that the likes of Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli weren't written as Superheroes...

@"Jimbru.6014" said:I don't mind being the hero. What I do mind is not being treated like a hero. After all, The Commander has "only" led the way in saving the world about half a dozen times by this point, so I'd appreciate it greatly if characters like Anise and Rytlock would start keeping their backhanded "compliments" and negative "jokes" to themselves. As Jormag suggested, it's time The Commander started being treated with the respect we deserve.

One thing to keep in mind, is that we're good friends with them at this point. And much like how we make some humerous comments about them, they do the same to us.

You can actually see this develop throughout the story. When we're first interacting with the likes of Anise, Rytlock, Canach etc, everyone is very formal and respectful.

Throughout the story, the tone becomes more casual as we spend time interacting with them and becoming friends. To the point where it would feel out of place if we weren't getting ribbed by Canach and Rytlock at every opportunity (In fact, this is brought up with the Bromance between Rytlock and Canach at the start of PoF, when Canach rejoins the party for the first time after becoming a "Free Sylvari" he notes how out of character it was when Rytlock offered to join him in a scouting mission, until he made a backhanded comment about Canach having lost his ability to fight while he's been away)

It's one of the more natural aspects to GW2's story, the dichotomy between friendly banter with our allies we've been with for years, while the respect and formality with those outside of our party whom just know us as The Commander/Dragon Slayer/Godstomper.

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One highlight of this living story due to lack of VA, is that my character's voice wasn't chosen for me. I could read responses in my own tone. It did the world for immersion, for me personally, and I didn't feel like a shoehorned hero (particular when we committed that...exposive war crime...). As much as I adore the quality of the PC's voice (one that stands out is the conversation between us at Braham when they're looking for the scroll in Bitterfrost, the idiosyncrasies within the speech were so well performed), I could do without from here on out personally and just have NPC voices moving forward.

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@"Jimbru.6014" said:I don't mind being the hero. What I do mind is not being treated like a hero. After all, The Commander has "only" led the way in saving the world about half a dozen times by this point, so I'd appreciate it greatly if characters like Anise and Rytlock would start keeping their backhanded "compliments" and negative "jokes" to themselves. As Jormag suggested, it's time The Commander started being treated with the respect we deserve.

Just because you are a "hero" doesn't mean that your comrades or closer-knit friend circle needs to worship you 24/7 and kiss your feet. Heck, even FF14, where many, many NPCs praise you to death, makes the companions of the WoL retain their own quirks (while still fanboying/fangirling for you) and let the make fun of the power of nodding.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Lonami.2987 said:

I wish we were a nobody, just one more faceless soldier. The whole Commander thing is one of the game's worst story decisions, if not the very worst.

Totally agree with this. It is not necessary to make the protagonist into a VIP and the center of attention. Doing so kills any incentive for player creativity and reduces story engagement to a single perspective. While this may work for a superhero movie or isekai light novel, it’s bad for an MMO that wants to encourage the creation of content and experiences beyond what is supplied the developers.

One frequent objection is that voice acting requires the a consistent title for the protagonist. Though I don’t miss the voice acting, I also don’t see a problem with using a less ostentatious title like “volunteer”, “soldier”, or “recruit” depending on the situation.

I would prefer storytelling at scale to focus more on the world, its locations, and inhabitants while leaving my own character as a faceless blank slate.

That being said, I like the direction of Icebrood Saga with its increased focus on NPCs and world events while the protagonist’s own role is diminished.

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@Danikat.8537 said:This is why I always hold off on inventing a backstory for my character (or adding to the one they have) until I know what kind of story the game offers and what's going to be imposed on me. I made that mistake with Baldur's Gate - creating a new backstory for my character which proved totally incompatible with the game's storyline. Especially for 'evil' characters since even in games which allow that you usually have to do the main storyline to get anywhere and your options are likely to be limited.

Sometimes I've had a really cool idea for a character which just wouldn't work at all in the game which inspired it because the game story or mechanics don't allow for it (for example it requires them to have a specific personality in a game with very limited/no dialogue options) and then I end up holding onto it until I find a game where it will work. or in some cases saving it for pen-and-paper or free-form roleplaying because that's the only format where I can make it work.

I don't like to completely ignore the games story (unless it's a very open-ended game where that makes sense, and then only for alts), I much prefer to work around it, adding to what's already there rather than trying to overwrite it or getting frustrated when I can't.

Or just do my method lol. My character backstories are completely unrelated to the Commander/PC. Hell only one is even involved in the far north troubles (techincally could do two if I used my singular Legion Charr). The commander is in a sense, Anet's character, and my characters stories are my own to explore and create. Hell, my gameplay main (necromancer) wasn't even involved story-wise with the Jungle Events, Orr, or even the conflicts in Elona mostly.

@Lonami.2987 said:

@"Cynder.2509" said:I don't know but I find myself wanting to be a supervillain in most RPGs and even though I enjoy the storyline of the game I sometimes feel that this isn't right for all my characters as I have backgrounds and canons for all of them and sometimes I just want to wreak havoc and watch the world burn.I hope that in the future we'll get choices that actually matter for the story.

I wish we were a nobody, just one more faceless soldier. The whole Commander thing is one of the game's worst story decisions, if not the very worst.

Having NPC companions such as the Steel Warband would feel far better than having a team of superheroes working with us too. The Marvel mentality approach to narrative of these last years is an absolute cancer to storytelling. We need to go back to the likes of the Lord of the Rings as a reference.

I'm sorry but what super heroes are you talking about?

GW2 has done an excellent job of making it clear that the "hero team" are not godly figures of unstoppable force. Hell the Commander has been beaten every time they went solo against a big bad.

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No, but for there are games out there where you can pvp, kill and take other people's cargo, trade packs and wreck their cars, haulers, etc before they can make it to the trade post. I don't want that content here. :( That's the reason I returned to GW2. You won't lose out on money that way.

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@Danikat.8537 said:I don't like to completely ignore the games story (unless it's a very open-ended game where that makes sense, and then only for alts), I much prefer to work around it, adding to what's already there rather than trying to overwrite it or getting frustrated when I can't.

The workaround I use is that I am just a friendly necromancer who people keep mistaking for some legendary Commander figure. I won't go into the details but the short version is that Joko did it, Aurene wrote it, and everything in the story was a fake, Hollywood retelling of events in the meta.

I don't like simply ignoring the story because I did play them (once) and would like the story experience to be a part of my character one way or another. It feels a bit cheap to pass the whole thing off as fake news but if it reads like somebody cast me in a bad movie, I might as well treat it that way.

 

If you think about it, now that Aurene has inherited the powers of Mordemoth and Kralkatorrik, it's not inconceivable for her to possess the ability to rewrite our memories and simply have us believe whatever she wants us to believe.

 

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Honestly, I'm just so tired of the "good" side. I want to join the Skritt and lead them to become the new science faction. The story conflict can be the Asura's attempt at ethnic cleansing once they feel threatened by the Skritt's growing intelligence. Which I need to specify is something they would have done pre-HoT. Most of the races have been changed significantly since then, and with no real in-universe reason except that Bubbles is the elder dragon of friendship and his corruption threatens us all.

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@"Finalfreefall.8247" said:Honestly, I'm just so tired of the "good" side. I want to join the Skritt and lead them to become the new science faction. The story conflict can be the Asura's attempt at ethnic cleansing once they feel threatened by the Skritt's growing intelligence. Which I need to specify is something they would have done pre-HoT. Most of the races have been changed significantly since then, and with no real in-universe reason except that Bubbles is the elder dragon of friendship and his corruption threatens us all.

Why would the Skritt be the bad side? That sounds more like Skaven :tongue:

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@Kalavier.1097 said:Why would the Skritt be the bad side? That sounds more like Skaven :tongue:Quotes around good side. When I was going through a library (I think it was the Priory) the idea started growing that the dragons are the only thing keeping Asura from conquering or enslaving other races. Granted, that sort of thing has been reduced significantly with the LW's lack of consistency.

I'd have Ideally enjoyed the Sylvari jumping allegiance to another dragon after Mordy died, or at least have a slightly edited view of the dream. Something to flesh out the threat.

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@Finalfreefall.8247 said:

@Kalavier.1097 said:Why would the Skritt be the bad side? That sounds more like Skaven :tongue:Quotes around good side. When I was going through a library (I think it was the Priory) the idea started growing that the dragons are the only thing keeping Asura from conquering or enslaving other races. Granted, that sort of thing has been reduced significantly with the LW's lack of consistency.

I'd have Ideally enjoyed the Sylvari jumping allegiance to another dragon after Mordy died, or at least have a slightly edited view of the dream. Something to flesh out the threat.

The mean Asura tend to join the inquest, and the inquest have repeatedly gotten beaten out in the world. Most Asura just don't care is what I've taken from it. In GW1 they didn't really have dreams of conquest or ruling the world.

The whole conflict with the Skritt was because the Skritt stole Asura tech, and in great enough numbers could easily replicate it. That scared the Asura.

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@Emiko.3217 said:No, but for there are games out there where you can pvp, kill and take other people's cargo, trade packs and wreck their cars, haulers, etc before they can make it to the trade post. I don't want that content here. :( That's the reason I returned to GW2. You won't lose out on money that way.

That is one of the great things about GW2. I have always seen games as good v evil. Us v them. I do not PvP, I would always play the hero. Even in CoX I played in the City of Heroes, not the City of Villains.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Initially I was going to make my human character a necromancer, royalty background with the dead sister, with the thought process being a magically adept human child raised by nobility might have turned to dark magic after his sister died, and because of his family's status nobody would give it a second look as that magic corrupted him and turned him into a psychopath bent on controlling death.

Then every mission in the starter areas is "help this farmer, help that rancher, harvest some apples..." and I'm just thinking "what self respecting necromancer would care about any of this?"

So I gave up on that character idea and made him a thief instead.

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