Natalyia.9846

Dagda was where the whole "wait, what? why?" started for me. Ceri, her apprentice was (as far as we know) possessed by the Kryptis at about the same time Dagda was. She comes screaming in and asks us to "save her" - and we do so by killing her right then and there. Dagda? Who's presumably been under emotional siege for far (far) longer? We fight and actually save. Happens all over the events too - some people we just kill, others we fight and save. And there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason (other than the game requirements of the mission/event) as to who gets what fate. Peitha? They went out of their way for the entirety of the original set of chapters to make us feel like she wasn't trustworthy until the very last moment. The "voice in your head" after we just got rid of Jormag? The (excellent) performance of the voice actor chosen? The snide commentary - it was all explicitly designed so we wouldn't just think Peitha was our ally here. It's possible Kryptis aren't inherently inimical to Tyria (or ourselves) - but there's been precious little evidence of it, other than from Peitha, who's hardly an unbiased source. She sees a use for us in her dynastic plans. But once those are achieved? We're more threat than asset - at least by all the evidence we've got. I'm not saying that things can't go the route of Kryptis being "OK", or that Isgarran isn't some amoral genocidal monster. It's just that we've not got a lot of reason for us to think that, and the evidence we *have* seen runs contrary that narrative. The lore around the fractals and what they've been doing is appalling. And yet we're not given any option for our responses to all this to be anything other than "I trust you." That's the problem. I'll grant it's not *crazy* to say "I trust Peitha", but it's at least as sane a response to say "I don't trust you" and we're not given that option.

Secrets of the Obscure's story is interesting - but I flat-out do not trust *anyone* new we've met. OK. R'tchikk and Glade? I maybe trust those two. Maybe. There's a demon voice in our head, an order of wizards who've been willing to let all (or almost all) sentient life be wiped out numerous times over the centuries, and whose initiation rituals very conveniently involve you losing your memories of your past life. They create alternate realities full of sentient beings to experiment on in "what if" nightmare scenarios. Sometimes when their members get possessed by demons they just shrug and end them, and other times we go to great lengths to free their minds - and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to who gets what fate dealt to them. I *really* want a "no, I do not trust you" option every time I'm asked. Because I don't - and I basically don't see any good reason to do so. None of them feel like they are what they present themselves to be. I want the "this seems to be the safest option for Tyria, but I'm watching you - all of you" path here. I get it's an MMO and my character has to follow the story as set forth. But the story has my character saying they trust people that I, the player cannot trust. Every time my Wayfinder says "I trust you", it feels like they're lying - because I don't. And I don't think I've been given any solid reason to do so. I feel like my character is being used - and so is Zojja - by an organization of at-best dubious merit and at worst is an evil on an unprecedented scale, which now has us allied with a literal soul-eating demon. We're playing "lesser of two evils" with Peitha, and I expect once our usefulness is over that she'll betray us - we're a delicacy, why shouldn't she? If the intent is to sow that suspicion and distrust of the "allies" we've met in SotO, then kudos. But I have the suspicion that I - the player - am meant to trust these people and these organizations. And if so? The narrative isn't playing out for me.

Not going to sneer at 8g/week, it's substantially more than "nothing", but I don't believe it's commensurate with the time you have to put in to achieve those goals. That aside, the weekly goals seem to vary from the basically trivial (capture Stonemist Castle once) to the "probably not going to happen" - Capture a Keep five times. If these are things you're expecting an "average" WvW player who spends a lot of time in the game mode to accomplish, I think you've got those two backwards. I'm not certain I "average" five SMC captures/week, but I sure as heck know I don't snag five keeps on an average week. SMC flips a *lot* more often than keeps do, and getting five in seven days? I don't think your average player's going to achieve that one. The keeps/caravans/towers/ruins/invaders? All of those are doable over time, in smaller windows of activity by smaller groups of players - heck, many of them can be done solo. But I think you missed the mark on keeps. Or add another option, but keep the total needed, or drop the total needed by one. Eight gold's nice, but the idea that you don't have to do all the goals every week rings a bit hollow when one of them is so much less likely than the others to be achievable.

I'm pretty sure I need Jade Bot permanent gathering tools. I already *have* permanent gathering tools, mind, but I don't think that would stop me. Just sayin. Oh - and we need a Jade Bot miniature so we can have them following us around all the time.

Thanks so much for the change to allow another path to unlock the siege turtle - that news has delighted several friends of mine who'd basically given up on the idea they'd ever get one. It's an epic encounter, and there's nothing wrong with having a challenging mapwide event as long as everyone who's there is there for the challenging event, not because of the desire to get a mount for the rest of the game.

I think it's a poor idea to gate one of the major headline features of the expansion behind an hours-long map-wide difficult event. I know several people who are just unlikely to get the siege turtle because of this. Difficult content that requires a major time commitment all in one chunk is something a fair sized chunk of the GW2 player base just can't reliably do. Add to that group the group that doesn't have the reflexes and reaction times to cope with a difficult event, and you've carved another fair-sized chunk of the players out. And then there's the fact that the game just hasn't put major features behind something like raids or challenge mode strikes ever. And the Battle for the Jade Sea is on that order. It's got a hard timer, it requires an entire map full of players to respond properly to a series of quick mechanics, and it's at the end of a long, map-wide three-pronged series of events. It's just too many things to *require* everyone who wants to ride around on a giant turtle to do. Don't get me wrong - it's an epic, awesome fight, and I've no problem with it being *a* way to unlock the siege turtle. But there has to be another route that people can just do at their own pace as their schedule allows. Having this be the *only* route to get at a major feature of the expansion is a mistake.