The "What Lies Within" Story was ...

[vrauns.3215]

"Many of us on the dev team have been dying to shift the narrative in this direction for a while"

Edited May 26, 2023 by TheRunningSquire.3621

[enigmatic.3576]

What are everyone's thoughts on how much content the mini-expansion might have, and at what price point, compared to previous expansions?  Will we get the same value as we had with the previous two expansions or less?

[KindredPhoenyx.8976]

1 hour ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

What are everyone's thoughts on how much content the mini-expansion might have, and at what price point, compared to previous expansions?  Will we get the same value as we had with the previous two expansions or less?

Honestly I'm skeptical.

Idr what the pricings of the expansions exactly are in past, but I know for AUD its $70 to $100 depending on what edition you purchase and I'm concerned it's going to go up to about $100 to $150 if they're going to be bundling in episodic content akin to LW as well as doing it in an expansion like format. Essentially merging the two.

NCsoft has been known to be rather... fleecy with their prices with products in past and the last thing I want to see GW2 do is go down the route of "more for less." Like ordering an overpriced meal at a restaraunt but they give you the meal in pieces over the course of an hour or something because the chefs couldn't keep up with the list of things to make.

 

.... that sounded better in my head but heck it I'll throw it out there anyway. You get my point (hopefully).

Edited May 26, 2023 by Darkness.3942

[Ashantara.8731]

3 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

What are everyone's thoughts on how much content the mini-expansion might have, and at what price point, compared to previous expansions?  Will we get the same value as we had with the previous two expansions or less?

I'm skeptical as well.

My assumption is: 25-30 bucks for the size of 1-2 LWS4 episodes, which might or might not meet the quality standards of LWS4.

[Exxcalibur.6203]

Through hugs we can save the world. 

 

Literally the worst garbage ive had to wade through in an MMO.

[Luthan.5236]

Bad. Same old stuff again - but in worse. You have suddenly some plan and artifact that pops up. Then ... the fight happens. Then some talking. And no interesting stuff to make you look forward to more. (Usually they hint a bit about further threats.)

Also - not directly about the story but about the story step (mission): That fight dragged out for too long. It was so boring to help Rama ... then helping him again. Then Chul-Moo. And at the end the boss with the different phases where you need to repeat stuff. Map part not interesting there in that area.

I am not really looking forward to the new part of the meta. (Have not tried that yet.) People already seem to crowd the maps in lfg tryin got get in when it is finished or at least progressed to the new part. (Queue and no one trying to start in the fresh maps.)

[Randulf.7614]

19 hours ago, TheRunningSquire.3621 said:

"Many of us on the dev team have been dying to shift the narrative in this direction for a while"

Thank you! Missed that

[anna.5487]

How to describe the new chapter in a word? Ah, yes. Garbage!

This is unacceptable. If the future content is heading in this direction, it's a bad one.

 

[Infinity.2876]

The story was pretty funny.

I had a good laugh when the commander was remembering vlast and said something along the lines of "Vlast, you where there for such a short time and I barely knew you. It's a shame you had to sacrifice yourself."

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

It was a genuine chore to complete this story.

The story theme was both uninteresting and unconvincing. So in trying to prop up this flimsy thematic foundation, the writing was overwrought and came across as adolescent in depth, sophistication, and coherence. At points during the story, I also wondered if this was written in whole or part by AI, as the dialogue and transitions through the story seemed to make little sense.

Combat in the story was equally uninteresting and unconvincing. The fights were not so much logically placed interjections enhancing and moving forward the story as they were perfunctory segments thrown in. The final "boss" fight was utterly tedious and uninteresting. The use of repetitious cycles interspersed with the grade school treacle of "positive memories" was thoroughly annoying, tedious, and unfun.   

Finally, I really don't care about Rama's love life. This story piece was uninteresting and unnecessary. The dinner was awkwardly lame and forced.  Rama was earlier denigrated from being a competent police detective into a stumbling, indecisive ward caster, and then the dating sequence simply further denigrated him by turning him into an insecure teenager. The Taimi/Gorrik interaction worked well, but it was at Rama's expense. 

Edited May 28, 2023 by TheAgedGnome.7520

[Forum Moderator.3419]

Hi Everyone,
Just a reminder to keep it civil, on-topic and respectful of others. I've removed some posts.
Regards.

[Shadowlord.7182]

I just finished the chapter, and to give my two shits about it:
It was not bad, it was annoying (which is worse).

I have always been a story player first and foremost. No particular interest in Fractals, WvW, Raids or PvP (at best my interest lies in skins which I will never get).
Since EoD release, I have been somewhat uninterested though. Sure, partly because of my personal life, but also because something is missing from the writing. But never before have I felt so incredibly underwhelmed that I actually looked up the forums to see if there were people actually satisfied with what we've gotten.

Earlier, you would never see me write anything about Guild Wars 2 story with the wiki open to double check, because I knew the story and important characters by heart, but since Cantha I feel like the story and characters neither get the room to breath, nor the time and depth they needs to achieve what the writers want, which results in my and - as far as reading this thread goes - others growing disinterest with Gw2's story.
I won't go on a rant about EoD as a whole, just wanted to show that I haven't been a big fan of that part of the story and not much stuck in my brain from that before going into the criticism of  "Somehow a dedective agency is involved".

Starting from Chapter 16 the setup already feels weird. A failed party and Gorrik being cartoony in his actions/interests somehow leads us to enter and examine a mine that houses demons... Demons powerful enough to completly take out the PC and entourage and force them to retreat.
And here the first point. Sure it is hard to get a challenge going when you are supposed to be the champion of the now only remaining Elder Dragon, so attacking the psyche not the body isn't a bad choice. It's just... Didn't we already endure these guilt trips from Modremoth? Sure more happened, but a little build up would've been good. A small chapter of us actually going through what happened in the last years of the story, now that we have dealt with the constantly lurking threats and have actual room to reflect. Show us that the PC, now that he/she can relax for the first time in years, is completely exhausted, mentally and physically.
This part was not bad in concept, just very lazy in execution.

Then came "Chapter" 17. The Journals weren't bad in terms of the story. Gorrik and co. finding out what is going on, having their own troubles brought on by the events and finding a possible solution was ok. But 2 months waiting to listen this short story? Not worth it. I mean it's still a MMO, not a audio book. Having something to do, living the story, that's what I want from a game. And this approach neither satisfies players like me that play for stories, nor the players that just go through the story because new maps etc. are bound to it.
If you simply want to tell a story, write books again. I loved those. This however is a game, interaction is a keyword.

Which brings us to Chapter 18. Oh boy...
In short: We trap emotions (?) in a collector so we can bait the Oni out of the cave and kill it (I am still not sure why him feeding on a Ley Line should pose this much of a threat to be entirely honest because the story doesn't give us much on this. He is treated as a major threat, but really doesn't feel like he should be).
First of all the whole emotion and trauma topic is so horribly and immaturely handled, no wonder I saw people complaining about woke writing. It's the same level of "We touched the topic on the surface, that's enough". We go somewhere, think about stuff for two seconds, collect the emotions and that's it.
And it's framed in this weird way of "Hey, we know it's hard but please relive your past traumas so we can bait an Oni" and after we did that we apparently have grown as a character...
The options are also weird.
Aurene is ok as a choice, but shouldn't the mission be to get strong NEGATIVE emotions? Since we defeat we oni with positive emotions and that thing is attracted to us because of the conflict and stuff? Wouldn't the rock we died on while Aurene defended us and subsequently got kidnapped be better?
What of Cinder? I can't say that I really remember her leaving a big impression on us, unlike... idk. RYLAND?!?
Vlast? Sure we know his depressing story, but come on we can't possibly be that emotionally invested.
And Blish? He would've fit if we were collecting emotions from everyone. Sure, the PC isn't a sociopath, but again: Why should we be the ones getting emotional about that instead of Gorrik and Taimi? Good thing "gathering emotion" is loose enough to justify that, right?
Then to prevent the Oni from escapeing we conveniently find a old seal that Rama can conveniently learn to use in 2 minutes and that can build big strong walls from nothing. Nothing to add to that, it speaks for itself.
We then bait him out, while somehow having the time to help Rama, Chul-Moo and Yao with their anxiety attacks and literally beat the Oni with the power of positive emotions...
Not only does all of this feel incredibly cheap and convoluted because a lot has to be explained away with "It's magic", gameplay wise it's repetitive and even if you are invested, try to stay that while dodging attacks and having your screen be blocked by particles. Good luck enjoying the chatter of the npcs.

All in all not exactly great, but the last part just feels extra weird.
We are forced to pick either Canach, Yao or Ayumi to go with us to the next edition of "Rama tries to date".
I mean we go on a victory feast/"Rama is to shy to ask for a solo date" date and who do we bring?
Yao? Sure, he was involved in the entire story. That makes sense. So why is there even a choice?
Canach? I mean, the players love the sly, sarcastic little kitten called Canach, but why should he be here if not explicitly because Rama invited him?
Ayumi? WHO THE F*CK IS AYUMI?!? No seriously, looking her up in the wiki she is a minor supporting character in Echovald/Battle with Soo-Won. Why is she here?
And to add to that, I just feel like that throughout the entire thing these three being pushed to be somewhat of potential romantic interests for the PC is an awful choice. Whoever wrote Ayumi really wants to... you know... "bow chicka bow bow" that bird, because EVERY dialouge with her goes in the direction of "weird teen drama compliments". Yao at least has a clear split between honourable and charming dialouge, while Cannach can only get away with it because he's always been a sly, sarcastic, teasing little kitten.
But I just hate this indirect push from Anet.

So to get to the Tl;dr:
The gameplay in both Chpt. 17 and 18 are lacking any engagement and while telling a story doesn't always need action, having a bit more and especially less repetitive stuff to do would be nice.
The story is trash. Every good thing it tries is purely surface level, the threat we actually want to defeat is never really given any... well threat. Hell, it stays just an drugged up oni until the very end, nothing really special about him from a lore perspective which just doesn't sit right considering our own position. And I can't say that I am confident that I like the direction Anet seems to be going in certain directions.

To end this exceedingly long post: Anet has said that they want to go away from the dragon cycle etc. and as far as I could read they seemed to imply that they want stories with lesser stakes.
That is okay in itself, but the story so far barely supports that. The PC is a "champion" of his race, highly positioned in his/her original order, was the second in command in the pact, champion of the now only remaining elder dragon. He/She defeated elder dragons, gods and whatever you would classify the void as.
Small slice of life stories will hardly work with all of this background. Rebuilding Tyria, being in the forefront of the political landscape in this world, diving in to the deepest depths to establish connections to the Tethyos houses, explore the mists and pull the gods who left Tyria right back to find more them and the original world of humanity.
Stuff like that is what I expect the story to go. The PC has become a larger than life character, with Aurene still being here as our partner and our connections to literally everywhere in this world, how can I be satisfied by having so much trouble with beating one oni without a hint that he is part of something larger? Sure, something can be added in retrospect, but without prior hints it won't feel right.
I just hope whatever Anet is working on will be better than this.

[Shadowlord.7182]

3 hours ago, Shadowlord.7182 said:

Canach? I mean, the players love the sly, sarcastic little kitten called Canach, but why should he be here if not explicitly because Rama invited him?
Ayumi? WHO THE F*CK IS AYUMI?!? No seriously, looking her up in the wiki she is a minor supporting character in Echovald/Battle with Soo-Won. Why is she here?
And to add to that, I just feel like that throughout the entire thing these three being pushed to be somewhat of potential romantic interests for the PC is an awful choice. Whoever wrote Ayumi really wants to... you know... "bow chicka bow bow" that bird, because EVERY dialouge with her goes in the direction of "weird teen drama compliments". Yao at least has a clear split between honourable and charming dialouge, while Cannach can only get away with it because he's always been a sly, sarcastic, teasing little kitten.
 

I would like to add that I did not call Canach a kitten. I called him (in a positive way I might add) a "a ending with ole".
While I was not aware that this is already too harsh of a language for the forum, I'd rather have the censoring a) make sense or b) have the post taken down entirely, instead of censoring it in a way that - in all honesty - makes it far worse than without any censoring. If it was done manually by a moderator not by a bot of course

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, Shadowlord.7182 said:

I would like to add that I did not call Canach a kitten. I called him (in a positive way I might add) a "a ending with ole".
While I was not aware that this is already too harsh of a language for the forum, I'd rather have the censoring a) make sense or b) have the post taken down entirely, instead of censoring it in a way that - in all honesty - makes it far worse than without any censoring. If it was done manually by a moderator not by a bot of course

It is automated.

[voltaicbore.8012]

10 hours ago, Shadowlord.7182 said:

I just hope whatever Anet is working on will be better than this.

I read your whole post, and have reached the same ultimate conclusion. Due to my attachment to the game, I do not want to completely give up on it yet, and am willing to stick around to see if future developments sit better with me. But I pretty much agree - it's not that the story ideas were fundamentally unworkable, but the execution felt pretty lame. I think my best analogy would be a chef having all the ingredients for a solid meal... but they just slop them all onto a too-small plate. It might be edible, but as one eats it, it just feels obvious that it could have been more.

As for slice of life, I think it would work out okay if the rest of the chapter was more substantial. But the weakness of the oni plotline and the sheer detachment of the audio logs ended up making the Min-and-Rama thing feel like a rather substantial portion of the chapter, and that bit wasn't enough to hold up the rest of the arc.

[Danikat.8537]

Honestly my only complaint with the whole storyline is how short it was, especially knowing this is the end of it and we'll be going on to something else later. I thought it was an interesting premise and would have liked to see more of it. Kanaxi always felt underused in GW1, being relegated to one optional side-mission a lot of players would never do and I thought this would be an opportunity to explore that aspect of the lore in more detail.

How short it was stood out especially since one point raised in this story is that the Commander has spent a decade rushing from one crisis to the next and rarely had time to deal with everything that happened properly. It was odd to have that raised by the characters as a problem only for us to do exactly the same thing again. (Although maybe that will come up at some point in the future - the Commander is acknowledging the issue but then not doing anything about it.)

On that note my favourite part was my character getting to revisit their feelings about Vlast. That's another arc I thought was cut short too soon (although in a way that's why it had an impact on me) and it was nice to finally get some resolution there. I especially liked Taimi's comment that in a way death freed him from his destiny, while also seeing it fulfilled so it was the nearest to a success for everyone he could get.

I know I'm in the minority here by not wanting all the storylines to be combat focused all the time, but I genuinely thought this one was interesting and I'd like it if future stories can include more opportunities to discuss and process what happened and tie up the loose ends even if that doesn't mean another boss fight.

[Balsa.3951]

On 5/26/2023 at 9:59 AM, enigmatic.3576 said:

What are everyone's thoughts on how much content the mini-expansion might have, and at what price point, compared to previous expansions?  Will we get the same value as we had with the previous two expansions or less?

i say its like IBS.  means 2- 3 maps released in bits. 1/2 maps, i mean by bits. with one must have farm map.

mastries to feel stronger. 

1 new class or housing / Not both. probably housing bcs can make more money in the long run.

new skins

a new currencies which are better than old currencies.

the truth is anet figured the players out so long loot and shinys are in the package ppl will buy. story and content fun is not a priority for the type of player they want keep.

pvp wvw are a mini side game now

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 5/23/2023 at 9:59 PM, Omega.6801 said:

The Cinder thing struck me as well. I picked the name because I just couldn't remember who that was. I'm curious if the options varied depending on what episodesof the living world or expansions are unlocked on the account. Chosing Blish f.e. makes little sense if the player has not played LS4. Cinder makes no sense, if you haven't played IBS and so on.

The story has too many characters. There's all the NPCs from just the personal story Zhaitan campaign alone that I can't even remember...

Honestly, I can't even be halfway immersed into the story anymore. I didn't buy EoD and the living world episode format simply does not flow well. It actually hampers it and given my years played, it does not age well. This goes back to the original live season 1, which almost DECIMATED this game. Episodic series with rotating Saturday morning cartoon villains (yes, I'm talking about Scarlet) does not make for a good fantasy epic.

Edited May 30, 2023 by JTGuevara.9018
add

[enigmatic.3576]

6 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

This goes back to the original live season 1, which almost DECIMATED this game.

I'm confused about this part of your post.  I've played since launch and do not recall this ever; it's the first time that I have heard of this.  Most complaints tended to start with the release of HoT and many didn't like the direction of difficulty that the game was moving towards.

[Rhinala.1739]

The Icbrood saga maps have some type of personality. I love the NPCs' conversations and animations in those maps, it helps me immerse in the events (like dominion scouts dancing while listening to Metal Legion and the speakers propaganda that tries to brainwash anyone in the vicinity). The enemies are different and diverse, with good scaling. On the other hand, the new map looks amazing design-wise but doesn't have any personality, without interesting NPC conversations and without interesting events. This map is just forgettable.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Rhinala.1739

[rrusse.7058]

On 5/26/2023 at 10:59 AM, enigmatic.3576 said:

What are everyone's thoughts on how much content the mini-expansion might have, and at what price point, compared to previous expansions?  Will we get the same value as we had with the previous two expansions or less?

I certainly hope we get well polished maps and events because this last patch is showing me a lot of the holes that EoD has. The new Ops armor has us going around doing Fractals and some less popular events around the EoD maps which is fine but a good chunk of them are just broken.

Have these quests been this messed up since EoD launched? Why are we being asked to do broken quests then? Why aren't these being fixed and does this mean we should expect more broken quests for the next expansion because Arenanet will be too busy preparing xpac 5 then. The cycle just repeats itself then.

I guess I can't be too harsh as we literally have nothing to go off of other than some artwork and a disembodied evil laugh.

Edited May 31, 2023 by rrusse.7058

[RoastedBloop.9817]

I'm in agreement with what @Danikat.8537 said; it's short. 

This felt less of a main arc, here's something which many haven't really thought or mentioned. This small arc felt more like a side story. I don't mind smaller stories being added to expand the region or maps; however, they should never be hyped up like this. If this is what they're aiming to do, then they really should clean up the side story menu, because it's become a dumping spot for anything.  

[Randulf.7614]

15 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

I'm confused about this part of your post.  I've played since launch and do not recall this ever; it's the first time that I have heard of this.  Most complaints tended to start with the release of HoT and many didn't like the direction of difficulty that the game was moving towards.

It's widely reported LS1 did incredible damage to the game, scaring off a lot of players who couldn't keep up with the schedule before content disappeared and the remaining population getting annoyed with how little substance and story there was. Things were so bad, the dev teams had to reassure the playerbase there was an endgame and did note the direction wasnt working and changed course. It began a schism between dev and community that has never completely healed. Which I think shocked them given the wave of goodwill they rode into GW2 with from GW1

I have never seen a part of the game with more complaints than LS1 - even HoT which at least had a lot of priase to balance out those who hated it. I highly doubt HoT caused more complaints and leavers for them than LS1 did, although I can only speak anecdotally

I am suprised you have never heard complaints about LS1 being devastating to the game. It was a huge discussion point for years and helped drive the community collaboration feedback forum post LS1 which led to many ideas being added into what later became Heart of Thorns (eg masteries)

[Zok.4956]

10 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

It's widely reported LS1 did incredible damage to the game, scaring off a lot of players who couldn't keep up with the schedule before content disappeared and the remaining population getting annoyed with how little substance and story there was.

Yes, there were some players that could not keep up with the schedule, but I don't recall, that this was a main issue during S1 that "did incredible damage to the game" during S1. On the contrary. The build up and positive hype was immense and it did feel really epic when i.e. Lions Arch was destroyed. (Anets goal was "epic like Game of Thrones" and they succeeded for quite some time).

 

16 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

It began a schism between dev and community that has never completely healed.

What are you talking about. In the time before HoT the communication between the devs and the player base was very good, better than it is now.  Anet launched their CDI (Collaborative Development Initiative) where Anet devs and the playerbase discussed a lot of topics of the future of the game. Cooperation between developers and players was better than ever at the time.

Then, only after HoT was released, there started maybe some form of "schism" and at the time the saying "be careful what you ask Anet for" was circling because several players were disappointed how Anet implemented the results of the CDI.

 

27 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Which I think shocked them given the wave of goodwill they rode into GW2 with from GW1

Sure, because of this goodwill, they sold a lot of copies/pre-orders of GW2. But I remember that many GW(1) players, after playing GW2,  didn't like GW2 because it was different from GW(1) and there was a lot of criticism from GW(1) vets right from the beginning.

 

33 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I highly doubt HoT caused more complaints and leavers for them than LS1 did

LS1 attracted a lot of new players. This "living, changing world" was something very new back in the days. But HoT with the old Desert Borderland nearly killed the WvW population because so many players left (and never came back).

 

36 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I am suprised you have never heard complaints about LS1 being devastating to the game. It was a huge discussion point for years

Complaints about LS1 started more and more over the years after LS1 had ended, because new players could not experience it and Anet realized that this was not sustainable (financially) to create this much new content that was not replayable and could only be played during a short time frame.

 

I'm not saying you're remembering it wrong and I'm remembering it correctly, but I'm remembering it differently.

 

[Randulf.7614]

9 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Yes, there were some players that could not keep up with the schedule, but I don't recall, that this was a main issue during S1 that "did incredible damage to the game" during S1. On the contrary. The build up and positive hype was immense and it did feel really epic when i.e. Lions Arch was destroyed. (Anets goal was "epic like Game of Thrones" and they succeeded for quite some time).

 

What are you talking about. In the time before HoT the communication between the devs and the player base was very good, better than it is now.  Anet launched their CDI (Collaborative Development Initiative) where Anet devs and the playerbase discussed a lot of topics of the future of the game. Cooperation between developers and players was better than ever at the time.

Then, only after HoT was released, there started maybe some form of "schism" and at the time the saying "be careful what you ask Anet for" was circling because several players were disappointed how Anet implemented the results of the CDI.

 

Sure, because of this goodwill, they sold a lot of copies/pre-orders of GW2. But I remember that many GW(1) players, after playing GW2,  didn't like GW2 because it was different from GW(1) and there was a lot of criticism from GW(1) vets right from the beginning.

 

LS1 attracted a lot of new players. This "living, changing world" was something very new back in the days. But HoT with the old Desert Borderland nearly killed the WvW population because so many players left (and never came back).

 

Complaints about LS1 started more and more over the years after LS1 had ended, because new players could not experience it and Anet realized that this was not sustainable (financially) to create this much new content that was not replayable and could only be played during a short time frame.

 

I'm not saying you're remembering it wrong and I'm remembering it correctly, but I'm remembering it differently.

 

I'm sure this will come down to agree to disagree, but I can assure you, complaints about LS1 durin g that year were extremely loud, extremely vocal and extremely widespread. Yes a few people liked it, but even many of those have admitted they felt like a minority. Not being able to keep up was a massive complaint.

The CDI was an attempt to heal the rift and improve on what was generally considered a disastrous year for the game and find out what players really wanted (which I stated above - please don't cut quotes out of context and reply in isolation, I did mention the CDI) which got worse with the SAB 2 release and the change in communication policy. LS1 was so vocally poorly received, that even a couple of the devs voiced their own disaplease (if memory serves it was the dungeon team who were upset their dungeons were in for a month and then removed) . The CDI stabilisied things for sure, but the rift has never fully healed. You can trace the origins of the reduced interactions in the forum by Anet to the backlash to LS1.

LS1 was and will likely always be, the single biggest disaster in the game. One which they learned from thankfully

Edited May 31, 2023 by Randulf.7614