The "What Lies Within" Story was ...

[Ashantara.8731]

17 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Second playthrough (normally I'd probably be on 3-4 by now): Ack, they don't even let you shortcut the crates instance by going straight to the correct crate. It's fixed so it takes four crates regardless.

At least the warding ritual book doesn't move...

Oof! I was considering doing it on my remaining PvE characters after all, because completionist and all 😄, but that sounds truly demotivating.

[AlPower.2476]

I haven't played EoD or the new episode yet, but from what I've read, it sounds like it's really bad

Didn't we already deal with the guilt thing twice before? First, when Mordremoth used it against us to attack, and then when Kerida tested us before telling us about Shinning Blade, Lazarus, and all that stuff.

And why are they suddenly bringing up this guilt topic after all these years? Our character never showed any sign of having this issue, not even a little. It would have made sense if they showed some impact after each tragedy, not necessarily being depressed or anything. For example, in Berserk, when Guts finally broke down and cried after all those fights where he tried to be all tough and edgy. That was some real emotional stuff in the early parts of his story. But as I said, that never happened.

But even so, there were so many other ways they could have made us face the guilt of our actions. They could have created a group that publicly hated us, with some people despising us, others calling us fakes and frauds, and some spreading all sorts of fake news and messed-up stories to make us look bad. In that group, they could have included folks who hated us for things we couldn't control in the past, making us feel guilty as heck. For example, based on our actions in the core game, there's literally an NPC in Auric Basin who straight-up calls us the "Commander of Death." I have no idea how many more characters in the core game could hate us because I haven't played with all the races and options.

Moreover, there are so many topics that we have forgotten. Some are related to the dragons, but not directly tied to them. Like Kudu's daughter or the accessibility of the underground world now that Primordius is gone. Menzies and the ancient races, the Sylvari who didn't originate from the Pale Tree, the Forgotten. We don't necessarily have to link them to the dragons to move on from those topics. The demons being able to enter our world now that the dragons are gone. The human-centaur war. Etc.

As I said, I haven't played GW1, nor EoD, so idk what to say about Cantha.

[Rhinala.1739]

Some of the guilt portions were done properly (only in the first chapter). I loved to see the ghosts of past casualties, characters that the player cared about. The final boss fight in the first chapter was kind of interesting. On the other hand, the second chapter felt rushed and uninteresting. What I really dislike is that we had to circle the area and return to the surface and fight the final boss there instead of going deeper into the chasm to see the damage that the excavators did.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Rhinala.1739

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 6/8/2023 at 1:34 AM, Rhinala.1739 said:

Some of the guilt portions were done properly (only in the first chapter). I loved to see the ghosts of past casualties, characters that the player cared about. The final boss fight in the first chapter was kind of interesting. On the other hand, the second chapter felt rushed and uninteresting. What I really dislike is that we had to circle the area and return to the surface and fight the final boss there instead of going deeper into the chasm to see the damage that the excavators did.

i'm not sure how much deeper you'd want to go? we were already way down in the depths of tyria, (hence the leyline),and most likely deeper than we'd gone even in tangled depths.

[Ashen.2907]

On 6/7/2023 at 11:34 PM, Rhinala.1739 said:

Some of the guilt portions were done properly (only in the first chapter). I loved to see the ghosts of past casualties, characters that the player cared about. The final boss fight in the first chapter was kind of interesting. On the other hand, the second chapter felt rushed and uninteresting. What I really dislike is that we had to circle the area and return to the surface and fight the final boss there instead of going deeper into the chasm to see the damage that the excavators did.

One of the differences between a roleplaying game where you control a character, particularly one of your own creation, and a movie or novel is that in the game the player decides how his character feels or thinks about the situations he encounters while in a movie the writers do the same for their protagonist and the viewer is just that, a spectator of the story....not a participant.

By dictating character emotional reaction and thoughts (such as regarding past NPCs) ANet's writers are declaring that they do not want players, they want an audience.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Randulf.7614]

16 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

By dictating character emotional reaction and thoughts (such as regarding past NPCs) ANet's writers are declaring that they do not want players, they want an audience.

This sums up what I was trying to convey a few months back so much better. Perfectly put

[misterman.1530]

The worse part, for me, was listening through ALL 10 of Gorrick's transcriptions - which are unskippable. 

Can't believe this took months to complete. Completely underwhelming and dull.

[idpersona.3810]

3 hours ago, misterman.1530 said:

The worse part, for me, was listening through ALL 10 of Gorrick's transcriptions - which are unskippable. 

Can't believe this took months to complete. Completely underwhelming and dull.

Once I realized they wanted us to just sit and listen, I skipped this and went directly into the latest part of the story. Still underwhelming, but at least there was no reason to listen if you didn't want to.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 6/10/2023 at 6:56 PM, Ashen.2907 said:

One of the differences between a roleplaying game where you control a character, particularly one of your own creation, and a movie or novel is that in the game the player decides how his character feels or thinks about the situations he encounters while in a movie the writers do the same for their protagonist and the viewer is just that, a spectator of the story....not a participant.

By dictating character emotional reaction and thoughts (such as regarding past NPCs) ANet's writers are declaring that they do not want players, they want an audience.

they tried keeping the player character alot more silent and mostly neutral. players complained endlessly that the commander had no personality and that it desparately needed to be changed.

Edited June 14, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[draxynnic.3719]

On 6/8/2023 at 7:13 AM, Ashantara.8731 said:

Oof! I was considering doing it on my remaining PvE characters after all, because completionist and all 😄, but that sounds truly demotivating.

Strictly speaking, it's only a couple of minutes per character, but it does feel a bit off once you find out that the contents of the first three crates are entirely random and the thing you're looking for is in the fourth crate.

The could have had an object for each crate, an achievement for delivering every crate, and the crate you're looking for be fixed so you can go straight to it on subsequent playthroughs to save time.

On 6/14/2023 at 4:12 AM, idpersona.3810 said:

Once I realized they wanted us to just sit and listen, I skipped this and went directly into the latest part of the story. Still underwhelming, but at least there was no reason to listen if you didn't want to.

Technically speaking, there is a reward. Is it worth the time? Probably not, unless you turn the volume down, watch some other video, and pay just enough attention to keep clicking that record.

[Furball.1236]

The recent stories also lack the sense of immersion and tense atmosphere.

Despite the serious dialogs and music, we're only surrounded by 4-5 mobs scattered around us in the empty map. Most of them attack our near-immortal NPC friends, who contributes literally nothing but soaking the damages. I know I can go AFK for 30 minutes and still they'll be fighting the same thing. After killing these mobs with a couple of blows, we move on to another place and fight the exact same type of enemies exactly in the same way. Then, in the end, there's this boring big boss that only smashes the ground regardless what the player's doing, which makes me feel as if l I was fighting the first boss my asura has fought after the character creation.

To sum up, there is too little pressure on the player, and I can't feel the feeling of fighting together with the friend NPC. I really liked the story instances when the combat was challenging and the NPC actually was more vulnerable but also did contribute in the fights. I loved that, if I was not careful, a group of enemies could surprise me and defeat my character. I hope ANet isn't trying to make group contents the only challenging contents in the game. Even though there are open world bosses or instanced fights you can solo to enjoy challenging fight, they're just a single NPC that's tanky and hits hard. (You repeat the same thing over and over for a long time to compensate the lack of group DPS, while avoiding any boring big pre-determined area-targeted hits the boss blindly does regardless of the player's location again and again. The feeling of combat is very different from fights designed for solo contents.) For me, the story is the main part of the game and group contents are what fills the time between the Living World releases. I love my characters and I want to feel I'm exploring the world and story of Tyria with challenging gameplay.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Furball.1236

[ElforTheLandStander.7052]

I found most of the episode a little meh, but the triple date at the end was a scream. I hope just that last part, of picking a partner and going to dinner, is easily replayable so I can see some of the others. I went with Yao but I'm curious to see how it goes with Canach and Ayumi.

That date better have the possibility to lead somewhere, you know how gamers get about our romanceable NPCs.