LW s2 is Despiccably BAD.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

At least it's not as bad as LS3. Some characters developpement and some missions are so cringey in this one that it's unbearable.

To me, the cringiest moment in the story is, has been, and probably will always be the moment after the Commander comes out of Omadd's Machine.

Commander is there just ranting and raving shouting about being seen by dragons, after entering the machine that drove Scarlet Briar insane and connected her mind to Mordremoth.

The biconics' reaction?

"Your hair was standing straight up lol"

Rox: Are you all right? Once it had you, we were afraid to just yank you out.

Kasmeer Meade: Then, you started screaming...and we had no choice.

Rox: How do you feel? When you're ready to talk, we're ready to listen.

Rox: Boss? Are you okay? Take deep breaths.

<Character name>: It was incredible.

Rox: What was? What are you talking about?

<Character name>: I had a vision. I saw it. The Eternal Alchemy.

Rox: You what? You're going to have to explain. I don't understand.

<Character name>: I'll try. I saw how Tyria is woven, and...I'm tied up in it. Somehow.

Rox: Okay, I think you need to rest awhile. Do you hurt anywhere?

<Character name>: Listen. Vast energies flow through and around Tyria, and I saw a dragon. It...um...

Rox: It what? What did you see?

<Character name>: It was part of the workings of the world. It came at me.

Rox: That sounds like a terrible nightmare.

<Character name>: I also saw the Pale Tree at the heart of a vast moving puzzle, as Scarlet did.

Rox: The Pale Tree? What do you think it means?

<Character name>: It means we need to talk to her.

Rox: What can she do? She's a tree.

<Character name>: (If sylvari) She's the Pale Tree. She's magical beyond imagining. She can access the Dream.

<Character name>: (otherwise) She has political clout. She's important—perhaps more than we know.

Taimi: I wish I'd seen it.

Braham Eirsson: I'm glad you're okay, but you had magic flowing out of your ears. (laugh)

Kasmeer Meade: It wasn't so bad.

Rox: His/Her hair was standing straight up!

Braham Eirsson: (laugh)

Kasmeer Meade: (laugh) It was!

Kasmeer Meade: OK, guys, this is serious. We need to talk about what we're going to do. What's the plan?

I mean come on.... Commander goes through a harrowing experience that drove one of Tyria's smartest minds insane, and the reaction is mild envy and jokes. It's one of GW2's worse cases of bathos in its writing.

[mandala.8507]

6 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I mean come on.... Commander goes through a harrowing experience that drove one of Tyria's smartest minds insane, and the reaction is mild envy and jokes. It's one of GW2's worse cases of bathos in its writing.

We were in there on accident for two seconds before they pulled us out.

Scarlet was in there for as long as possible (according to the wiki, multiple days), and deliberately engaged with the darkest corners of the visions she was encountering within.

These are not the same experiences. Not even close.

They also mention in living world season 2 that Scarlet made modifications to the machine, so there's a chance she made it less innately destructive to one's psyche. At the very least, we can assume the experience was not identical because the machine was modified in some way.

We additionally know that her demise was due both to her rejection of the Pale Tree's guidance within the machine and her willingness to prod at her mental connection to Mordremoth. A being in the machine that did neither or those things would likely not see a grand shift in their mental state. Especially one who wasn't a Sylvari. There'd be nothing in their mind to unleash in the first place.

Perhaps your feelings of bathos are the result of drawing a false equivalence between these two vastly different experiences?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 12/17/2023 at 12:37 AM, mandala.8507 said:

We were in there on accident for two seconds before they pulled us out.

Scarlet was in there for as long as possible (according to the wiki, multiple days), and deliberately engaged with the darkest corners of the visions she was encountering within.

These are not the same experiences. Not even close.

They also mention in living world season 2 that Scarlet made modifications to the machine, so there's a chance she made it less innately destructive to one's psyche. At the very least, we can assume the experience was not identical because the machine was modified in some way.

We additionally know that her demise was due both to her rejection of the Pale Tree's guidance within the machine and her willingness to prod at her mental connection to Mordremoth. A being in the machine that did neither or those things would likely not see a grand shift in their mental state. Especially one who wasn't a Sylvari. There'd be nothing in their mind to unleash in the first place.

Perhaps your feelings of bathos are the result of drawing a false equivalence between these two vastly different experiences?

Even if you take strictly just the length of the cinematic it was well more than "two seconds", at the very least a full minute passes. The group has no knowledge of how long Scarlet was in the machine - you're mixing  character knowledge with player knowledge with that particular argument. It also doesn't matter if the experience was identical or not - that's not the point, and again the characters wouldn't know this. The Commander still comes out of the machine ranting and raving about being seen by dragons and seeing how the world functions, which is exactly what Scarlet's journals denotes her seeing.

All that aside, bathos is the act of taking a serious situation and following it up with comedic, often self-depreciating, acts. More commonly known today as "marvel writing", and that is exactly what happens no matter how you try to defend it. A serious situation happened, they acted concerned, then followed it up immediately with jokes.

The fact you're trying to argue that it wasn't bathos is a pure show that you don't even know what bathos is or you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. Given you've tried to argue that ArenaNet planned Dragonvoid all along, I find either one possible.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[mandala.8507]

9 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

All that aside, bathos is the act of taking a serious situation and following it up with comedic, often self-depreciating, acts. More commonly known today as "marvel writing", and that is exactly what happens no matter how you try to defend it. A serious situation happened, they acted concerned, then followed it up immediately with jokes.

The fact you're trying to argue that it wasn't bathos is a pure show that you don't even know what bathos is or you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. Given you've tried to argue that ArenaNet planned Dragonvoid all along, I find either one possible.

Nah, you're trying to spin your flame as intellectualism, which it wasn't.

You were saying:

On 12/16/2023 at 5:24 PM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It's one of GW2's worse cases of bathos in its writing.

which implies you believe it was done poorly and was out of place, which I'm arguing it wasn't, because the severity of our experience compared to Scarlet's was quite different.

GW2 has always weaved comedy into even the most serious of scenarios, and at this point if that still bothers you, the game's story might just not be for you.

I'm not trying to argue that it wasn't a serious moment in the story followed by comedy, I'm arguing against your notion that it was overdone and didn't fit the moment.

My apologies for not tiptoeing around your overuse of literary terms.

Edited December 19, 2023 by mandala.8507

[frazazel.7501]

I actually really liked LWS2, but I only got to it after playing literally every expansion + LWS, except for LWS1.

I played this fight OP is talking about with an Untamed Ranger with hammer and axe/warhorn. I found it to be a challenging fight, in that the boss didn't trivially die. I had to figure out how to light the fires, and keep the fires from being put out, and it took a few cycles for me to understand what was going on. I never found myself in danger of actually dying though. But I have the benefit of full exotic equipment, a level 10 jade bot core, and having played this build for a hundred hours already.

I don't know exactly why you're having a hard time with the fight. It could be:

• mismatched equipment - make sure you have a complete set of exotic Berserker armor, and get yourself exotic (with matching socketed gems) or ascended Berserker trinkets. Celestial, Diviner, or other power damage gear could work, too. But if you're running around in mismatched Dire/Soldier/Cleric gear or yellows and blues you leveled up in, it's time to upgrade.
• unoptimized traits - I run with skirmishing 1-2-3, nature magic 1-1-1, untamed 3-2-1. Focus to deal with specific pain points first, and then maximize damage output. Don't take more survivability / utility traits than you need. I choose 2 condi cleanse traits, since condi stacks tend to be what end up killing me. I choose quickness untamed for damage + the big heal that comes with the unleashed ambush happens more often. Everything else is to maximize damage.
• using default controls - remap keys so that you can press your skills while staying constantly on the move. You should pretty much always be circle strafing around an enemy, even while you're in melee, unless you're dodging or doing some kind of mechanic. And you should be using all of your skills while you are moving. You should also just walk out of most damage circles, and not dodge most of the time. Save your dodges for only big attacks you can't walk out of.
• general inexperience - I died a lot early on, not understanding my skills, my enemies skills, etc. This one just comes from increased playtime. But being able to use your important skills off cooldown / at opportune moments will greatly increase your damage / survivability.
• not understanding the fight - It's hard to learn new mechanics while you're struggling to even survive. I figure if you solve your other problems, you'll have some breathing room to be able to watch the stuff that's going on to get a better handle on it.

This fight is not a cakewalk. But it's also not insurmountable. It seems that you've hit a skill-check, where what you were doing that worked well enough for you previously isn't working any more, and you need to figure out where you need to improve to get through this.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

You were saying:

which implies you believe it was done poorly and was out of place, which I'm arguing it wasn't, because the severity of our experience compared to Scarlet's was quite different.

And that's called an opinion. Disagree with it if you want but you cannot say my opinion on something being bad is objectively wrong.

I do think that it was out of place, and the severity of our experience compared to Scarlet's is, as I said, actually irrelevant because the characters had no knowledge of the difference. To them, it was the same severity even if it wasn't to us.

9 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

GW2 has always weaved comedy into even the most serious of scenarios, and at this point if that still bothers you, the game's story might just not be for you.

I'm not trying to argue that it wasn't a serious moment in the story followed by comedy, I'm arguing against your notion that it was overdone and didn't fit the moment.

My apologies for not tiptoeing around your overuse of literary terms.

Weaving comedy into seriousness isn't the problem. The problem is that there is a time and place for it, and that felt like the wrong time and place for such.

And what you stated was:

On 12/17/2023 at 12:37 AM, mandala.8507 said:

Perhaps your feelings of bathos are the result of drawing a false equivalence between these two vastly different experiences?

Which is indeed arguing that it wasn't a serious moment in the story followed by comedy. Because you're saying that "my feeling of bathos" was wrong - that it wasn't bathos.

It might not be what you intended to say, but it is what you said. Which is why you should pay attention to one's use of literary terms.

And it isn't overuse of a term if you're referencing what that term actually is. Though I know you'll continue to disagree with me just for the sake of arguing with me as you've done for over a year now.

[Teknomancer.4895]

On 12/16/2023 at 5:24 PM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

To me, the cringiest moment in the story is, has been, and probably will always be the moment after the Commander comes out of Omadd's Machine.

I dunno, Warmaster Efut saying "The Vigil may not understand your boo-boo-matic wheeze calculator, but we know plenty about killing undead" is pretty egregious. Hilarious, but it just feels wrong coming out of an Asura of all possible species.

It could be viewed as Asuran dismissiveness, not even bothering to remember the name of something unworthy of one's attention, except for the "may not understand" bit when referring to her own krewe, as it were.

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And it isn't overuse of a term if you're referencing what that term actually is.

The term is predominantly used as criticism, so....nah. I think I read it for how you were using it correctly, and so saying that the criticism wasn't justified because you've misread the situation was an appropriate retort. Sticking to my take that your feelings are based on faulty reasoning/false equivalency.

[Luthan.5236]

I liked the S2 story the most. Well-written. Slow and good build-up. Continuing a plot already started in S1 ... to rush it at the end in HoT. The optional achievements are hard - but not undoable (even without help where it might get easy when you let others to the fight and just dodge or stay outside the fight area to not get hit for achievements).

That there is no good replay for achievements only (at some parts a lot of dialogue to wait through) - was annoying for me back then. (Not sure if they made changes to that. I did it 2019 or so. I think.) The Caithe thing ... something you need to get used to. Not impossible to do it. I often dislike it if you have to use different skills than the build you are used to. But from the narration I liked those parts.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

On 12/17/2023 at 11:24 AM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

The biconics' reaction?

"Your hair was standing straight up lol"

Interesting. I appreciated the injection of humour. Just goes to show how hard it is for the writers to please everyone.

[Ashen.2907]

I loathed s2. If I wanted to play a female Sylvari thief I would have created one.

Also the implication that our character participated in genocide during the Caithe part ruined the RP aspect of the character for me. After that instance GW2 became a combat fighting game with a story not worth paying attention to because I was no longer playing a character but rather just a build. 

Dont get me wrong, I can and do enjoy GW2s combat and build system, a lot actually, but that moment is when GW2 stopped being an RPG for me.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Linken.6345]

8 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I loathed s2. If I wanted to play a female Sylvari thief I would have created one.

Also the implication that our character participated in genocide during the Caithe part ruined the RP aspect of the character for me. After that instance GW2 became a combat fighting game with a story not worth paying attention to because I was no longer playing a character but rather just a build. 

Dont get me wrong, I can and do enjoy GW2s combat and build system, a lot actually, but that moment is when GW2 stopped being an RPG for me.

We did not participate in it we relived her memories of it big differance mate.

[mandala.8507]

6 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I loathed s2. If I wanted to play a female Sylvari thief I would have created one.

Also the implication that our character participated in genocide during the Caithe part ruined the RP aspect of the character for me. After that instance GW2 became a combat fighting game with a story not worth paying attention to because I was no longer playing a character but rather just a build. 

Dont get me wrong, I can and do enjoy GW2s combat and build system, a lot actually, but that moment is when GW2 stopped being an RPG for me.

This mentality must make 99.9% of all games practically unplayable for you, huh.

"Gameplay diversity? Nah, I want pure, unadulterated class, race, and gender roleplay immersion at all times or the experience is ruined for me."

"Experiencing story from more than one perspective? Ridiculous. How am I supposed to roleplay as the greatest goody two shoes hero of [insert universe here] when I have to momentarily relive the past of morally grey allies via story gameplay?"

And insinuating that experiencing the past actions of another character makes you complicit in those actions is, uh...a take; for sure.

[Ashen.2907]

On 12/22/2023 at 6:56 AM, mandala.8507 said:

This mentality must make 99.9% of all games practically unplayable for you, huh.

"Gameplay diversity? Nah, I want pure, unadulterated class, race, and gender roleplay immersion at all times or the experience is ruined for me."

"Experiencing story from more than one perspective? Ridiculous. How am I supposed to roleplay as the greatest goody two shoes hero of [insert universe here] when I have to momentarily relive the past of morally grey allies via story gameplay?"

And insinuating that experiencing the past actions of another character makes you complicit in those actions is, uh...a take; for sure.

As to the first three points, nope. If you have to invent positions for another in order to have something to argue against your arguments are lacking.

We are not just experiencing the past actions of another. We are in control. If we were just experiencing another's past actions we would not be the one's controlling them. In addition your current armor took damage if you died while controlling Caithe (back when armor could be damaged).

[Ashen.2907]

On 12/22/2023 at 12:15 AM, Linken.6345 said:

We did not participate in it we relived her memories of it big differance mate.

We are not just experiencing the past actions of another. We are in control. If we were just experiencing another's past actions we would not be the one's controlling them. In addition your current armor took damage if you died while controlling Caithe (back when armor could be damaged).

[mandala.8507]

11 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

We are not just experiencing the past actions of another. We are in control. If we were just experiencing another's past actions we would not be the one's controlling them. In addition your current armor took damage if you died while controlling Caithe (back when armor could be damaged).

This is a commonplace tool of this kind of storytelling in games since stories in games were a thing. It's just a way to experience past events with gameplay. Don't overthink it.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

17 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

We are not just experiencing the past actions of another. We are in control. If we were just experiencing another's past actions we would not be the one's controlling them. In addition your current armor took damage if you died while controlling Caithe (back when armor could be damaged).

Sir, this is a video game, not a movie.

Of course you're the one in control of Caithe.

Would you prefer to sit through multiple 20 minute cinematics back to back the moment you planted each seed with your "intuition" telling you were to plant it instead?

[Teknomancer.4895]

All things have a right to grow.

Except that over there, and those, and oh HELL no that one's got to go too.

[Jaxson.1593]

On 12/16/2023 at 4:06 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

Personally I think LS2 is alright. The content isn't extremly difficult while the story and secondary characters are fine.

At least it's not as bad as LS3. Some characters developpement and some missions are so cringey in this one that it's unbearable.

I haven't completed LS3 yeat, I'm doing the northern dragon part (section "3") atm. But I have yet to find anything so tough that I couldn't get past it or figure it out. I had limited issues with LS2 except this last one, which is too damned finicky. 

My point is not that it is not DOABLE, my general point is that TO DO IT is all too much of a GRIND.

And if I wanted a grind, i'd go play warcraft. That is one of the points of GW and GW2, that it isn't supposed to be a GRIND.

[Solvar.7953]

While an original selling point of GW2 was it not to be grindy (and no gear treadmills or raising level cap), I personally feel that grindiness has increased as the game went on.  Still not for gear, but for many story steps, there is just something which feels quite grindy.  It feels like Anet took the approach that without a bunch of grindy steps, people would move through the content too quickly.

 

[ugrakarma.9416]

On 12/19/2023 at 1:04 PM, mandala.8507 said:

which implies you believe it was done poorly and was out of place, which I'm arguing it wasn't, because the severity of our experience compared to Scarlet's was quite different.

So the commander companions are all aware of the differences and opted for make jokes?

Edited January 3 by ugrakarma.9416

[mandala.8507]

3 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

So the commander companions are all aware of the differences and opted for make jokes?

It's as simple as this.

They hit us with the "are you okay?", and then when we appeared to be fine, they busted our chops.

If people believe that is out of character for Braham and the gang to do, maybe they just weren't paying even an iota of attention to them the first year of content they featured in in the story.

It's not that the people in this thread actually think this moment is out of character though, it's just them bemoaning that GW2 isn't written like an edgelord's dark fantasy dream game.

The reality is, the tone shift from this epic vision into the mundanity of our comedic band of allies is deliberate. It's intentionally juxtaposed to keep the pacing of the narrative in check and prevent the tone from being solely doom and gloom.

Remember, this instance comes directly after the Fort Salma incident and Belinda's untimely demise. They needed to throw in some levity somewhere to balance this all out, and this was the right place to do it, imo. It captured the bitter-sweetness of the world keeping on spinning after a tragedy quite well, to be honest. And ceaselessly stewing in melancholy isn't universally entertaining, believe it or not.

It also helps to put some brakes on the direness of the plot as the episode comes to a close and we head into our meeting with the Pale tree in the following episode, dipping our toes into exploring the meaning of this vision with someone who could actually give us some proper insight and initiating our plan to host a summit in her name; which puts the vision plot on ice for a beat so we can fit some gameplay in.

The reality is, without the comedy, the GW2 story is worse off. Constant darkly-themed melodrama can be just as corny as jokes some people don't find funny.

Think of it this way:

A singer doing a cool run is very enjoyable and interesting, but a song overfull with complex runs — that lacks dynamics and has all tension and no release — ends up sounding rather off-putting.

You need the simple and quiet parts of a song for the complex and loud parts to stand out. Same principle applies to the GW2 story.

[ugrakarma.9416]

20 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

It's as simple as this.

So u believe that types like braham "calculated": "hey scarlet stayed 2hrs and commandar only 2 minutes, let mock him". LOL.

[mandala.8507]

3 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

So u believe that types like braham "calculated": "hey scarlet stayed 2hrs and commandar only 2 minutes, let mock him". LOL.

No, I believe "types like Braham" would likely judge the situation by itself alone, and so when he realized we were in one piece, his concerned ebbed and he realized how funny we looked getting zapped.

You're telling me you haven't seen a friend fall in a silly way, laughed to yourself, but then checked to see if they were okay? And when they said they were okay, you poked fun at it?

Kasmeer even exclaims that this is serious, but she falls victim to the fun as well.

I'm tired of entertaining this supercilious nitpicking, though, so have fun without me.

[Jaxson.1593]

On 12/5/2023 at 12:46 AM, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

LW2 is very long and boring yes, but if the complaint is "content hard", then all I can say is that you need more practice.
You are struggling even to complete the base content, most people only struggle with the Achievements.

Dude, this is not "base content", it's the final boss battle.