The big bad evils of Tyria. *SPOILERS*

[GBEW.5947]

I understand wanting your villain's to be complex, to have relatable issues and some sort of goal based on logic rather than chaos. 
but Eparch is a demon lord, he shouldn't be feeling sad or vengeful or anything about the kryptis queens death. He is a demon lord. 
As a consumer I have an expectation of such creatures to be brutal unforgiving psychopathic entities not complicated beings run by emotions. I understand that their power comes from emotions but they are supposed to be the epitome of said emotion, not a victim of it. 

Joko was a side character that the community seems to worship for some reason even though this studio butchered his character, The entire raid through his palace was more of a comedy festival than anything and that can work, but you've already painted joko out to be a certain way in the previous games and it just was not met, completely anti-climactic. 

Kralkatorrik was another major disappointment, the classic trope of being corrupted by some stupid presence is just flat out dumb.

My question is why do these villian's always have such high emotions, and what is wrong with having a purely evil component to a story, why does there always need to be a method behind the madness rather then chaos for no reason. 
I really do think they had a cool thing going on with the kryptis, but with the latest developments in the story and just the general demeanor of the kryptis i don't feel any sort of demonic presence from them at all, they are wearing costumes.  

Edited March 1 by GBEW.5947

[GBEW.5947]

10 minutes ago, Aedil.1296 said:

I would have expected him to kill her instead without even thinking about it due to her failure. 

I believe that's the only thing they would need to change for the entire outcome to raise the stakes a bit.

Eparch kills the queen to remove his weakness, bam we see how heartless he is and that gives us something to fear, rather than witnessing a temper tantrum followed by an empty threat.
 

[kiri.1467]

Anet wants to humanise everything. Except that one purist you need to get information from in EoD. He's a bigot so go bash him.

[Zera.9435]

Actually, I liked that he's a whiny little kitten. Now I won't have to wonder about his character complexity as I chop his kittening head off in the inevitable confrontation. Unless, of course, they give him the ol' Scarlet treatment and make it so you can't actually kill him and you have to 'press F to finish'. kittening kitten. I also like that Peitha played both Eparch and the queen like a fiddle.

Up until now, Eparch has been portrayed as an insatiable eater of the Kryptis, and suddenly he decides to try to bargain? I expected Eparch to swoop in and be like "kitten you, all these Kryptis are now toppings on my pizza, and I'm taking my queen with me to eat it while we binge watch that new show we like". I expected Peitha to get suddenly and brutally killed, forcing any surviving Kryptis to rally behind the Tyrians (me). I'm not satisfied being just the savior of Tyria. Now I want Nayos to acknowledge me as its protector and savior.

[Doggie.3184]

You'll need to watch more anime to know the complexity of demons and their society. 😆

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

U haven't reached the end of the story... For all we know, peitha could be deceiving us from the start.. or even isgarren could be the mastermind behind it... Or eparch could be planning to rid the world of demons for some reason.. who knows

[GBEW.5947]

20 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

You'll need to watch more anime to know the complexity of demons and their society. 😆

I don't understand what anime has to do with demons. is this a reference? I've only watched like... naruto and bleach. 

7 minutes ago, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

U haven't reached the end of the story... For all we know, peitha could be deceiving us from the start.. or even isgarren could be the mastermind behind it... Or eparch could be planning to rid the world of demons for some reason.. who knows

All three of your solutions are extremely terrible and lazy writing. Peitha is the type of character that shouldn't have a chance at deceiving the main character, shes a literal demon, at the point of weilding as much power as i do, In my characters shoes i would of just slain peitha as soon as she revealed herself to me, none of the following events would of happened and id of done the same to eparch when he eventually shows up. Deceiving me would be completely out the question at this point though. now this is pure hyperbole of what i would do and obviously thats not what happened but she is not in the position to be deceiving anybody outside of her race. 

Isgarren is dead, him coming back either as himself or masquerading as eparch is one of the worst decisions they could make for this story as of yet. Characters need to stay dead when they die otherwise the next death doesnt have any weight to it. 

And eparch ridding the world of demons, i dont understand where this fits or how this changes the current state of the emotional damaged demons we have right now. 

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

6 minutes ago, GBEW.5947 said:

I don't understand what anime has to do with demons. is this a reference? I've only watched like... naruto and bleach. 

All three of your solutions are extremely terrible and lazy writing. Peitha is the type of character that shouldn't have a chance at deceiving the main character, shes a literal demon, at the point of weilding as much power as i do, In my characters shoes i would of just slain peitha as soon as she revealed herself to me, none of the following events would of happened and id of done the same to eparch when he eventually shows up. Deceiving me would be completely out the question at this point though. now this is pure hyperbole of what i would do and obviously thats not what happened but she is not in the position to be deceiving anybody outside of her race. 

Isgarren is dead, him coming back either as himself or masquerading as eparch is one of the worst decisions they could make for this story as of yet. Characters need to stay dead when they die otherwise the next death doesnt have any weight to it. 

And eparch ridding the world of demons, i dont understand where this fits or how this changes the current state of the emotional damaged demons we have right now. 

🤦 Those are not solutions... I'm not the story writer... All I'm saying is... Make your comments about evilness once u finally see the complete story... Yikes

[GBEW.5947]

Just now, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

🤦 Those are not solutions... I'm not the story writer... All I'm saying is... Make your comments about evilness once u finally see the complete story... Yikes

No. I can absolutely judge what has been given so far. especially when its completely antithetical to my expectations of what demons are. 

 

[Doggie.3184]

49 minutes ago, GBEW.5947 said:

I don't understand what anime has to do with demons. is this a reference? I've only watched like... naruto and bleach. 

I mean two of the earliest popular animes to reach America/Global were Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho which revolved around Demons with many of them struggling with their own mixed emotions and befriending humans or feeling wronged/betrayed by them. Then there's more recent popular stuff doing the same thing like Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen.

Also I basically play a neutral demon in Baldurs Gate 3. 😛 that has some interesting lore.

Edited March 1 by Doggie.3184

[Gop.8713]

I'm the opposite. I feel like evil for evil's sake is the boring, lazy solution. Compelling arguments can be made that some of anet's story choices were questionable or could have been executed better -- I'd imagine literally everyone at anet could name at least one thing they would have liked to have seen done differently -- but absolutely anything is better than "they're evil bc they're evil, go kill them" ; p

[GBEW.5947]

14 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I mean two of the earliest popular animes to reach America/Global were Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho which revolved around Demons with many of them struggling with their own mixed emotions and befriending humans or feeling wronged/betrayed by them. Then there's more recent popular stuff doing the same thing like Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen.

Also I basically play a neutral demon in Baldurs Gate 3. 😛 that has some interesting lore.

if thats the case then the japanese have demons wrong as well. seeking help and attachment from humans is the opposite of a demons purpose. they arent supposed to be misunderstood, they are supposed to be taken at face value. 

[Entara.3075]

Based upon how the story is going I am fully expecting that we will find that Eparch is merely misunderstood and that Zojja is the true evil mastermind. 😁

[maxwelgm.4315]

Thing is, as others mentioned in here, Eparch could have been emotional and ruthless anyway, and for all we know Kryptis should operate in a more alien, inhuman fashion comparing to our morale (mirroring humans is a starting point for fictional races from other dimensions, not the endpoint). He could have killed the queen yes but simply out of mercy or pity of how weak she is and mourn it briefly then carry on like his "people" are meant to do or whatever. Just make some fictional totally-not-people who are not following Westernized values would be enough to probably satisfy the OP without bringing in a Joker/Chaos type of villain. 

The other funny example of this in the story was already mentioned, with Kralkatorrik being downgraded from a millions (billions?) years old being to Aurene's literal granddad in the human sense of the word.

Anet already had the Far Realm concept from D&D to base itself on or even use any of the other planes if they just wanted a template. Here they went for what I'm going to call the "Cyberpunk effect", Cyberpunk being the aesthetic movement that was sucked out of any of its political meaning and upbringing since the 80s. Likewise Anet imagined these beautiful aesthetics of what an outer realm of dreams would look like without imagining how it would be meaningfully different to Tyria beyond the skin-depth. I still like the story even after all of this, but I understand where people are coming from claiming they'd expect something different.

[Obfuscate.6430]

4 hours ago, GBEW.5947 said:

I understand wanting your villain's to be complex, to have relatable issues and some sort of goal based on logic rather than chaos. 
but Eparch is a demon lord, he shouldn't be feeling sad or vengeful or anything about the kryptis queens death. He is a demon lord. 
As a consumer I have an expectation of such creatures to be brutal unforgiving psychopathic entities not complicated beings run by emotions. I understand that their power comes from emotions but they are supposed to be the epitome of said emotion, not a victim of it. 

Joko was a side character that the community seems to worship for some reason even though this studio butchered his character, The entire raid through his palace was more of a comedy festival than anything and that can work, but you've already painted joko out to be a certain way in the previous games and it just was not met, completely anti-climactic. 

Kralkatorrik was another major disappointment, the classic trope of being corrupted by some stupid presence is just flat out dumb.

My question is why do these villian's always have such high emotions, and what is wrong with having a purely evil component to a story, why does there always need to be a method behind the madness rather then chaos for no reason. 
I really do think they had a cool thing going on with the kryptis, but with the latest developments in the story and just the general demeanor of the kryptis i don't feel any sort of demonic presence from them at all, they are wearing costumes.  

I kind of see what you're saying though. I think it would be interesting to have a villain you can't understand or talk with, a villain whose mind and motivations are entirely alien to our own. You would think from looking at the Kryptis they would be like that. I feel like the writers missed an opportunity.

I understand though that they wanted us to view the Kryptis as thinking, feeling beings so that we would feel compelled to work with them despite their horrific appearances. 

I want to argue that having villains with discernable motivations we can relate to make them more engaging but I have to be honest, I am just not very engaged by the current story arc as a whole. They introduced this arc by saying it would be darker than what was released before - but arguably the darkest chapter had to be the ones involving Jormag where we witness the proud Kodan , norn, and whole organized parties of good and gentle people be  manipulated through dark whispers in to killing themselves or murdering their companions. 
The atmosphere of the chapters were palpably oppressive. 

The current chapter does not engage me in any way remotely like that. They've stripped my character of their rank and value and turned them in to just another soldier in Peitha's crusade. What is the "wayfinder"? My character seems to have no reaction to anything happening any more and is just along for the ride. 

As an aside and not really related but : Joko is a character who survived from Guild Wars 1; comedy has always been one of his major aspects. He was a fabled feared lich, but when we meet him in Guild Wars 1, he is hilarious, and not at all frightening. In Guild Wars 2, the writers show what he really was capable of.  His demise is anti-climatic but he is loved by the community because he combined comedy and cunning but actually proved he was a terrifying threat. He was great. Praise Joko. 
 

[Astralporing.1957]

5 hours ago, GBEW.5947 said:

I understand wanting your villain's to be complex, to have relatable issues and some sort of goal based on logic rather than chaos. 
but Eparch is a demon lord, he shouldn't be feeling sad or vengeful or anything about the kryptis queens death. He is a demon lord. 
As a consumer I have an expectation of such creatures to be brutal unforgiving psychopathic entities not complicated beings run by emotions. I understand that their power comes from emotions but they are supposed to be the epitome of said emotion, not a victim of it.

You are too hung up on your personal interpretation of the word "demon". Those are not DnD demons, they are a stuff of dreams and emotions. As i understand, the uncomplicated ones are the most minor kind we see around. The stronger ones, those more up the totem pole, are a much more complex beings. And Eparch is a demon lord not because he is the "epitome" of "demonness" somehow, but simply because he is the strongest.

You wanting story simple and extremely stereothypical doesn't mean it's good to keep it simple and stereothypical. If anything, Anet's narrative could use a lot more of complexity.

Now, the issue i have is not that they are being shown as more complex. This is fine. The issue i see is that (unlike it started with the initial SotO story) that "complexity" is being shown with a way too simple expedient of trying to make them be more human. Which they definitely aren't and should not be.

5 hours ago, GBEW.5947 said:

Joko was a side character that the community seems to worship for some reason even though this studio butchered his character, The entire raid through his palace was more of a comedy festival than anything and that can work, but you've already painted joko out to be a certain way in the previous games and it just was not met, completely anti-climactic. 

Kralkatorrik was another major disappointment, the classic trope of being corrupted by some stupid presence is just flat out dumb.

My question is why do these villian's always have such high emotions, and what is wrong with having a purely evil component to a story, why does there always need to be a method behind the madness rather then chaos for no reason. 
I really do think they had a cool thing going on with the kryptis, but with the latest developments in the story and just the general demeanor of the kryptis i don't feel any sort of demonic presence from them at all, they are wearing costumes.  

Joko was perfectly fine up until the last moment. It was only that last scene that turned him into nothing more than a poor joke and a cheap comedic relief. And it was doubly disappointing because the monologue he was trying to make while he got so rudely interrupted was showing quite a big degree of self-awareness of Anet writers about the level of their own narrative... only to (again) get turned into a joke and dismissed few moments later.

5 hours ago, GBEW.5947 said:

Kralkatorrik was another major disappointment, the classic trope of being corrupted by some stupid presence is just flat out dumb.

My question is why do these villian's always have such high emotions, and what is wrong with having a purely evil component to a story, why does there always need to be a method behind the madness rather then chaos for no reason. 
I really do think they had a cool thing going on with the kryptis, but with the latest developments in the story and just the general demeanor of the kryptis i don't feel any sort of demonic presence from them at all, they are wearing costumes.  

The whole later Elder Dragon narrative with trying to give them more personality (and, again, make them seem more human for some weird reason) was a disaster. Even without Aurene (and she made it only worse - that scene at the end of LS4 was a comedy gold material and definitely didn't help me treat this story more seriously). Now the penultimate LS4 chapter was an absolute masterpiece, but apparently that was way to much for Anet to handle and they just had to lower the bar in the finale.

5 hours ago, GBEW.5947 said:

My question is why do these villian's always have such high emotions, and what is wrong with having a purely evil component to a story, why does there always need to be a method behind the madness rather then chaos for no reason.

Because the cackling mad evil overlord that's in it for kitten and giggles is a very, very overused cliche. One that is very hard to pull off in practice, but very easy to turn into unintended trash tier comedy level (notice your reaction to Joko? yep, that was "chaos for no reason". It's clearly explained that the only "method" behind Joko's madness was that he was bored).

And enemies with motivations and emotions are just way more relatable. I don't know about you, but i personally prefer to fight against actual enemies, rather than cardboard cutouts.

5 hours ago, GBEW.5947 said:

I really do think they had a cool thing going on with the kryptis, but with the latest developments in the story and just the general demeanor of the kryptis i don't feel any sort of demonic presence from them at all, they are wearing costumes.  

On this i agree, although seemingly for different reasons.

Edit: to make it clear. I agree that demons should not be just humans in funny suits. I disagree that your vision of demons as basically onedimensional psychotic murder-hobos with no complexity to them whatsoever is the only valid one. In fact, i find that version to be equally as boring and uninspired as the "weird looking humans" one.

Edited March 1 by Astralporing.1957

[GBEW.5947]

Quote

Joko was perfectly fine up until the last moment. It was only that last scene that turned him into nothing more than a poor joke and a cheap comedic relief. And it was doubly disappointing because the monologue he was trying to make while he got so rudely interrupted was showing quite a big degree of self-awareness of Anet writers about the level of their own narrative... only to (again) get turned into a joke and dismissed few moments later.

Joko was a Jokof a character. His last moments were spent fearing me, he tortured copies of my body, that told me right there that he was a zero level threat. it was actually pathetic and a far fall from the joko i knew in nightfall. this one is my personal biggest disappointment until Eparch threw a tantrum. 

Quote

Because the cackling mad evil overlord that's in it for kitten and giggles is a very, very overused cliche. One that is very hard to pull off in practice, but very easy to turn into unintended trash tier comedy level

Overused? Hardly, you never these types of villain's anymore and you can absolutely write them into being a simply terrifying presence. and i would argue that the attempt would be better than what we have gotten.

Quote

And enemies with motivations and emotions are just way more relatable. I don't know about you, but i personally prefer to fight against actual enemies, rather than cardboard cutouts.

I expect varied enemies, so a bit of both preferably, but when i see the kryptis i see something that needs to be more mindless, alien, whatever you want, anything but human. 

Quote

You are too hung up on your personal interpretation of the word "demon". Those are not DnD demons, they are a stuff of dreams and emotions. As i understand, the uncomplicated ones are the most minor kind we see around. The stronger ones, those more up the totem pole, are a much more complex beings. And Eparch is a demon lord not because he is the "epitome" of "demonness" somehow, but simply because he is the strongest.

Demons have a set definition, they are meant to be anti-human, their jobs are to possess and torture. These demons that are being referenced from the animes are not demons, they are an interpretation of a demon, which is exactly what the kryptis would be, im saying they are terrible at it and are basically just weird looking people. 

[Trejgon.9367]

52 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Now the penultimate LS4 chapter was an absolute masterpiece, but apparently that was way to much for Anet to handle and they just had to lower the bar in the finale.

Absolute masterpiece of basic storywriting mistakes of: escalating stakes throught the roof of sensibility (Kralk chewing on the fabric of the reality itself), escalating urgency to the moon (we need to deal with it RIGHT NOW, because the only force keeping kralk from absolutely devouring fabric of reality, just failed), with a forced subversion of expectations that only served short term farming of drama, while setting up deus ex machina on he next episode, because obviously, Kralk is not going to just devour fabric of reality, but we failed to address both stakes and urgency, and expect us to somehow mantain suspention of disbelief through multiple months of "oh no we lost and Kralk will devour the fabric of reality, in a friggin MMO.

The only thing that was anyhow good in the writing of All (f)or Nothing, was the spectacle of the big boss fight. That's it.

War Eternal was just unavoidable conclusion of the mess they left off at the end of previous episode. There was simply no other way to feasibly continue development of a story from the mess your "masterpiece" left after itself. Any feasible "better" development of finale, would require penultimate episode to be less crap in writing in the first place, and at least address ANY of the escalations it commited.

[Zapgrind.2197]

The vector they are going for became clear for me in Icebrood, when they have cucked the entire species, pardon my elonian. You know who I mean. The only character who acted like his race should act was bullied for this by literally everyone, writers included.

And it only went donwhill from there. There are no species with different mindsets, there are only krytans in funny suits with all the edges smoothed.

Edited March 1 by Zapgrind.2197

[Alaia Skyhawk.5064]

I don't really see Eparc as being some kind of softy/misunderstood. As it was stated by a few other Kryptis in this part of the patch, Eparc has ruled Nayos since "your world (Tyria) was young". So he's been the Midnight King for probably 100s of thousands of years minimum. Love isn't always altruistic, it's entirely possible for love to be possessive/obsessive, and given that his queen has almost certainly been a fixture in his life across most of those thousands of years it's completely understandable he'd not want to lose her/would be extremely pissed at her death.

[Myror.7521]

Bruh this whole threat is a big spoiler...... kitten please make the title better so Guys like me didn't Go in and get spoiled instantly 😞

[GBEW.5947]

40 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

Bruh this whole threat is a big spoiler...... kitten please make the title better so Guys like me didn't Go in and get spoiled instantly 😞

I apologize. I was not thinking of you when i posted this. If there is anything i can do for you in game as compensation for this just let me know. 

[Zera.9435]

3 hours ago, Alaia Skyhawk.5064 said:

I don't really see Eparc as being some kind of softy/misunderstood. As it was stated by a few other Kryptis in this part of the patch, Eparc has ruled Nayos since "your world (Tyria) was young". So he's been the Midnight King for probably 100s of thousands of years minimum. Love isn't always altruistic, it's entirely possible for love to be possessive/obsessive, and given that his queen has almost certainly been a fixture in his life across most of those thousands of years it's completely understandable he'd not want to lose her/would be extremely pissed at her death.

All the more reason someone on our side should have been killed off too, to show that Eparch really is a threat and no pushover. Instead it's a classic case of "Let the good guys continue with their farce rebellion because plot armor."  Eparch had a ripe opportunity to kill off everyone in that amphitheater and he just... goes poof. But then again, if they did make it look like someone was about to get killed off, they would have deus ex machina'd the hell out of it and suddenly out of nowhere Dragon's Watch would have shown up or something.

[Randulf.7614]

I'd be far more concerned our character didn't challenge the fact a deal was on the table to save Tyria or show any remorse for it after Labris died (the after instance dialogue touches on it without any remorse). Sure we were incapicated, but it also seemed likely Peitha was to take a decision affecting our world for us and we need to be questioning her a bit more and not trusting her so blindly. We seem to be swept up in a battle not of our own and I'm disconnected even more as to why - surely we are not that naieve?. I can see Izgarren's point of view to be honest.

Edited March 1 by Randulf.7614
Correcting an inaccuracy on my part

[mandala.8507]

11 hours ago, Batel.9206 said:

13 hours ago, Aedil.1296 said:

I have the feeling most writers are women, all this focus on emotions... Bah I dunno. I miss a truly evil villain in this game too

As a woman... I can sadly confirm you're probably correct on this.

11 hours ago, Batel.9206 said:

Besides, from what I understand of the story (haven't played SoTO), Kryptis are literal demons. They shouldn't behave like humans. Then again, you could say the same for every other race in the game who isn't human... [cough charr cough]

Hasn't even played the expansion but can somehow confirm that this story is written by women who are over-expressing the emotions of the villains? Um...

Your comment upsets me on so many levels, but just bold-faced making stuff up is wild.

Also, I'd be willing to put all the money I have on Arenanet's narrative team staff not even being 50% women, so...this take is just...yeah.