Feedback on the narrative structure in SotO.

[Malus.2184]

The narrative structure of the two major content releases after SotO reminds me of reading a David Eddings novel without the humour. We go from victory to victory and that's narratively boring. If the content patches followed the traditional narrative structure then the

The first release: Would have been us stepping into the new challenge and finding new allies, which we did.

The second release: Would have been "The Darkest Hour" where we end up losing. That never happened. LW s4 chapter 2 and 5 were both "The Darkest Hour"! where respectively Joko and Kralkatorrik managed to do what they wanted.

The third release: Would be our moment of triumph. We're unable to have that since we never had "The Darkest Hour."

Edited March 4 by Malus.2184

[Malus.2184]

On reflection, I would rather have had the different content without the story, and then the story is a massive drop so you could finish it in one go without the massive breaks that makes it feel disjointed.

I would rather have had Convergences dropped with content patch 2 and no story. The bosses there would have been models that would obviously have been used in the story that we would have had no context to, so, lots of speculation. Without context, it makes no sense though.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

My current complain about the story in that Anet failed to convince me that the kryptis and their leaders are any threat whatsoever. 

Ohh NOO! The powerful kryptis queen! 

"Dies in a single weapon rotation" 

Ohh NOO! We have to fight an army of Demons! 

"The Commander goes doomslayer mode and creates his personal genocide" 

Ohh NOO! The demon king!

"Sits in his tower for months on end without doing anything. Watching his people getting hunted for sport."

Literally anything that was thrown at us got deleted without much effort (except Cerus). 

We basically own the place now. 

Open a portal to lions arch and the consortium makes a theme park out of nayos. 

And this time, we have no karka. So nothing to fear. 

 

[Malus.2184]

4 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

My current complain about the story in that Anet failed to convince me that the kryptis and their leaders are any threat whatsoever. 

Ohh NOO! The powerful kryptis queen! 

"Dies in a single weapon rotation" 

Ohh NOO! We have to fight an army of Demons! 

"The Commander goes doomslayer mode and creates his personal genocide" 

Ohh NOO! The demon king!

"Sits in his tower for months on end without doing anything. Watching his people getting hunted for sport."

Literally anything that was thrown at us got deleted without much effort (except Cerus). 

We basically own the place now. 

Open a portal to lions arch and the consortium makes a theme park out of nayos. 

And this time, we have no karka. So nothing to fear. 

 

Hence my Davvid Eding comment to start with. It's a result of the disjointed storytelling. "Immediate threat" is less convincing when it's a "so, come back in three months to deal with it."

Each chapter being essentially a self-contained section of a larger story is definitely an issue. While older Living World seasons could do this they could do it because they were longer and as such there was more time to have threads that carried over to the next. These sections feel like you blink and they're done.

[Kalavier.1097]

6 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

My current complain about the story in that Anet failed to convince me that the kryptis and their leaders are any threat whatsoever. 

Ohh NOO! The powerful kryptis queen! 

"Dies in a single weapon rotation" 

Ohh NOO! We have to fight an army of Demons! 

"The Commander goes doomslayer mode and creates his personal genocide" 

Ohh NOO! The demon king!

"Sits in his tower for months on end without doing anything. Watching his people getting hunted for sport."

Literally anything that was thrown at us got deleted without much effort (except Cerus). 

We basically own the place now. 

Open a portal to lions arch and the consortium makes a theme park out of nayos. 

And this time, we have no karka. So nothing to fear. 

 

So the story sucks because you are using a very overpowered gameplay build that stomps everything in the game?

[Malus.2184]

54 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

So the story sucks because you are using a very overpowered gameplay build that stomps everything in the game?

Do you know what 'hyperbole' is?

[Kalavier.1097]

10 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Do you know what 'hyperbole' is?

Considering how some people around here complain, I don't take make assumptions.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Considering how some people around here complain, I don't take make assumptions.

Any claim of a boss dying in one rotation is hyperbole.

[Kalavier.1097]

44 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Any claim of a boss dying in one rotation is hyperbole.

And I have honestly seen people decry certain important enemies because in gameplay, they trashed them. Like Balthazar for example, the fight you are scripted to lose and die to.

So yes, while "One rotation" is an exaggeration, it's still a dismissing statement about the situation and trying to have the PC be an army-slaying by themselves superhero and the threat of the enemy is being completely erased.

"Oh man, I guess fractals aren't any threat at all because we just cleared the entire thing in a single run. That NPC talking about how unprepared groups came out torn to shreds is just a complete lie"

[Malus.2184]

5 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

And I have honestly seen people decry certain important enemies because in gameplay, they trashed them. Like Balthazar for example, the fight you are scripted to lose and die to.

So yes, while "One rotation" is an exaggeration, it's still a dismissing statement about the situation and trying to have the PC be an army-slaying by themselves superhero and the threat of the enemy is being completely erased.

"Oh man, I guess fractals aren't any threat at all because we just cleared the entire thing in a single run. That NPC talking about how unprepared groups came out torn to shreds is just a complete lie"

It's still different than the boss being power-crept to death. This is new content. The exaggeration is just expressing that the content is disappointing. I honestly doubt anyone has had any serious issues with any of the bosses of the story so far. In my experience, Heitor was more difficult than Larys.

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

I honestly doubt anyone has had any serious issues with any of the bosses of the story so far. In my experience, Heitor was more difficult than Larys.

Having high numerical and mechanical difficulty in story is just a bad design philosophy for an MMO. The reality is, story needs to be easy because story has to be accessible to everyone. The problem with the gameplay in story currently really has nothing to do with its difficulty, because honestly the numerical and mechanical difficulty of some of the encounters in SotO is pretty high relative to the rest of story content in GW2. But these story encounters have no novel problem solving, and so any work you've done as a player to become better mechanically or numerically carries over completely.

In the past, story was actually easier mechanically and numerically, but story gameplay had a more problem solving focus. Basically, it was a mix of puzzles and combat that kept the gameplay fresh and exciting because you couldn't just constantly fall back on your base mechanics and gameplay knowledge. You'd have to figure out how to tackle a new combat mechanic or puzzle that had nothing to do with dps rotations or quick reaction times, and instead asked you to think on your feet and figure something out that you'd never seen before.

For whatever reason, SotO has very few novel gameplay mechanics or puzzles for story and instead falls back on a couple of pretty bland and overdone combat staples for the game in the last few years (like green circles, red AoEs, break bars, flame wall, etc.). Since the active playerbase is already familiar with these mechanics, they aren't true hurdles to anyone with even quite pedestrian mechanical skill or combat knowledge, and so story feels easier even though it's actually harder on paper.

Gameplay is by far the weakest part of SotO (imo) because almost none of it is new. And so if you've played the rest of GW2, you've already seen every gameplay concept SotO is going to throw at you. Just one of many victims this expansion of cost-cutting measures.

[Malus.2184]

17 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Having high numerical and mechanical difficulty in story is just a bad design philosophy for an MMO. The reality is, story needs to be easy because story has to be accessible to everyone. The problem with the gameplay in story currently really has nothing to do with its difficulty, because honestly the numerical and mechanical difficulty of some of the encounters in SotO is pretty high relative to the rest of story content in GW2. But these story encounters have no novel problem solving, and so any work you've done as a player to become better mechanically or numerically carries over completely

Do you know what a "difficulty curve" is?

Larys was higher in the hierarchical ranks than Heitor, thus she should have been stronger than Heitor, and aside from the instant-down attack this never happened as Heitor on average was stronger than Larys.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 3/3/2024 at 9:19 AM, Malus.2184 said:

The narrative structure of the two major content releases after SotO reminds me of reading a David Eddings novel without the humour. We go from victory to victory and that's narratively boring. If the content patches followed the traditional narrative structure then the

The first release: Would have been us stepping into the new challenge and finding new allies, which we did.

The second release: Would have been "The Darkest Hour" where we end up losing. That never happened. LW s4 chapter 2 and 5 were both "The Darkest Hour"! where respectively Joko and Kralkatorrik managed to do what they wanted.

The third release: Would be our moment of triumph. We're unable to have that since we never had "The Darkest Hour."

Did... you play the second update to completion?

That ending is by far not a victory. It's not exactly a darkest hour either, but it is no victory as our prisoner turned herself into a martyr inspiring the loyalists and even those who were on the fence that were hoped to be recruited, and the enemy revoked all opportunity of negotiation while showing power enough to incapacity all non-kryptis (including the PC ofc).

There is a bit much power fantasy going on, I agree, but it isn't just victory after victory.

[Malus.2184]

13 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Did... you play the second update to completion?

That ending is by far not a victory. It's not exactly a darkest hour either, but it is no victory as our prisoner turned herself into a martyr inspiring the loyalists and even those who were on the fence that were hoped to be recruited, and the enemy revoked all opportunity of negotiation while showing power enough to incapacity all non-kryptis (including the PC ofc).

There is a bit much power fantasy going on, I agree, but it isn't just victory after victory.

Anything other than a defeat is a victory.

There are plenty of examples of this being a part of the story structure, it even has a TVtropes page that explains it and shows many examples (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkestHour). All those examples create memorable stories.

Some will join Eparch, some will join Peitha, and in this specific context, those who stay out of this implicitly help Peitha since they never provide force against her.

 

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Anything other than a defeat is a victory.

There are plenty of examples of this being a part of the story structure, it even has a TVtropes page that explains it and shows many examples (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkestHour). All those examples create memorable stories.

Some will join Eparch, some will join Peitha, and in this specific context, those who stay out of this implicitly help Peitha since they never provide force against her.

That's the thing.

I would consider Labris' martyrdom and Eparch's public announcement of personal vengeance to be a defeat when the purpose of the spectacle was to use Labris' execution as a rallying call against Eparch.

Due to Labris' actions, the results were the complete opposite of the desired goal. If that isn't a defeat, then what is?

You say "some will join Eparch and some will join Peitha" but the feeling we're left with is that few will join Peitha instead of many, and many more will join Eparch than expected.

And I'm aware of what a Darkest Hour is - however, a story does not need a Darkest Hour to be a good story. In fact, many Darkest Hour moments feel contrived, like Aurene's death at the end of All or Nothing that gets reverted in less than 3 minutes to players who were not active at the time of the releases' launch. That's not a darkest hour - that's a darkest minute, which makes it feel like a fakeout (which it is) and a pointless addition that adds little to nothing to the value of the story.

[Kalavier.1097]

On 4/3/2024 at 6:47 AM, Malus.2184 said:

Do you know what a "difficulty curve" is?

Larys was higher in the hierarchical ranks than Heitor, thus she should have been stronger than Heitor, and aside from the instant-down attack this never happened as Heitor on average was stronger than Larys.

Couple things.

Being queen (Haven't done the episode myself, personally) does not necessarily equal being stronger. Especially if simply her status is enough to deter all attacks because it'd bring the wrath of Eparch down on the persons head. 

"Besides the instant down attack, Heitor was stronger then Layrs." is again conflating gameplay into story. One person may have had a lot of trouble with Heitor while another person melted her down nearly instantly with an insanely powerful build. This is again, like Balthazar in Path of Fire. I know people who made fun of the scripted loss fight on the spire because they absolutely melted his health bar down without getting hurt badly. Others, myself included at the time got downed a few times and saw him doing the "Pauses all attacks to let you heal, or outright heals you himself" part of the fight.

Likewise, that's not how GW2 is designed. Level 80 fight is a level 80 fight. We aren't doing a WoW thing where the mid-expansion boss is level 60, but the end expansion story boss is level 80 and thus more powerful.

Likewise, the other post which was basically saying "We own Nayos, just open a portal from LA as a vacation hunting ground why don't you" is taking such finely crafted top tier DPS builds and acting as if that performance is normal for 100% of all Tyria in a lore perspective. As opposed to the actual showings and reports which mention the Astral Ward having to be taught what they can actually eat without trouble, where to hide because some enemies are too tough, and hell, even the atmospheric differences which make the first time you visit trouble due to not being used to it.

Like My example in the Fractals. If you visit Old LA, you can talk to the NPC guard by the fractal portal there, back when they first came out. It's made quite explicit that these fractal instances are incredibly dangerous and have killed, or outright maimed horrifically several groups that went in. That the Commander + a team has beat them all is an exception, not the rule.

[Malus.2184]

On 4/4/2024 at 1:04 PM, Kalavier.1097 said:

Couple things.

Being queen (Haven't done the episode myself, personally) does not necessarily equal being stronger. Especially if simply her status is enough to deter all attacks because it'd bring the wrath of Eparch down on the persons head. 

Nayos is fully ruled by strength by design. "The strong shall rule" always expresses "The weak shall serve." While Labris had the status of queen she would also have been more powerful than Heitor either from the beginning or gaining it later. Kryptis can become stronger by consuming other Kryptis so she had the means to become physically stronger than Heitor. Even if Heitor was stronger at the start then Labris would have kept her from gaining physical power while her own grew.

Edited April 5 by Malus.2184

[Malus.2184]

On 4/4/2024 at 12:21 PM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

That's the thing.

I would consider Labris' martyrdom and Eparch's public announcement of personal vengeance to be a defeat when the purpose of the spectacle was to use Labris' execution as a rallying call against Eparch.

Due to Labris' actions, the results were the complete opposite of the desired goal. If that isn't a defeat, then what is?

You say "some will join Eparch and some will join Peitha" but the feeling we're left with is that few will join Peitha instead of many, and many more will join Eparch than expected.

And I'm aware of what a Darkest Hour is - however, a story does not need a Darkest Hour to be a good story. In fact, many Darkest Hour moments feel contrived, like Aurene's death at the end of All or Nothing that gets reverted in less than 3 minutes to players who were not active at the time of the releases' launch. That's not a darkest hour - that's a darkest minute, which makes it feel like a fakeout (which it is) and a pointless addition that adds little to nothing to the value of the story.

Then name me one popular dramatic story that has no "Darkest Hour" in the narrative. Even the romcoms of the 2000s and 2010s had a "Darkest Hour" where the protagonists had seemingly lost whatever they wanted and were down in the dumps before they had "Moment of Glory." This sequence gives the audience a sense of catharsis. Every story that's remembered have a "Darkest Hour." Even "Romeo and Juliet" has a "Darkest Hour" in the ending and no "Moment of Triumph" since the protagonists die due to their stupidity.

[Kalavier.1097]

13 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Nayos is fully ruled by strength by design. "The strong shall rule" always expresses "The weak shall serve." While Labris had the status of queen she would also have been more powerful than Heitor either from the beginning or gaining it later. Kryptis can become stronger by consuming other Kryptis so she had the means to become physically stronger than Heitor. Even if Heitor was stronger at the start then Labris would have kept her from gaining physical power while her own grew.

So... why is Ignaxious stronger then Heitor then?

edit: This is partly the problem of taking gameplay in something like an MMO super seriously in relation to story (It also applies to say, shooters or RPGs as well). Ignaxious takes 30-50 people beating on him to die. Heitor was killed by a single person. Neither situation had the Tyrians being particularly more powerful or skilled then the other. Likewise how we have individuals who get injured and retain the injury between story updates, yet we just heal back to full after combat ends.

 

Edited April 6 by Kalavier.1097

[Malus.2184]

On 4/5/2024 at 5:37 PM, Kalavier.1097 said:

So... why is Ignaxious stronger then Heitor then?

edit: This is partly the problem of taking gameplay in something like an MMO super seriously in relation to story (It also applies to say, shooters or RPGs as well). Ignaxious takes 30-50 people beating on him to die. Heitor was killed by a single person. Neither situation had the Tyrians being particularly more powerful or skilled then the other. Likewise how we have individuals who get injured and retain the injury between story updates, yet we just heal back to full after combat ends.

 

Because we never fight Ignaxious in the story. he's a meta-event and thus tuned for more players. If it was reversed and we had Heitor as the meta boss and Ignaxious as the story boss, which we probably should have IMO, then Heitor would have been game-mechanically stronger than Ignaxious.

[Kalavier.1097]

9 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Because we never fight Ignaxious in the story. he's a meta-event and thus tuned for more players. If it was reversed and we had Heitor as the meta boss and Ignaxious as the story boss, which we probably should have IMO, then Heitor would have been game-mechanically stronger than Ignaxious.

Which lies the problem. 

How can we accurately judge how strong Heitor or the queen is if we cannot even effectively judge how strong their underlings are? The Commander is never treated as if they are a one man army either. The Commander is not equal to 50 other heroes/adventurers, so...

[Malus.2184]

On 4/7/2024 at 3:42 AM, Kalavier.1097 said:

Which lies the problem. 

How can we accurately judge how strong Heitor or the queen is if we cannot even effectively judge how strong their underlings are? The Commander is never treated as if they are a one man army either. The Commander is not equal to 50 other heroes/adventurers, so...

I agree with that. I think The Krytan Herald had a similar criticism that the open world has been used too little to convey the story as the metas in Nayos are seemingly unconnected to the narrative.

[Starseer.1047]

I've been looking for posts regarding the writing of SotO. Keep in mind that all this is coming from a rose-tinted glasses-wearing player who has been eating GW2 content up and typically enjoying the meal. It SUCKS to be saying the things I'll be saying, but lying is pointless.

The writing of SotO is much weaker than not only previous expansions, but also living world seasons. And living world seasons were free, as long as you logged in while the episodes were running!

I can appreciate Anet trying something new with their expansion release schedule. More content sounded exciting! And I was fully willing to chuck my money at them bc I was so happy. But, gosh, ik this is their first time around trying this, but oof! At least lws chapters all felt complete. The first section of SotO is blatantly hacked off with an axe from the rest of the story, as is the second--There's a very important demon invasion we gotta stop, we swear! But let's chill for a few entire months. Even though big baddies were faced in lws, such as Joko or Kralk, or Bangar and Ryland, and those episodes were often separated from one another by time, it didn't FEEL that way nearly as much as SotO does. If the price of more consistent content is the content's quality, then my enthusiasm for future expansions (and willingness to dump out money) will be pretty dampened. When EoD came out, the experience was MAGICAL. I felt like I was flying I was so happy and excited exploring Cantha. When SotO was announced, I felt the promise of that same magic! I was hyped! I couldn't wait to be swept up by the story and chuck my poor Commander into a meat grinder! But alas... Even this far into the expansion, there hasn't been a meat grinder!!

I think the best signifier of the expansions's quality was its prologue, the stuff tacked onto the end of EoD. "What Lies Beneath" was AWESOME. I LOVED IT. Demons, trauma, and mental health already played a big part in the canon of my characters, and hot diggity, here were all of the Commander's traumas being raked to the surface. I was STOKED to see what would happen next, how the problem would be solved, especially since the Commander was to be used as bait! And then "What Lies Within" was released. All of that superb buildup fell flat onto its face. You don't even punch the manifestations of your bad memories or anything, you just punch the scary demon until it dies. No confronting your feelings, nothing. I think it could've been a proper signifier/harbinger of imminent demon invasion, but that just never came to be. In a way that felt like it mattered, anyway. I think SotO started off pretty strong with Cerus getting the Commander dumped on him and figuring out they're delicious and saying he wanted to hunt and eat them, but then Cerus died, and the expansion is still going. It's not like the Midnight King has explicitly said to your face that he wants to eat you.

And there's not only a pacing issue--Major story beats are totally missing the mark for me. Take Trahearne's death in HoT. I was legit devastated for weeks and so sad I had to go look for fan content that was happier. Mabon is rather similar to Trahearne, yes? Wise and very, very, very nice. And strong. But my reaction of Mabon's death was thus: "Oh, he's dead. That's a shame." You just don't see enough of Mabon being a great guy before he kicks it. Then other things, such as some of the Ward members'/Dagda's reservations (or outright hostility) towards the Commander for their actions. That was interesting! But the first half of the first part of the expansion wasn't even over before Dagda was hopping on the 'The Wayfinder is awesome!!' train. And, when Convergences were released, turns out Mabon taught Zojja a resurrection spell!! .......Then.... why didn't that spell come up i resurrecting, you know, MABON??? And then Zojja, your friend who you haven't seen in years (in game and out), just up and says 'yes' to yeeting all of her memories of you and the rest of your friends.... off-screen. What!? And now you're getting into the thick of demon politics, creatures who are known for being deceitful, bc this one hot demon lady said their king was a big meanie. Even I, who headcanons their Wayfinder to be a more trusting trusting person in general, find the Wayfinder waaaay too trusting thus far about accepting the evilness of this guy whose atrocities we've never personally seen. We're just taking everyone up on their word. For big bads like Balthazar or Joko, you saw with your own eyeballs that they were causing considerable damage and suffering; for ones like Bangar and Ryland, you could see the imminent catastrophe and calamity they would bring if they were left unchecked, but currently, my view on the Midnight King is that his people generally live in fear for some reason (we don't see Eparch's grunts haranguing plain old civilians like with Joko and the Awakened--The Loyalists are disrupting resistance fighters, but then there are a bunch of Kryptis in Nayos just chilling outside of their houses. And also the king really loved his queen. He just seems really, and UNDERSTANDABLY, upset that his queen killed herself because of Peitha and her pals! Overall, it really feels like 'Wayfinder, do this!' 'Wayfinder, do that!' 'Wayfinder, we need your help!' and you're nodding along and running around doing what everyone is asking of you, instead of feeling like you're actively racing towards stopping an apocalyptic threat.

The next expansion is due to release this year. I really, really hope that the writing team (and whoever is responsible for the amount of time they're given to work) learn from this first experience, since it... left something to be desired. I really want to see them do better! I really want Anet to succeed in general! I love, love, love Guild Wars 2. It's given me so much! But I can't rightfully say that SotO has felt like it's given me my money's worth. I just can't. Thank you for reading!

[mandala.8507]

2 hours ago, Starseer.1047 said:

And now you're getting into the thick of demon politics, creatures who are known for being deceitful, bc this one hot demon lady said their king was a big meanie. Even I, who headcanons their Wayfinder to be a more trusting trusting person in general, find the Wayfinder waaaay too trusting thus far about accepting the evilness of this guy whose atrocities we've never personally seen. We're just taking everyone up on their word. For big bads like Balthazar or Joko, you saw with your own eyeballs that they were causing considerable damage and suffering; for ones like Bangar and Ryland, you could see the imminent catastrophe and calamity they would bring if they were left unchecked, but currently, my view on the Midnight King is that his people generally live in fear for some reason (we don't see Eparch's grunts haranguing plain old civilians like with Joko and the Awakened--The Loyalists are disrupting resistance fighters, but then there are a bunch of Kryptis in Nayos just chilling outside of their houses. And also the king really loved his queen. He just seems really, and UNDERSTANDABLY, upset that his queen killed herself because of Peitha and her pals!

My genuine advice if you believe what you've written in this piece of your statement to be true: you need to get back in-game and comb over the open world narrative better.

I could give you countless examples of these things you say are missing regarding establishing Eparch's villainy, and the only way you could have missed so many of them is by beelining through the expansion with absolutely no intention of analyzing the world building holistically or in good-faith.

I'm not convinced you've played even a single dynamic event in the second part of Inner Nayos if these are your thoughts on the Kryptis and their society under Eparch. 

[starlinvf.1358]

On 3/3/2024 at 3:19 PM, Malus.2184 said:

The narrative structure of the two major content releases after SotO reminds me of reading a David Eddings novel without the humour. We go from victory to victory and that's narratively boring. If the content patches followed the traditional narrative structure then the

The first release: Would have been us stepping into the new challenge and finding new allies, which we did.

The second release: Would have been "The Darkest Hour" where we end up losing. That never happened. LW s4 chapter 2 and 5 were both "The Darkest Hour"! where respectively Joko and Kralkatorrik managed to do what they wanted.

The third release: Would be our moment of triumph. We're unable to have that since we never had "The Darkest Hour."

The 3 act structure is a myth.  It is not the be all end all of story design.  Ever hear of a tragedy?  For the greater the heights of the protagonist, the grander the fall in the finale.  This need not be malicious either. For emotional scars develop character, and add depth to a heroes motivation and way of thinking. 

Plus what if its a 4 act story like the old Diablo games used to do?