Anet, Please Stop Humanizing Interdimensional Alien Monsters

[draxynnic.3719]

I've been disappointed myself that the titans haven't been demonstrating their distinctive 'break apart on death' property. While story-wise we haven't killed Greer or Decimus to see what happens when they die, we've certainly killed a few mid-tier titanspawn that should have broken up.

I'd guess that what's going on is they decided that in the GW2 paradigm where even the mid-tier titans are a boss fight (because you're not always fighting them as a party of 8), having to clear out a few smaller titanspawn after killing the big one would be anticlimactic. GW2 does have very different enemy scaling to GW1, after all, if you've just defeated a champion, spawning a few veterans or even elites probably isn't going to scare you. And if they did reproduce the GW1 behaviour where you needed to prioritise targets or risk being overwhelmed by smaller titans, that might cause problems in open world where you can't control what other players do. Still, it would have been nice to see as a nod to what they were.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I've been disappointed myself that the titans haven't been demonstrating their distinctive 'break apart on death' property. While story-wise we haven't killed Greer or Decimus to see what happens when they die, we've certainly killed a few mid-tier titanspawn that should have broken up.

They mention in the xpack that all of the Titan spawn are just sheddings from Greer and Decmia. None of them are proper Titans themselves.

5 hours ago, Pax.3548 said:

.This last point makes me want to believe Greer and Decima belong to the titans sent by Khilbron to destroy the mursaat settled on janthir isle and their golden city (forgot the name), and Mabon, who at the time was watching his fellow mursaat, may have sealed the titans inside the golden city to stop them from causing trouble like the other freed titans did back in gw1 after the lich's defeat. But then after Mabon's death, the seal broke and since then these titans, no longer trapped, began to cause trouble.

This theory could explain what happened to the mursaat on Janthir as well has what happened to the titans sent to kill them, but it fails however, if these modern titans are newcomers to Tyria.

As Wizards, I don't see why Isgarren and Mabon wouldn't have just killed these Titans instead of trapping them in Bava Nisos for 250+ years. Like, we've already seen what Waiting Sorrow could do against a Titan. Isgarren and Mabon could've easily kill them and been done with it.

Edited September 7 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Pax.3548]

1 hour ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

As Wizards, I don't see why Isgarren and Mabon wouldn't have just killed these Titans instead of trapping them in Bava Nisos for 250+ years. Like, we've already seen what Waiting Sorrow could do against a Titan. Isgarren and Mabon could've easily kill them and been done with it.

I guess a group of titans together could threaten even them, the wizards are powerful but not all mighty, in the lonely tower fractals we learn 2 wizards got killed in a single Kryptis attack. Besides they don't meedle on Tyrian affairs, sure these titans comes from the mist, but they were brought here by a Tyrian (Khilbron), it wasn't an active titan invasion from the mist

[Scar.1793]

On 9/2/2024 at 9:30 PM, Luthan.5236 said:

Yes. I agree. Creating those "humanized" versions of enemies also leaves devs/story writers with the problem that this takes up resources to creatse stuff (lore regarding society, history, etc.) for them - meaning less focus on our part (currently the Tyrian alliance) and the survival and stories here. Will all feel pretty dull if there is too much but none of it really fleshed out.

Titans need to be trutal. Trying to fully eradicate Tyrians spawning everywhere and slaughtering villages with us standing together - motivated to destroy them. Ending in us fully purging every single one of them. Then it will a great story.

But if it happens like "player char saving a titan baby" it will mean instant 0/10 regarding the plot. (Locked to 0.)

A grown up purge of a titan baby colony - to prevent them from turning dangerous enemies later ... would be great. Might confliced with the way they advertise the game though. (And age rating.) Better to not hope for too much - and focus on the gameplay parts instead.

I genuinely couldn't care less about the Tyrian alliance. Any story sequence involving them is a massive snoozefest and all the complains about the prologue are evidence enough for me of this.

We want something new but GW2 is plagued by some of the most cliché writing.

Currently playing GW1 to get a HoM title, while the graphics are worse, the story and more importantly settings and characters are so much more believable. You don't have a "joke" every step of the way.

Going in Fissure of Woe, Underworld or the realm of Torment with all its domains... seeing the maps even if linear with less nice graphics. It fits really well.

Compare Abaddon's realms vs Nayos and it's just not the same. They tried so hard to humanize the Kryptis, destroying their identity, they even destroyed their map lol.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

They mention in the xpack that all of the Titan spawn are just sheddings from Greer and Decmia. None of them are proper Titans themselves.

I'd presume that at some point at the process of a GW1-style titan breaking down you'd be talking about 'sheddings' rather than a 'proper titan'. In most cases they don't split into two until the final phase. Most.

Not having the splitting behaviour was ultimately their choice. They could easily have had the larger titanspawn split.

Of course, considering that we haven't succeeded in actually killing one yet, they could use the breaking down behaviour as a means of phasing the fight when and if we are actually allowed to succeed. But I think there would have been a stronger link to GW1 titans if some of the larger titanspawn broke down as well. If the only times we see it is in a set of three bossfights, that's really not comparable to how they were in GW1.

[Amanda Whitemoon.6173]

when in gw1 you are with a group of 8 , and killing the boss-titans, not normal 3 legged version, the bosses, they go down at a nice speed. when i fought Decima, i was with a group of 5 and my dragonhunter, build more for suviving storymode and not build for power, she went down at a nice speed, almost similar. so i do think our character is equally powerful as the gw1 player. (i do need to replay The Titan Source quest again to see how that goes). so far we have not seen any other big titans, only 2 boss-versions, so we dont know yet how easy we can slay a group of normal 3/4 leggd versions. 

I agree that the champion that Greer left behind, should have spawned smaller titans when we killed it. (unles they had difficulty coding that because the mission ends after it, and this is similar to abaddonsmouth ending with the single titan at the end not spawning smaller ones as the mission ends right after)

 

my idea so far is this:

Mabon's diary talks about a female with a golden mask, likely a female mursaat, who could still hear voices from Nayos. I think she is making the titans to seek revenge on the seers and nayos for kicking them out.
And she uses the souls from the bloodstone to make them. thats why Greer and decima are harviesting teh bloodstones, they need more souls. She has only been able to make 3.

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 9/6/2024 at 5:17 AM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

This said, while I haven't finished Janthir Wilds as it's hard to motivate myself to finish when Act 2 is FIVE ALMOST BACK TO BACK map exploration steps; seriously who's brilliant idea was it for Act 2 to be open world dialogue -> exploration -> open world dialogue -> heart -> open world dialogue -> heart -> good instance -> open world interactions -> dialogue instance -> open world events -> whatevercomesnextI'mnotthereyet ??? That is terrible, the first Act was so much better pacing, this was just bad, especially since there are moments, like using lightning rods on magic rocks, that come out of nowhere, no dialogue explaining it just "go do this thing too now" in the objectives.

Like it is with the second map, the second act of the story seems as if they just ran out of time and had to rush it.  It's been an issue with ANet since EoD, rushing out content without the resources to do the job properly.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 9/6/2024 at 1:45 AM, Weindrasi.3805 said:

But also, they are demonic beings from another dimension.

I agree that the Kryptis were not portrayed as demons, not in a classical understanding of demons or otherwise.

The whole "chunks-of-flesh-that-has-feelings" concept was strange and off-putting, making it impossible for me to form any connection with them or any sympathy for them, what with all the whining and boring monologue.

Their whole design, visually and psychologically, was a complete flop in my book.

[Kalavier.1097]

On 9/7/2024 at 3:45 AM, Scar.1793 said:

Currently playing GW1 to get a HoM title, while the graphics are worse, the story and more importantly settings and characters are so much more believable. You don't have a "joke" every step of the way.

But there aren't jokes at "Every step of the way" Nor was GW1 ultra serious all the time. The characters in both games are believable and people, but they are, by their literal nature, different games. One is an RPG first, the other is an MMO first.

[Dadnir.5038]

Well... We have charrs, asuras, norns, sylvarii, skriits, quaggans, kodans, kraiths, Jotun, ... etc.

It's obvious that it's not the outer shell that matter but the inner-self.

[Crono.4197]

Indeed Arenanet needs to drop the "oh enemies actually have feelings" part. Ever since Kralkatorrik's death, it's been getting worse and worse. Literally every enemy must actually be a humanized creature instead of just a force of nature (as the dragon's were depicted) or instead of just a purely evil creature. Humanized enemies can be replaced with anything and makes it totally boring. Seems like Arenanet wants us to constantly relate to them and want us to feel sorry for them and what happens to them.

Sometimes evil has to be just evil. I don't need to relate or feel sorry for every moving thing in this game. What's next? We'll ask for enemies' consent to fight them because we don't wanna hurt their feelings or because we feel sorry for them?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

8 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Like it is with the second map, the second act of the story seems as if they just ran out of time and had to rush it.  It's been an issue with ANet since EoD, rushing out content without the resources to do the job properly.

Just EoD?

Let's face it, it's been an issue for all of GW2. Orr and chapter 8 was rushed and broken at several places on launch, resulting in a poor Zhaitan fight among other things; HoT had a lackluster final act, as did PoF. Gyala, Champions, and Nayos was very lackluster too, though it's hard to call that "ran out of time" but it was still resource management issues.

Part of the issue of this, and the constant contradictions in worldbuilding lore, stems from how ANet is a rotating door company. I don't think we've had a single writing team of the same writers, or same team lead, for more than 3 years. And this is ironically despite individuals like Bobby Stein and Matthew Medina being around since GW1 days.

[Perihen the Thawk.9527]

I know this is unpopular but I generally disagree with this take. I think the whole "unknowable alien motives" thing is kind of just lazy writing and honestly a boring story to boot. Any society, unless it's a hive mind, is going to have quarreling factions. And most motives, even really weird ones, are actually understandable, it's just that writers refusing to communicate them looks cool because it's a shortcut to not disappointing anybody.

Anet could certainly work on their writing, for sure, but this really isn't the problem.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

I know this is unpopular but I generally disagree with this take. I think the whole "unknowable alien motives" thing is kind of just lazy writing and honestly a boring story to boot. Any society, unless it's a hive mind, is going to have quarreling factions. And most motives, even really weird ones, are actually understandable, it's just that writers refusing to communicate them looks cool because it's a shortcut to not disappointing anybody.

Anet could certainly work on their writing, for sure, but this really isn't the problem.

THIS.

Trying to make things seem "alien" just leads to the "fantasy monolith" or "planet of the hats" trope issue where you have to ask yourself questions like "if all Klingons are warriors who shun science, who developed their warp drive? who is making their ships? who is farming thier food?" etc. etc. Same issue with dwarves(generic dwarves in fantasy, not just GW2 dwarves) where they are portrayed as all being miners, smiths, and warriors, leading to the same question of food, clothing production, education, etc. etc.

Any society that isn't a hivemind is going to be like humans. You're going to have a wide range of ideals, opinions, and professions. They're going to have farmers, construction workers, tailors, artists, teachers, and every other job humans have because any society HAS TO HAVE THESE THINGS to function. They might have a societal skew towards idolizing warriors(like the Charr), but, like the Charr, they're going to be very similar to human society otherwise.

If Kryptis were truly alien, and truly unlike humans, they wouldn't, and couldn't, have any society, or organization. They would just be a leaderless mass of entities that would pose little if any real threat to Tyria because no one would be leading them to attack Tyria in any meaningful way.

Hell, Star Trek was getting dunked on, even by fans of the franchise, for this kind of 'Planet of the Hats" style writing back in the late 80s, because even back then people understood it was the most lazy, nonsensical, kind of writing. And Deep Space 9 is applauded for making many otherwise generic alien races like the Cardassians, Ferengi, and Bajorans, actually deep. And you know how they did it? By making them more human, and giving them all the same kind of various opinions and jobs humans have.

Edited September 9 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Gotejjeken.1267]

5 hours ago, Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

I know this is unpopular but I generally disagree with this take. I think the whole "unknowable alien motives" thing is kind of just lazy writing and honestly a boring story to boot. Any society, unless it's a hive mind, is going to have quarreling factions. And most motives, even really weird ones, are actually understandable, it's just that writers refusing to communicate them looks cool because it's a shortcut to not disappointing anybody.

Anet could certainly work on their writing, for sure, but this really isn't the problem.

Maybe, but even hive mind have more interesting stories...like the Zerg from Starcraft.  That's honestly what I expected to see when Kryptis first showed up, but they got humanized far too quickly.  

Do think demon realm shouldn't have been a thing right off the bat, just random Kryptis attacks on Tyria for a while would have been enough.  The pacing was far too fast.

I'm not far enough along in Janthir yet to really know what's going on, but to me, the connection to nature the Kodan have is more unique than anything SoTO was done, even if it is a trope that has been done to death.  

[Kalavier.1097]

7 hours ago, Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

I know this is unpopular but I generally disagree with this take. I think the whole "unknowable alien motives" thing is kind of just lazy writing and honestly a boring story to boot. Any society, unless it's a hive mind, is going to have quarreling factions. And most motives, even really weird ones, are actually understandable, it's just that writers refusing to communicate them looks cool because it's a shortcut to not disappointing anybody.

Anet could certainly work on their writing, for sure, but this really isn't the problem.

Another thing is, like for example Flame Legion.

What happened? We kept killing the aggressive, nasty people in charge, and bled their forces down over the years. This meant that eventually, The next person in line/capable of taking over went "Well, I don't agree with what those guys do and want peace." We killed or weakened the "evil" side of it to the point the "good" side seized control and started changing things.

Nightmare Court is another example. The aggressive factions got recruited into the Toxic alliance after the top leadership was killed off or weakened. Then Mordremoth weakened the Sylvari race as a whole briefly. Faolian died, and the basically only remaining Duchess left? Her stance was "Let's not constantly make ourselves known. Let's not go the path that risks pissing off the major nations around us who can easily wipe us out." And the main portion of the court left is subdued and more reclusive now.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Another thing is, like for example Flame Legion.

What happened? We kept killing the aggressive, nasty people in charge, and bled their forces down over the years. This meant that eventually, The next person in line/capable of taking over went "Well, I don't agree with what those guys do and want peace." We killed or weakened the "evil" side of it to the point the "good" side seized control and started changing things.

Nightmare Court is another example. The aggressive factions got recruited into the Toxic alliance after the top leadership was killed off or weakened. Then Mordremoth weakened the Sylvari race as a whole briefly. Faolian died, and the basically only remaining Duchess left? Her stance was "Let's not constantly make ourselves known. Let's not go the path that risks pissing off the major nations around us who can easily wipe us out." And the main portion of the court left is subdued and more reclusive now.

Which is something that gets used as an often successful counterinsurgency strategy (as opposed to falling into the trap of what the insurgency wants you to do, which happens far too often). Instead of going after the insurgency indiscriminately, identify which of the leadership are the true fanatics, and which are those that might be open to some form of negotiation. Then selectively pick off the former, until you've shaped the leadership of the organisation into one you can actually negotiate with. It doesn't seem to be as popular as indiscriminate methods, because it requires good intelligence and you can't publicly admit that's what you're attempting, but it does represent a real-world application of the principle.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 9/9/2024 at 5:29 PM, Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

I know this is unpopular but I generally disagree with this take. I think the whole "unknowable alien motives" thing is kind of just lazy writing and honestly a boring story to boot. Any society, unless it's a hive mind, is going to have quarreling factions. And most motives, even really weird ones, are actually understandable, it's just that writers refusing to communicate them looks cool because it's a shortcut to not disappointing anybody.

Anet could certainly work on their writing, for sure, but this really isn't the problem.

I don't think you understand what people mean by humanizing. It isn't the quarreling factions, it's the familial ties for a group that has been stated to be born out of spawning pools; it's the human-like behavior for things that don't even have mouths and joined limbs; it's the kindness when we've been told for 18 years that demons are born out of literal malicious emotion and energy. These aren't "alien cultures that have things all cultures have" it's "humans but they just look different".

Not really about being unknowable - it's about being not humans. You can be a culture of aliens without being humans in everything but appearance that contradicts all previous lore presented about the species or group.

For the Titans, I said one of the two biggest elements was their aesthetics being otherworldly. Otherworldly doesn't mean "unknowable", I was meaning "not natural" - animals naturally evolve to have an even number of limbs, sans unusual mutations, and the addition of a single leg on the titans turns them from otherworldly, unnatural looking creatures with 3 legs to just towering beasts with odd but natural leg design.

Edited September 11 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Lord Korag.8439]

*looks at humanized Elder Dragons*

[Mistwraithe.3106]

On 9/10/2024 at 9:29 AM, Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

I know this is unpopular but I generally disagree with this take. I think the whole "unknowable alien motives" thing is kind of just lazy writing and honestly a boring story to boot. Any society, unless it's a hive mind, is going to have quarreling factions. And most motives, even really weird ones, are actually understandable, it's just that writers refusing to communicate them looks cool because it's a shortcut to not disappointing anybody.

Anet could certainly work on their writing, for sure, but this really isn't the problem.

My issue isn't with them being alien or not. And I certainly want things to make sense. Quarreling factions etc are fine, motivations should exist and largely make sense BUT not always be motivations that most humans would follow.

My issue is with trying to humanize the bad guys, which is what the title of this thread says. The demons don't need to be just like humans really once you get past their different looks. That's an interesting twist to do once or twice but when every bad guy or bad civilization is conflicted or suffering in a human like way with human like emotions then that's becoming lazy writing in the other direction. Everyone's just a human really, with different looks and different ways of killing things, is not a great premise for a ongoing series of fantasy stories... (it can work for a single story).

Edited September 11 by Mistwraithe.3106

[draxynnic.3719]

I think there is a reasonable middle ground.

Consider the Tyranids, for instance. Cool models and mechanics, but from a narrative perspective they're pretty boring because they're... basically just the wolf in the dark forest scaled up to be a threat to galactic civilisations. They have no agency, just hunger. Which is good for expressing grimdark, but in practice pretty much everyone who follows 40K knows they're just there as something the actual protagonists and antagonists have to respond to.

The Zerg, on the other hand, while somewhat humanised under Kerrigan, still had more character even under the Overmind than the Great Devourer. The Overmind and the Cerebrates had personality, and the Overmind had goals that drove its actions. It was an alien goal and alien personality, but it was a goal and personality regardless.

The problem with factions that are just some unknowable threat with no discernible identity is that while it may seem to be horrific and cool, all too often shooting for that results in succeeding too well in creating a faction that has no identity.

Regarding the Kryptis - there is a degree to which once we got into Nayos, apart from the thing about being able to eat one another for power, it did end up feeling a bit too much like it was just another civil war. Which might be fine if they'd played up how alien the Kryptis were in other ways, but they really didn't. We're told, for instance, that a large part of their sustenance comes from emotions and dreams filtering into Nayos, but that's not really something we deal with apart from picking up double-edged sword stacks.

[Rallicus.8367]

There is an interesting theory going around that 

Spoiler

Decima and Greer are actually the bloodstone twins you meet during that one story mission, and that the "Titans" we're encountering aren't actually Titans at all. Which explains the humanized aspects.

 

I hope this is the case, but I'm skeptical. 

[draxynnic.3719]

52 minutes ago, Rallicus.8367 said:

There is an interesting theory going around that 

  Reveal hidden contents

Decima and Greer are actually the bloodstone twins you meet during that one story mission, and that the "Titans" we're encountering aren't actually Titans at all. Which explains the humanized aspects.

 

I hope this is the case, but I'm skeptical. 

I'm sceptical too, in part because the twins appear to have still been in the bloodstone until that particular story step, and both titans are encountered before they're released.

That said, it is worth considering that titans are created from conglomerates of tormented souls - and it's likely that what they're pulling out of the bloodstone is more souls in order to become even more powerful. As a result, there is actually a valid reason for titans to have somewhat humanlike psychology, even if it's twisted and shaded with the arrogance of being a massive and magically powerful creature capable of forming its own army - if formed primarily from human or humanlike souls, a dominant personality somewhat similar to an insane and somewhat megalomaniacal human makes sense. 

[Kalavier.1097]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there is a reasonable middle ground.

Consider the Tyranids, for instance. Cool models and mechanics, but from a narrative perspective they're pretty boring because they're... basically just the wolf in the dark forest scaled up to be a threat to galactic civilisations. They have no agency, just hunger. Which is good for expressing grimdark, but in practice pretty much everyone who follows 40K knows they're just there as something the actual protagonists and antagonists have to respond to.

The Zerg, on the other hand, while somewhat humanised under Kerrigan, still had more character even under the Overmind than the Great Devourer. The Overmind and the Cerebrates had personality, and the Overmind had goals that drove its actions. It was an alien goal and alien personality, but it was a goal and personality regardless.

The problem with factions that are just some unknowable threat with no discernible identity is that while it may seem to be horrific and cool, all too often shooting for that results in succeeding too well in creating a faction that has no identity.

Regarding the Kryptis - there is a degree to which once we got into Nayos, apart from the thing about being able to eat one another for power, it did end up feeling a bit too much like it was just another civil war. Which might be fine if they'd played up how alien the Kryptis were in other ways, but they really didn't. We're told, for instance, that a large part of their sustenance comes from emotions and dreams filtering into Nayos, but that's not really something we deal with apart from picking up double-edged sword stacks.

Also Tyranids are sometimes a side threat with something else appearing.

 

As for Kryptis, they do mention that Eparch had actually blocked dreams and such from Tyria and maybe other realms from coming into Nayos. Sadly, it's only brought up once early on when you arrive.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

Don't you know that's the new meta in story telling? Wait for the audio book version where they sensually describe the Destroyer using tree bark to cover their missing pieces after a battle.