Phrixscreoth: Calling SotO complex makes sense when you consider what they were TRYING to throw at us, rather than what we got. Because sure, what we got wasn't complex. But as the post pointed out, they reached for complex and couldn't get there.

We had: the introduction of the wizards with their goals and purpose, the moral ambiguity of their actions, their scope of involvement in the background, the introduction of the kryptis, their relationship to the wizards, to us, to tyria, to nayos, the intro to nayos, all of the kryptis characters, a civil war within the kryptis, moral ambiguity on the part of our side, and multiple war sequences.

On paper, that's a LOT to get through in three maps and a handful of story steps every three months. It was too complex for them to get through, because what we got was significantly simpler than that. And the process of shaving down all that complexity into something simple enough to actually produce is where a lot of our valid criticism of the story is rooted in.

TiltRepairMan: I think if you replaced the Kryptis with another faction it would actually make more sense in explaining their choices to be good and evil. The story lost me when a hideous looking demon beast comes up to me and is like "Yo, I'm Peitha Mommy and demond are actually normal people trapped in the most hideous, evil, twisted bodies ever seen in Tyria. But we're mostly good hee hee".

Forty2de: To me, SotO's biggest accomplishment is that it made me appreciate the other expansions more.

XTAKU.: I think the idea of the Kryptis and Nayos was cool but in execution it was done very poorly, we do not really get a sense that Nayos is truly another world, it has fauna and terrain very similar to what could be found in Tyria, not to mention, the Nayos map is in Tyria as well. You'd think with a title like "Nayos, the Realm of Dreams" we would have gotten a more interesting landscape. There's also many times we are told certain things without being shown it. Storytelling in a medium like a video game should be more expressive with visuals rather than dialogue that does not visually correlate to much. The Kryptis themselves were far more intriguing when they were depicted as monsters who invade your mind and turn you against your allies. The overly used trope in fiction where the story goes out of its way to humanize the villains was a disservice here because the Kryptis are not human, and shouldn't be tied to human morality, and in the writers' attempt to humanize them they became so underwhelming as antagonists. I think revealing the motivations of villains later on in the story is good because it helps you to understand them and empathize with them in a sense, but the supposed main villain of SotO, Eparch, was criminally underdeveloped and his motivation for his actions was very one dimensional and underwhelming, which is very unusual for an antagonist in the guild wars franchise, who are typically complex.

ReaverEternal: "Left some character interactions feeling rushed" is a charitable way of saying "Absolute garbage dialogue between nobody we care about"

If they want to do three maps per year, why front load two? Just do one for each release bit. Then we can have story bits in each and not have to double up, give that sense of progression.

Nayos traversal sucked, making Skyscale mandatory was a terrible idea and I will die on that hill. Genie's out of the bottle now though.

Also, drop generic mook health by 30%. Chunky mobs isn't fun, it's just annoying.

jonasgustafsson9807: I think they tried to infer that the demons we usually see invading are feeding on bad emotions and thats why they torture and hurt people and they could in theory feed on passive emotions from dreams and thats what most of the weaker kryptis do but they just missed the mark on explaining it. They also really missed out on telling us WHY peitha is doing the things she does and why is she different and believes the things she does. To mee it felt like a betrayal would be too obvious and thats why her being genuine was a better story but they didnt go any deeper into the character so it fell flat.

bazs7722: I'm happy for Arenanet for "learning a lot". The game is out for 10 years and still mismanaging the scope of what they can do is kinda hilarious at this point.

pega7550: I was way more scared of Cerus than I ever was of Eparch, Cerus's first appearance was so good, while Eparchs was a dialogue and nothing more.

artsveiman7776: by making yearly expansions they are also ensuring constant money flow.

While most of us are perfectly happy with a no-subscription model, we will definitely shell mouney to buy a new expansion every year.

Alphenis: Your rant was highly entertaining.

tatspatsoor6096: I still dislike the fact that they call you wayfinder and not commander anymore

May 31 2024

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