Massive disappointment - spoilers inside.

[Thalador.4218]

> @TheUndefined.1720 said:

> Hands down, this is my biggest complaint with honestly GW2 entirely - expansion / base / otherwise.

>

> The writing is absolutely terrible to me. Don't get me wrong, the acting and dialogue are good, but the plot / beats of the story are so atrocious. The complete dismissal of humans was such a spit in the face to GW1 fans from the beginning. I honestly still get fired up when it comes to how Ascalon, the city our GW1 characters sacrificed so much for, Prince Rurik died for, was completely handed over to the enemy.

>

> Yeah, I don't care if it originally belonged to Charr. The Charr were an evil warmongering race that wanted to enslave everyone else and conquer everybody. They deserved to lose and be pushed back. Not to mention the Charr won, but the humans are now basically on the brink of total defeat by Centaurs?! ...Centaurs? Are you serious? Sure, there's the white mantle, and they're very interesting on their own.. but Centaurs?

>

> Beyond that, the entire GW2 story progression has been so utterly disrespectful to GW1. I still remember when I read the plaque in grenth's temple, it gave me chills. Sure, the deities were gone, but their presence were still very much apart of Tyria. There were avatars. There were still battles between them. They were still relevant. Now, PoF has completely and utterly dismantled the entire premise of the human's backstory. That's what made the humans interesting, their hope. Charr were the industrious deity-less race, not the humans. The humans were the counterpart, through all odds they made it out through their faith and hope. Now they have what? To become Charr?

>

> Not only that, but you don't have ANY new heroes in the expansions. We're still having our old tired heroes tagging along, which are so extremely poorly written aside from Canach. Honestly, when I think Guild Wars I think of Gwen, Thackery, Nika, Master Togo, Kormir, Koss, and many others - you get my point. The story was evolving, fresh, and fun.

>

> When I used to buy an expansion to Guild Wars, the new characters, the new story, the new jobs, the new lands, the new heroes, all of that was what got my interest. Now it's a weak monster of the week to set up another living story for another dragon without any respect to the story that's come before it. Onto the them pesky dragons, the real threat - I mean where do you go from there? You've got the threat dialed to 11 - most other stories only go to 10, but GW2 it goes to 11 (/SpinalTap). That's fine, but what comes after 11? Nothing, it's like a powercreep in villains. The twist with Balthazar was totally wasted. Now we're back to straight up doomsday devices from every tired rehash superhero movie - the dragons. We couldn't cleanse Balth of corruption? Reseal him in the mists and roll him out for a later story only to be double crossed in the end? Have Balth give up his power willingly and live among the humans and find redemption? Nope - _spoiler_ - b/c that's apparently all we're good at.

>

> Really huge misstep. I don't know who the main story director is, but I think they should replay Guild Wars 1 and remember what it was like to enjoy a well written story, not this convoluted fanfiction.

 

Wholeheartedly agreed. At this point it is incredibly appalling that after 5+ years and so many great and welcome improvements to the gameplay and other features, they still could not learn or at least understand what made the first game such a huge success when it came to the story. 5 years and they still have absolutely no notion why so many people who loved Guild Wars to bits are disappointed or outright despise the writers' disrespectful handling of established lore as well as their choice to pursue illogical, poorly written plots. And I have this fear that after all these years and all those valid pieces of criticism and calls for the respect of Guild Wars lore and essence they will never get it.

 

> @"Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324" said:

> Answering the first question: that would have been a boring development.

> Answering the second question: Balthazar giving up a fight? No.

 

1. More boring than the most predictable and lackluster series of developments - that had absolutely no meaningful or interesting twists - in the history of the Guild Wars franchise? I don't think so.

2. As I've pointed out numerous times across these threads: Balthazar was reasonable enough to give up on fights when it mattered or a lot was at stake. He refrained from continuing the wars of conquest after helping humanity carve out their own place in Tyria (the world). He understood that the active, intervening presence of gods on Tyria created conflicts in which he was forced to fight himself, and willingly pulled back into the Mists and his realm. He decided not to fight when it was discovered that the chained and imprisoned Abaddon had been behind the many atrocities that had befallen humanity and the world; instead of barging into the Realm of Torment at the helm of a massive army of Eternals to destroy Abaddon himself, he gave up on fighting in order to avoid a conflict that could've ravaged the Mists - instead, he was wise enough to bless, aid and guide the mortals who were brave enough to go up against Abaddon themselves. And he was reasonable enough to understand that conflict with the dragons could only mean death and destruction for humanity and Tyria... at least until ANet decided to retcon him in his entirety, turning him into a prideful, whining glory-hound Abaddon 2.0 with the sole interests of amassing power and fighting bigger game, so that they can force a needless god-fight into the story.

 

> @"Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324" said:

> I'm not pretending to know who Balthazar was in person (in fact nobody here can pretend this), but the "all or nothing" behavior we have witnessed in this expansion seems right with what the writings claimed.

 

Except he was never about "all or nothing" before - granted, he could've adopted that view after losing his divinity in a more credible, logical way that respects established lore (no, what was presented in PoF was anything but that). All or nothing would've been enslaving or wiping out all the other sentient species on Tyria even after humanity had found its place, or feasting on/destroying Abaddon's soul/divinity once he was cast down and weak enough to be imprisoned and chained (with chains forged by Balthazar himself). All or nothing would've been a Mists-ravaging war waged on Abaddon after the revelation that he'd been plotting a colossal revenge on his fellow gods.

 

Sure, don't pretend to know who Balthazar was in person but then please keep your word on that and don't pretend to know who he was.

[Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324]

> @Thalador.4218 said:

> Sure, don't pretend to know who Balthazar was in person but then please keep your word on that and don't pretend to know who he was.

 

That's why I tried to be as far as possible from "un-Balthazar" or "Balthaddon" in my wording.

 

We have what, three writings about Balthazar in GW?

 

[Harper.4173]

> @TheUndefined.1720 said:

>The complete dismissal of humans was such a spit in the face to GW1 fans from the beginning. I honestly still get fired up when it comes to how Ascalon, the city our GW1 characters sacrificed so much for, Prince Rurik died for, was completely handed over to the enemy.

 

If here they fall they fall

They shall live on

Whenever you cry

For Ascalon!

[OriOri.8724]

> @Harper.4173 said:

> So we all know by now how the expansion story turned out. I feel it is by far the *weakest* part of the expansion, which overall stands out as a very good expansion - to me at least.

> The problem I'm having is with how straight forward their approach to making Balthazar the villain was. And how quickly the door was closed on old lore, the gods, and anything that has to do with the human-aspect of the lore.

>

> Back when Balthazar was first introduced in the LS and teased as a major part of PoF I was both excited and afraid - afraid something like this might happen. Still - I believed and held hope that they'd work something *interesting* and engaging into the expansion. I hoped that it wouldn't be just "This is Balthazar - he's the new bad guy - go fight, pursue and eventually kill him".

> I had hopes that maybe there'd be a plot twist, that they wouldn't serve one of the core elements of this game's lore up as just another filler enemy that you fight and kill on the premise of "he's the new bad guy now, go get him". I hoped that as we progressed through the story we'd find a complex situation, with nuances, tones of grey not just - he's bad and you're good.

>

> I'm also disappointed by the ending - one man and an underdeveloped elder dragon spawnling going toe to toe with an incredibly powerful entity and killing him. I never imagined they'd go this far.

> When it became clear to me we'd eventually haven o big twist, no reveal, nothing more than killing Balthazar I still imagined it would go down differently - perhaps he'd fight it out with Kralk only for us to step in and surprise him when he's distracted or weak - but no - you fight him one on one and beat him. The absurdity still sticks in my mind and I fear may never go away.

> I had to write this up because I feel it was very poorly handled. It was very clear they want to shut the door on the old lore. I personally hate it.

 

I actually thought the story was quite strong in PoF, definitely much stronger than it was in HoT. As for why we can go up against balthazar at the end, you gotta realize that

 

A - We had Sohothin, which was given power by Balthazar himself

B - Aurene had absorbed some of Mordremoth's power when he was killed, so she isn't exactly weak (though granted she isn't on the same level as Balthazarr is)

C - Balthazar was focused on Kralkatorik. I'm sure that somehow he was weakened/tired from that fight and that contributed to it.

[Harper.4173]

I can actually accept reason C as being a thing - but they did such a poor job of showing it or making it believable. Like I've said in another thread - it would have been much more believable if we ambushed him ( we had the element of surprise - he thought us dead) whilst he was weakened by his fight with Kralk and distracted. Perhaps attacked him strongly enough not to kill him but make it that the dragon does it.

[JayMack.8295]

C. Is a bit muddy.

 

It's not that Kralk was ever on our side, it was that he added chaos to the battlefield. We had to deal with him as much as Balthazar did, though Kralk is strangely absent from the actual fight we have with Balthazar if my memory serves despite not being shot at by his Beast of War anymore. It may be that, for fight balance reasons, they didn't add a bunch of AoE crystal/lightning attacks and Branded in such a small battlefield and Balth's attacks/Forge were enough. That's where gameplay and story start to divide.

 

For story purposes, you can just say Kralk was weakened from the fight before and didn't get involved - in fact they may even state it.

 

As for when we approached, It looked like Balth's beast of war powered by Aurene was actually paralysing Kralk in fairness, much like how Primordus was paralysed by its weakness (Jormag), so I don't think it really COULD fight back until we caused the distraction.

 

For the actual fight we have against Balthazar, though - it's pretty much Commander powered by Sohothin and Aurene vs Balth. It's a 2v1 - Kralk isn't really involved. He's only involved in the Beast of War fight. Again, this is from memory.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

> @"Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324" said:

> You're right, Rurik believed in his people. He wanted his fellow Ascalonians to rebuild their strength far away from the Charrs. This implies that the kingdom was a lost cause when Adelbern banished him.

 

My impression was that he intended to come back, however, possibly with Krytan help. A strategic withdrawal rather than a rout.

 

Up until we received the announcement that _Guild Wars 2_ was coming and that the charr occupied Ascalon, in fact, it appeared as if Ascalon was going to hold on. Yes, it was devastated, but so were the charr: they'd lost their army in Kryta, their army in Orr, their follow-up invasion of Ascalon at the start of Prophecies, and a second-follow-up with the assistance of the titans, with indications in Nightfall that the fall of the titans had caused some unrest among the charr. Meanwhile, Ascalon had recovered a weapon that was prophecised to be its salvation in Stormcaller, and had raised powerful heroes that had returned to its defence at least once.

 

Even as Guild Wars Beyond continued, if we didn't already know that it was scripted that Ascalon would fall, there was little reason to think its fall was inevitable. The Ebon Vanguard was optimistic about the possibility of victory, and had successfully started a rebellion among the charr. Two things probably combined to make Ascalon fall despite this: first, the rebellion remained too low-key to significantly hamper the war effort, and second, Adelbern refused Krytan aid. If Adelbern had accepted the help of Kryta then, it's possible that the remains of the Wall would still be the border - just as Ebonhawke held out for centuries afterwards with Krytan aid.