Is it time for your WOL to retire? DT Story discussion

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Someone hit a good point how we feel like a extra in this story...and the Scions are frankly played out; resorted to henchmen of some character we just met. Likewise so were we; This isn't out adventure; its Wuk Lamats. Reality is we would have wiped the floor with Zoraal Ja or Bakool Ja ja if they even though of screwing with us. The duties always pit Wuk Lamat in those fights and we only fight Zoraal after he goes super Saiyan...and we stomp him into the ground.

Any fights of consequence we have usually involve a Wuk Lamat moment where she proves she has gotten stronger. Usually with a cut scene of her showing up and doing some attack that somehow staggers our foe.

The reality is; we've peaked. We saved the universe and now its time for us to be replaced (admittedly I'd love a system where at like 110 you make your descendant and start a new storyline). We've fought the biggest threat there was and frankly even extra-dimensional AI queens are not really going to measure up to a monster that can create whatever they want from sheer thought and that the simple notion of being scared/sad will spawn endless hordes of minions.

Throughout the MSQ I kept getting the feeling of my WoL sitting back amused with how much effort everyone was exerting to do tasks that I find trivial and at others I was rolling my eyes so hard as there were moments where the stakes were higher and I was of the mindset "Why am I not doing something about this...I've literally handled things 10000x worse" even the invasion of Tural seemed laughable compared to the Blasphemies.

Honestly for the majority of the MSQ if they had allowed it; I would have swapped to my crafters for the XP.

[Tethan]

If that truly is the case, they may as well put the game into maintenance mode and stop developing new expansions. If they are truly so out of ideas there is no reason to keep going and maybe their energy and our money is better spent elsewhere.

Personally, I don't believe it is impossible to make compelling narratives going forward with the WoL or even the Scions as a group, BUT is will take a talented writing team and probably some bold decisions to pull off. Ther current team is clearly not up to the task.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

If that truly is the case, they may as well put the game into maintenance mode and stop developing new expansions. If they are truly so out of ideas there is no reason to keep going and maybe their energy and our money is better spent elsewhere.

Personally, I don't believe it is impossible to make compelling narratives going forward with the WoL or even the Scions as a group, BUT is will take a talented writing team and probably some bold decisions to pull off. Ther current team is clearly not up to the task.

I think the problem is....what threat tops what we've already faced. Like think about "Oh we go to the new world" when we've already flown to the edge of our universe and travelled to entire other dimensions and the moon; the journey to Tural feels like it is inconsequential in scale. The threats we face only persist because we permit them to do so; we've bested gods at this point and so a lizard man with 2 heads would likely not even have us break a sweat. Its like those Isekai anime where nothing presented as a threat to the protagonist is actually a threat because of how dizzyingly powerful they are - in the short term the power trip is fine; but I think we've hit the end of that.

[Daralii]

I think the problem is....what threat tops what we've already faced. Like think about "Oh we go to the new world" when we've already flown to the edge of our universe and travelled to entire other dimensions and the moon; the journey to Tural feels like it is inconsequential in scale. The threats we face only persist because we permit them to do so; we've bested gods at this point and so a lizard man with 2 heads would likely not even have us break a sweat. Its like those Isekai anime where nothing presented as a threat to the protagonist is actually a threat because of how dizzyingly powerful they are - in the short term the power trip is fine; but I think we've hit the end of that.

At this point the WoL is mostly following through with some of Emet's parting words, about how it was their duty to explore the rest of the world as the bearer of Azem's legacy, it's just that the writers completely botched almost every aspect of it.

[GoingInside]

To be frank, that was my feeling at the end of EW. Before the patch quests. I didn't buy Dawntrail. My character's story is done.

[Loggos]

The reality is; we've peaked. We saved the universe and now its time for us to be replaced (admittedly I'd love a system where at like 110 you make your descendant and start a new storyline). We've fought the biggest threat there was and frankly even extra-dimensional AI queens are not really going to measure up to a monster that can create whatever they want from sheer thought and that the simple notion of being scared/sad will spawn endless hordes of minions.

They should have come up with something that makes us lose our power so that we can go back to normal mode. Our powerlevel after EW is just so unreasonable that nothing would ever feel threatening again, even if we were helped by Dynamis during our final boss battle. You are right, how can there even be high stakes after what we have already bested.

Maybe have us "burn/consume" whatever it is that makes us so powerful (echo, blessing, super duper aether, unusual power to channel dynamis, I don't even know anymore) at the end of EW to defeat Meteion/Endsinger.

I think they really wrote themselves into a corner with Dynamis. They should have included some kind of weakness or drawback. E.g. if you are in this space of pure, raw Dynamis at the end of the world then the sheer amount exceeds what any mortal being can reasonably channel. So if you want to use it to save the universe it comes with a sacrifice and you go back to being a lot more normal.

Perhaps still a bit above average so you can stay the type of hero that faces unusual threats the scions can't take on by themselves but without having the insane power to just thwatt everything. You can fight entities on the power level of primals but they'll give you a truly hard time again.

That's just one idea. They are so lax with the lore they could easily have come up with other (perhaps contrived but at least welcome) ideas why we get a power-down.

But cutting down our power so that we can be "normal heroes" again is needed either way, I think.

[Tethan]

Just take away our Azem crystal. We've been using that thing to pummel every threat since Shadowbringers and a huge part of our power is tied to it. We would be much less formidable without the ability to summon in 7 equally powerful warriors from across time and space whenever we wish. It was even said that the crystal wouldn't last forever, so it's already set up. Or have someone steal it, use it against us. One on one, we are powerful, but we couldn't like... solo Hydaelyn on our own or anything like that. We always needed help. We are about on par with Zenos, who's just a dude, for all intents and purposes. We ain't all that if you really think about it. Dynamis? Anyone can use that, we are not that special. All you need is good writing to make anything seem plausible. Or come up with whatever idea you like to make us weaker or at a disadvantage.

Besides, not every conflict has to be all about beating up big monster. There are many other ways to have stakes. And in terms of combat, if some random overgrown beastie like Valigarmanda is a plausible threat (enough to make a trial out of), we are not running out of things to beat up anytime soon.

[Lersayil]

The writers also sort of recognized the issue, which is why we're mostly supporting characters this time around. The idea wasn't even that bad on paper, they just botched the idea in the writing.

At this point they probably need to shift gears if they still want to use the WMD of Light. Writing fun and interesting stories for a horrifyingly OP hero is possible, but it requires a non insignificant amount of finesse... and I'm not confident that the current writing team has what is needed.

[Galvuu]

I'd like to, on the game's final expansion, see the WoL truly rejoined. 14/14 shards, back to the original Azem, somehow.
At least I could feel the world, as the game closes, will forever watched over by its guardian.

(Not that I think the game has to end- they can still do a lot with it. More shards and we can also space travel, so more worlds)

[Lersayil]

I'd like to, on the game's final expansion, see the WoL truly rejoined. 14/14 shards, back to the original Azem, somehow.
At least I could feel the world, as the game closes, will forever watched over by its guardian.

(Not that I think the game has to end- they can still do a lot with it. More shards and we can also space travel, so more worlds)

Wanna start a betting pool? I still have my wild guess that we ARE Azem. Once everything is over and done with, and we're fully rejoined, we (for whatever reason) travel back in time to assume the post on the Council. Which is why Azem apparently seemed to know things he shouldn't have.