I haven't been following the general reactions to the new patch, but fair warning going into this that I personally was pretty disappointed in it from a story standpoint.
I was very pleased with Soto overall, and I think they seriously improved on many of the issues I've had with the writing over the years, but I can't help but feel that somehow it has regressed in the newest patch.
The crux of my issue is that I want to distrust peitha and keep her at arms length, but it really feels like the story is making it crystal clear that I'm not allowed to feel that way. The speed at which not just my character, but even the astral ward, an organization dedicated to stopping her kind for thousands of years, is happy to not only help her, but to frequently espouse how much they trust her completely. I don't think I've ever felt less connected to my character.
I was hoping for the story to keep her in a suspicious and interesting place, where we're helping her for now but no one is sure what to think yet. Instead we're back to the often hamfisted story telling of the end of dragons era, where it feels like every character is to be taken at complete face value.
To be honest I hope she does betray us, because that would at least be an interesting direction, and something to shake my character's naive level of confidence. Though if they do go that way at this point they laid it on pretty thick with the implicit trust angle.
I'm curious if anyone else feels the same, or differently. Would love to hear other's takes on it.
SotM: Love Spooky Season (@avater)
I have felt this way since HoT. We don't get to play as our own character, we play as the commander.
That's true, though normally I actually like the commander (especially during PoF era). There's been ups and downs with it I think.
I mean, that's just the way an MMO needs to be with its story. Choice, if present at all, needs to be extremely limited to make open world design possible and to keep the scope doable.
In GW2, the tradeoff is that we get awesome meta-events, raids, etc. all because all of our characters making mostly the same choices.
It's possible to make choices not matter while still keeping the feeling of playing your own character. Final Fantasy XIV does a pretty good job at it.
Possibly, I haven't tried ff14, but I personally always feel more frustrated when I feel like my choices don't matter than I do being railroaded through a mostly good (and sometimes great) story.
You get railroaded in FFXIV, but you get choices where you make your character say something to give them a bit of a personality. It doesn't actually affect much other than a line or two immediately after but it feels much better than when GW2 makes your character say something that you have no control over.
Mine is still dignified/charismatic.