ok we need to talk about the writing

[SewnTogether]

it really does feel like the dlc story was written by a separate team all together the only thing thats giving plausibility to the story is malenia's words to radahn that Miquella awaits for him to be consort but we never actually heard anything. she couldve said literally anything the writers wanted to fit the direction the dlc went. the whole "bewitch mohg, my half brother, to kidnap and molest me so someone kills him and i can use his body as a vessel for radahns soul" is just crackpipe level writing and doesnt fit Miquella at all. The Haligtree is a testament to his kindness and selflessness and the DLC takes such a monumental, physically traversable proof of character and throws it out the window due to his actions. Mohg, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Mohg was perfect. he was evil, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, a really good villain and they just took all the weight out of his actions and character. just everything about the writing in this dlc makes me so frustrated. really the only good parts are the bite sized side quests of ansbach, thiolier and ighor plus the insanely satisfying overarching narratives of messmer and marika. also messmer's VA change makes me want to ball up and start crying he sounds so bad and dead inside comared to the trailer

[paincanbefun]

i know the feeling of a game building you up and kicking you in the nuts, OP. i'm sorry if that was your experience. that was Mass Effect 3 for me and it actually messed with my head

it does feel like a mean trick to make you care about something and then stab it in the back

[Armando Broncas]

Publicado originalmente por ⎛⎝ Kupo ⎠⎞:

Souls games have always kinda just been references and random vague lore, I think people need to remember that guys like Vaatividya is just speculating...
People treat him like some saint who *knows* what the story is and like everything he says is always right.
I don't even think the devs know lmao, I honestly don't even think they write things with the intent of there being a real story.
It's just meant to give a '' vibe '' basically, it's meant to feel mysterious and make you speculate and wonder but I don't think the actual substance is really there or is even intended to be there.

Every time you answer something in the game it just makes you ask more questions and I think that's the intent, there's a reason why these games are basically resets and don't have any real continuity even tho they copy paste stuff.
They sorta hinted at it in Dark Souls 3 but again it's overly vague and they never really commit for real to anything.

Completely correct.

[Insanity Factor]

The switch of focus from Godwyn to Radahn in the whole "gotta resurrect the bro!" Felt kinda jarring to me. Miquella being described as this "perfect and kind" Empyrean always did have undertones of "too good to be true", so him turning out to be a manipulative cult leader with charm powers isn't even all that surprising and does (to me) kinda fit the feeling I got from the base game.

That being said, the Miquella's crosses tell us he abandoned all (mortal?) aspects of himself in order to ascend to godhood, up to even giving up his actual fate and love. So it is possible that he was originally as described, a good and kind person, but over time in the shadowlands as he shed his aspects he became more controlling and distant in nature.

But yeah, I don't remember reading or seeing a single hint in ER about the Radahn obsession, it felt like it came out of nowhere.

[Sherudon]

It just didn't match anything and ruined a lot of better plot line possibilities.

Now everyone is just a ♥♥♥♥ and you are justified in killing them all..

Even Millennia was in on the whole thing and just blindly waiting, like ♥♥♥♥, everyone was more hoping miqulla or trina... another complete waste of a character... would be a "good guy".

[Vinnolo]

this could have been a great posibility of fighting a huge godwyn puppet, an amalgamation of death souls controlling a replica of his body from the erdtree roots, this is the first time i feel like the writting dropped the ball hard, yes even including ds2

[Key]

Publicado originalmente por Vinnolo:

this could have been a great posibility of fighting a huge godwyn puppet, an amalgamation of death souls controlling a replica of his body from the erdtree roots, this is the first time i feel like the writting dropped the ball hard, yes even including ds2

To be fair, for all its flaws, DS2 had some of the best NPC quests in the whole series.

Stuff like seeing Lucatiel slowly going hollow first hand, and losing her identity little by little as the game progressed, up to the point of her asking you to remember her name as she would soon forget even her own identity is one of the most heart-wrenching things in the entire series.

[Starman55]

I genuinely don’t understand how are even able to kill Miquella at all. Is it explained in the lore somewhere? Isn’t his whole deal that he doesn’t have a body anymore? Aren’t we incapable of killing Ranni bc she doesn’t have a body either? Why make it so he had to get rid of his body and we can kill him with big sword anyways

[BingusDingus]

I definitely agree, the situation presented to you in the base game was probably exactly what it was intended to be but then the plan was to make a DLC about him and they didn't know which direction to take it. Some poor guy who was probably just responsible for writing text descriptions was probably put in charge of writing the story and what we ended up with was something that basically doesn't make sense.

I guarantee much of the "plot" is just based around what bosses they wanted to make. Like returning Radahn was just lazy and a lack of creativity, could of created something much more interesting.
Would've much rather a story that was about helping Miquella restore the Scadutree and perhaps even factor into a new ending for the base game. Still feels weird that absolutely nothing was addressed about the Scadu Tree by the end, especially when there's a giant altar that's marked on the map.

[BingusDingus]

Publicado originalmente por Sandman97:

I genuinely don’t understand how are even able to kill Miquella at all. Is it explained in the lore somewhere? Isn’t his whole deal that he doesn’t have a body anymore? Aren’t we incapable of killing Ranni bc she doesn’t have a body either? Why make it so he had to get rid of his body and we can kill him with big sword anyways

He's not actually dead, his headband you get afterwards suggests he has just returned to his divine state or whatever. Basically he returned to being incorporeal.

[Mr. Swoon]

I'm mostly salty that we still know next to nothing about Torrent.

[Valthejean]

Publicado originalmente por Mr. Swoon:

I'm mostly salty that we still know next to nothing about Torrent.

Yeah that’s a baffling decision. Why did torrent pick us? Why did Miquella entrust Ranni with the spirit bell? How did torrent come to Melina?
None of these things were addressed

[CourtesyFlush09]

Miquella abandoned his own sense of love, and a spirit in the coffin area even says that this was a huge mistake. So idk how he thinks he'll be able to usher in an age of kindness or whatever he called it. Without love, he'll end up just like his mom.

[CourtesyFlush09]

Publicado originalmente por Valthejean:

Publicado originalmente por Mr. Swoon:

I'm mostly salty that we still know next to nothing about Torrent.

Yeah that’s a baffling decision. Why did torrent pick us? Why did Miquella entrust Ranni with the spirit bell? How did torrent come to Melina?
None of these things were addressed

Neither was the Malenia/Miquella relationship, especially the cocoon that Malenia leaves behind after you beat her. I was hoping you'd be able to interact with it via some item you get from the DLC.

God I hope there are some super secret things we haven't found yet, but I'm def not getting my hopes up.

[DeuceBane]

Publicado originalmente por Key:

Agreed for the most part.

Everything about Miquella feels pretty disjointed and ends up amounting to nothing. It honestly feels like they made the DLC about Messmer and then added the Miquella stuff on top as an afterthought.

We don't even know why Miquella wanted to ascend to Godhood, and other than the fact that the DLC is situated there, we have no real reason for which our Tarnished even gives a damn about Miquella. Trina plays essentially no role in the DLC.

In addition to this, it retroactively ruins a bunch of characters from the main game.

Radahn now looks like a compete victim that we fought twice, and both times he wasn't even himself.

While Malenia and Mohg are made so much less interesting and imposing by just being reduced to another pair of Miquella's tools.

Publicado originalmente por BingusDingus:

Publicado originalmente por Sandman97:

I genuinely don’t understand how are even able to kill Miquella at all. Is it explained in the lore somewhere? Isn’t his whole deal that he doesn’t have a body anymore? Aren’t we incapable of killing Ranni bc she doesn’t have a body either? Why make it so he had to get rid of his body and we can kill him with big sword anyways

He's not actually dead, his headband you get afterwards suggests he has just returned to his divine state or whatever. Basically he returned to being incorporeal.

I think the description is saying that he had this on when he came back from the divine state, not when he returned to it. He was wearing this when he came back through the divine gate after ascending i think

[CourtesyFlush09]

Publicado originalmente por Vinnolo:

this could have been a great posibility of fighting a huge godwyn puppet, an amalgamation of death souls controlling a replica of his body from the erdtree roots, this is the first time i feel like the writting dropped the ball hard, yes even including ds2

On a side note, I'm still super salty that the Death Knight armor doesn't have the ghost cape effect like the boss does.

One of my biggest letdowns in the DLC no lie.