SPOILER: Does this story make sense to anyone else?

[Addroon]

I was exploring Battahl, reforged the Godsbane, and now I have to give it the evil guy?? And then when I left to go give it to him, the Colossus appears?? And Phaesus is just casually walking away from him?? I didn't even know the colossus was meant to be fought until I got to the town.

[ffrotty]

Originally posted by Adam__86:

What is the story then

this game is a cycle as shown in dragon's dogma 1, and you're doing a version of that. that's why the title is dragon's dogma until you do the stuffs.

dorks in the realm want to control the dragon via "hey we found a way to control pawns so maybe this is the path to ultimate control." that's not cool.

they put together power to do it, which awakens a guardian that has the sole purpose of preventing that. Unfortunately they're working off of a "false arisen" with "scuffed powers" which is why they summon tumor dragon and not the real one.

that guardian doesn't make it, but in unmoored your pawn can power him up to at least get a few licks in.

and so the entire game is a loop of good guy stopping the dragon, repeat, until you break the cycle and attack the "brine power" directly, ie, what's feeding the cycle and preventing people from having their free will.


you assert your free will, which your pawn learns from, and that allows you to "end the cycle"

however, since the cycle = playing the game, it is left vague to what extent you can actually end the cycle, and DLC will expand on that / explain it, or not. you leave true ending with dead pathfinder and presumably dead arisen+main pawn, but no more cycle. and ex-arisen old man sails away to their next adventure cuz he wants to.


interwoven into that are a bunch of smaller intrigues of people coping with their own "cycles" and you can help / hinder them in a variety of ways. cast of characters including past arisen that failed/ran, including one that's revealed actually made it to unmoored, other people who struggle with their "role in the world" and breaking or redefining that role (basically most substantial quests involve this: elf, fake non-elite peasant, all the royals, etc etc.

There are plenty of games out there that have a linear story that contains 100% of the content of the game, this is one of those where if you don't play it thoroughly the story is shallow (beatable in 1.5 hours by doing the minimums).


Elden ring is similar to this where based on what you do, you get more or less or different insight into why/what is going on. The story itself is about as simple: you have a role, go fulfill it.

[ffrotty]

TLDR: if you did 100% of the content in elden ring or this you could write a pretty decent book that has all the content in it: linearly.

instead you have a pretty decent book chopped up and spread out around vague/obscure quests, finding flashing lore text randomly in the world, and a "cliffs notes" barebones linear path through the main points that may or may not make any sense if you didn't do some substantial % of the lore/discovery randomly.

it's not everyone's idea of fun to wander off to some arbitrary, random cave, hop around the cliffs to find a path looping way out of the way to get into the cave, only
to find a paper on the ground that explains 10% of what people think some lore might be.

I personally think it's refreshing, because there are dozens of games w/linear story for every 1 game that is mostly non-linear, and even fewer that offer the core gameplay to be linear but with branches (detroit, neir, some FF).

[Traveller]

It about Evolution. Cycle. Simulation. Depending on the perspective. The Dragon is the Evolutionary force of Life itself, the Test. The Brine is the limit of simulation: you can't go away, until the Test is passed. The Colossus is the Nemesis for Hybris (you and Dragon are trying to subvert the Rules).

With each passing day, I'm becoming afraid of modern human intelligence degradation.

[Addroon]

I very much enjoy that my post was about a specific moment in the game and most of you aren't bringing it up? I don't need the cycle of Arisen explained to me, I beat the first game. What I am specifically asking about it is why am I giving the blade to that Phaesus dude? Why did the game railroad me into fighting the final boss without a warning?

[Addroon]

Originally posted by Traveller:

It about Evolution. Cycle. Simulation. Depending on the perspective. The Dragon is the Evolutionary force of Life itself, the Test. The Brine is the limit of simulation: you can't go away, until the Test is passed. The Colossus is the Nemesis for Hybris (you and Dragon are trying to subvert the Rules).

With each passing day, I'm becoming afraid of modern human intelligence degradation.

Maybe if you actually read my post you wouldn't be suffering from modern human intelligence degradation.

[NoOne]

I recall the NG+ ending of DD:DA being the real ending, and it making some sense. However up to that point, it really is just trying to be clever and not being so.

I'm nowhere nr finishing this travesty of a game yet, but I imagine it being the same, or worse like pretty much everything else in this 'new' hot version.

If you've not played DD:DA, go do it....it's far bettter game than this one, it's cheap on sale and won't run like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[ffrotty]

Originally posted by HonestHamster:

I very much enjoy that my post was about a specific moment in the game and most of you aren't bringing it up? I don't need the cycle of Arisen explained to me, I beat the first game. What I am specifically asking about it is why am I giving the blade to that Phaesus dude? Why did the game railroad me into fighting the final boss without a warning?

your title says "does this story make sense to anyone else?"

and as was explained to you, it makes sense based on how aware of the first game you are and how thorough you are with the quests.

if you do nothing and plow through the story then yes "you're giving the blade to the bad guy."

"Railroading you into fighting the final boss" isn't a "story" question, it's a UX complaint. they could easily mark POINT OF NO RETURN just like they mark time quests.

So question for you: are you trying to assert that it makes no sense? (it does if you do enough background) or are you genuinely asking, narratively, why do those things happen?

you never "give the blade to phaesus" so I'm not sure where the confusion is.

The quest is "take the blade to him" / "deliver the blade to him" or whatever, but it could be a crap translation of "take the blade and go to him."

You're going there under false pretenses of "delivering it" because ambrosius was going to. Which was obviously interrupted.

I personally knew no matter what I would end up with the blade, having them craft it under cover of "helping them" could have been clearer with quest directives, for sure.

But yes, if you zip through the story especially, it could totally feel like you're suddenly running errands for your enemy. I bring up the side quests because if you fully do vernworth you know he's a dork and you are there to interfere with his dork plans, but THEY don't know you know all that.

If I had a plot gripe it was that the secret lab was far too "open" for you to wander around. at least require a disguise or something. i'm assuming it has to do with battahl residency/passes but that felt weak for how much there was the "no access permitted" stuff leading up to it.

[[-iD-]]

Originally posted by Adam__86:

Originally posted by -iD-:

i put most of elden ring togeather by myself via locational story telling, the rest is intricately put togeather by those smarter that have more patience than i. same with this game. not coping. just a valid understanding of how "open world" and story telling works.

What is the story then

your goal set by the people is to continue the cycle of killing the dragon and becoming the saneshel aka sovren, making a new dragon and delaying the end of the world. allowing the people to control how the dragon operates.
the real goal is to break the cycle by not killing the dragon and sacrificing yourself to actually end the cycle. the people end up hating you if you do this but why would you want and endless cycle of suffering to keep going?

if you mean what is the "main villain" trope with phaseus. phasus explains at end game he only wants to learn all the secrets. and if you put two and two togeather on the false arisen (which may not actually have been a false arisen just failed one that came back) that phasues thought he could learn what was happening by forcing an arisen to kill the dragon. if you kill the dragon you are doing phaseus will and the will of the people.
if you dont... hopefully you got the idea now.

[Addroon]

Originally posted by ffrotty:

Originally posted by HonestHamster:

I very much enjoy that my post was about a specific moment in the game and most of you aren't bringing it up? I don't need the cycle of Arisen explained to me, I beat the first game. What I am specifically asking about it is why am I giving the blade to that Phaesus dude? Why did the game railroad me into fighting the final boss without a warning?

your title says "does this story make sense to anyone else?"

and as was explained to you, it makes sense based on how aware of the first game you are and how thorough you are with the quests.

if you do nothing and plow through the story then yes "you're giving the blade to the bad guy."

"Railroading you into fighting the final boss" isn't a "story" question, it's a UX complaint. they could easily mark POINT OF NO RETURN just like they mark time quests.

So question for you: are you trying to assert that it makes no sense? (it does if you do enough background) or are you genuinely asking, narratively, why do those things happen?

you never "give the blade to phaesus" so I'm not sure where the confusion is.

The quest is "take the blade to him" / "deliver the blade to him" or whatever, but it could be a crap translation of "take the blade and go to him."

You're going there under false pretenses of "delivering it" because ambrosius was going to. Which was obviously interrupted.

I personally knew no matter what I would end up with the blade, having them craft it under cover of "helping them" could have been clearer with quest directives, for sure.

But yes, if you zip through the story especially, it could totally feel like you're suddenly running errands for your enemy. I bring up the side quests because if you fully do vernworth you know he's a dork and you are there to interfere with his dork plans, but THEY don't know you know all that.

If I had a plot gripe it was that the secret lab was far too "open" for you to wander around. at least require a disguise or something. i'm assuming it has to do with battahl residency/passes but that felt weak for how much there was the "no access permitted" stuff leading up to it.

The title of my post is definitely a whoops on my part, but the issue I'm referring to is explained in the text underneath. I beat the first game so I understand what the Arisen is and what the purpose of them is. I am genuinely asking why these happen narratively. I know we are using them to craft the blade but why bring it to him? It just felt very 0 to 100 in an instant.

[Cipher Stormwolf]

Originally posted by Adam__86:

I find it lazy writing

"Here's some scraps of information, put them all together and fill in the gaps yourself or Youtube it" Its also very pretentious too

I understand what you are trying to say, some things could be more clear but I also dont want everything handfed to me, I am intelligent enough to puzzle things together and get these big "ah, I get now" moments. Worst thing devs can do is ruin things like that or make it worse by creating "you should feel this way now" moments and force you into something. Of course this also depends on the writing and can work out, but it has to be really well done then.

[Adam__86]

Originally posted by Cipher Stormwolf:

Originally posted by Adam__86:

I find it lazy writing

"Here's some scraps of information, put them all together and fill in the gaps yourself or Youtube it" Its also very pretentious too

I understand what you are trying to say, some things could be more clear but I also dont want everything handfed to me, I am intelligent enough to puzzle things together and get these big "ah, I get now" moments. Worst thing devs can do is ruin things like that or make it worse by creating "you should feel this way now" moments and force you into something. Of course this also depends on the writing and can work out, but it has to be really well done then.

I think there's a healthy balance