The main storyline is insultingly bad

[Caios]

This story is utter crap. I mean absolutely horrifically bad. 

It literally makes me want to throw my controller at my monitor sometimes.

 

I can't begin to list all the ways this thing is an utter shit show from beginning to end. At no point am I actually taking part in an interesting story, I'm just being dragged alone watching other people's boring ass worthless pity party happen all around me. Never does my character have ANY agency in the plot or actually do ANYTHING meaningful.

 

Want a sample?

General Yonkai. who cares about him, yes I wanna kill him, no I don't give a crap about the town, or about the crappy school. Nothing in the story give me even a remotely meaningful reason to care at all about anyone. If anything I wish he'd kill everyone in that stupid town so I would have an excuse to kill him. 

 

Utterly disgusting.

[Lotte]

Our character didn't even speak in the cutscenes. lul

[feyan]

dont bother reading anything except the tuts...... just take the quest and do them... while enjoy the environment and some of the mechanism...

[DirectorTseng]

The main story line is pretty bad, they make it seem like they are giving you a choice but really.. they aren't. One quest you free a slave and instantly go right up to the slave master and do his bidding because you owe him.. wtf. 

 

Yonkai you are supposed to be saving a village from his evil fat ass but you just end up working for him. 

 

My Main i just blew through the quest to catch up with my husband who was doing the same. My summoner i decided to actually read the story line and well.. i'm back to skipping. 

[Shinsetsu]

Are you guys even actually paying attention to the story and the dialog? 

 

Because I disagree. I think it's a very interesting story of revenge and betrayal. Maybe you guys just lack the empathy to appreciate it.

[SvarogAllen]

10 hours ago, Shinsetsu said:

Are you guys even actually paying attention to the story and the dialog? 

 

Because I disagree. I think it's a very interesting story of revenge and betrayal. Maybe you guys just lack the empathy to appreciate it.

Smells of bait.

 

Anyway, I agree with the overall opinions of this post.

Up until the Cinderlands, I honestly did like what Blade and Soul was doing and where it was going, but the moment you get to the Cinderlands Sandstone Refuge... well, it just goes to hell in a handbasket, and the plot goes on cruise control... for the worse. I DID want to help the villagers there, but the game doesn't even let you do that much. Especially since the easiest way to do it would be to kill Yonkai, but oh nooo, the plot can't let you do that. Even though you slaughtered his army with ease and Yonkai said this himself, there's no way you can do that, nope, not at all. The plot needs him alive, and so, for the plot to work, not for the sake of the player but for the sake of the shitty story bloodlust devs contrived, you're dragged along and forced to do bad things for bad people, not because you want to, but because the plot says so- because the plot wouldn't work if you didn't. (Hilarious how the game had no problem with you killing Blackrams but when it comes to Yonkai, suddenly, nooo way of hongmoon says don't do that)

 

The moment I about stopped caring about the plot followed a point in the game where Yonkai kills half of the villagers you're working for him to 'protect' anyway because he thinks you're dragging ass on Mushin's legacy, where after you go to Soha and say "We need to kill Yonkai" and she immediately screams "nooo you can't that's not way of hongmoon nooo". ...are you serious? Am I seriously getting lectured on the wishes of my teacher by someone who probably knew him a total of a few months at least? By the person who murders people in the desert and steals their shit for a living every day? Am I seriously being told this isn't what Hong wanted, by someone who shouldn't know them as well as Cricket does? Yes, apparently. And the worst part is YOU LISTEN. Because the plot says so. The plot leaves Yonkai alive so Jinsoyun can unceremoniously kill him later, and you fall into extremely obvious traps that are obvious because the plot says so.

 

After that I literally did not care. Like, by the time Mushin came up I was like, "Sure, fine, path of darkness let's go." Because I couldn't care less anymore, because the game wouldn't let you choose another road anyway.

 

Also, part of BNS' problem is that you see characters... idk, once, and then they die. And then they expect you to feel bad. Which is why it's really hard to care about the Hongmoon School when you've known them for five minutes. Sure, it's fine motivation for Cricket I guess, but me personally... but then, Cricket has basically no personality either, so it's pretty much just down to you. And the game constantly bombarding you with "YOU WANT REVENGE" and I'm sitting here thinking "no I really don't."

I want to stop Jinsoyun because she's an awful, terrible person, but revenge is not on my mind.

 

I think the person I got the most remotely attached to was Hajoon, next to Dochun because Dochun is a pretty cool dude, but you actually see Hajoon quite a bit and get a feel for him. Then he dies.

 

[UnitedStrafes]

Your dog is teaching you Kung Fu when a dominatrix rolls into your elementary school and kills him with a twig. Before she leaves she plants a black daisy up your ass. You then go looking for revenge (I would).

 

A masterpiece.

[Tsuchiryu]

Story's over-the-top presentation at certain points is nice, but railroading and lack of agency at some points, forcing us through cutscenes and dialogues of people being too stupid do get frustrating.

 

The theme of revenge in the story is OK in theory, but it's contrivances like that which keeps me from getting fully invested. It's only the breadcrumbs style of worldbuilding and backstories that really saves it for me, but even these get confusing with all the names thrown around rather sparingly sometimes, making a bit difficult to keep track of how they tie to the main plot.

 

On 03/03/2016 at 3:36 AM, Lotte said:

Our character didn't even speak in the cutscenes. lul

And there's that too. What's the point of voice selection if all you get to hear are grunts and other generic non-speaking sounds from your character that somehow don't sound quite like what you selected?

[Shadovvv]

Outside of Cinderlands Arc and the Moonwater Plotholes I thought the plot was interesting. But MMOs generally force us on a fixed path, so that's not surprising.

 

But yeah, I really wanted to help the village and kill Yonkai, but he dies in a lame way and we don't even bother to check up on the village afterwards.

[Tsuchiryu]

1 hour ago, Shadovvv said:

But yeah, I really wanted to help the village and kill Yonkai, but he dies in a lame way and we don't even bother to check up on the village afterwards.

Dialogue in Sandstorm Refuge seems relatively unchanged from before you left after you finish Act II. Instead, we get some wrap ups with some minor characters from side quests... but nothing from Refuge IIRC. To put it mildly, it's underwhelming, frankly. Hell, that goes for Act II as a whole aside from its presentation in cutscenes (I rather like the Soha and Lady Yehara being badasses bits).

[Nilkemios]

Shamelessly ripped from that other thread pointing out how much the story sucked :

 

3 hours ago, Nilkemios said:

Answer : Yes, the story is for the most part just bad.

 

It starts off alright, but then it starts up, stalls, starts up again when you meet Hajoon and train with him, stalls again when he dies, kinda goes into the whole Blackram/Bamboo Gaurd conflict and picks up again when facing Gubong in Blackram Narrows, and then the attack on Bamboo Village...

 

..then Dochun sends you to General Han Sirang to help you except you end up helping him way more while the story stalls again...until you run into Jinsoyun and crew and she tells Lusung to not kill you for reasons...

 

Then you get sent off to Sandstone, the Doctor sage guy...and then the story stalls right into the ground. We help someone move some remains, she gets taken, we get her back as well as fight off the idiot villagers who'd rather take the side of the person oppressing them, then the doctor tells us to go apologize to that person, Yonkai....

 

There was no reason for us not to kill him right there or at least not be planning to kill him soon. The Yonkai arc was so stupid and contrived. It gets worse when we tell Soha partway through that we should kill him and she's like "that's not the Path of Hongmoon, compassion, justice, selflessness..", when she's perfectly fine with killing someone whose only crime was just digging up buried stuff and wearing a ridiculous outfit. And, seeing as we've killed countless enemies who have threatened us or people we're supposed to care about at this point, there was no reason for us to not try killing Yonkai after all the evil he's been doing. Even Hong would be like, "No, this evil s*** has to go", and smash his face in.

 

Pretty much the only really good parts in the Cinderlands were 2 okay characters (Yehara and Soha, save for her stupid/drunk moments), and one of my favorite outfits being from there. Everything else just dragged...and by the end, we fall for a trap we should've completely seen coming, only to have the lady in white (cough, totally not Jiwan) save us from that, finally get to beat Lusung's a$$ for all the dickishness he caused, only to not get to kill him, because plot, give up the Legacy to a annoying kid who won't know what to do with it and gets captured again later, and watch as Jinsoyun ends up killing Yonkai like we should've done ages ago, and then kills/turns Lusung into a monster. Bleh.

 

By the time of Moonwater Plains I just stopped caring up until the last part, and then Mushin's like "yeah, come to the dark side" and we're like "Cool."

 

 

 

Unbeknownst to everyone, Old Man Cho was a Terminator....is it sad that I think that would be more interesting than the story?

[SosukeRyugamine]

The only thing that really upset me about the whole story is Jinsoyun wouldn't notice me and teach me the ways of black leaf magic that can explode and kill everyone, and that I couldn't join her side.  Plus she knows all those over powered magic spells that looked cool so why can't I just become her student instead of chasing her around and getting my ass kicked by her, if you can't beat them, join them! :D 

[JaseTheVagabond]

I didnt really care about the story until the last chapters of act III when Jinsoyun's crew came in to fight Iksanun old dude. My character's frozen with black rose everytime there is Jinsoyun's presence. Earlier my character watched the kid stabbed Iksanun knowing that would happen... Not even pre-warned that dude.

I have concluded my character is both stupid and useless... Felt like I spent lot of time to deserve this guy...

[Fatalito]

The one thing that infuriated me on the story is that in cut scenes, your character is both useless and utterly worthless for others. He just lays there being facerolled, then pretty much tossed aside and completely forgotten. Heck, the main antagonist takes more time killing a common soldier than what she does to the PC. So I believe some of these cut scenes would have played much better if your character wasn't around.

 

Now for an example where the story may not be better, but at least your character does very meaningful things (and looks extremely cool) in cut scenes. Go watch the Dragon Ball Xenoverse cut scenes, then come back and politely ask our Korean friends to make stuff like that on future mmos for our characters. Another good example is Guild Wars 2. Your character is instrumental for the story to happen, and the cut scenes make you feel so.

 

Now on the other side, MANY games suffer from this so its not BnS's sole fault. Even masterpiece games like Dragon's Dogma relegate your character to for the most part watch stuff unfold before his eyes. Not sure if cut scene makers all agreed that cut scenes are not the place for player characters to shine so they shine instead in-game, but I really don't like to spend a lot of time strenghtening the character only to see him one-shot'ed aside with ease.

 

Hopefully I'm not breaking any codes of conduct here by mentioning other games as examples.

[KrystalHazard]

The story is...meh.

 

The very first combo I mastered was "f f f f f f f f f"

 

Edit: Unless the NPC was cute with nice jigglies. Then I'd combo with "f............f............f...........f............"

[Wigglytuff]

On 3/6/2016 at 7:43 PM, UnitedStrafes said:

Your dog is teaching you Kung Fu when a dominatrix rolls into your elementary school and kills him with a twig. Before she leaves she plants a black daisy up your ass. You then go looking for revenge (I would).

 

A masterpiece.

 

The plot in a nutshell. 11/10

 

Anyways the lack of decision-making tends to be a common weakness in MMO's. It takes more work to incorporate different paths or storylines suited to the players' preference, rather than having everyone run the same exact content, so that is my guess as to why.

 

I don't hate the storyline because I was prepared to just experience it as a completely passive...neutral...fence-sitting potato.

[Dusean17]

On 3/3/2016 at 0:33 AM, Caios said:

This story is utter crap. I mean absolutely horrifically bad. 

It literally makes me want to throw my controller at my monitor sometimes.

 

I can't begin to list all the ways this thing is an utter shit show from beginning to end. At no point am I actually taking part in an interesting story, I'm just being dragged alone watching other people's boring ass worthless pity party happen all around me. Never does my character have ANY agency in the plot or actually do ANYTHING meaningful.

 

Want a sample?

General Yonkai. who cares about him, yes I wanna kill him, no I don't give a crap about the town, or about the crappy school. Nothing in the story give me even a remotely meaningful reason to care at all about anyone. If anything I wish he'd kill everyone in that stupid town so I would have an excuse to kill him. 

 

Utterly disgusting.

 

Your opinion not everyone else btw welcome to RPG Character Creation Storylines newbie. :P

[JoannaRamira]

The amount of betrayal in the story is over 9000.

 

starts from bumbak and ends with ilsim killing his own father

[Metleon]

In the Everdusk:

Survey: How do you like the plot? 

Me: Plot? Oh right that evil lady killed all my friends. 

 

Viridian Coast:

Oh ok now the beginning of the game actually makes sense. 

 

Cinderlands:

Yonkai is an ass so I pretty much sped through everything he says, but I enjoy helping everyone else. 

 

Haven't gotten to Moonwater yet. Overall, I'm fine with the story as I never expected much to begin with. I just wish my character wasn't such an idiot. 

[Ellisande]

Yeah I have to agree. Up until the Cinderlands the story was pretty decent. But oh my god once I got to the Cinderlands I kept wanting to scream every 8 seconds. I could easily save the town simply by punching Yonkai's face in. There is absolutely NO REASON why I don't. I have no problem with killing every other NPC I see, but just because he is a named NPC it is somehow wrong? Bullshit. If it is wrong to kill Yonkai then it is wrong to kill anyone. Furthermore, why do I continue to go around trying to get Mushin's legacy for Yonkai? That makes absolutely no sense. He is a clearly evil guy and giving him the legacy would make many people suffer, including myself.

 

Here is what should have happened, you hear that Yonkai's has been trouble for this town in the past, see that he is still making the town suffer and then immediately go and kill him. That should have been it. The continued kowtowing to Yonkai, a character that anyone in the position of the PC would instantly face smash, ruins the story. Telling me that I'm constantly in the wrong castle when I try to find Mushin's legacy also pisses me off. Finding out that the doctor in the town was really a sage who had absolutely no reason to lie to me also pissed me off. "I had a good reason for deceiving you." Ok, tell me what this "good reason" was. What's that, you actually didn't have a good reason? No fing shit.

 

I don't even know why I'm searching for Mushin's legacy. I thought I was trying to find Mushin who was the last surviving guardian which I would do by locating the compass, an item that I just saw Jinsoyun take the last time I saw her. So why am I searching for a compass that I now know is in Jinsoyun's hands? Actually, why am I searching for Mushin? Isn't it Mushin's job to turn up and kick the dark lord's butt whenever the dark lord surfaces? Shouldn't Mushin therefore be keeping abreast of events in the world? If anything, Mushin should be trying to find me, the last surviving member of the Hongmoon school, the last person carrying Master Hong's legacy.

 

And why does my character give Mushin's legacy to the kid? She knows that the only person who can use it properly and not abuse it is herself. She would never ever give it to another person, except she's a moron apparently. So many face palms. Players are always pissed when they are forced to hand off ultimate powers to random joe nobody npcs instead of keeping it for themselves. Just stop putting ultimate powers in your games if you aren't willing to let the PC use it herself.

[Ellisande]

On 3/11/2016 at 7:10 AM, Fatalito said:

The one thing that infuriated me on the story is that in cut scenes, your character is both useless and utterly worthless for others. He just lays there being facerolled, then pretty much tossed aside and completely forgotten. Heck, the main antagonist takes more time killing a common soldier than what she does to the PC. So I believe some of these cut scenes would have played much better if your character wasn't around.

 

Now for an example where the story may not be better, but at least your character does very meaningful things (and looks extremely cool) in cut scenes. Go watch the Dragon Ball Xenoverse cut scenes, then come back and politely ask our Korean friends to make stuff like that on future mmos for our characters. Another good example is Guild Wars 2. Your character is instrumental for the story to happen, and the cut scenes make you feel so.

 

Now on the other side, MANY games suffer from this so its not BnS's sole fault. Even masterpiece games like Dragon's Dogma relegate your character to for the most part watch stuff unfold before his eyes. Not sure if cut scene makers all agreed that cut scenes are not the place for player characters to shine so they shine instead in-game, but I really don't like to spend a lot of time strenghtening the character only to see him one-shot'ed aside with ease.

 

Hopefully I'm not breaking any codes of conduct here by mentioning other games as examples.

As a rule, the gameplay should match the game. If the player is doing awesome in the game then the player MUST be shown as being awesome in cutscenes. Many developers constantly fail to do this and their stories constantly fail to deliver a positive experience to the player. A death, defeat or betrayal has no weight nor meaning if it only happens during a cutscene and the player knows that if it happened outside the cutscene they'd easily be able to prevent it.

[Ra9eQuit]

On 6.3.2016 at 4:43 AM, UnitedStrafes said:

Your dog is teaching you Kung Fu when a dominatrix rolls into your elementary school and kills him with a twig. Before she leaves she plants a black daisy up your ass. You then go looking for revenge (I would).

 

A masterpiece.

This is the best best thing I have ever read.

But wasnt the story completely rewriten due to censorship problems or did I get something wrong? The story was really cool and you could (when they first developed it) choose between moral decissions which would drastically change the story's outcome I heard. But they had to delete EVERYTHING due to censorship and remake it in the way it is now. We all know it is horrible and NCsoft does too. Dont go hard on them. I am not white knighting, but common. They even made a cool story in the first place. How can you be mad at them?

[Tsuchiryu]

6 hours ago, Ra9eQuit said:

 How can you be mad at them?

Because of the 'localization' team screw ups with the story, making things unnecessarily worse and/or more confusing.

 

Spoiler

The divination thing in the beginning of Act III? In the original version, it was actually time travel. Both times you use the Great Gate (or whatever it's called) in the beginning of the Act, in fact. This version? It introduces the plothole of Madun having the Mark of the Black Rose to justify you having it during the 'divination' (actually time travel to the past). Madun has no past ties to Jinsoyun whatsoever. Heck, Iksanum and the Moonwater spirit beasts don't mention Madun at all, let alone any references to him having the Mark, so that's how you can tell that him having the Mark at some point in the past was shoehorned to justify it happening to you in the past... er, 'divination'.

 

I found the whole sequence confusing as hell when first getting to it without knowing the above beforehand. Knowing it now only made said sequence even worse.

 

And that's just ONE of the more glaring examples of how the main story has been changed for the worse by this poorly done 'localization'.

I both eagerly await and dread what they'll do to Act IV because of this. Will they try to fix these *cricket* ups? Will they be consistent with what  they already *cricket*ed up and end up piling plothole after plothole? Who knows?

[Rythan52]

A lot of things were changed for story, someone on reddit posted a summarized version of the korean story, and it seemed so much better. Though certain relationships were changed, and make my head hurt trying to make sense of them (that could be due to the bad localization as well). Not sure if its safe to put story spoilers in the forum, so I wont, but what little he summarized makes me wish someone would post a "subbed version" of the korean story on youtube. It totally made me see some of the characters in different ways.

[Nutrient]

On Friday, March 04, 2016 at 4:25 AM, Shinsetsu said:

Are you guys even actually paying attention to the story and the dialog? 

 

Because I disagree. I think it's a very interesting story of revenge and betrayal. Maybe you guys just lack the empathy to appreciate it.

It was interesting in the beginning until they took the plot of trust-betrayl into an infinite loop of the same concept. Got bored and now I skip everything ^^;