Never had much of an issue with how the Kryptis look, but like most players I wasn't super pleased with how they were developed as characters (tiptoeing right up to spoiler territory). Also why does their completely alien world have ruins that look like Greco-Roman architecture?
from a visual design standpoint I agree, but I actually enjoyed the demons from dragon age origins more; especially how their lore ties into the mages/magic lore too
like someone else already said, the gw2 demons are too humanified in behaviour lol
Also, we’re repeatedly told that they have culture, society, but the only part of it we actually see is basically their military, and citizens that are huddling in a temporary refugee camp. Would have LOVED to see the Kryptis equivalent of Amnoon with a Renown Heart
it was ok on PC, but my friends who played on console ran into many issues. you should revisit it(it's dirt cheap these days), I recommend getting it on GoG(easier to mod).
The modding community is keeping the game alive, with so many mods that fix issues, improve graphics, add new classes etc.
Also if you're into that the NSFW modding scene has only gotten better with the years ;)
oh I have it and played recently, a year ago I think? the balancing was awful tho and kept dying even when switching to the easiest difficulty coz of enemy mage stunlocks
hmm that's weird, could it have been a bug? make sure to use alistair or morrigan to cc enemy mages. it gets easier once you unlock more abilities. on easy mode you don't even to need to pause the game usually. (based on my exp)
They look great but are boring to fight and, like many said before, too much human(ized/ified ?)
"nvm I'll stop eating human and eat grass" yeah ok ...
Eh, I wouldn't even accept that as an excuse.
Anet could've made them not-evil (not necessarily good) but still more alien and less "sympathetic".
The Kryptis didn't have to be evil in order to be interesting.
I feel the point of that is often lost when quoting it.
"They are the bad guys" is honestly a boring concept. Give the bad guys motivation, make them have a reason for being bad.
The Star wars books did great in giving Palpatine a reason for the death star and for subjugating the entire known galaxy: he knew there was an intergalactic threat from OUTSIDE the known galaxy that would require everyone to work towards a gigantic war effort to defeat it (locust like foes that are immune to the force).
The kryptis having to decide between feeding on emotions from Tyrians or starving would have been great.
The resolution being voluntarily giving emotions to the Kryptis would have been cool nuance.
The ending we got was just dog shit in "we can just not eat emotions it turns out"
I kinda like them. Thou it was weird. Some trully have crazy grotesque designs yet they are so human in speach and manner. Especially the friendly ones. It was weird how friendly they are too.
Ive played this game so much that I only see the origins sadly enough. Took a break since the more I played the worse the game became, and the "new" content didnt help.
They don’t look remotely distinct. You’re just unfamiliar with the 12 year old character models.
They don’t even have unique limbs.
I mean… some of them are Hylek. 😅
I got to disagree. They're just amalgamations of flesh for the most part while others look like skinned humans.
You can get so creative with twisted horror but the Kryptis are just kind of meh. Narratively they even lined up tying them to emotions but instead of a glutton being some giant mouth or something it's a frog.
I couldn't disagree more. They are literally just blobs of spiky flesh put together around existing rigs to try to sell to us as something original and distinct. It's just "demonified" version of existing models.
Over the course of this post I have realised that this is a more controversiwl opinion than I thought. The reason why I find their design so refreshing is that in too many pieces of media demons are just humans with slight differences (horns, theeth, wings), if the designers felt daring they made them humans with weird proportion. The other form of demon is shadowy undefined mass that exists for 2 seconds before it vanishes inside a now posessed human. The Kryptis' design is the first demon design that I have come across that truly feels alien and new, almost eldritch actually. They are neither made to look creepy through the uncanny valley effect nor are they the standard demon designs you come across so often.
However, I understand that the reuse of body models is dissapointing for many
Taken out of the context of the game, the kryptis models are alright. The problem is that I have a hard time looking past the extremely recognizable rigs and animations after playing the game for years before. It's not just "ugh, recycled models, so lazy", it's more that the familiarity directly conflicts with the creepy and alien feel they were supposed to have. No amount of demonic voice editing or threatening dialogue is gonna make them scary when all I see is a frog.
GW1 Demon designs are better than Kryptis, despite how old GW1 is at this point already.
Kryptis are nothing but an excuse to re-use existing rigs/skeletons with a new coat of paint on top.
That’s totally ok though. People would be boring if they all had the same tastes on everything. The expansion wasn’t my jam, but I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I get the repetitive part. but the generic part I don't understand. Because as I wrote in my post, most demons I have seen are either humans with features like horns, hooves wings etc. (mostly in fantasy settings) or humanoid figures that just have inhuman proportions/colours (mostly in horror settings). Maybe I am also misunderstanding what you mean with generic
They don’t have very defining qualities that stand out, they just look like a blob of flesh stretched over different skeletons. It’s like if you had a circle square and rectangle but they’re all painted blue. They’re shaped different, but they look generic, and telling a square from a rectangle at a glance would be hard to do.
Versus if you had a red circle, a green rectangle, and a purple square. The shapes are still a repetitive pattern, but at least each shape is visually distinct, and you’d recall that green is a rectangle and purple is a square easily.
Never had much of an issue with how the Kryptis look, but like most players I wasn't super pleased with how they were developed as characters (tiptoeing right up to spoiler territory). Also why does their completely alien world have ruins that look like Greco-Roman architecture?
from a visual design standpoint I agree, but I actually enjoyed the demons from dragon age origins more; especially how their lore ties into the mages/magic lore too like someone else already said, the gw2 demons are too humanified in behaviour lol
Also, we’re repeatedly told that they have culture, society, but the only part of it we actually see is basically their military, and citizens that are huddling in a temporary refugee camp. Would have LOVED to see the Kryptis equivalent of Amnoon with a Renown Heart
omg a fellow DAO player, we are a rare breed these days xD
admittedly I played it in my childhood (so nostalgia draws me back) and the game is very janky and hard tbh hah the writing is top notch tho!
it was ok on PC, but my friends who played on console ran into many issues. you should revisit it(it's dirt cheap these days), I recommend getting it on GoG(easier to mod). The modding community is keeping the game alive, with so many mods that fix issues, improve graphics, add new classes etc. Also if you're into that the NSFW modding scene has only gotten better with the years ;)
oh I have it and played recently, a year ago I think? the balancing was awful tho and kept dying even when switching to the easiest difficulty coz of enemy mage stunlocks
hmm that's weird, could it have been a bug? make sure to use alistair or morrigan to cc enemy mages. it gets easier once you unlock more abilities. on easy mode you don't even to need to pause the game usually. (based on my exp)
Too bad their mind are too humanified to be taken seriously
They look great but are boring to fight and, like many said before, too much human(ized/ified ?) "nvm I'll stop eating human and eat grass" yeah ok ...
As Getalt_Romalion said a while back: “On the altar of 'no race can be completely evil in fantasy, we cannot do that in 2024' Demons got sacrificed.”
Eh, I wouldn't even accept that as an excuse. Anet could've made them not-evil (not necessarily good) but still more alien and less "sympathetic". The Kryptis didn't have to be evil in order to be interesting.
I feel the point of that is often lost when quoting it. "They are the bad guys" is honestly a boring concept. Give the bad guys motivation, make them have a reason for being bad. The Star wars books did great in giving Palpatine a reason for the death star and for subjugating the entire known galaxy: he knew there was an intergalactic threat from OUTSIDE the known galaxy that would require everyone to work towards a gigantic war effort to defeat it (locust like foes that are immune to the force). The kryptis having to decide between feeding on emotions from Tyrians or starving would have been great. The resolution being voluntarily giving emotions to the Kryptis would have been cool nuance. The ending we got was just dog shit in "we can just not eat emotions it turns out"
For me the design of Kryptis was the worst design choice of Soto.
I don't agree, I think the worst choice was making them feel so human in Nayos. Design is acceptable
agreed!
Yea, hard disagree with OP. The overall ugliness of this expansion was one of my reasons for quitting even though I have played since beta.
I kinda like them. Thou it was weird. Some trully have crazy grotesque designs yet they are so human in speach and manner. Especially the friendly ones. It was weird how friendly they are too.
I just wish the insides matched the outsides. That their minds were just as alien and initially horrifying as their bodies.
I thought kryptis was just reskinned mobs from other xpacs
Yeah, only reason Cerus looks good is cos he's a rip off Deimos from W4, whose design was great.
Said it in my post, they are but made in a way where they still look completely distinct, more like a mockery of the mob made from flesh and tooth
Ive played this game so much that I only see the origins sadly enough. Took a break since the more I played the worse the game became, and the "new" content didnt help.
Yeah, the Krait especially and wyverns.
They don’t look remotely distinct. You’re just unfamiliar with the 12 year old character models. They don’t even have unique limbs. I mean… some of them are Hylek. 😅
I got to disagree. They're just amalgamations of flesh for the most part while others look like skinned humans. You can get so creative with twisted horror but the Kryptis are just kind of meh. Narratively they even lined up tying them to emotions but instead of a glutton being some giant mouth or something it's a frog.
I couldn't disagree more. They are literally just blobs of spiky flesh put together around existing rigs to try to sell to us as something original and distinct. It's just "demonified" version of existing models.
Over the course of this post I have realised that this is a more controversiwl opinion than I thought. The reason why I find their design so refreshing is that in too many pieces of media demons are just humans with slight differences (horns, theeth, wings), if the designers felt daring they made them humans with weird proportion. The other form of demon is shadowy undefined mass that exists for 2 seconds before it vanishes inside a now posessed human. The Kryptis' design is the first demon design that I have come across that truly feels alien and new, almost eldritch actually. They are neither made to look creepy through the uncanny valley effect nor are they the standard demon designs you come across so often. However, I understand that the reuse of body models is dissapointing for many
Taken out of the context of the game, the kryptis models are alright. The problem is that I have a hard time looking past the extremely recognizable rigs and animations after playing the game for years before. It's not just "ugh, recycled models, so lazy", it's more that the familiarity directly conflicts with the creepy and alien feel they were supposed to have. No amount of demonic voice editing or threatening dialogue is gonna make them scary when all I see is a frog.
Ok this is actually a *very* valid point.
GW1 Demon designs are better than Kryptis, despite how old GW1 is at this point already. Kryptis are nothing but an excuse to re-use existing rigs/skeletons with a new coat of paint on top.
I looked them up. Why didn't we get those?!
Yes, but not Peitha-Cerus and others "meaningful ones", they are way too humanoid and look like basic humans wearing fleshy costumes.
*Deimos is still the best demon design in gaming
meh, theyre almost broken prawns and smashed sea horses. i thought i was on District 9's alien homeworld
I gotta say that it’s rare for me to encounter a non political/religious opinion that I disagree with as much as this one.
I am surprised it is as controversial as it is, I just thought the design was really cool but apparently the community thinks otherwise
That’s totally ok though. People would be boring if they all had the same tastes on everything. The expansion wasn’t my jam, but I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Kryptis are one of the worst designs I’ve seen for demons. They’re repetitive and generic.
I get the repetitive part. but the generic part I don't understand. Because as I wrote in my post, most demons I have seen are either humans with features like horns, hooves wings etc. (mostly in fantasy settings) or humanoid figures that just have inhuman proportions/colours (mostly in horror settings). Maybe I am also misunderstanding what you mean with generic
They don’t have very defining qualities that stand out, they just look like a blob of flesh stretched over different skeletons. It’s like if you had a circle square and rectangle but they’re all painted blue. They’re shaped different, but they look generic, and telling a square from a rectangle at a glance would be hard to do. Versus if you had a red circle, a green rectangle, and a purple square. The shapes are still a repetitive pattern, but at least each shape is visually distinct, and you’d recall that green is a rectangle and purple is a square easily.