Here is how I would fix the already existing story (Spoilers)

[maurjen]

On 6/21/2020 at 11:20 AM, Jake-TheGreat97 said:

In other words, instead of a page 1 rewrite just make changes to the story that's already in the game. Here is some ideas that I have.

 

1. Joel still dies, but so too does Abby. I think having Joel die provides a strong motivation for Ellie to seek out revenge. For example, if it was Dina who was killed it wouldn't have the same impact because we barely know her, not to mention Ellie losing yet another lover would feel way too similar to Left Behind. That being said, Abby has to die as well. I felt that having Abby not die made the the whole journey feel like it was all for nothing. 

2. Have Tommy be your companion. In the main game I never felt like there was a good reason for either Dina or Jesse to tag alone. I think it would have made more sense if it was just Ellie and Tommy who sought out revenge because how both characters shared a close relationship with Joel, not to mention having Tommy as your companion would serve as a great contrast from the first game.

3. Shorten the Abby section midway through the game. At first I didn't mind playing as Abby because I thought it was neat seeing her perspective after the fact. However, this section is way too long. I could have also done without all of those Abby flashbacks. The first was fine because it established why she hated Joel. The rest however I could have done without. I really couldn't care about her relationship with Owen.

4. Expand on the Seraphites. Leading up to release there was a lot of mystery surrounding these guys. However, in the game we barely know anything about them other then the fact that they are trans-phobic. Maybe in a couple of the collectible documents we learn more about them, but not every player is going to go out of their way to read or find them. During the course of the game there is also a lot of mystery surrounding their leader. However, we are never given enough information about her while playing the main story.

5. Reduce Lev and Yara's roles in the plot. While I don't really hate either of these characters, I think that they drag out the plot and feel like they belong in their own separate story. I also didn't like how Lev's reckless actions literally got Yara killed. It is also really hard to get emotionally invested in these characters since they are introduced halfway through the story. For example, the scene where Lev is crying over his dead mother made me feel absolutely nothing because it happens off screen, and we don't know enough about their relationship before hand. I think maybe having Lev and Yara in that one scene escaping the Forrest with Abby would of been enough or better yet cutting out the sequence escaping the burning island.  

6. Remove the Santa Barbara section. On one hand I really liked this part of the game because I was actually born in Santa Barbra and it was really cool seeing my home town being represented in video game. However, in terms of the plot it feels unnecessary. For one, we barely know anything about about the group we are killing. The way the Santa Barbara section ends also reinforces my first point on how it makes the game feel like it was all for nothing. Also if the game is set in Seattle I think it makes sense for it to end in Seattle. 

 

Those are just some of the ideas that I thought of. I might edit this if more ideas come to mind or if I want to expand on the one of the points that I've already listed. What about the rest of you, how would fix the story without completely rewriting it? 

7. get rid of the sex scene - its pretty much unnecessary let alone double standards on how sony censored other games like Devil may cry 5 and majority of the anime games

[Starcade_Legend]

36 minutes ago, maurjen said:

7. get rid of the sex scene - its pretty much unnecessary let alone double standards on how sony censored other games like Devil may cry 5 and majority of the anime games

Plus...just downright cringy AF.  ?

[blazeadeel]

one of many things I hated about the plot is the halfassed attempt to humanize Abby with flashbacks, "hey look Abby has a dad, a love interest and a couple of friends so what if she murdered Joel, DONT YOU SEE SHE HAS RELATIONSHIPS TOO. even if  you say ok I get it but then what about the 200+ people you murdered along the way?

 

secondly the halfassed attempt to replicate Joel and Ellie's relationship with Abby and Lev. NO just no.

 

and another thing the game forces you to choke Ellie to progress at the end. I am sure I am not the only one and even if I am , Ellie is my little baby girl you cant have me choking her with anybody and worse game chooses Joel's murderer. NO NAUGHTY DOG,YOU FUCK'D IT UP

Edited June 22, 2020 by blazeadeel

[Lezonidas]

8 hours ago, GoDBoss173 said:

Abby is neither the hero nor the villain. It wasnt abby who convinced the group to spare the innocent ellie and tommy, it was owen ( the only decent guy of that group). Her reason for killing joel is understandable but also ellies reason to kill abby and her group. Just like joels reason to save ellie in part 1. Lets be honest 95% of humanity ( even those criticizing joel) would do the same thing in joels situation, especially with his background. It was humanity who killed his real daughter and gave him a severe 20 years long depression and know you expect him to sacrifice his new light for a CHANCE to save a world full of rapists and psychopaths? The interesting thing about it is that pretty much everyone would choose like joel because it is "perfectly human" even though we all know that it is selfish and "wrong" ( If you think about it rationally without any shred of feelings and emotions)

 

Theoretically all fractions are villains ( fireflies, joel, abby, ellie). The fireflies started it by killing a girl without even asking her and threatening joel. Abbys father was a hypocritical piece of shit by the way. I agree that ellie should have stopped after her encounter with abby and stay with dina and the child.

 

"after that she doesn't kill anyone in cold blood. "

 

She would have killed the pregnant dina if the kid didnt stop her.

 

 

Yes, all of them are grey, but Ellie and Joel are a darker shade of grey compared to Abby. She would've killed Dina in the heat of the battle, not planning to kill her in cold blood, the only 2 persons she wanted to kill in the whole game are first Joel for killing the fireflies and her father and then Ellie when she kills all her friends, specially Owen, and she then decides to spare her life (twice after killing her friends, 3 times in the game). And it's not only Owen who prevents Ellie and Tommy from being killed, it's Abby who has the last word and tells them to stop (minute 1:44). I mean it's a complicated world, but if this was a new franchise, we wouldn't know Joel and Ellie and we played the game from the point of view of Abby first, I think we'd all agree she's the hero.

 

 

[REAPER4536]

8 minutes ago, Lezonidas said:

 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, Lezonidas said:

 I mean it's a complicated world, but if this was a new franchise, we wouldn't know Joel and Ellie and we played the game from the point of view of Abby first, I think we'd all agree she's the hero.

 

 

 

 

 

I think he sums it up the best. She is not the hero. Not even close.

Edited June 22, 2020 by REAPER4536

[BloodyRutz]

On 6/21/2020 at 3:20 AM, Jake-TheGreat97 said:

4. Expand on the Seraphites. Leading up to release there was a lot of mystery surrounding these guys. However, in the game we barely know anything about them other then the fact that they are trans-phobic. Maybe in a couple of the collectible documents we learn more about them, but not every player is going to go out of their way to read or find them. During the course of the game there is also a lot of mystery surrounding their leader. However, we are never given enough information about her while playing the main story.

 

This is something I would definitely like to see and was curious about. I also liked the setting - their island. I felt I left it too quickly.

 

 

On 6/21/2020 at 9:58 AM, NekoRave said:

Its one thing if a games bad whatnot whatever, its another to have some company lie about a game most people cherished and wanted to see a proper sequel and conclusion.

 

Did I miss something? I've seen all the trailers and several developer commentaries. Ellie was a main protagonist, or at least one of two main protagonists. Also, Joel was in several chapters of the game. What exactly did they lie about?

 

 

14 hours ago, EdinhoN said:

So... People pay $60 and invest 30 hours of their finite time, only to be rewarded with a half-assed plot whereas any fan would assume it would be at least "good" when the prior installment has been a masterpiece and "fans", i.e. "spoiled kids" simply "need to grow up"?

I'll just quote Ellie from TLOU1's ending: "OK"

 

This is the exact kind of entitlement I hate about gamers and as a gamer myself it's hard for me to consider video gaming a mature medium seeing these kind of childish behaviour like review-bombing, harassment of developers online, etc. I agree. Majority of the gamers need to grow up. It would benefit everybody.

 

Believe it or not, Neil Druckmann's time like everybody's else is also finite and I'm sure his motivation was not to screw over the fans. You would know that if you would have some project you would work on for several years. It is more than just "job".

 

Maybe they fucked up, maybe they don't. They took a risk for sure. But you are not the only one to decide and not everybody with different opinion is blind or stupid. Nor is the adequate mature reaction to this to review-bomb the game.

 

 

12 hours ago, yellowwindow7 said:

that still not gonna save this game from the crappy story, even if she's a pornstar NO ONE GIVE SHIT ABOUT ABBY!

 

Well, I do. I enjoyed playing the story from her perspective. So, there's at least one person who gives a shit.

 

 

6 hours ago, blazeadeel said:

one of many things I hated about the plot is the halfassed attempt to humanize Abby with flashbacks, "hey look Abby has a dad, a love interest and a couple of friends so what if she murdered Joel, DONT YOU SEE SHE HAS RELATIONSHIPS TOO. even if  you say ok I get it but then what about the 200+ people you murdered along the way?

 

secondly the halfassed attempt to replicate Joel and Ellie's relationship with Abby and Lev. NO just no.

 

and another thing the game forces you to choke Ellie to progress at the end. I am sure I am not the only one and even if I am , Ellie is my little baby girl you cant have me choking her with anybody and worse game chooses Joel's murderer. NO NAUGHTY DOG,YOU FUCK'D IT UP

 

I didn't have a feeling that the game tries to force humanizing Abby with flashbacks or make her hero. To me, it was just another perspective to play the story from and I liked it. To see her reasoning and her life which got her to the point of encountering Ellie.

 

I also liked Lev and his sister. I would like to see their background in form of DLC. Again, I did not have a feeling they try to replicate Joel's and Ellie's relationship. It was their story and I was enjoying it the same as the story of Ellie and Dina.

 

Also, I don't have some sort of emotional attachment to Ellie being "my little baby girl" and I didn't hate Abby. It was just another character with her own story. Same as Ellie. To me, it seems like Naughty Dog "fucked the game up" because they laid hands on your beloved characters. I see an emotional response, not a rational one.

 

I'm not saying everybody has to like the game but this is the exact reason I prefer journalist's reviews (not the score, the actual content of it) instead of user reviews. There is more to the game than just a story being tailored to how you want it and every aspect of the game needs to be considered, which is hard to do when you hate or love one character that much.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by BloodyRutz

[Mori]

20 minutes ago, BloodyRutz said:

I didn't have a feeling that the game tries to force humanizing Abby with flashbacks or make her hero. To me, it was just another perspective to play the story from and I liked it. I liked Lev and again, I did not have a feeling they try to replicate Joel's and Ellie's relationship. It was their story and I was enjoying it the same as the story of Ellie and Dina. Also, I don't have some sort of emotional attachment to Ellie being "my little baby girl" and I didn't hate Abby. It was just another character with her own story. Same as Ellie.

 

To me, it seems like Naughty Dog "fucked the game up" because they laid hands on your beloved characters. I see an emotional response, not a rational one. I'm not saying everybody has to like the game but this is the exact reason I prefer journalist's reviews (not the score, the actual content of it) instead of user reviews. There is more to the game than just a story being tailored to how you want it and every aspect of the game needs to be considered, which is hard to do when you hate or love one character that much.

 

 

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. 

 

It seems to me people are just mad. They feel entitled to be the "hero" who has all the rights to justify all their actions but when other characters come in and "claim" the same, its suddenly wrong. 

 

Thats the point, ND wants to convey. There is no good and bad. There are only humans and all have their own relationships, flaws, emotions, etc.

Joel is/was no exception to that. He isn't/wasnt the hero who gets to live and die of old age, just cause he was the main protagonist in the first game.

[GoDBoss173]

2 hours ago, Lezonidas said:

 

Yes, all of them are grey, but Ellie and Joel are a darker shade of grey compared to Abby. She would've killed Dina in the heat of the battle, not planning to kill her in cold blood, the only 2 persons she wanted to kill in the whole game are first Joel for killing the fireflies and her father and then Ellie when she kills all her friends, specially Owen, and she then decides to spare her life (twice after killing her friends, 3 times in the game). And it's not only Owen who prevents Ellie and Tommy from being killed, it's Abby who has the last word and tells them to stop (minute 1:44). I mean it's a complicated world, but if this was a new franchise, we wouldn't know Joel and Ellie and we played the game from the point of view of Abby first, I think we'd all agree she's the hero.

 

By that logic, Joel didnt kill a single firefly in cold blood either. He never wanted to kill them for the sake of killing but they basically kidnapped ellie and were trying to kill her. He tried to get ellie back and the fireflies tried to stop him by all means necessary.What do you expect from joel? Let himself killed? The fireflies started the whole thing, not joel. The fireflies were the first villains, followed by joel, followed by abby and finally ellie. Joels reason is just as strong as abbys, so how the hell is he "worse" than abby? The difference is that there were no "outsiders" in abbys way who protected joel. What do you think would have happened if they found joel with 10 other jackson soldiers somewhere outside the town? They would have attacked them and killed them to get joel. Calling abby a hero, what a joke. The whole franchise never had a hero in the first place.

 

"we played the game from the point of view of Abby first, I think we'd all agree she's the hero. "

 

If joel is a random criminal and killed all those fireflies for no reason, yes. We all know thats not the case. Joels reason is just as strong as abbys.

Edited June 22, 2020 by GoDBoss173

[sephiroth4424]

All is needed to fix things, is a 30-40 seconds video where Ellie wakes up holding a guitar and while she checks she has 10 fingers, Troy Baker's voice is heard : ''Breakfast's ready''.

After that, black screen with a message : ''The journey continues, TLOU Part 3''

[EdinhoN]

2 hours ago, GoDBoss173 said:

By that logic, Joel didnt kill a single firefly in cold blood either. He never wanted to kill them for the sake of killing but they basically kidnapped ellie and were trying to kill her. He tried to get ellie back and the fireflies tried to stop him by all means necessary.What do you expect from joel? Let himself killed? The fireflies started the whole thing, not joel. The fireflies were the first villains, followed by joel, followed by abby and finally ellie. Joels reason is just as strong as abbys, so how the hell is he "worse" than abby? The difference is that there were no "outsiders" in abbys way who protected joel. What do you think would have happened if they found joel with 10 other jackson soldiers somewhere outside the town? They would have attacked them and killed them to get joel. Calling abby a hero, what a joke. The whole franchise never had a hero in the first place.

 

"we played the game from the point of view of Abby first, I think we'd all agree she's the hero. "

 

If joel is a random criminal and killed all those fireflies for no reason, yes. We all know thats not the case. Joels reason is just as strong as abbys.

Yeah, I totally don't like this idea of demonizing Joel due to the first game ending, I see many claiming that "he fucked up mankind's hope". Well, you're falling in Firefly's narrative.

I won't even talk about whether the vaccine could be developed or not (or even if it could be mass supplied or even if Fireflies would be the good guys instead of using it politically to extort people and raise their power and control), but it's not morally justified to MURDER one person for the benefit of millions/billions (if you think so, you're into utilitarian philosophy and well, it's kinda lame).

Of course, lying to Ellie due to being afraid of her going back to the Fireflies, accepting dying to her brain being studied is a lame move, but that is not "Demon Joel".

 

[PooPooBlast]

The ending absolutely makes no sense and I think this YouTube commenter nailed why

[BloodyRutz]

23 minutes ago, PooPooBlast said:

The ending absolutely makes no sense and I think this YouTube commenter nailed why

 

Although I like this thought, not everything is always black and white. During her life with Dina after the events of the game, Ellie had several PSTD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) incidents described also in her notebook. Her life with Dina wouldn't probably last with her state of mind. Maybe she finally found peace of mind (closure) and can recover from it. She was doing it mainly for herself, not just because of Tommy asked her to.

 

There can be many angles to think about it. Saying it makes no sense is just lazy.

 

Edit: I see many people linking to statements of different YouTubers. Why not think about the events by themselves from different points of view other than just relate to somebody's else opinion since we've all played the game.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by BloodyRutz

[BloodyRutz]

1 hour ago, sephiroth4424 said:

All is needed to fix things, is a 30-40 seconds video where Ellie wakes up holding a guitar and while she checks she has 10 fingers, Troy Baker's voice is heard : ''Breakfast's ready''.

After that, black screen with a message : ''The journey continues, TLOU Part 3''

 

Not saying everybody needs to like the direction they decided to go with the story, but this is clearly sending the message to script writers to always play it safe, which is something I strongly disagree with. There needs to exist creative freedom and not being afraid of taking risks because of possible drop in sales or fans backslash.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by BloodyRutz

[GoDBoss173]

43 minutes ago, EdinhoN said:

Yeah, I totally don't like this idea of demonizing Joel due to the first game ending, I see many claiming that "he fucked up mankind's hope". Well, you're falling in Firefly's narrative.

I won't even talk about whether the vaccine could be developed or not (or even if it could be mass supplied or even if Fireflies would be the good guys instead of using it politically to extort people and raise their power and control), but it's not morally justified to MURDER one person for the benefit of millions/billions (if you think so, you're into utilitarian philosophy and well, it's kinda lame).

Of course, lying to Ellie due to being afraid of her going back to the Fireflies, accepting dying to her brain being studied is a lame move, but that is not "Demon Joel".

 

 Most of them are hypcrites who would do the same thing. (trying to get the daughter back)

 

 I quote myself:

 

"Lets be honest 95% of humanity ( even those criticizing joel) would do the same thing in joels situation, especially with his background. It was humanity who killed his real daughter and gave him a severe 20 years long depression and know you expect him to sacrifice his new light for a CHANCE to save a world full of rapists and psychopaths? The interesting thing about it is that pretty much everyone would choose like joel because it is "perfectly human" even though we all know that it is selfish and "wrong" ( If you think about it rationally without any shred of feelings and emotions) "

 

Hell they didnt even ask ellie and abbys father is a pathetic hypocrite who pressured marlene into accepting the operation. His reaction to marlenes question made it pretty clear that he wouldnt do the same thing with abby.

[scemopagliaccioh]

You know, for someone that talks so much about subverting expectations, Druckmann  did the  tired trope of killing the  old established characters. I'm sure it'll happen with Kratos too next game and Atreus will pick up his place. Passing of the torch blabla.

So much for storytelling innovation.

[BloodyRutz]

15 minutes ago, talespagni said:

 

I'll disagree with you: Abby wasn't advertised. Remember the first cutscene video, a few years ago? Lots of people thought she was Ellie's mother.

 

Joel was indeed advertised. Problem is, they altered the game's cutscenes, replacing Joel instead of Jesse.

 

Also, they altered cutscenes, replacing young Joel (flashbacks) with old/current Joel, giving the watcher the sense that the couple Ellie/Joel would be a thing happening in the game, and not only a flashback.

 

I believe people posted screens of this in the locked threads, give it a look.

 

Even if Joe and Abby weren't advertised. What is the point of discussing it? I'm somehow able to understand that downgrade in graphics of the final product versus early build of the game shown years ago could be considered false advertising since not everybody understand how software development works.

 

But we are now at the point when the whole story isn't laid out to customer before buying the game it's a scam? Legit question, since I don't really understand the point of discussing what was or wasn't shown in the trailer in relation to misleading the customer.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by BloodyRutz

[BloodyRutz]

1 minute ago, talespagni said:

 

That's ok, no problem with your question, it's reasonable.

 

But tell me, wasn't it already discussed in previous posts and other threads?

 

If it wasn't, or if those points weren't enough/reasonable for you, tell me and I'll try my best to explain my point of view.

 

Ah, okay. If it was already discussed I'm gonna look it up. Since I finished the game yesterday and wanted to beware of spoilers I missed some of the earlier threads.

[happyman778]

Perhaps I am in the minority here, at least on this website, but I truly loved the story. Watching Ellie slowly become a worse and worse human being and then playing as Abby and seeing her do the opposite - become a better person - was truly enthralling to me. When the game jumped a few months and gave me an Ellie and Dina happy ending I was somewhat disappointed as I thought that Ellie didn't deserve that ended. So I was pleasantly surprised that the game continued, and that the ending we got finally showed Ellie realising she had become an awful human being (and the cutscene showing that Ellie wanted to begin to forgive Joel the night before he died made me somewhat emotional). 

 

I did have some issues; I agree that Jessie ended up being a bit of a waste of a character, and found some of the gameplay to be a bit obtuse and I struggled to figure out where to go or what to do (especially the rope in the aquarium, I spent ages trying to throw the rope into the other skylight before realising I was supposed to throw it out the window), but in the end I still wholeheartedly believe this is a great game. 

 

Moreover, I enjoy adult discourse like on this thread with different people having different opinions rather than the childish (and more often than not offensive) conversation that can be found on Twitter.

[mataningo]

4 hours ago, talespagni said:

 

I'll disagree with you: Abby wasn't advertised. Remember the first cutscene video, a few years ago? Lots of people thought she was Ellie's mother.

 

Joel was indeed advertised. Problem is, they altered the game's cutscenes, putting Joel in place of Jesse.

 

Also, they altered cutscenes, replacing young Joel (flashbacks) with old/current Joel, giving the watcher the sense that the couple Ellie/Joel would be a thing happening in the game, and not only a flashback.

 

I believe people posted screens of this in the locked threads, give it a look.

 

I was mostly avoiding every trailer since the first ones. so yeah I know about the altered cutscene with Jesse you talked about. in a lot of trailers there are cutscenes that are bit different from the actual real stuff, like in Avengers trailers so I don't take it too much. they had to do it from obvious reasons not to spoil too much, but i'm sure i'm not the only one who felt it was very odd especially when they officially said that Ellie is the only playable protagonist.

 

I get their point, there isn't bad guys in this, there is nothing that will change the fact that Ellie lost everything she ever had.

and she can't even play a guitar anymore, the last thing that remind her of her companion.

[X_Wizi_X]

4 hours ago, scemopagliaccioh said:

You know, for someone that talks so much about subverting expectations, Druckmann  did the  tired trope of killing the  old established characters. I'm sure it'll happen with Kratos too next game and Atreus will pick up his place. Passing of the torch blabla.

So much for storytelling innovation.

 

 

At least they didn't let a random heir of a random enemy kill Victor Sullivan from Uncharted and then luckily they didn't let us play from the POV of that fucking anonymous and random heir of a random enemy who, God Knows how much time before, tried to kill Victor and Nathan.

 

 

Uncharted is safe. For now.

[Thrillhelm]

If you want to prevent disappointments like this story and having not other threads like this, you have to speak through your wallet.

 

Neil Druckmann played on the fans' feelings like a fiddle and shoehorned an unwanted agenda into a beloved game series. Avoid a fanboy mind that buys games no matter what, and do not believe the shill reviewers like IGN.

[EdinhoN]

27 minutes ago, Thrillhelm said:

If you want to prevent disappointments like this story and having not other threads like this, you have to speak through your wallet.

 

Neil Druckmann played on the fans' feelings like a fiddle and shoehorned an unwanted agenda into a beloved game series. Avoid a fanboy mind that buys games no matter what, and do not believe the shill reviewers like IGN.

I never buy day one games because they are too expensives, and 2 years later they might even come on Plus, or go on sale really really cheap.

My last Day One game was GTA V for ps3 and I don't regret buying it, the hype was huge. I was going to do the same with TLOU2, GOD BLESS THE LEAKER!

I'd gladly donate him 10% of the money saved ($6) to help with the legal fees hahaha

[maurjen]

9 hours ago, X_Wizi_X said:

 

 

At least they didn't let a random heir of a random enemy kill Victor Sullivan from Uncharted and then luckily they didn't let us play from the POV of that fucking anonymous and random heir of a random enemy who, God Knows how much time before, tried to kill Victor and Nathan.

 

 

Uncharted is safe. For now.

it turned into uncharted lost legacy

22 hours ago, Starcade_Legend said:

Plus...just downright cringy AF.  ?

especially its a very slow scene and can hear their sounds

14 hours ago, PooPooBlast said:

The ending absolutely makes no sense and I think this YouTube commenter nailed why

If lev is killed that would of made sense that ellie would let her live to know how it feels to lose someone they cared for. My guess is and its only a guess is there might be  plans on a last of us 3 or a dlc and it would focus on those two.

[JPageMartin36]

On 22/06/2020 at 0:38 AM, NZBigC said:

I would agree with you if the OP had said 'This game sucks! Don't buy it, it is the worst game ever!' and left it at that, but they gave several things they would change and explained how they would have changed it for a (personally) better experience. Hell, the OP did not even say they hated it at all. What is wrong with that?

 

I was commenting more on the worst of the worst rather than the OP, hence I didn't quote him.

[grifteskymfning]

snip

Edited June 23, 2020 by grifteskymfning