Piety, as a character, is boring

Hey everyone,

I thought I'd share some feedback that isn't actually gameplay, but story related:
I found that even though you play through all of the quests several times, and there is no "persistent" world where you can see the effects of your actions, most characters in the game are actually kinda interesting.

Many of them have interesting personalities that give some sense of immersion in the world.
However, the one character that we see in all 3 acts, and that is somewhat of a main villain, seems to completely lack any character.

Piety simply consists of pure evil, and that is unrealistic and boring. We have no idea what her intentions are or where she comes from. What is she looking for on Wraeclast? Even with Gravicious, we know he has a wife waiting for him somewhere, a family. Piety has no background at all.

Maybe we'll find out in parts of the later story, but so far Piety is just a bit underwhelming.
This also extends to her final area, the Lunaris Temple. It's just way to much gore, to a point where it looses any value. The Solaris Temple was a great area, all the splendor contrasted to it's deadly inhabitants. Lady Dialla is a really cool character.

In the Lunaris Temple, the only thing I wondered was where the hell that many bodies could come from. Must have depopulated the entire continent. There was nothing to contrast the bloody surroundings to, it was just blood, just gore. Just like Piety is "just evil".

Maybe something could be done to flesh her out a bit more? Maybe add a few "tidy" areas to the lunaris Temple so the gora actually keeps some value?

I know that the tools for telling a story in an ARPG are very limited. But I think GGG did a great job with most of the content, which made Piety stand out.

I agree, and I can add that the whole ''ahah, too late, come catch me later !'' is a little overdone, seriously why does she NEED to flee before us everytime ? Especially in the chamber of sin when the baleful gem she is looking for is right in front of her ? Or why does she need to experiment on Tolman in Crematorium while she has ton of subjects in her private laboratory ?

One other thing (related to Piety to a lesser extend), is that Helena knows some information about Dominus' expedition, enough for Eramir to find it ''horribly plausible'', but doesn't tell anything to us who just liberated her ? It's just feel like ''ahah, we let you in the dark for no reason just to make a final revelation/twist (pun intended) at final boss fight''...

And lastly, I find that npc in Saarn campment don't have any logical reason to be there, in the deadliest place of this god forsaken continent, except for Grigor. Thiefs who want to get long forgotten pieces of art which have no value at all in a walking dead filled country ? Really ?

As a 'Monster'/Mob I'm finding her impossible. (I'm a Leap Slam/Sweep Marauder.)

As a character I'm finding her unbelievable.

I agree with this.

I disagree, but I do think we need more lore regarding key characters ingame, specially enemies.

There was another topic about this a while back and it continues to amaze me how much people want to latch on to the Piety character.

Piety is a +/- 40 years old Dominion caster general. She is pretty much a SS (nazi secret agency) agent after the secrets of the long lost thaumaturgy in/from Wraeclast. And your character is pretty much dealing with these secrets as well.

Thaumaturgy is the art of dealing with flesh and blood, creating distortion and such. Something that our playable characters don't really work with, except for raise zombies and corpse explosion (mostly).

Piety goes after the brute distortion thaumaturgical secrets created by shavrone in the prison - a.k.a. Brutus - and replicates it in Kole from the Lunaris Temple.

Piety also goes after the baleful gem, a gem that isn't related to any element but all at once, product of the thaumaturgy experiments made by Maligaro. Problem is that she bumps with Raulo - a.k.a. Fidelitas - and has to flee and leave once again her batallion to die.

As for Tolman, I gotta agree with you: Piety is there just because she is there. Her soldiers just bumped with some exiles and she happened to decide to do some experimentation right there, instead of taking him back to the Lunaris Temple.

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We will prolly have more info on these chars once we bump with Dominion himself, inside the Scepter of God (obt trailer).

Amarena, we don't GET this information. I want to know where you got your information, because it's not in game.

What's not to like about Piety? She wears an S&M hat. She makes tentacle booby monsters. The only thing missing is you can't take her to a private room. ;-)

In case it's not obvious, I'm kidding. But this is an ARPG, worrying about substance is a bit wrong-headed.

Why? I like story in my games, no matter which it is.

"

Amarena wrote:

Piety is a +/- 40 years old Dominion caster general. She is pretty much a SS (nazi secret agency) agent after the secrets of the long lost thaumaturgy in/from Wraeclast. And your character is pretty much dealing with these secrets as well.

Thaumaturgy is the art of dealing with flesh and blood, creating distortion and such. Something that our playable characters don't really work with, except for raise zombies and corpse explosion (mostly).

Piety goes after the brute distortion thaumaturgical secrets created by shavrone in the prison - a.k.a. Brutus - and replicates it in Kole from the Lunaris Temple.

Piety also goes after the baleful gem, a gem that isn't related to any element but all at once, product of the thaumaturgy experiments made by Maligaro. Problem is that she bumps with Raulo - a.k.a. Fidelitas - and has to flee and leave once again her batallion to die.

As for Tolman, I gotta agree with you: Piety is there just because she is there. Her soldiers just bumped with some exiles and she happened to decide to do some experimentation right there, instead of taking him back to the Lunaris Temple.

Yeah, we have information about what Piety does, but that is all we get. Why she does it, or who she is, we have no idea. Evil for the sake of evil is about the most boring motivation a villain could have.

Also she isn't the least bit interested in your character, even though you have, on her invitation no less, made it all the way to sarn and defeated all her guards. I would have assumed there would be more dialogue when we finally get to face her than "well now you die!"

"

In case it's not obvious, I'm kidding. But this is an ARPG, worrying about substance is a bit wrong-headed.

Yeah, I said as much in the OP. And if the story was all bullshit, I probably wouldn't care.
The thing is the story and characterization of the NPCs struck me as pretty good for the most part. That's why it seems so odd that the main antagonist of the first three Acts got so little going on.