Piety, as a character, is boring
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I didn't pay attention to any of the lore, I usually don't in games like this because I just expect it to be awful. I agree that effort should be put into it though, because there is a chunk of the player base that gets enjoyment out of it and it doesn't detract from other parts of the game. I have to agree that characters that are evil for the sake of being evil are terrible (nobody believes themselves to be evil, everyone has a motivation to do what they do.) And even though I hadn't been paying attention to the lore I actually chuckled when I saw Piety run from me for the second time in the Hall of Sins, I hate these kind of cocky Bond villains.
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I think she isn't supposed to be too interesting.
like Gravicius, she is little more than a minion of the main villain Dominus. and judging from the Open Beta trailer, he's going to give you a long super-villain speech explaining everything. Piety is just an incredibly sadistic *****. an Elizabeth Báthory of sorts, that's also good at casting portals and zapping you to death, because that's what bad guys/girls in ARPG do. it doesn't really matter what her background is. only the obvious fact she's an evil, murderous extreme-version-S&M-female-Doctor-Frankenstein, and has to pay for what she's done. maybe her boss would shed some light about her right before the epic final battle. maybe not. you didn't get much info on the Vaal Oversoul either, and it's the best boss in the game so far, in my opinion. also, it's unfair to compare her to Lady Dialla, who's one of the main story narrators in the game, and a very complex character. I still can't really figure out if she's good or evil. probably evil, but in a "won't kill you as long as you're useful and not too nosy" kind of way. Alva: I'm sweating like a hog in heat Shadow: That was fun Last edited by johnKeys#6083 on Feb 27, 2013, 10:59:35 AM
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I approach it from a slightly different direction.
Think about the bosses of other ARPGs, and tell me how many of them were fully human and evil. I want to know more about Piety because I think my character should know more. She is clearly a well known figure in Theopolis and we're from there, exiled by Dominus. The Exile might not know Piety personally, but I am sure they've heard of her. We've had many discussions about this on alpha and beta, so it's not as if it's not an issue. It most definitely is. But in the end, I am totally happy with not knowing more about Piety than my character might already know. I know she's twisted, driven, and oddly creative. I know she's Dominus' second in command and that this makes him extremely frightening. I know that she has a terrible interest in the virtue gems and likely believes they are the key to the Ebony Legion's next step in domination, now that they've clearly outgrown Oriath. I know that she has teleport capabilities via portals and that this is likely how she and other members of the Ebony Legion travel between Oriath and Wraeclast. I know that she is evil. Lunaris 3 drives that home beautifully. If you don't want to end Piety after getting through that level you must have been playing with your eyes closed and your ears plugged. Finally, I believe she's human. We've no indication otherwise. She doesn't mutate into a giant monster like Merveil, or sprout wings and horns. She is human and she is evil. She is a mass murderer, a defiler, a twisted manipulator with delusions of transmogrification genius. She's Mengeles with boobs and a serious case of condescension. She is not some arch-villain with a complicated plot to take over the world or given to much pontification. She has her agenda and The Exile really isn't part of it. That she dies to The Exile must be quite baffling to her, although if she'd been paying attention she'd have noticed The Exile has mastered the gems where so many have failed. As a final note, I want to point out that Piety's atrocities and penchant for slaughter are shared by one other character in the game. The Exile is also a mass murderer. Compare the human bodycount from acts 1 through 3 to the human bodycount from acts 1 through 4 of Diablo 2. The rogues in D2 act 1 were undead/demons; the zakarum were fanatics twisted by demonic power. For the most part, the hero of Diablo 2 was not a murderer but a demon slayer, a vanquisher of monsters. And what is The Exile doing? Killing cannibals driven mad by a false god and/or hunger, bandits trying to eke out a living, and carving a bloody swathe through the very human ranks of the Ebony Legion. Sure, Piety's mountains of Holocaustian corpses are an utter abomination, but what if you were to pile up all the humans The Exile has killed getting to her? Different motivations, and I bet both Piety and The Exile could justify themselves -- at least to themselves. ...See? While the game doesn't tell you much about Piety, it gives you plenty to discuss through her. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between.
I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period. |
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Murderer? Murderer!?!?
You kill one person, and you are a murderer. You kill thousands, and you are a CONQUERER. ;-) P.s. bonus to anyone who guesses the actor who gets credit for this quote. |
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" Actor? I don't know, but the quote is attributed to a Jean Roustand. |
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Well if the actor was quoting someone else, you have successfully one upped me. ;-)
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" Your missing one key element. Intent. The Exile (of your choice) kills because he or she often has to (although it's debatable with the Witch), often things come at them and they have to defend themselves if they want to live, and what person doesn't, deep down? Piety on the other hand, seems to kill for the sheer joy of it. She creates experiments, tortures, kills all for... What? What is her end goal? This we don't know, but what we do know that she targets the helpless, the unassuming and the weak. The Exile kills because they HAVE to. Piety kills because she WANTS to. |
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Piety's OK. She just seems a little incomplete. It is a shame that lore and story overall are almost neglected in PoE, for the benefit of gameplay. I'd like to see A LOT more quests, not to kill some beast in a cave, but story related. Hopefully the devs would make this more of a priority. A game with no epic story has little identity.
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Piety as main character and piety as act3 boss is as lame and dumb as maghda killing Decard Cain in diablo3. Alright... its not THAT bad but its plain tasteless and uninspiring..
I dislike rarity so much im almost quitting poe2. GGG.
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Yeah, I don't like her either.
Lunaris reminded me of Dragon Age 2, where there's talk of the city of Kirkwall being built with rune-like channels carved deep below for the purpose of completing some huge blood ritual, which apparently some evil people did ages ago after sacrificing thousands. Only in DA, there's possiblity for the ritual to have fundamental implications about the state of reality. Here, as far as I can tell, it's just another "test subjects for military weapon experimentation" story, that I've seen a thousand times before. I know there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this lust for power stuff as a driver, I know there's nothing new under the sun, and I know that not every antagonist can be The Glorious Strategist with some intricate and insidious plan to learn about, but...yeah, for whatever reason, this didn't interest me. Especially since the game keeps "showing off" Piety, only for her to end up the usual shallow evil. |
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