New Act IV: Full Mock-Up, Complete With Picture! :O

Recently user linkblade91 made a thread suggesting GGG split Act 3.5 off into its own act. He made a lot of great points in there about why this should be the case, and you should definitely give his arguments a look. After mulling it over, I decided to give the idea a mock-up and see what you all thought.

Before we can go into Act IV, however, we need to solve a loose end...

How Act III Now Ends
You've slain Piety, and from her corpse you collect an Ancient Thaumetic Emblem. Aha! Now we know more about the lore of Shavronne's thaumetic seal that Piety uses in Act I. It turns out that Shavronne, the noblewoman tasked with hindering the Karui coastal advance, based her thaumetic seal on a much older model dating to the earliest days of the Eternal Empire. As Sarn expanded and the new society codified, a separation between the higher and lower classes eventually took shape. To insulate themselves from the plebians, the new patrician class took possession of Sarn's upper third, resting atop a giant dam, and used a thaumetic seal to ensure only those of whom the Praetorian Guard approved could move in or out.

If you return to the Sarn Encampment after this battle, the denizens will point you to The Ten Thousand Steps, a new zone accessed by the gate in the Ebony Barracks. Here, a long staircase is slowly ascended to the ancient thaumetic seal, where the player can now place their emblem to unlock the new Act IV.

The Ten Thousand Steps has been victim to a worker's uprising. Remember all that graffiti from Act III? Remember their weird, kind of revolutionary tone? Well, it sounds like in the dying days of the empire, as the Cataclysm was causing the rapid implosion of the Empire, a revolutionary movement stormed the Ten Thousand Steps and laid siege to the gate which separates Upper Sarn from Lower Sarn. The results which you see strewn around the zone seem to have been something along the lines of Battleship Potemkin. At the top of this zone is a unique boss, Lucacius, Mad Praetorian, an undying driven mad by the slaughter he ordered.

Once you kill him and reactive the seal, you find yourself entering...

Introducing, the new Act IV:



1. The Parapets
Tileset: Sarn
Zones: 1
A series of guard stations still manned by their ghast successors lead the way to the act town. Troublingly, you see a number of blackguard bodies strewn alongside dead ghasts. They're here, and you can feel it, you're getting closer to Dominus... and oh, how you relish the chance to meet him again.

2. The Mansion District
Your new town, this time designed for efficiency! A square, with the filler between each cardinal exit being luxurious residences you might jealously check out on Zillow (not a paid sponser!), and the portal being helpfully dead center. Spread around the zone? Meet your new friends!

Sovo - A shopkeeper who's so dismissive of you that even Vorici would blush. He longs for the old days he's obviously never lived, and will spare no mention that the house behind him is, in fact, his ancestral home, and that, back in the old days, his family used to... and you start rolling your eyes, so he gets down to brass tacks and offers you a quest. In the Palais Perandus is an old Velvet Curtain, an heirloom that a no good, dirty great x10 grandfather drunkenly bet away and Sovo's family's been scheming to get back ever since... well, now that everyone involved is dead, maybe a young adventurer like you could right this historic wrong. Don't think this will make him take you seriously though. Reward: Normal, 1 of 5 rare rings; Cruel: 1 of 5 rare amulets; Merciless: 1 of 5 rare jewels.

Jemme - An exile like you who's now finally hitting the retirement age and chose the Mansion District as the most comfortable of the few stranded survival outposts still on Wraeclast. You can steal the force from a fighter, but you can't take the fight from the fighter, and she still makes occasional forays into the dangerous zones of Wraeclast. She's been trailing the Blackguards, and she's seen them going in and out of the four ancient Palais of Sarn's long dead noble houses, lead by, you guessed it, Dominus himself. She tried to investigate, but the ghasts in the Palais seem to have become supercharged since Dominus' visit, and she took a projectile to the knee and is probably out of commission for good this time. It's up to you, young exile, to find out what the Blackguards have been doing there.

Rivelt - A shady, paranoid dealer of wares. Convinced Vorici's got a hit out on him -- and he's right, of course. After meeting Rivelt, the next time you talk to Vorici in the Sarn Encampment, he'll have a new dialogue option asking you to dispense of a no good doubledealer named Rivelt if you ever get the chance. When you unlock the Imperial Gardens set of areas, Rivelt will ask you to escort him there to a secret passage in the Hedge Maze so he can skip out on town for good. Accept, and when you enter the Imperial Gardens, an NPC named Rivelt will fight alongside you. You have two choices: either escort him to the secret passage in the Hedge Maze (Reward: your choice of four unique flasks) or assassinate him (Reward: your choice of three unique boots). If he dies to mobs as you escort him, Vorici'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you killed him on purpose. ;)

Diski - Diski's in love with shiny things. Too much. She'll bleed your ears out about the "visual texture" of a nice ruby or "how a sapphire just begs you to cry on it." Once you get past the slightly warped surface, you'll discover a very useful side of her: she will exchange base types on amulets, rings, and flasks for a fee. The newly generated item will always have the same number of implicits and rarity as the previous item. She'll also give you a quest to find the Kaleidoscope in the Fountains. Reward: one passive skill point and one passive respec point.

Initially, you can only go out the left side of town, into...

The Luxury Emporium
Tileset: Sarn
Zones: 1
Similar to the marketplace, but with pricetags that'll make your eyes pop. And maybe other parts, who knows. Imports and luxuries lie along this forsaken orgy of goods like debris. You also see, troublingly, Blackguard corpses... Connected to this zone are the Palais of the Perandus and Ruzius families. You can do them in either order.

Palais Perandus
Tileset: Noble House
Zones: 1 + boss arena
All praise be to Prospero and his blessings! It may not be written on the walls, but you can tell that's the motto here. Lavish and excessively gilt objects lie in huge piles as if the people who bought them had no idea what to do with them. Strange luxury goods from the furthest reaches of Wraeclast and beyond litter the rooms... and some of them fight you. Exotic birds and reptiles -- who knew they could be so deadly! But more troublesome is Dominus' First Note, which whispers about how, after Izaro turned his back on the nobles and made the Labyrinth, the key to the ancient Sceptre of God had been split in four and hidden in the noble houses, to prevent anyone from gaining too much power without making the right alliances. At the end of the zone you fight Umaias Perandus, a crazed collector of exotic animals who's lived this long by infusing his blood with a long lived species... and well, there were some other side effects.

Palais Ruzius
Tileset: Noble House
Zones: 1 + boss arena
Wonder why Voll, Victario, and Geofri were all on the same page when so many others weren't? Turns out they had blood ties keeping them together. As you can imagine, austere piety has stripped this house of any decadent goods. It's practically a chapel, with maybe a little stained glass and devotional figures, just to keep up the class. Except, those devotional figures are now after the people who have disturbed this house. And, it turns out, with a shatter, so are the stained glass saints. You find Dominus' Second Note here, explaining that the Sceptre of God was as much a thaumetic monument as a spiritual symbol. The way the structure was built, could it somehow enhance his, shall we say, experiments? (You know, like Ghostbusters.) Oleeun Ruzius, who has infused his essence in an altarpiece, now appears in its various animated paintings to attack you.

This idea also partially derives from a bit in the original thread suggested by Jonmcdonald.

When you kill these two, grab their signet rings and head back to Jemme, who'll hold onto them in return for a shield disruptor she cooked up, which will open up the right exit from town, leading you to...

The Fountains
Tileset: Sarn
Zones: 1
A lush public walkway offering a beautiful view of Sarn adorned with beautiful, colorful fountains and a few aesthetically pleasing rocks. Oh, and a bunch of ghasts trying to gnaw your face off, but, you know, it still holds up. Don't forget to grab Diski's Kaleidoscope for that passive skill point and respec point!

Palais Phrecius
Tileset: Noble House
Zones: 1 + boss arena
The most luxurious of all the noble houses, but also the one most in disarray. The furniture is gorgeous and tastefully selected, there place is decked with splendor, but cobwebs are sneaking in (with their spider weavers) and here and there an expensive chandelier lies smashed on the ground. A note in this room describes Evelus Phrecius' fury and despair at how the fortunes of House Phrecius have waned since Izaro betrayed them and opened up the throne to just about anyone. Another note, much more recent, explains Dominus' opinion that Wraeclast is pregnant with possibility, given how wracked the land has become with thaumetic discharge. He believes that anyone, with a little creativity, could use this graveyard as the ash for a phoenix of his designs. Evelus Phrecius's skeleton can be found next to an embodied marble statue she has implanted her soul into to try and preserve her house's dying dignity.

Palais Lelinius
Tileset: Noble House
Zones: 1 + boss arena
Why did Malachi end up aligned with Doedre, Shavronne, and Maligaro, and why was House Ruzius so keen to kill them? Why, because they're all from House Lelinius, of course! A dangerous, grotesque obsession with catlike beauty infests this house, and gemlings haunt its halls. Dominus in his note heaps praise on the "innovative" Lelinius family, and even whispers how they might be still around, working towards a similar end. Dominus expresses a bit of frustration and jealousy, explaining how his horde of Blackguards are too slow and incompetent, and he can feel himself falling behind the "geniuses behind this tormented place." One of which, Skeya Lelinius, a gemling noblewoman, you get to fight.

Take these last two signet rings (and Diski's Kaleidoscope!) back to town, and Jemme will put them together with the others and make a Sarn Coat of Arms, which can be used to unlock the north exit of town, into...

Act 3.5
Your old favorites, back and better than ever! Pumped up with more power and a few more secrets (the new sidequest in the Hedge Maze, now a fully fledged zone; a new link with the Eternal Laboratory, which fits better here than it did in its kind of arbitrary placement back in Act III), what used to be kind of an anticlimactic afterthought glistens with a new sheen! And, what's that you say? Oh yes! It also gets a brand new area!

The Eternal Throne
Tileset: Lunaris/Solaris mixed (with some extra gradients for the transitions)
Zones: 2
Well, we heard so much about the Eternal Empire, seems fitting that we'd at least see the throne, right? Well now you can! This new doubledecker doozy contains the last remnants of the dead empire, the courtiers who perished clinging to what they had always chased... a throne befitting of a king. Since you passed the Labyrinth, why don't you give a shot sitting in it? Or well, you can, once you slay the undead ghast of Chitus Perandus, risen again by the Cataclysm, knife still in back, looking for revenge. Dominus seems to have had a little fun with him, however, because he's been further warped by that malingering schemer with an unhelpful dose of thaumaturgy. You can learn all about it in Dominus' fifth note, talking about how Oriath has stalled due to its rigid Templar codes (Oriathian elites are unscrupulous, but not nearly unscrupulous enough for Dominus' tastes) and how it will be from Wraeclast that a new era emerges...

Climb the Sceptre, read Dominus' sixth and final note, hastily scrawled, about how Piety has yet to return, and how he'll have to try and go ahead without her and realize his dreams using this Tower's mystic properties. After reading that, do your best to make sure that doesn't happen! Then curtain! (Well, for this Act.)

FAQ: But wait! What about...
Act IV? Don't worry, it won't go anywhere. It'll just be renamed Act V. And it really feels more like an Act V, doesn't it? Tell me you didn't run Belly of the Beast and go, "this is way more V than IV, come on GGG."

How expensive Acts are? Why would they do this? As I hope the post demonstrates, most of this Act is already built. It reuses four zones from Act 3.5 and many of the tilesets. In fact, it only requires one new tileset (Noble House). Additionally, since this act also takes place in Sarn, many of the monsters can be reused. GGG could only add enough standout mobs to spice up the usual crowd to make this act full. This Act can be done on a budget much smaller and a production schedule much faster than the new Acts they are already planning, and it'll still have the more polished feel of an Act that's been in the game for awhile because it's already iterated content.

Map tiers? Because this Act is frugal with its tilesets, it would only introduce one new map, which could easily slot into the existing tree and flesh out the middle-late side of maps. This new Act wouldn't disrupt the mapping system (other than the change in placement to the Lab).

Level balancing? Delete Cruel. It's going to happen eventually. If not, there's still plenty of cushion in the current balance levels to fit in this Act (considering the game already accounted for part of its content) without pushing out the lower maps.

The Trials of Ascendancy? Frankly the Labyrinth feels out of place levelwise in the current game. You're kind of expected to skip it for a little bit then later on in Act IV come back and finish it. By actually incorporating that level skip into the game by making players wait until the second half of the new Act IV to start it, the Labyrinth will feel a lot more comfortable in the leveling flow. You can also easily tune it accordingly.

Lady Dialla? Dialla's already all over Act III and the star of Act V. I don't think she really needs to do much this Act (other than porting in at the end of Sceptre).

Dank memes? Vape Nash.

Again, thanks to linkblade91 for the original thread's idea. What do you guys think? Should I be elected president of New Zealand off of this platform and make those damned Kiwis do a second flag referendum?

+1 like this alot

Sounds interesting for sure +1

+1 from me too

Initial thoughts: I like this! :)

Gonna have to study in more detail though, pretty heavy post (in a good sense!).

I'd welcome new content, much like in LinkBlade's thread, I do think Dominus deserves an act to himself as opposed to a few short areas leading up to him. Plus his voice actor is great, so it'd be cool to have for that too.

+1... 2 thumbs up!

 Wow, a wall of text that was a joy to read. Someone sure has a great imagination. Too bad you aren't a GGG employee that could influence the senior devs. They (GGG devs) seriously need an infusion of new ideas.

 Right now GGG needs a huge infusion of talent to design and code better boss mechanics and arenas in the end of zone battles. The very lackluster bosses that are requiring us to just tank up or die is taking "fun to play" right out of PoE.

 

though I don't like all of it, most of it I do like. +1 from me.

"

Jaxxxson wrote:

I'd welcome new content, much like in LinkBlade's thread, I do think Dominus deserves an act to himself as opposed to a few short areas leading up to him. Plus his voice actor is great, so it'd be cool to have for that too.

Especially since Dominus 1) feels weird as an Oriathian hanging out in Wraeclast without explanation (something I tried to hone in on) and 2) is so intimately tied to your character. He really does feel like an Act boss... but so does Piety, and inbetween is a small amount of gameplay with very little lore in it, and none directed to Dominus. Dominus needs more building up to or he's just confusing to new players (and when I played for the first time, the whole Dominus arc made no sense to me).