Storywise Spoiler, Fall of Oriath (Act 6-10) Ruins the Wraeclast Exile Feel

Act 1-5 feels like a completely different story then Part 2 with the God Power Activation (but thats gameplay).

In part one, you were introduced to your characters on a boat, letting you know you are playing as an exile, an outcast. They were all murderers (except, possibly the Ranger who killed Oriath's version of Cecil the Lion or something like that) and within the story you do favors for Dalia who is married to the very boss you fight. Sabatoge and backstabbing for personal gain is the whole point of Part 1.

Suddenly Act 6 has you rescuing "the fair maiden" archetype and "saving the world from the cult of darkness" literally. The exiles were not all innocent oppressed people in part 1. It was shades of gray with not so innocent oppressed people and not so innocent oppressors (as the very bosses you fight have betrayed each other already with Shavronne sleeping around and manipulating the exile, you, to come and kill the experiments when they don't work to her favor as just one example (although the letter at the end of Brutus boss fight reveals she wanted to turn you into a gem had you failed). This was further demonstrated in Act 5 when there is a rebellion in Oriath as the slaves fought for their freedom and killed the corrupt Gods that betrayed their empire. This may go with the theme "the oppressor fights back" which is popular these days, but it also opened the door to black/white good vs. evil away from the moral ambiguity?

The latest acts are a story on it's own about redemption and compassion, but it just doesn't fit the older Wraeclast Fighting/Brute/Kill-or-Be-Killed feeling. It feels like it fits in a different game. Not going to stop me from playing it, though.

Update: Not going to change anything I previously wrote, but I now realize that a lot of what happens in Acts 6-10 (especially Nessa) is left up to interpretation. Is it possible Nessa betrayed everyone and was using YOU as a sacrifice, or was she an innocent victim of an enchant spell?

I think the characters are even more selfish in Part 2. After helping Utula take over Oriath who keeps it no secret that he wants to summon Kitava, what do you do after failing to deal with another consequence of your actions? You run back to wraeclast which is pretty much your home now. Keep in mind that innocent civilians are being rounded up, having their limbs cut off and thrown into a large trough where they are then eaten, all because of your actions while you are running around Wraeclast looking for some missing girl or amulet for some old pirate just to get rewards. If the characters weren't being selfish they would at least try to deal with Kitava's minions after failing to deal with him. But I guess they don't really care about Oriath anymore after being exiled and just want to kill Kitava so they can get to maps :).

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ThunderBiome wrote:

Act 1-5 feels like a completely different story then Part 2 with the God Power Activation (but thats gameplay).

Indeed. It is totally different.

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ThunderBlome wrote:

In part one, you were introduced to your characters on a boat, letting you know you are playing as an exile, an outcast. They were all murderers (except, possibly the Ranger who killed Oriath's version of Cecil the Lion or something like that) and within the story you do favors for Dalia who is married to the very boss you fight. Sabatoge and backstabbing for personal gain is the whole point of Part 1.

Well, we have a new intro and now we're not in a boat anymore, but in court. And that shows even better that we're criminals (except for the Templar, the Ranger and perhaps the Duelist - although from the PoV of the law they are, you might think differently of them).
As for the favours, sabotage and backstabbing... I'm not sure. Whom exactly do you backstab? Perhaps the people of the Forest Encampment if you help one of the bandits. And it's not only for personal gain, the people in the towns also get something out of it.
As for Dialla and Malachai... meeting Dialla is actually rather impossible... but because of some strange event she has stayed more or less normal unlike the other gemlings and is still alive. We can't assume that Malachai is still alive, so her being Malachais "wife" is actually quite irrelevant.

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ThunderBlome wrote:

Suddenly Act 6 has you rescuing "the fair maiden" archetype and "saving the world from the cult of darkness" literally.

And we've saved Clarissa in Act III and tried to save her "fair maiden" boy Tolman. When we banished the darkness in Act II, we already "saved the world from the cult of darkness" - more so when we killed Piety and Dominus later in Act III and finally Malachai and the beast in Act IV.

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ThunderBlome wrote:

The exiles were not all innocent oppressed people in part 1. It was shades of gray with not so innocent oppressed people and not so innocent oppressors (as the very bosses you fight have betrayed each other already with Shavronne sleeping around and manipulating the exile, you, to come and kill the experiments when they don't work to her favor as just one example (although the letter at the end of Brutus boss fight reveals she wanted to turn you into a gem had you failed).

This is rather inaccurate. Shavronne does not manipulate the exile, I think you're referring to Piety. And she didn't want to turn you into a gem, but a gemling.

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ThunderBlome wrote:

This was further demonstrated in Act 5 when there is a rebellion in Oriath as the slaves fought for their freedom and killed the corrupt Gods that betrayed their empire. This may go with the theme "the oppressor fights back" which is popular these days, but it also opened the door to black/white good vs. evil away from the moral ambiguity?

The slaves did revolt against the Gods, they revolted against their in the flesh oppressors. You then killed or at least severely injured the Oriathan god Innocence, making room for Kitava, which you were told was the good guy now because he had learned from his mistakes in the past (yeah, how likely is that, but anyway). And your godly companion is Sin... we don't really know much about him, but I think there's moral ambiguity in that.

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ThunderBlome wrote:

The latest acts are actually a beautiful story on it's own about redemption and compassion, but it just doesn't fit the older Wraeclast Fighting/Brute/Kill-or-Be-Killed feeling. It feels like it fits in a different game. Not going to stop me from playing it, though.

I don't think they're much different.

In my opinion it works really well, and I was honestly blown away by how they managed to increase the whole scope of the story EVEN MORE and still make it feel really logical all along. There's pretty much no obvious good or bad here - turns out the Beast wasn't the ultimate evil at all, but then, if you didn't kill it, what then? Let Malachai cause another cataclysm?

Part II is indeed mostly fixing our own "mistakes" to an extent, and while we indeed have a whole different status from Part I and are now more of a "tragic hero", it would be pretty hard to actually keep the "hopeless exile" status. How could they pretend you're just one of many after you've killed literal legends and champions like Kaom, Daresso or Malachai?

It actually felt very clumsy to play a character equipped with all 20% quality rare items in Merciless with skills that can explode an entire room in 1 second, and pretend you're once again just a poor exile with no chance against Dominus' minions...

I can't join in with everything above (as much as I like writing walls of text), but just these two things:

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鬼殺し wrote:

Well, we can happily slaughter Oriathan citizens in act 5. This makes pretty clear what the Exile thinks of them...

(And I think that's in-character btw. Totally in-character. With the possible exception of the apostate Templar, whose beef is with the Church, not the populace. Him aside, I think giving zero shits about the citizenry of a corrupt theocracy that made their life a living hell suits an assassin, a glory killer, a witch, a former Karui slave, a poacher and a homicidal 'genius'.)

Nope.
- Witch - maybe, although I can't help thinking it seems like it's no fun to her to just kill innocents, she's having a much better time wrecking big important demons
- Shadow - alright, he didn't have too much morals to begin with, but mass murdering defenceless citizens? That's a bit of a stretch he would willingly do it and gain nothing
- Marauder - come on, the guy keeps talking about honour and ancestors. He obviously has no love for Oriathans, but it makes literally no sense to say he would just enjoy killing them all, when some of them may have been completely innocent.
- Ranger - WHAT? She's all about "protecting innocent life" and "killing only to survive" all along.
- Scion - I don't even. There is literally nothing about her character that would suggest she would willingly slaughter defenceless people. It seems the first time she killed a person was her "husband" to defend from attempted rape. In Wraeclast, she seems to greatly enjoy evolving her skills while helping others. Not entirely selfless hero type for sure, but... come on.

I've had this issue before already, and in my opinion this is a really stupid stretch and should be fixed. Create some kind of special "yellow" status maybe so they can be killed if you specifially click them and it makes sense in your head. But having my chaining skills or golems run after civilians was really annoying and ruined immersion for me.

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But of course it's still just about rewards and loot. Why do we try to save Nessa? Because that's how to get to act 7. Were it an optional quest with no reward, I doubt many people would do it.

IT'S
FUCKING
N E S S A

I'D GO TRY TO SAVE HER EVEN IF I WERE TO SPEND 50 CHAOS JUST TO TAKE THE QUEST

IF YOU WOULDN'T WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS

Yes, but exactly, you kill things. The only human enemies you face in acts 1-4 are cannibals, ruthless bandits and Blackguards. All three cruel to an extent making them worse than most monsters.

You don't kill one defenceless creature in the entire game before that point. And quests like Nessa's medicine chest, opening the path to the forest or saving Tolman would definitely be shrugged off by a character who doesn't care that much without a moment's thought. Well, as players of course we get rewards for doing those, but we assume the character accepts the quests for a reason other than reward (wtf could Lioneye's Watch exiles provide you with as a proper reward? The place barely has doors holding together).

So yeah, I don't think the "you kill thousands of things so killing defenceless citizens is also fine" logic applies here at all. The game has a very clear line that yes, you are not the "good guy" in the classic meaning of the term, but you are clearly not nearly as bad as those you kill. That's why being able to kill them so easily makes no sense.

As for Marauder and Fairgraves, that's not a very good example, as it's clearly suggested that Fairgraves was a slave trader and probably far worse too (his character rings a lot of Christopher Columbus bells). Other than that, he clearly doesn't like Oriathans, but he sounds more sarcastic speaking about them (the line after killing Daresso, lol) than boiling with rage, and his whole stoic persona just doesn't fit someone who willingly slaughters defenceless people at all.

For me it just breaks immersion, as it just doesn't match what you do for the rest of the game at all, and it's something like the only "moral choice" you can actually make now, so at least make it an actual choice. In classic RPG terms, killing defenceless citizens is pure "chaotic evil". No profit, no necessity, questionable reasons at best. Fits basically only the Witch to an extent.

Ummm... She wasn't killed? Unless there's something that I've missed. Hardly a big consolation, but... I guess by GGG story writing standards still about 10 tiers above "killed horribly".

[I don't know how the Shadow became "Assassin" in my previous post.]

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TheLiberation wrote:

Ummm... She wasn't killed? Unless there's something that I've missed. Hardly a big consolation, but... I guess by GGG story writing standards still about 10 tiers above "killed horribly".

Each time you met her, you could see her consciousness was being slowly subsumed, piece by piece, until the final time you meet her - at that point, the being called Nessa is no more, and her defiled husk is but a mere puppet for the Brine King.

I honestly think the whole story after act 4 has a horribly 'tacked on' feeling, including gameplay being pretty much the same afterwards - the gods and the beast are supposed to be polar opposites yet their effect on the land is much the same.
I loved the 'random' feeling of PoE, and would in the past suggest reading the story to people who normally don't care much.
Because the last thing I want to do in a game is 'saving the world'. That's just lame, and saying "well, it's your fault" is really just a cheap insert to provide incentive for the player.
I basically stopped caring. There's great characterization to be had, for sure, but the story just doesn't feel like it was planned this way from the beginning. Most likely because it wasn't.

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ThunderBiome wrote:

Suddenly Act 6 has you rescuing "the fair maiden" archetype and "saving the world from the cult of darkness" literally.

It's more like "Hey you remember when you went and killed something just because someone told you to? Maybe that was a bad idea would you like to clean up your mess?"

You may be right about some characters, Liberation, but the old intro clearly mentioned the Witch kidnapping children. Later on she says things like "A pity! We could have been friends." to the Vaal Oversoul and "I loved your work, Piety. It was you, that I wasn't very fond of." (although on that note, I never quite understood why they did in fact not get along well).

The achievement for the Witch to kill Dominus is called "Usurper". The Witch doesn't actively go around helping people in need. It's either on a whim or to consolidate her power, and all the torture, slavery and human experiments and degradation are just parts of the society she's going to overtake, not things that should be changed or abolished. In line with the end of act 3, provided act 4 and onwards didn't happen, the Witch would have continued to experiment with implanting gems into people, pretty much like Malachai and Piety.

A lot of these things are reasons why I like the Witch, and why I also like the idea of going around to hunt gods to take their powers. Sadly, that last part turned out to be anticlimatic, especially when I learned, that there wouldn't be gods to hunt after act 10 (I guess they wouldn't want gods to be stronger than the big bad Kitava, but it makes even less sense if the stronger bosses are just some arbitrary powerful souls). In any case, killing Kitava felt more like a "I'll just do it before it gets annoying".

I would have loved some more class-specific stories, perhaps something equivalent to the labyrinth except more specialised, which would then also justify the ascendencies far better. The only one to actually be fit for the labyrinth would be - guess who - the Scion, who becomes the actual Ascendant.

The story had to move on I guess.