The story is not compelling

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SolusiRadikal#3269 wrote:

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yngwie84#7256 wrote:

if I've understood the story correctly, the hooded one is Tyrael, right?

Yep, and we are currently chasing wannabe Diablo

Why didn’t they just name him Diablo? It’s so confusing. I thought the Beast was some YouTube guy.

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

I was instantly disapointed that our character wasn't going to be fleeing and surviving on a exiles path, but instead was instantly expected to do quests for people he has no reason to care about or cooperate with. its not like they save our characters ass or anything.

I've gotten old and I fucking hate "quests" now The entire idea of them being epic has been watered down to fedex deliveries and hoops to jump through.

yeah i agree



honestly i dont think any arpg has a good story roll out, i dont think any of them suit the actual genre. to me it always feels like im being fed a not very good book and a really good action game at the same time, and the game is the thing ive come for.

i want to get into the story of these games, but the way it happens is the game stops and this tedious half baked story is then info dumped on me via dialogue or worse screen text... i feel an urge to skip through it and get back to playing.

its not harmonious with the gameplay.






its all bullshit anyway, no one thought oh man got this idea for an amazing fantasy story. let me make a d2 style arpg to tell my amazing story. no, that never happens, people want to make a loot hunt game with amazing item and build systems then feel like they have to have a story so they write one to fill the gap.

and that comes through because the stuff they made the game for is awesome and the story is always trash that gets in the way of the gameplay. i want to like it and invest in it but it always gets under my feet, i tell myself yeah ill do a sort of story playthrough... nah, never happens, 2 acts into any arpg "
this is fucking trash and the way its being delivered is so jarring to the gameplay that i hate it as an experience. and then i just start skipping everything.

and that sucks because if i actually knew what i was doing and felt invested in it then it would be a far more engaging experience.






i feel like no dev has understood the format so far. if you listen to house music theres sometimes vocals and they might be just 6 lines in the entire track repeated here and there. thats all they have room for, you can be creative with 6 lines and convey something, but thats it. no ones writing war and peace and awkwardly trying to stuff it into a piece of music thats function is to be danced to in a club. you got 6 lines, make 6 lines work.

this is an arpg, the game is i run around killing stuff. show dont tell, if you have to tell then tell me in small clips as i move from the zone entrance to the first pack of mobs, or as the boss is dying and dropping loot. create a story that fits into those small moments you have, if you cant fit the story you are trying to tell into those moments then its the wrong story for this genre.





poe2 so far is way better than D3 and D4 at least, and probably grim dawn. i think poe has the most interesting world and lore of any arpg. but im still doing stupid quests that just exist to move me from this zone to that zone and standing around feeling frustrated while npcs just waffle.

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SolusiRadikal#3269 wrote:

Yep, and we are currently chasing wannabe Diablo

Not wannabe Diablo. Just aome slimy blob. That always gets away at the last moment like Inspector Gadget!

"I'll get you next time little blob!

I have absolutely no clue what the story is about. I know the Hooded One is a god and he's pretty cool and everything looks cool. I don't care at all for the story in these kind of games.

I really love the environments and bosses.

Story?

1k+ hours into this game here, I killed everything aside from Venarius and uber versions of bosses in PoE 1.

I have no clue who the exiles are, who/what Malachai was, what the beast was, what Kitava was.

The only things I barely know are that the Elder and Shaper do something about maps, kind of like bringing in things from other dimensions, and that Izaro was some sort of king (based on his voice lines).


I have no clue who Balbala is, what she betrayed (she's the traitor, right?), why we're doing trials. I don't know what Doryani was doing (aside from what seems to be human experiments) and what happened that destroyed the Vaal. I only know that the Vaal were people who got destroyed by something magic they meddled with (from the PoE 1 campaign).


For the sake of GGG's efforts, I hope they never actually intended for players to engage in the game's story.
Everything right from the start feels like low-tier generic videogame stuff: you're a special character, you have to go through levels and kill bosses.

I always assumed everything lore-wise in the game just existed so that the characters wouldn't flat out say "You killed this level's boss! Go to the portal to be sent to the next level'

story is bad. Yes. I enjoyed poe1 story much more. It's like going from d2 to d3 disney -_-

Hmm a tricky one. I think the voice acting and dialogues in general are pretty good actually.

Renly is the Warrior's father and if you play anyone else he mentions his son, who you actually saw hanged when you escaped. These are some pretty cool touches, sadly they don't really continue in this vane.

But the game doesn't really have much of a narrative from Act to Act. They feel like separate stories with the only connection being that you are trying to track down the corruption beast. I thought the whole "recreate the horn with tied together bits of other artifacts" seemed a bit random and unconvincing. When you get to the end you go somewhere else and the only character that follows you between Acts is the Hooded One.

The side quests are very weak and don't generally have any narrative or story as such. It's collect X, kill Y or stop the ritual. They start off OK in Act 1 but get worse or nonexistent through Acts 2 & 3.

Diablo 4 gets a lot of criticism for its main storyline mainly because of 1 character. But it has other memorable, well written and well acted characters and moments relating to those characters that leave some lasting impression. Even if you write off the main campaign there are some very well written and memorable side questlines (and yes, a lot of weak ones too). In terms of narrative it's a far better game.

All that said, overall it was a bit disappointing compared to what the cinematic seemed to be promising. But it's not really the main reason most people play an ARPG. So 'a bit disappointing' is not really a problem. Maybe the later Acts will tie things together?

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_rt_#4636 wrote:

For the sake of GGG's efforts, I hope they never actually intended for players to engage in the game's story.
Everything right from the start feels like low-tier generic videogame stuff: you're a special character, you have to go through levels and kill bosses.

I always assumed everything lore-wise in the game just existed so that the characters wouldn't flat out say "You killed this level's boss! Go to the portal to be sent to the next level'

I argue this is a design goal of PoE's writing: they know many players will not care to stop and read so they made sure the story doesn't get in the way for them. They are not disadvantaged in gameplay for not caring about those details. At the same time, for players who do care about narrative, there's something if they do some digging. Those players must express their desire by going away from the optimal speedrunning path to get those details.