Strange moral messaging...

Sin is his name, it's not the God of Sin.
Reading poe1 campaign dialogue help to understand the story and why he made him daughter killed by the exile.

I hope we'll get to kill Gods and be called Godslayer in poe2 also =)

"

AbyssianOne#1625 wrote:

There's a massive difference between making a poor choice and and knowingly siding with evil in a story where you're supposed to be fighting it.

Who said we were playing a good character? At the beginning of the game, they wanted to hang us FOR SOMETHING, you know?

we do blindly slaughter literally tens of thousands of lives all game. it doesnt exactly have to make sense. although i do think its awful and lazy story writing when half of the big bads just join the cause. we live in a low creativity world, especially when it comes to story telling. good writing died in the 90s

"

Tilt3d#7316 wrote:

we do blindly slaughter literally tens of thousands of lives all game. it doesnt exactly have to make sense. although i do think its awful and lazy story writing when half of the big bads just join the cause. we live in a low creativity world, especially when it comes to story telling. good writing died in the 90s

it never dies, just doesnt get attention.

I am writter, publisher's first ask, 'how many followers you have at instagram?'.

Or I need closed circle connections, if you know what i mean.

Its possible to publish something good without these, but it would be highly coincidental.

People today would rather chase instant dopamine than put in the effort to find value even if its just reading a tiny text box in a game. And iam not even talking about reading...

another angle of this issiue is about money, doesnt require to be explained.

Edit: ill be honest, iam also instant dopamine addict

I strongly dislike Tavakai as an act boss and as a character. His voice lines are really bad and the fight doesn't feel like an act boss. Him surviving feels out of place in this setting as well. Especially sad since the act could've ended at Benedictus who is 10x cooler.

+1
They said PoE1 had a bad story because it was mainly about creating the core game mechanics, but that PoE2 will have a much better story.

Honestly, I don’t think the story is much better. You’ve clearly laid out a bunch of flaws and poor decisions.

Overall, I’d say that it feels like it’s hanging together with some duct tape. We’re going to all these locations but almost none of them stand out as being important. We’re just going through the motions, one area after another.

Where D2 followed the wanderer, always to the east and then into Hell, PoE2 feels like we just tried to get away from the gallow and making our way out of a zombie infested beach, but we could literally stop the campaign at the Clearfell encampment.

We learn about the beast at the end of Act 1, but by that time we’ve also fought the King of Mists, Lachlan, Mr & Mrs Tomb, a bellbird, …. But why? Absolutely no idea.

Lachlan in particular seems nonsensical. Someone else murdered his family, and he’s taking it out on us? He’s a huge monster, but can’t open the gate? Why is the road to the city centre through a single family grave? 🤣

Many people in this thread lack common sense or historical knowledge. And didn't pay attention during the story.

Until recently, slavery has been an essential part of human society for hundreds/thousands of years. It is completely normal to exist and not be condemned in this kind of setting.

It is also expected that a literal god is somewhat distanced from mortal suffering.

Sin himself says that the weapon is radiating corruption. It drove Tavakai mad. He didn't know the weapon would corrupt him and turn his whole clan into bloodcrazed monsters.

We ally with Doriyani out of neccessity. The world/humanity is at stake.

I felt that the story was very interesting up until the end of Act 1.

Even the reveal of Sin at the end of act 2: "I am a God named Sin". Who cares? Why does that matter? You were literally stuck in a tree before I saved you - why should I follow or listen to you? (I'm trying to forget everything I know about PoE1, and consider everything within the context of PoE2)

I've read all the in-game dialogue and lore-text - I understand the story and have context on why/who everything is doing what they're doing, and really, I think what makes Act 1 so impactful is oddly enough the fact that at one point I saw a really good cinematic that clearly established the bad guy and made me interested in the locale and the story.

It made me interested enough to click on the lore bits in act 1, that further establish the situation - a mad tyrant is wreaking havoc to feed his monster with "prisoners" who are arrested for doing "illegal" things (which is anything he says). There is self-interest for putting an end to this guy. On top of it, the monster he feeds emanates corruption which is warping all the local wildlife and reanimating all the corpses, and causing chaos - it needs to be dealt with.

I was always like "we never sign up to deal with this... so why are we dealing with it?" too but I realized that's just kind of implicitly true. You technically can farm Act 1 monsters forever if you want and never go after the beast and never progress the story... The "signing" up is because you, as a player, are just deciding that what you're going to do, implicit in the fact that you are choosing to track down the beast and assemble the weapon when you do things like go to a next act.

Act 2 and onward, the lore bits are still there to read, but there's no interest to read it beyond blind curiosity and it makes the rest of the characters/bosses/stories feel kind of contrived at most points rather than immersive and interesting.

Also the slam poetry session that Geonor has really ties a bow on that fight.

I think inter-act cinematics would be awesome in this game and it would really take the story to a whole other level by making people more interested/aware of it, which makes participating in it with their character feel more immersive and "epic", in the literal sense of the word.

As a side note, I think what would make the Act 2 boss fight feel way more "epic" is if around/outside the arena, instead of wreckage doodads, there was just a bunch of Faridun and Maraketh battling each other alongside our fight against Jamanra, all the war bellows, clashing and action and us being a part of it would really make it feel like the "war against the Faridun" the story sets it up to be.

I think OP is on to something. Keep cooking.

I have my own concerns about the story. I like story and lore. I liked the story in PoE1, but I think the story-writing in PoE2 is not very good.

There's 3 big complaints I have about the story in PoE2:

1) It doesn't take itself seriously, so why should we?
I think 2 scenes from the campaign and 1 scene from Temple league come to mind. Remember when Alva says in act 3, "They think we are hostile! Quick, let's go after them!"? Or when Tujin says, "How could this possibly go wrong", in a 4th wall breaking sarcastic tone? These all tell me that the characters and the writers know that the story is pointless, and just there to get you from area 1 to area 2.

Remember when Alva tells Doriyani, "I want to get my hands on Atziri's big assets!", and then Doriyani is shocked until Alva assures him she means the treasures in the ancient temple. So, is Doriyani also in on the joke of us gooning on Atziri? To me, this is the writers signalling to us that this is how seriously we should take the story.

2) There's no character growth.
Every time I play Path of Exile 1, I look forward to the next act in the campaign, because I can see again how the characters have evolved over time. Like, Kira turning from friend (act 4) an enemy (act 9). I get why. That was her personal calling, her personal devotion to Garukhan. Or, how Gruest goes from "Outsider *spit*" (act 2), to falling in love with a Blackguard escapee, and entrusting the amulet that means so much to him to the ex-Blackguard (act 7).

Or, how you fight Merveil in act 1, and hear how she was betrayed by her fiance, and then meet the fiance in act 5, and wow, he kind of really is a self-centered douchebag. Then even later than that, a woman asks you to steal Merveil's wedding dress for her own wedding, and you think, "don't you know what happens to Merveil?!"

The story in PoE1 builds on top of itself in a way that you want to see what happens next. You could compare the woman you save from the executioner in PoE2's act 1 to Clarissa and Tolmen in PoE1's act 3. Their background is so similar, but the PoE1 pair's story is just so much deeper.

3) Nothing is memorable.
There are lines in PoE1 that I've heard 10 years ago, and it still sticks to me. "It was your love for a man that did this to you, Mervel." "Cruelty and luxury go hand in hand." "God gave this world to man, exile. Not to you, little girl." Like, these things really show how these characters feel. It makes you relate to them or hate them. You remember them. I can't remember anything from the PoE2 campaign. I don't even remember one line from Geonor's slam poetry.

Lastly, I just want to talk about Lady Dalia, from Path of Exile 1. You meet her in act 3 as a quirky lady who helps you because you helped her. Then in act 4, she helps you because she used to be the mistress of the guy you are fighting. He tossed her away, and she understandably feels bitter and vengeful about it. She makes a huge sacrifice for you, and by act 9, you find her remains on a bed. That always kind of puts me to tears. It makes me feel sad for her, because I hope she felt appreciated before she passed away. I hope all people feel appreciated. I hope I feel appreciated. The way PoE1's story and lore emotionally reaches you makes you wonder what the heck happened with PoE2's shallow story writing?

I digress but I d argue that writing has gone down the shitter in the majority of games nowadays. And I doubt it has to do with me growing older in real life. I play modern games, but occasionally revisit old ones too. The difference is striking in the writing department.

At this point, I, non-ironically, would prefer they let some LLM do the writing. I m most certain it d do a better job.