Act 10 as a Grand Finale compared to previous Final Acts

This is something I originally posted as a response to someone on Reddit when they were discussing their feelings about the later acts, and I figured there are enough valid points in there to post it in a top level thread here where GGG can read it.

I'd like to say that I love the 3.0 expansion as a whole, and I think that overall they've done a really great job, however when I played through the new acts there are some things I noticed during Acts 10 and 8.

"

Act 10 unfortunately has quite a lot of the worst aspects of path of exile put together. Large areas combined with tedious layouts, extremely long range enemies, backtracking, and nearly no interesting new scenery that wasn't in Act 5.
It feels padded out for length, rather than actually trying to be an impressive grand finale to a 10-act story.

Act 9 felt pretty solid, however Act 10 really felt grating because I was expecting something a bit more crazy and out there, the way Belly of the Beast in Act 4 was a pretty big departure from the standard into the Eldritch.

In act 10, we just see a lot of the same old stuff, rather than travelling through a disturbing and crazy final dungeon that culminates in a showdown with a monstrosity of a god.
It really is hard to compare Act 10 and Act 4 together and not see how much more effort appears to have gone into building up Malachai and the areas leading up to him.

As someone who doesn't read the dialogue, you can still tell that shit is getting really serious when you're heading through the end of Act 4. With Act 10, you just sorta go "oh, this area seems like it's named the way the final area would be, and it looks like it's the final room. I guess this is the last map."

This seems pretty negative, but when we take a look at the previous game ending scenarios, we see that all of them have been quite a spectacle regardless of the player's interest level in the story.

Act 2
The lowest one we would look at is Act 2. For quite a while, this was the end of the game and the final encounter. It's an ascent through a pyramid, however it's repeating fairly generic enemies and a tileset that's been done before. This is nothing special, which makes sense given how early in development the game was. Naturally, the bar has been set much higher in recent years.

Act 3
We arrive in sarn after the ascent through the pyramid, a bright and massive place compared to where the exile has been before.

Act 3 ended with Piety. Lunaris temple was a crazy dungeon that really took things to the next level from where Path of Exile was. Rivers of blood, freshly used torture and experimentation devices, piles of bodies stacked high, disturbing and dangerous enemy design. Environmental storytelling going on with the torture devices, mob names and appearances, etc.

The piles of bodies just keep getting bigger and bigger until we eventually find ourselves at the showdown with Piety.

Act 3X
Act 3X ends with Dominus. We have an ascent through the Scepter of God, which while not necessarily the community's favourite dungeon, is a unique tileset with a very cool aesthetic. The main issue players had here was simply the size. Everything else about this dungeon works well in giving you exactly the feeling you should have when heading towards Dominus.

The size of the tower was likely meant to help accommodate the feeling of spectacle, given the type of character Dominus is.

The most dangerous enemies in the final areas are Tentacle Miscreations, grotesque torn apart corpses that have been experimented on and constantly pelt you with crossing projectile streams from their intestine-tenticles.



Act 4
Act 4 is the best finale this game has done.

We arrive in Highgate, a town with a darker tone about it, giving us an idea of what Act 4 will be like. We gain access to Divination cards and Golems.

True to the shift into the fully eldritch, we see ourselves blasting through the side of an abomination and fighting our way through it's insides until we find ourselves in a showdown with three legendary characters. After this, we get another showdown with Piety in a form we've never seen her in before, and a final two-stage battle with Malachai that was like nothing seen in Path of Exile before, and both intensely intimidating and dangerous.

The most dangerous enemies in the final areas are Stygian Revenants, large spider-like creatures. They have powerful projectiles, and corpse detonation.


Act 10
We arrive at some small ruined docks.
There is nothing particularly interesting here, and the level of environmental damage is not noteworthy or visually interesting enough to drive home the destruction that has happened.

From here, we proceed to revisiting areas we have already seen in Act 5, some of which have a bit of new paint on them. We proceed through a set of fairly standard environments containing fairly generic monster types. There is nothing about any of the final areas that really hits home that we are on the journey towards the final boss of the game.

The final area, Feeding Trough, is only obviously the final area because of the name and location on the map. It doesn't hit you the way Lunaris, Scepter, or The Harvest do.

In addition, Act 10 contains mandatory backtracking through a very uninteresting area for very uninteresting reasons. There's no change to the area when you go back through it to justify having to do this.



The most dangerous enemies in the final areas are Heretical Wards.
They're guys in armor who use spectral throw.


All of these aspects: The uninteresting town, the reused tilesets, the uninspired monsters, adds together to just really feel like it doesn't compare to Act 4. GGG was able to do such a good job of creating a truly epic final dungeon and boss with Malachai & The Beast, regardless of how much you knew about the story and lore. It feels like this is missing from Act 10. I'm sure there's some stuff in the dialogue that may give me and others more appreciation and perspective on why things appear the way they do in Act 10, but GGG has already shown us with Act 3, 3X and 4 that they don't need to do this, and can put their themes right in our face with area and boss design while still being extremely effective.

The feeding trough is a cool area and whatnot, but Act 10 feels like it could have started like that and gotten even crazier from there.

This was a very entertaining read, and very well presented. I'd elaborate my thoughts, but you sort of already spoke them here. So I'll just say I agree.

Nice write-up. Alot of points hit true to the mark.

The problem I see with the steady progression over the poe-history is the steady increase of what is at stake.

1st Act:
-kill some crazy mermaid terrorizing a small town
(see Beowulf)


2nd Act:
-defeat a gigantic monster born out of darkness itself
-free the land of the clutches of bandits or be their ally


3rd Act:
-defeat the most evil witch Piety, ruining the lives of uncountable lives in her nightmarish laboratory
-defeat Dominus, high templar and said to be leader of Sarn
(bosses were once unbeatable hard)


4th Act:
-follow the traces to the ringleader Malachai, the ueber-nightmare
-defeat some of the strongest warrior legends that ever lived in a world created by their nature
-enter the stomach of the biggest beast in existance and defeat the big boss at the end while killing it's organs
(bosses were once unbeatable hard + ultra)

-> this can hardly be topped


Well, in the meantime we ...
...kill invaders from other dimensions (Breaches, old Invader-league-monsters).
...fight off other rogue exiles or wild warbands
...gather coins for the servant of the God of Greed by killing golden monsters (Cadiro Peradus)
...solve the mystery about the big bad Wulfen, Rightwald and his Talisman circles
...chase back the Vaal, who are always threatening to ruin the day of every exile

________________ so far pre 3.0 - now the epilogue _________________


Act 5
-punish the out of control "inquisition" and their masters one by one
-help the resistance until half of them betrays you
-the most evil god of them all has to be defeated, but no mortal can do this so far
(great build up, worthy of a movie, but pathing through the act is so random)


Act 6
-recap of Act 1, only exception is the boss is a giant evil crab god this time
-recycled content where even parts of Act 2 are used
-horrible pacing and to many scenary changes
-killing one of the 3 you had to kill to get to the Beast/Malachai, this time with upgrades (1)
(at the end you hate the boss for the wrong reasons!)


Act 7
-recap of Act 2, but this time everyone you knew there is going insane
-wild goose hunt with lots of backtracking
-killing one of the 3 you had to kill to get to the Beast/Malachai, this time with upgrades (2)
-Boss is nasty oversized spider with laserwebs and much pew pew
(not much of story behind, just happends suddenly, feels so pushed into the story)


Act 8
-killing one of the 3 you had to kill to get to the Beast/Malachai, this time with upgrades (3)
-defeat the avatar of the gods sun/moon fighting each other over who is the one to rule
(very good idea, but way to short - could be a whole expansion on its own)


Act 9
-total Act 4 recap (!)
-revive the beast just to kill it again (doh!)
-kill the 3 guys from act 4 you killed in act 6,7 and 8 again, now for the 3rd and final time (this time combined - power rangers music)


Act 10
-this time recap of Act 5 (feels like back to the future!)
-kill the super evil god this time for sure (?)
-same fight as in act 5, just with slight upgrades and help from gods you "befriended"
(ending just feels underwhelming for all you did so far)

______________
Aren't Shaper and Kitava some of the strongest beings in Poe history? Why does killing them have so little consequence?

One thing I think would help Act 10 quite a bit would just be a fresh coat of paint.
Making the areas visually different and presenting them in a way that truly presents Kitava's power would be fantastic. They have these moments where the camera pans out, but there is never really a "holy fucking shit" moment done with that the way you would expect.

My expectations about new acts were about this size :
|--------|

One thing that really feels too cheap is usage of previously know map tilesets (Ramparts etc.)
I know, I know, I just... my expectations were too high still.

Act 9-10 feels rushed and the motivations are all but clear. I am not to ramble about the scenery, the story itself feels like someone was standing behind the writer and bashing him with Marohi Erqui.

To sum up my feeling : WE (the Exile) are the most efficient killer of all times and that is about it. I was hoping we would somehow get some hints about WHAT / WHO we really are, a body and mind so strong to bring down Gods and legends alike.

With GGG creating six acts this quickly, there was never a chance for the new acts to match the old ones. Still, there's no reason for act ten to be worse than the other five new acts.

Was a nice read, I have to agree with what you said. I would also like to add 2 things that kind of irked me...

1. Both Neesa in Act 6 and Silk in Act 7 essentially have very similar story lines. Where you search for them then they feed you to the monster. Now as characters they may not be in control anymore but it was very similar stories back to back.

2. After you defeat kitava, this god like being who has brought about destruction in oriath... you end up in the town square and it looks like nothing happened. A few broken wooden beams and a wagon but its business as usual.

3. Your character says nothing the entire time. Anyone who has played Marauder knows he talks about the gods and Kitava like every other line of dialogue. But through out these new acts, not a single word was spoken. Takes me out of the game and when I got to act 8.. I just wanted to start mapping.

4. Bannon... Was I supposed to care about this guy? At least I kept humming the Returners theme from ff6 everytime he was involved.

I get that this was a lot of work, but this feels like an expansion that wasn't finished.

"

Crystalgate escribió:

With GGG creating six acts this quickly, there was never a chance for the new acts to match the old ones. Still, there's no reason for act ten to be worse than the other five new acts.

yes, there is a reason: time.
designers can only design so much on a working day.

when they announced 6 new acts instead the expected one or two i must say i feared they rushed it more than they actually did.

the good thing: there is plenty of possibilities to flesh out the two acts which weren't even finished when they started the public testing. designers gonna keep designing ;-)