Act 10 as a Grand Finale compared to previous Final Acts

I don't agree with OP on several points of his analysis nor his conclusions but I would also prefer to see final Act to be a brand new content rather than revisited area from earlier acts with some (minor) changes to it.

Act 4 and build up to Malachai can not compare to current final act and Kitava. Early Act 4 was bland and almost boring. Mines and Crystal Veins was not much more interesting either. Belly was ok-ish but rather revolting and monsters were dull. Act 10 has much greater scale from the start in my view. What I missed in Act 10 was stronger henchman protecting Kitava to build up suspense and add gravity to final progress. Some of previous Act bosses or optional enemies were much more impressive then those presented in Act 10.

My suggestion would be to shorten Act 10 and have areas behind Kitava's Horns be a new mini-Act with brand new 2 or 3 maps with new layouts, themes and enemies to face. This would make those final areas more epic and distinct with epic (Kitava fight has its own problems) fight at the end.

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vio escribió:

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

That time limit doesn't have to affect act ten specifically. If they don't have time for everything, they can spread the damage over all the six new acts (granted, they did that as well to a large extent). GGG may not know what they will and will not have time for during early development, but it shouldn't take until they are done with act 9 to see if they are ahead or behind schedule.

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Crystalgate escribió:

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vio escribió:

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

That time limit doesn't have to affect act ten specifically. If they don't have time for everything, they can spread the damage over all the six new acts (granted, they did that as well to a large extent). GGG may not know what they will and will not have time for during early development, but it shouldn't take until they are done with act 9 to see if they are ahead or behind schedule.

it's software :)

There's something you should realize about act 10. It did have its own tileset remix - but it was deployed in act 5. This trickd ur brayne11!

The complaints about an identical layout are perfectly valid, however. It would have been nice to take a different route into the city, or perhaps some of the buildings could have been completely demolished. More ruination would have made things seem more novel.

What bugged me the most about act 10 was Kitava himself. The most evil God you can name right now has one fatal flaw. Kitava is a notorious wallhugger. Even after your heroic character does travel back and forth through the whole world, Kitave is still hanging onto cliffs.

After all of his transformation stages in Act 10, I was expecting his "final Form" to be massive in scale and epic. Instead it was another recycle of old content. For me this is the main reason why the ending was so disappointing.

I do not agree on the mobs. I think act 10 has some of the coolest mobs. Avarius reassembled? Thats hilarious. And i love the bears on sticks and all the other mobs. I just think some of the acts are unfinished which is understandable considering all the stuff they put out at once. Story is good i think they just need to improve the enviroments what they will surely do. I also hope they slow down progression to give the new areas more impact to the overall gameprogression.

When Kitava grabbed Sin and then Purity during the final fight, I expected them him to RIP them or something. Instead it was a pointless little move that did nothing in the end. The entire acts need polish and some rework, but as for now I can throw in my own suggestions for the final fight.

Since Kitava is the Ravenous God and the most powerful of them all, it would be fitting in it's theme to chew on those gods after picking them up. It would make the fight much more dreadful and appropriate for the theme of depravity, desecration and hopelessness. For example, each time Kitava loses half of it's life it grabs Sin and eats him, empowering himself and regaining some of it's health. Purity then loses his shit and tears out Kitava's heart once more, and then later Kitava grabs him too and rips him apart. Maybe after each of these stages Kitava could become more enraged and have accelerated attacks. After that there could be a new way added for the exiles to extract Kitava's heart for the last time, for example when Purity dies it drops some kind of relic that the players can pick up and use to finish off Kitava.

This would make the battle so much more dramatic and intimidating, just how it is when Piety gets impaled or Malachai sacrifices Beast's hearts to boost himself.

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Mahavir escribió:

When Kitava grabbed Sin and then Purity during the final fight, I expected them him to RIP them or something. Instead it was a pointless little move that did nothing in the end. The entire acts need polish and some rework, but as for now I can throw in my own suggestions for the final fight.

Well, the eating and aborbing got old fast in 3.0. Almost every act boss did it in some ways. Brine king with Nessa, Arakali with Silk and one or two more I may have forgotten. Could have been cool though, but I expected something else during the whole Kitava fight.

The background has cool redish-black construct. The whole time I was expecting them to attack me like tentacles or something. From the big bad boss I seriously anticipated new forms he would evolve / enrage into.

At the end the HP was down and the hurt came out again. I thought ... that must be his real body. Expected the heart to transform again into Kitava's final form. A whole screen filling behemoth like you are used to fight in other games.

Sadly this did not happen and boy was I disappoint when the heart was "killed" and the fight was suddenly over. In all seriousness, this did not feel like an achievement, but rather a chore. The Act 5 fight against Avarius/Innocence was way more satisfying and mechanical engaging. The atmosphere and music was levels above too.

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Mahavir escribió:

This would make the battle so much more dramatic and intimidating, just how it is when Piety gets impaled or Malachai sacrifices Beast's hearts to boost himself.

Malachai had a serious build up. Kitava felt flat compared to that. What was so crucial of Piety's death was you had a connection build up to her. She may have been one of the worst characters in the game, but also was the one being your "tour guide" since Act 1 with lots of cameos.

Malachai's hearts had purpose too. Kitava had no real connection to the world as far as we know.

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e1337donkey escribió:

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.

The Marauder is a problem in itself. He constantly remarks his disdain for Kitava and says at the end of act 4 that Malachai's, Kitava's slave, is dead. Then comes Utalla at the beginning of act 5 who already says that he's very fond off Kitava. It doesn't make sense that the Marauder doesn't recognize them and what they are trying to do (even in the beginning of act 5 you see the red crosses from Kitava that are being drawn by the karui).

It doesn't make sense for the Marauder to help Utulla at all.