Development Stories - Creating Synthesis Lore

The only league I was skipping league mechanics.

"

MLGonthorian wrote:

" It's unlikely we'll ever directly integrate the lore as we've seen players request, as Venarius, the Shaper, and the Elder have all been conquered."

Huh...? Shaper and Elder content was amazing with all of the voice acting as well as the boss fight. I don't understand why it has to be treated as just some rare side content now. And with synthesizer especially, you can at least bring back the synthesizer but not have the whole tile building mechanic. The amount of amazing shaper voice lines that there are on each end game map, most of the newer player base will never get to experience this because you can only get these voice lines with shaper scarabs, which are pretty rare still as well as the shaped maps, which are even more rare. Make the drop rate of these maps & the shaper/elder scarabs slightly higher at least so more players can experience these awesome shaper voice lines, shaper influence and shaper guardian or elder guardian boss fights as well as shaper and elder boss fights

The amount of cut scenes, lore, voice acting, and content in general from synthesis was incredible. I really do feel it's a shame to not include it back into the game somehow. Like, yes we have the synthesized maps and the boss fights that come with it, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough. Perhaps there is some good balance you could do where you can still include the lore and story from synthesis back into the core game as well as the synthesizer but take out some of the aspects that players did not like, such as the tile building system. I don't know, just my suggestion and I'm sure others who loved Synthesis League have other ideas on this as well

I was about to make a comment to the effect that

"hey let's admit it every time the shaper said shit at the start of a map, almost every one of us down to a man would think or even say out loud, 'STFU loony old fart'"

And then I realized most of us MISS the old fart.

As one wag on Standard 820 put it, "He may have been Zana's father, but he was OUR DADDY".

Heck, some of us even look back fondly on the addlebrained squeak-toy ruckus of the Elder squigs. Phenomenal cosmic power, rubber ducky jelly bois.

Going into release, Synthesis was shaping up to be one of the best leagues ever made, both before and since. It was a grimy but panoptic window into Wraeclast's lurid past and into the mind of a vessel for limitless evil, one in dire need of an ass-kicking by every exile to wash up on the beach. If you figured out how to milk the memory nexus, you could unlock some amazing shit.

Implementation though sucked balls. I can't think of anything worse than Incursion + randomly having your passages and room progress undone by a timer-driven decay mechanism + not getting any stones to drop in your proto-temple so it ends up a total dead end. Because that's what many Synthesis memory maps wound up being. A giant blue aluminum yardstick across the knuckles.

That part, the strategic enormity of the RNG in fragments and in the bigger mapping, ruined it for a lot of people who normally love the more intricate logic puzzles of leagues such as Betrayal and (yees, even Alva has some fans) Incursion.

I totally blew off the league when it came around and wish I hadn't. If somehow we get a throwback league that incorporates a reworked, fair-deal Synthesis memory map system and some other old-lore properties, a lot of disillusioned older players would likely take notice.

"

Unfortunately, with the evolution of Path of Exile's endgame, much of the lore of Synthesis doesn't fit so well any more. It's unlikely we'll ever directly integrate the lore as we've seen players request, as Venarius, the Shaper, and the Elder have all been conquered.

This is exactly backwards; remnants of memories from one person, accessible by others, are probably the most logical way to flesh out lore about events that happened before our characters were there to see them.

The greatest dialogue piece that has ever been put in the game is when you enter the memory of Venarius threatening to kill Valdo Caeserius. All the details are there, including Zana, who's sitting on the stairs. This is a crucial story that's been in the game for a while at this point, and wasn't expanded on a whole lot. It doesn't proceed to show what happens, but if you paid attention to the shaper memories from Atlas of Worlds, there's a story about how Venarius had four of his elite take Zana to his workshop to force him to expose the purpose of the map device. When he knew what was to come, he took Zana's hand, destroyed the map device and they both seeped into the Atlas, though they had been separated right after.

Going back to the cutscene, Zana says, "You're no stranger to rewriting history... High Templar."

"Was I.. Am I... I am the High Templar, Venarius..."

Those two lines gave me actual shivers, because I had it on the tip of my tongue as to who the guy was but something was throwing me off. Suddenly all of the dialogue I remember hearing back in the Atlas of Worlds expansion came flooding back, and it made me realized how amazing the story was. It's a shame that this won't be put into the game, but I'm currently attempting to piece together a ton of dialogue files so it can be heard, because it's, in my eyes, the greatest story in the game.

And then you killed it.. quite possibly the most intricate and complex league design you had to offer.

I miss synthesis crafting :( bring it back :(

That last sentence was among the saddest things ever written by GGG.

I really liked the cutscene with Venarius, the Shaper and the Elder. It felt like a glue to the plot holes that were in the whole time before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_yKjblVUlg

How i see it Conqueress of the atlass is part of POE 2's story and that they are the POE 1 characters that went insane.

so i see no reason why Synthesis cant be in the game since its part of POE 1 story.

the story is already confusing and there is no indication of time flow in it.

bring back synthesis please it was so much fun, just dropping cortex/bosses as maps is such a mistake when league mechanic is complete and just needed some tweaks