Development Stories: Timelines & Retcons

What an exceptional discourse on why narrative design constrained by the necessary regular reboot of the seasonal model is rarely satisfying. Reads almost like a heavy-handed justification for a soap opera's convolutions. I do not envy the writers of this game one bit.

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Let me know in the replies if you think this method of preserving the storyline works for you

Eh, it's better than having the entire War for the Atlas storyline retgone, or worse, massive Character Derailment like with Batrayal (the Adriation of Catarina is *still* hard to swallow), but it still feels forced and unnatural. War for the Atlas as POE endgame and Conquerors as POE 2 endgame would make a lot more sense. Thougonestly, I just find the whole Conquerors storyline and especially Sirus much less compelling.

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what league storylines you want to see continued in Path of Exile 2, and what you think might happen next...

I want to see Tsoatha with Lily :D

I'm also curious what happened with the rest of the Karui gods; whether they turn out to be relatively benign aside from Tukohama or whether they did or will wind up having to be defeated as well.

I know making cinematics is expensive. So im not asking for them. But would be really cool to have some semi-animated images with some talk about what just happened or whats about to happen after each Act/some big event or so (some in direction of Witcher 3 mini cutscenes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXHMNGPXaVg).

This would be cool way to show us civilizations and how they look like so we can better understand.
Even when i watch some recap story (thanks to Kitten Cat Noodle for her amazing story recap) i still have hard time to visualy imagine what she is talking about.

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Cygnus_Hresvelg wrote:

"the last time we see Zana, she is heartbroken and alone after the necessary deaths of her father and every single one of her former friends. We can’t leave things like that!"

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Cannot wait for Zana boss fight.
No more exiles would be trapped in the Atlas.

I think that before you go messing around the endgame, you should fix the 2nd half of the story mode first.

I have been waiting for years to see what is the reaction of the Templar murdering his own god, Innocence, and his reaction to having to work with the satan analog of his religion. Or the Marauder and Tukohama. Or his reaction to seeing his fellow Karui in slavery in the slave pens. Ranger and the perversion of nature in the western and northern forests. Etc etc.

Even if you cannot get the voice actors back, just plain text would work as placeholders. That's all we had for a long time during the beta phase anyway. After all, it's not like you are a huge company with millions in budget and we understand that. As it is, the 2nd half still feels incomplete.

As for the league stories, I would like to see past league referenced or some kind of log detailing the past. I don't have much time to play and often many of the stories are missed. For example, I have never finished the Elder/Shaper storyline, as I simply don't have the time to get powerful enough to kill them, given the 6 portal limits. Haven't killed Sirus yet either, with the huge amount of conqueror kills required just to spawn the guy. I highly doubt I'll ever do so before the next update, so for people like me, some kind of story log would be nice.

Synthesis has a huge amount of story content that I missed too. If I am not mistaken, Cavas and Zana have different content for the memories too, so most of that, I wasn't able to see.

TL:DR, Fix the character reactions to the 2nd half of the story mode, and some kind of log for past story content would be appricated.

I really like the way the previous storyline was integrated as canon. Pushing the story forward with new a 'day zero' each time a major thing happens or changes would be something that I'd like.

I'm all for expanding rather than replacing, it makes for a much more interesting story.

Initially, I thought that Conquerors could be the exiles we play in POE1 and we still have to beat the Shaper and The Elder during POE1. And in POE2 endgame, we would meet a 20 years older Zana who sealed these old Exiles (the Elderslayers) in the Atlas and we should have to beat them instead of the Elder (already beat by them 20 years ago). This way, we could still incarnate the exiles who fought the Elder. Yes, we still have the boss fight in the current Atlas system, but we are no longer part of the Shaper/Elder story with Zana. I feel like some impostors have taken my place and stole me the victory against the Elder.

Unfortunately, I don’t see how it could work with an endgame shared between POE1 and 2. How to make these 2 Atlas systems (War for the Atlas and Conquerors of the Atlas) coexist in one? Maybe GGG should find a way, because having two different campaigns separated by a gap of 20 years which lead to a same state at the end (same Atlas system = same antagonist) seems weird. And what about the current masters, should they still be there 20 years later with the same goals?

Otherwise, some random ideas :

The Elder find a way to escape his prison, and maybe the Atlas. The fall of Sirus could be the triggering event. Or you could make it in a JJ Abrams lazy way : “Somehow, The Elder has returned…” :^)

Something with Venarius. This old fart is still somewhere luring in the Atlas. I loved all the lore around Synthesis and how this has been integrated into the existing history. This and Kamil’s OST, it was a masterpiece.

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Shinteo wrote:

I have been waiting for years to see what is the reaction of the Templar murdering his own god, Innocence, and his reaction to having to work with the satan analog of his religion. Or the Marauder and Tukohama. Or his reaction to seeing his fellow Karui in slavery in the slave pens. Ranger and the perversion of nature in the western and northern forests. Etc etc.

I guess we have to wait for PoE 2 for that, the voice actor issue is the main problem.

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I highly doubt I'll ever do so before the next update, so for people like me, some kind of story log would be nice.

There is story compilation on reddit, I recommend to just read it in this case.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-mkVnLTT14xKfvD4dvffuJpeal6usv-C/view

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Synthesis has a huge amount of story content that I missed too. If I am not mistaken, Cavas and Zana have different content for the memories too, so most of that, I wasn't able to see.

Synthesis lore was great, I love Cortex fight because of that.
Ideally you could choose between Zana and Cavas and have different storylines (since, as we see, Zana isn't that good and easily uses Cavas' methods to the Conquerors for "greater good"), but I guess that's too much of resources required for a single league.

I like the idea of restarts and canonizing old content. Current atlas still needs some work though.

Killing conquerors more than once just feels strange and is rather annoying in the long run. I understand the idea behind it, casual players get to experience the fights and learn the mechanics as the conquerors gradually get stronger.

Its just too many repeats for me and chasing watchstones takes absurd amount of time together with atlas completion. 4 repests would be enough. Make them drop 2 watchstones and maybe it would make the fights feel more rewarding as well.

I don't have the problems with storytelling in PoE, I like it... but voice lines of Alva in temple and Cassia in maps so missplaced and annoynig. You can better!

I'm in waiting storylines expansions in corresponded leagues 2.0