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Eternity PoE Story Discussion Thread (spoilers abound!)

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
I wanted to create a separate thread to discuss and analyze the overall story arc in Pillars of Eternity. Spoiler tags will not be necessary based on thread title so read at your own risk.

I just finished the PoE 1 base game but honestly the gameplay was so awful that I have no interest in continuing to play this series. However I thought the story of PoE 1, while seriously flawed in its presentation, had some potential.

Mainly I am interested in seeing how the narrative has developed in WM and DF and what you guys think of it.
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
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Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
The first issue I found with the main story in PoE 1 is that the game really doesn't give the Watcher a strong personal incentive to pursue Thaos.

Obviously we see via Maerwald that Watchers bear a risk of going insane, but is it not true that multiple people tell you that Thaos probably can't help you? And even if he could he is a cold-hearted killer and has no reason to help you anyway?

It's just not clear why the Watcher is so invested in finding Thaos, and apart from having a few visions the Watcher seems to not really be affected by the Awakening that much anyway.
 

Zanzoken

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Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
It's also not clear to me why the rest of the gods are interested in helping the Watcher defeat Thaos. The whole point of Thaos' work is to preserve the gods' secret!

Now I know it is established that Thaos primarily works for Woedica, and the other gods are worried about Woedica becoming too powerful. But given that they have already deposed Woedica once (is it ever explained how this is achieved?) it seems like supporting the Watcher is a bigger risk than supporting Thaos. The gods know Thaos will do whatever it takes to support their secret, but with Thaos out of the way the Watcher could easily go the route of the Apostate and expose the truth. And the gods don't even have any assurance that the Watcher will not help Woedica anyway (I know this is an option in the game, but I didn't go that route).

Overall this seems like a big gap in reasoning that to me makes the gods look like idiots.
 

Jokzore

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
Messages
623
Playing PoE for the story is the closest you'll get to playing a video game adaptation of Where's Waldo.

I'm sure that somewhere in there, buried deep in a cacophony of descriptors and tedious background lore details, there is a story hidden. However finding it requires time and patience I'm not willing to commit.
 

lophiaspis

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
379
It's shit.

But seriously. Fenstermaker said that the way they decided on POE's world and story was that they ran out of time and had to settle for 'good enough'. Sawyer admitted that POE2's main plot was just a random ass brainstorming idea that nobody except him particularly liked.

What more evidence do you need that the people behind this series just plain suck at storytelling? They're creatively bankrupt mediocrities. Why would you even consider taking this complete ass-pull of a fantasy heartbreaker seriously?

I mean, don't these guys play D&D? You'd think they would have a homebrew setting ready to go, a rich world with years of play. That's what I assumed when I backed the Kickstarter. That when they finally got the chance to make absolutely anything they want, they would be chomping at the bit with a great setting, great storyline and great characters ready to go. It should be like a really awesome PnP game, right?

But no. POE is like playing with a bad, lame, first-time GM, who didn't even bother to prepare for the session, who is making everything up as he goes, poorly, and who manages to be really boring and really pretentious at the same time.

It's like these people are so creatively dead they don't even think about settings and stories other than the established IPs they are currently being paid to work on. How else can you explain that they literally had to pull the whole thing out of their ass during and after the Kickstarter?

Aren't these guys supposed to be professional writers and worldbuilders? Aren't they supposed to love making RPGs? Well then why does POE suck so bad?? I'm still pissed off at how shit it is! :argh:

:negative:
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
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Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
Right before the Council of Stars, you meet two forest spirits (or whatever) that ask exactly why the protagonist is hounding Thaos. I can't find the screenshot, but each optional response is a good argument on its own and in total they cover enough player motivations that the hunt makes sense.
It would obviously make more sense to put the conversation at the beginning of the game when the player is starting to form such motivations (or looking for a reason to care).

That's a good point that I think raises a couple of other issues with the narrative. It seems like Act 1 and Act 2 offer very little development in the story -- you don't learn much more than the bad guy's name is Thaos, and he is up to something with animancy -- and then Act 3 hits and the plot kicks into overdrive. You get hit with a lot of important information in a very short amount of time and it's hard to process it all. So the story itself may not be bad, but the presentation was.

I personally didn't like the conversations where you have to choose your own character's motivation. I think on paper that sounds like a good thing but again, the lack of a narrative hook between the Watcher and the other main characters (i.e. Thaos, Iovara, Lady Webb, the gods) made me feel like I was just making up head canon so I could have a reason to keep going.
 

Jokzore

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Mar 18, 2017
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Aren't these guys supposed to be professional writers and worldbuilders?

If someone markets themselves as a professional ''worldbuilder'' that's a sure sign they're a garbage writer. Those are the people who can't tell stories yet still want to be writers. Those are the people without a shred of originality or talent in them who's entire career is derived from writing LOTR fanfiction.

This is why every fantasy world feels exactly the same as the one you just left. This is why every companion/NPC/villain feels like someone you've already met. Honestly, how long after meeting them does it take you to figure out everyones motivations, personalities and exactly how their story will develop?

Yet these absolute hacks still get jobs because at some point ''lots of words'' was equated with ''good writing''.

EDIT: Ironically enough, the best worldbuilding in recent memory was done in a game with minimal writing-- Dark Souls.
 
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Zanzoken

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Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
Infinitron can this please be moved to the Obsidian subforum

I was on that forum when I made the thread so not sure why it posted in General RPG
 

Major_Blackhart

Codexia Lord Sodom
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Jersey for now
Gotta agree. Not a lot of pull in the story for me. The main story for me in PoE1 was more of a 'I did all the sidequests available now I'm ready to complete the game' type of moment.
 

KK1001

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Joined
Mar 30, 2015
Messages
621
The player's motivation for chasing Thaos is that he...gave you cool ass soul-reading powers? On accident?

Like, sure, the game tells you you'll go insane - though the player knows they won't - and later we learn that he's killed tons of people to keep a lie a secret, and he was mean to your past self. But we don't give a shit about those things, except abstractly and in theory, which isn't enough to make you give a shit.

The real reason to dislike Thaos is that he and his other fuckboys or whatever looked out and saw that religious wars were ravaging the land, so they decided to actually create some gods, and yet the world is still ravaged by conflict of other sorts, including religious wars by the now Very Real gods. But this is all lore or flashback dumped and not meaningfully integrated into the gameplay and narrative.
 

Dwarvophile

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Dec 1, 2015
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But this is all lore or flashback dumped and not meaningfully integrated into the gameplay and narrative.

LIke so many things thrown into this story to make it look more special and "adult", but in the end, having little to no consequence on the big picture.

The first issue I found with the main story in PoE 1 is that the game really doesn't give the Watcher a strong personal incentive to pursue Thaos.

Obviously we see via Maerwald that Watchers bear a risk of going insane, but is it not true that multiple people tell you that Thaos probably can't help you? And even if he could he is a cold-hearted killer and has no reason to help you anyway?

It's just not clear why the Watcher is so invested in finding Thaos, and apart from having a few visions the Watcher seems to not really be affected by the Awakening that much anyway.

I'm not sure if it's that my english isn't fluent or if the writing in PoE is too obsfucated but even if its story is interesting I found its build up terrible. And so is the exposition of its main villain and plot. Thanksfully the art helped a great deal to make Eora engaging and believable.

About the watcher's drive in finding Thaos, there also is the Iovara story arc which was slowly raised to concern. But yes, in the beginning, I didn't see much motivation to engage in this hunt.

I agree "getting insane" aspect could have been given much more fleshed out. Outside of the dreams you have when you rest it's not clear that the watcher loose his mind. There's no influence on your attributes/skills for exemple. No repercussions on, the gameplay.

Might sound crazy, but personally I would have loved some real effects to show that the PC is getting crazy. Like buffs and debuffs. (I'd love to see competitive players and min-maxers face when they read this). Or making PC loose control during fights or other critical moments. The more you use your watcher's powers the quicker you get crazy. Or nightmares having hazardous consequences, hence making the use of resting/camping more of a dilemna. This would have brought higher stakes to a gameplay that I have found mostly tedious.

it's a pity that the watcher's condition wasn't used more as a double edged sword : like the One ring, or Elric of Menilbone's sword Stormbringer, or Dorian Gray's mirror. Could have bring some fun in the game.

I guess this is why I still enjoy Planescape Torment so much : because the plot's main element is actually a core of the gameplay.
 
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Whiny-Butthurt-Liberal

Guest
The story and setting is all breadth and no depth. Contemplating it feels exactly like standing in a body of ankle-high water. Why does the protagonist Chase after the antagonist? Coz though must. What are the gods? Ancient constructs. Who made them? Ancient technological civilization. Why does Crystal Magic Jesus leave a trail of destruction? He wants to make humans "free" by destroying the wheel of reincarnation.

No mystery, no depth, nothing of interest. Creative sterility at it's worst, and a direct consequence of atheistardation.
 

Teut Busnet

Cipher
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Codex Year of the Donut
No mystery, no depth, nothing of interest

That would make a nice subheadline for PoE I.

It's all so terribly mundane: 'Gods' constantly meddling with affairs of 'Mortals', 'Mortals' killing 'Gods', reincarnation is well known and people can find the new incarnation and talk to them, giant machines collecting souls, if someone really needs to talk to the 'Gods' they have a phone booth in a tree guided by two nymphs, etc. .

I'll never get why so many rpg players despise subtlety and always need a 'totally EPIC, world changing plot', but I think Obsidian could have gotten away with something smaller, more clever. Maybe they wanted to play it safe (or couldn't do any better).
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
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Dec 16, 2014
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Has anyone played through PoE 2? I'm curious if they fleshed anything out from the first game or retconned any of the issues.
 

2house2fly

Magister
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Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
The first issue I found with the main story in PoE 1 is that the game really doesn't give the Watcher a strong personal incentive to pursue Thaos.

Obviously we see via Maerwald that Watchers bear a risk of going insane, but is it not true that multiple people tell you that Thaos probably can't help you? And even if he could he is a cold-hearted killer and has no reason to help you anyway?

It's just not clear why the Watcher is so invested in finding Thaos, and apart from having a few visions the Watcher seems to not really be affected by the Awakening that much anyway.
This is partly because the player character's motivation progresses. At the start you're alone in a strange land and your only motivation is to get to Gilded Vale because it's the only place you know. Once you learn that an Awakened Watcher inevitably loses their mind, it's not unreasonable to conclude that the people who caused it with a ritual involving weird technology may be able to undo it. At the end of the game, Iovara tells you you may be able to undo the Awakening by achieving closure for the Awakened soul, and since Thaos is the person who would need to provide that closure, that's the impetus for the final confrontation.

It's also not clear to me why the rest of the gods are interested in helping the Watcher defeat Thaos. The whole point of Thaos' work is to preserve the gods' secret!

Now I know it is established that Thaos primarily works for Woedica, and the other gods are worried about Woedica becoming too powerful. But given that they have already deposed Woedica once (is it ever explained how this is achieved?) it seems like supporting the Watcher is a bigger risk than supporting Thaos. The gods know Thaos will do whatever it takes to support their secret, but with Thaos out of the way the Watcher could easily go the route of the Apostate and expose the truth. And the gods don't even have any assurance that the Watcher will not help Woedica anyway (I know this is an option in the game, but I didn't go that route).

Overall this seems like a big gap in reasoning that to me makes the gods look like idiots.
It's been a while since I went through the discussions with the gods so I don't quite recall specifics, but none of them want Woedica back in charge. A few of them offer reasons- Galawain, for example, believes that too much authority stifles natural growth and accumulation of strength- but in general the impression I remember getting is that they're sympathetic to mortals and don't want them crushed under her oppressive rule. As for why they take the risk of you spreading the truth well, without any evidence you'd just be a ranting lunatic.

That's a good point that I think raises a couple of other issues with the narrative. It seems like Act 1 and Act 2 offer very little development in the story -- you don't learn much more than the bad guy's name is Thaos, and he is up to something with animancy -- and then Act 3 hits and the plot kicks into overdrive. You get hit with a lot of important information in a very short amount of time and it's hard to process it all. So the story itself may not be bad, but the presentation was.

I personally didn't like the conversations where you have to choose your own character's motivation. I think on paper that sounds like a good thing but again, the lack of a narrative hook between the Watcher and the other main characters (i.e. Thaos, Iovara, Lady Webb, the gods) made me feel like I was just making up head canon so I could have a reason to keep going.
The first point here isn't correct. By the end of act 2 you learn that Thaos is the quasi-immortal grandmaster of the Leaden Key, a secret society of Woedica worshippers, who caused the Hollowborn Plague using ancient Engwithan machines in order to suppress the science of animancy, and the Awakened soul within you was one of his minions centuries ago. All you really learn in act 3/4 is that the Hollowborn Plague is actually a byproduct of his plan to funnel soul essence to Woedica, that the reason behind the whole thing is to protect the secret that the gods were made by people, and that the Awakened soul within you was haunted in life by not knowing whether the gods were real.

The player's motivation for chasing Thaos is that he...gave you cool ass soul-reading powers? On accident?

Like, sure, the game tells you you'll go insane - though the player knows they won't - and later we learn that he's killed tons of people to keep a lie a secret, and he was mean to your past self. But we don't give a shit about those things, except abstractly and in theory, which isn't enough to make you give a shit.

The real reason to dislike Thaos is that he and his other fuckboys or whatever looked out and saw that religious wars were ravaging the land, so they decided to actually create some gods, and yet the world is still ravaged by conflict of other sorts, including religious wars by the now Very Real gods. But this is all lore or flashback dumped and not meaningfully integrated into the gameplay and narrative.
Chasing Thaos isn't really related to being a Watcher, it's related to being Awakened. As far as the player knowing their character won't go mad, there are very few genre stories I can think of that can't have "you know the threatened calamity won't actually come to pass" applied to them.
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
Has anyone played through PoE 2? I'm curious if they fleshed anything out from the first game or retconned any of the issues.
They certainly addressed criticisms of the plot hook. In the opening minutes of the game it's established that:

A) your castle was destroyed and all the people for miles around killed by the god Eothas, who left you for dead;

B) Eothas now has a chunk of your soul within him, and if you're too far away from him the soul you have left will weaken and you'll die;

C) the gods themselves want you to follow Eothas and find out what he's up to.

They basically made it so there's no possible way your character would not want to follow Eothas, unless you specifically play a character who wants to die and be at the uncertain mercy of the gods. And even then, they give you an option to refuse your mission, complete with an alternate ending where your soul passes and is reincarnated as an animal.
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
I know it is established that Thaos primarily works for Woedica, and the other gods are worried about Woedica becoming too powerful. But given that they have already deposed Woedica once (is it ever explained how this is achieved?)

It's part of her made up backstory. In PoE2, Eothas (I think) even comments on it.
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
It's shit.

But seriously. Fenstermaker said that the way they decided on POE's world and story was that they ran out of time and had to settle for 'good enough'. Sawyer admitted that POE2's main plot was just a random ass brainstorming idea that nobody except him particularly liked.

What more evidence do you need that the people behind this series just plain suck at storytelling? They're creatively bankrupt mediocrities. Why would you even consider taking this complete ass-pull of a fantasy heartbreaker seriously?

I mean, don't these guys play D&D? You'd think they would have a homebrew setting ready to go, a rich world with years of play. That's what I assumed when I backed the Kickstarter. That when they finally got the chance to make absolutely anything they want, they would be chomping at the bit with a great setting, great storyline and great characters ready to go. It should be like a really awesome PnP game, right?

But no. POE is like playing with a bad, lame, first-time GM, who didn't even bother to prepare for the session, who is making everything up as he goes, poorly, and who manages to be really boring and really pretentious at the same time.

It's like these people are so creatively dead they don't even think about settings and stories other than the established IPs they are currently being paid to work on. How else can you explain that they literally had to pull the whole thing out of their ass during and after the Kickstarter?

Aren't these guys supposed to be professional writers and worldbuilders? Aren't they supposed to love making RPGs? Well then why does POE suck so bad?? I'm still pissed off at how shit it is! :argh:

:negative:

No, they're not lame storytellers, I guess the story wasn't the main focus (as it isn't in IE games). Building a coherent world from scrap takes time as well as talent. With IE games, they had the FR backdrop and the devs' D&D campaigns. Seems like people at Obsidian have been leaving roleplaying sessions aside, eh?

Then again, on what did they spend the 4 mellions? The combat is not on par with IE games, so it isn't the game's strong suit (plus that hilarious difficulty). What's the strong suit?

I guess the problem lies in the difficulty involved in releasing the game. Let's face it, now after all's said and done you don't expect that a game that came out of Kickstarter is groundbreaking. If it was an AAA or even AA with money and a publisher behind, they could have made a better schedule for creating the game, and could have done something non-generic.

Anyway, I think that Obsidian is satisfied with the sales, and want to keep it generic on purpose. At least this way it sells, a bit. Better not take too much risks, eh?

It's really sad that with today's resources, they can't really make bettter than really old games. Sigh. The same happened with Heroes of Might and Magic.
 

Alkarl

Learned
Joined
Oct 9, 2016
Messages
472
Decided to replay this to investigate the story quality on my own. I don't really consider myself a critic, but my first outing with this game left a bad taste in my mouth.

Mode: PoTD/Expert
Race: Wood Elf
Class: Rogue
From: Deadfire Archipeligo +1 Dex
Background: Raider +1 Stealth/Athletics
Stats:
Mig 14
Con 12
Dex 16
Per 14
Int 10
Res 12

I'm not very far in yet, just past character creation honestly, but I already have a few things to say.

First thing is first. The game looks gorgeous for what it is. The character models are a bit rough, but this saves from having overly derpy character animations etc I guess. The backgrounds and art are all quite nice.

The character creator is as full of fluff as I remember. I took the time to read some of the characterizing details of the races and a few of the little wiki pop-ups. They really made an effort to describe the various places and races. Already noticed some allegory: Aedyr = Rome, Dyrwood = Celtic/Barbarian Europe, Deadfire = Mediterranean region. I could be off on these of course.

It's a bit off-putting to receive stat points when choosing your region of origin. But I guess if you're min-maxing, you don't really care what stereotype you have to choose. I still welcome the extra stat-points, but saying that every race from a particular region is likely to have +1 whatever is a bit shallow when compared to all the detail they've put into characterizing these places.

After that, you're dumped into the prologue where you're venturing to Dyrwood, where they happen to be handing out free land to immigrants (which sounds like a terrible policy, imo)

Anyway, the caravan has to stop because the MC is starting to look ill, which may be in relation to a bug bite. You're pared up with an npc and sent to fetch barries and water.

The berries, if eaten, may cause stomach discomfort up to and including diarrhea. But if you brew them into a tea, they will "clean calm out your innards". I'm sorry, am I missing something? Aren't those the same thing? The caravan master also mentions if you go 24 hours w/o water you will die.

I mention this because a common meme is that the game starts with you HAVING diarrhea, but this isn't accurate, the caravan stops so that you can go and ACQUIRE diarrhea. Also, trying to get diarrhea when you've been told you may die of dehydration within 24 hours- this is a perfect example of a piece of writing working against itself. Diarrhea can be extremely dehydrating. Who starts a story like this?! Wtf Obsidian? :lol:

More Lore: Apparently Dyrwood recently won it's independence from Aedyr. You can learn this from chatting up the merchant who is from Aedyr.
According to the character creation, Aedyr is ruled by 7 "ducs" while Dyrwood is apparently ruled by 1 "duc" and a council of "erls". My best guess is this was a cultural or economic revolution, because both of those systems look the same on the outside to me.

EDIT: for accuracy, thanks 2house2fly (all edits have been crossed out, I'm not one to hide my ignorance ;) )
Further EDIT: Also fixed stats, Per was off by one. This is what you get for not taking thorough notes.
 
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Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
In fairness doesn't the caravan stop because a fallen tree is blocking the road? The protag's illness is a secondary concern and really just a McGuffin to get you away from camp so they can set up the bandit raid.

I could be misremembering though. It's pretty easy to miss things when the story is being delivered in overwritten walls of text.
 

Teut Busnet

Cipher
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Joined
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Messages
961
Codex Year of the Donut
No, they're not lame storytellers, I guess the story wasn't the main focus (as it isn't in IE games). Building a coherent world from scrap takes time as well as talent. With IE games, they had the FR backdrop and the devs' D&D campaigns. Seems like people at Obsidian have been leaving roleplaying sessions aside, eh?

Then again, on what did they spend the 4 mellions? The combat is not on par with IE games, so it isn't the game's strong suit (plus that hilarious difficulty). What's the strong suit?

I guess the problem lies in the difficulty involved in releasing the game. Let's face it, now after all's said and done you don't expect that a game that came out of Kickstarter is groundbreaking. If it was an AAA or even AA with money and a publisher behind, they could have made a better schedule for creating the game, and could have done something non-generic.

Anyway, I think that Obsidian is satisfied with the sales, and want to keep it generic on purpose. At least this way it sells, a bit. Better not take too much risks, eh?

It's really sad that with today's resources, they can't really make bettter than really old games. Sigh. The same happened with Heroes of Might and Magic.


I mostly agree, but if they wanted to 'keep it generic', couldn't they have made it at least easier to memorize? More showing, less telling?

I lost track very soon with all the Lore they throw at you, didn't know what was the world, what a continent, what a region, what only a town. Who are the different nations and what races are living there?

I don't want to be edgy Codex guy, but if they kept some nations or regions only for one race it would have helped. There is the archipelago of the Avatar people and Snowelves and Snowdwarves on some big northern island iirc, but you don't visit those places.

If they kept the Glanfanthen(?) tribes exclusively Orlan for example, it would have added a lot of character and a new experience to the game at a point were many players lost interest. (They could also be the ones suffering from slave traders who apparently catch Orlans, even if they're free members of all the societies you get to know.)
 

Alkarl

Learned
Joined
Oct 9, 2016
Messages
472
In fairness doesn't the caravan stop because a fallen tree is blocking the road? The protag's illness is a secondary concern and really just a McGuffin to get you away from camp so they can set up the bandit raid.

You actually have it backwards. They were about to plow into the fallen trees before the caravan master called them to halt due to your illness. So the path being blocked is actually the secondary concern. Color me surprised too, I remembered it the way you did also.
 

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