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Well there is one thing, that they always forget to mention when speaking about inflation not affecting game prices. The move from physical to digital. Even if some games are still released physically, the content of the box today is empty. When the games cost 40 EUR, they gave you tons of paper content like manuals maps etc. And all of this cost a lot of money, which they cut to appease shareholders If I want to have the same content in the box as I had in 2000’s, I have to pay 120EUR + today. Which pretty much covers much more than the inflation

Never mind it was an older version of the game. Its fixed in 5.0

So tonight I finally talked to the Faction leaders to figure out what they wanted me to do. I knew they would want me to do something against the other factions, but I wasn't sure what just yet. Maybe the Huana will want me to steal some documents from the VTC to prove they are doing illegal activity? Maybe the VTC will want me to do some sort of espionage to make it look like Ruatai is planning a hostile take over on the Huana and turn them on each other? Maybe Ruatai wants me to do the same only to the VTC? Nope. Two of them want me to blow up a freaking powder store, which will kill dozens of innocent bystanders if not blow up the majority of a city sector. They also don't seem to overly care about the innocent dead people, even if some of them are their own people??!???!? The other wants me to become a hit man and kill the Huana royal family, while they also bombard a city sector as a distraction. Likely killing innocent bystanders again. What do the dirty, dishonorable, scum of the earth, pirate sleeze want? Kill other pirates, take out a crew of undead killers that are plaguing the seas. Wait what? Seriously, how is Aeldys the morally superior faction leader? She is anti slavery (unlike the VTC and Furrante), not a racist (unlike the Huana), never asks you to assassinate anyone other than Furrante (unlike Ruatai), and hilariously she and Furrante are the only two faction choices that don't involve something that kills innocent civilians. What is worse, is despite being a murderous pirate, she is also the only honest faction leader with you and herself. Everyone else is pretending to be in it for the "good of their people", maybe for Ruatai it is true in the worst way, but it sure as heck is not true for the Huana, VTC, or Furrante. Aeldys at least says "nope in it for myself and the booty". I liked the factions much better in this game, and I appreciate how their are gray areas with all of them. But did they all have to turn into ruthless murderers, ends justify the means loons, slavery lovers, and racists at the end game? They went from grays to solid black. Except for the self declared pirate who just wants to kill, plunder, and have fun. They are just really dark grey.

Not an ability, but I find useful to see recovery, reload and overall speed of weapons in the tooltip. It seems to me quite accurate with all bonuses and penalties (armor recovery, DEX, dual weapons, style and so on...).

No, it may end up more like Putin's Russia with single party rule.

This content cannot be displayed until agreeing to our use of Social Media cookies. Learn more. Manage cookies Considering that: i9 9900K = pretty much Ryzen 5 5600/i5 12400 performance RTX 2080 = pretty much RTX 4060/RX 7600 performance Looks pretty good. But then nobody's come back from Kuttenberg quite yet and live to tell! Which is the place of a thousand NPCs...

100$ is expensive but GTA6 will be worth it considering the amount of time you will spend on it Saying all that I never play games on release because of mod development and official patches\fixes Thats why Im never disappointed with all the games I play, when I play them they the most stable they can be And they always on some sort of sales special anyway

Playing it on 1440p is not a good idea at this point. It's still quite unstable on everything but the default screen resolution. On that one it's super stable now, though. (only can crash after approx 2 hours due to memory leak) If you have intel, you need this mod or you'll get the crashes that you just described https://www.nexusmods.com/bloodborne/mods/41 You might also need the vertex explosion fix mod, though for me personally it's working fine now since the latest version, and all I have installed is the intel crash fix. https://www.nexusmods.com/bloodborne/mods/109 And you need to use diego's build (activate nightly build in settings) https://github.com/diegolix29/shadPS4/releases I have played through the whole game, beat every boss, visited every area, started NG+ and almost finished it now as well, without pretty much any issues.

Bloodborne with the new GPU (7800 XTX and the 16 GB of VRAM necessary to play this game at a high resolution without the emulator exploding, bite me Nvidia). Consistent 60 FPS (with the patch to enable it) on 1440p, most of the biggest playability glitches have been fixed since I last tried this...it's go time, baby. Everything was going fine for a couple of hours, until the emulator crashed while I was loading an area: rebooted the emulator, and when I started it back up, the main menu music wasn't working anymore. Huh, weird. Loaded into the game, still no sound...and when I tried to attack an enemy, it crashed. Restart...same thing: no sound, attacking enemies causes a crash. Apparently, my save got corrupted during that crash, and wiping my save game data fixes both the no sound and crashing issues. Maybe I'll let this emulator bake for a few more months after all.

https://www.videogamer.com/news/baldurs-gate-3-dev-reveals-the-real-reason-the-games-industry-is-in-the-st-right-now/ Looks like we're having this discussion now. (About raising prices) Which, to me, is a sure sign it'll happen.

Apparently only 10% of people got the steam achievement for reactivating the White Forge, which I guess means only around 10% of players completed The White March: Part 1. That's shocking if true and more than a little sad, Obsidian did a great job with the expansions and it's such a shame if most players never even got to see those areas. Josh Sawyer did an interview with a site called TheGamer just yesterday and was saying they found two thirds of people don't finish games they start. Considering a lot of the best content in games tends to be towards the end where you're encountering all the enemy types, have all the abilities and gear and are reaching the climaxes of all the story threads, I wonder what it must feel like to spend years working on these things and know most people aren't even getting to the best (and presumably the parts that took the most effort to make) parts of the game. https://www.thegamer.com/fallout-new-vegas-josh-sawyer-finishing-games-not-important-skyrim/

I've bothered to finish the Huana questline for an achievement and I must say I've got an impression it is the worst. Even the pirates have more redeeming qualities. The queen is pretencious beyond the threshold of pain (even frickin' Lady Webb didn't show off by speaking in my mind constantly), their social system is disasterous (piles of bodies of members of the lower class beneath the city!!) and I've even got not a small amount of negative rep with them because I strong-armed the prince to FEED HIS PEOPLE! I usually sympathize with the natives but they just don't know what they are doing - backwards and dangerous to themselves and, potentially, to the whole world once they get the access to Ukaizo. EDIT. Also, their glorious art of watershaping is a huge, dragon-soul-exploiting fraud. It speaks volumes about their whole culture, I say. I wonder, does anyone here have similar thoughts about them?

Update (spoiler alert) I sailed to that area today. At first, my ship flew my original flag and passed by the target ship with no conflict occurred. The target ship sailed away slowly and leisurely like they cared nothing about me. But after I put up a flag of the Vailian Trading Company and approached them again from behind, they suddenly turned towards me and sailed to me in a noticeably faster speed. And then the battle began. So that proved they were the one causing troubles to the Vailian Trading Company's survey ships. By the way, after defeating the target, if you haven't taken the quest and returned to the bounty hunter fixer, you would see the original dialog option for taking the quest and the second one for directly notifying her of the completion, as the attached figure shows. In that case, you would only get money and no exp if you choose the second dialog option. You need to choose the first dialog option first in order to get both money and exp. Last but not least, I would like to give the devs a thumb up on this detailed design of NPC having different reactions based on what flag you fly on your ship.

I dunno, I kinda prefer necro threads to creating new and short-lived microthreads. It shows that the necromancer bothered to read quite a bit instead of just plopping a lazy question, and reading is good.

I'm not sure what led you to this conclusion and perhaps my perspective here is off but one thing I can say for certain - is that I, along with many other people, love Durance. He was absolutely meant to be abrasive. However, he goes through tremendous growth and rather than word vomit the change he is undergoing, he keeps it relatively to himself. You pick up on it but it's because of subtleties, not because he has 12 minutes of monologuing about why he's changed. He's insightful, crass, doesn't give two ****s about your feelings, or anyone else' for that matter, and calls it like he see's it. He also understands exactly who and what he is and from all accounts, he's incredibly self-aware. You have to keep in mind that he's also seen some ****. Which is probably why he's so abrasive in the first place. This is a priest that killed a god. You have to wonder how that would effect his own faith- the gods in general go from seemingly omnipotent entities that people devote themselves to, prostrate themselves for, and spend their entire lives trying to appease, to little more than the mortals they rule over very very quickly. Compound that with what he learns at the end of the game and you've got a real good recipe for crazy. Everything he dedicated his entire life for, committed deicide for, turns out to be a lie. Not only that, after he engaged in what he thought was the holiest of acts, his goddess cast him aside like a piece of used furniture at the local dump. IMO he's also pretty hilarious at times and offers a comical, if not dark, perspective at times. Perhaps that's just my 40 year-old disabled combat veteran self finding him somewhat relatable but Durance is one of my favorite characters in the game. Having said that, I can definitely see why some people would dislike him. Especially people who don't particularly like confrontation and/or typically avoid it when possible. Xoti on the other hand drives me insane. Here is a character that is insanely devout to a God that is traipsing across the Deadfire laying waste to basically everything, despite the fact that the Watcher, Eder, Aloth and Pallegina are all acutely aware that the gods are "jumped up Engwithins" that put themselves on a pedestal. I find it incredibly hard to believe that she wouldn't undergo some SERIOUS reflection given that knowledge. I also find it hard to believe that she wouldn't be shook to her core considering how devout she actually is. She's travelling with a group of people who have seen what the Gods are, what they've done as a result of their petty in-fighting and just how little they actually care about the people they supposedly "watch over". Her quest and/or mission is also a direct contradiction to what the Watcher is doing and all of the aforementioned. She wants to essentially hoard all of the "lost" souls so that Eothas can collect them at a later date in Hel, when the Watcher himself was tasked with sending them back to the in-between to return to the wheel for Berath. At no point is the watcher able to tell her "I won't stand for this" or "I don't agree with what you're doing" or "Berath tasked me with leading these souls to Adra" (Or anything in between), she interjects before anything can even really be said whenever something to do with souls comes up, and she acts as if her job is more important - despite the fact that the Watcher was literally brought back from the dead by a God to do their job. Both the Watcher (At least in my case) and Eder' consistently try to drill it in her head that she's basically a naïve sheep being used to further the circle-jerk that is the gods "non-plan" and the only response she gives is how she's right and it's her sacred duty. It's honestly infuriating at times, lol.

Calm down man.

TB mode is coming to PoE? Hmm, maybe that's the tonic I need to finally install and play! RTwP combat was a total kludge for me and I quit during beta.

I went to catholic school, I had classmates like that. So for what it’s worth Xoti is a very realistic portrayal of a religious teenager out in the world with no supervision for the first time. On the other hand when my character called her out in one convo she told me she’s thirty...

I don't understand how she has 14 intelligence. 6 would fit her better from an RP perspective.

It is just speculation. Perhaps, perhaps not. The state of the undercity of Neketaka didn't inspire my to give them a chance. I get it that people sympathize with the natives. I usually do too. Predatory/parasitic imperialism is bad. But sometimes natives just govern themselves horribly.

This is my concern towards the Vailians as well. They embody the bad side of capitalism, with streep mining resources for profit without thinking about future generations. But I consider a possibility that maybe after establishing an academy at Ukaizo and doing high tier research there the animancers would convince the deciding councils that it is unwise to destroy the "pillars of eternity" themselves. Well, probably greed would prevail. Hail Rymrgand! Principii for me were never an option. We're going to sack Ukaizo? Really? My hopes for rebuilding the Wheel for the benefit of the kith just skyrocketed through the roof. So, RDC was my first choice as the least evil. I can stomach a few political assassinations. Mostly because it is somewhat rational, unlike the Huana caste system, Principii's pure hedonism or Vailians' unchecked greed.

I would risk a statement that yes, they have it better. They can at least strive for a better social standing (though we know little about Rauatai and Vailian Republics social strata). Can a roparu change his caste? Sorry, chump, maybe in the next life. You must live above a great pile of bodies of less fortunate members of your caste which you didn't choose yourself! Feel free to take anything you find particularly tasty from that refuse pile, bro! You're missing my point. I condemn the fact that their core beliefs prevent them from treating their subjects fairly. They're refusing to abandon the caste system, even when it creates piles upon piles of bodies. Tradition is more important than lives. They are not willing to seek reforms but the prince rather would have someone else find a loophole which would allow to help roparu without violating the ridiculous caste system. I don't care that much about moral implications attached to an act of enslaving a dragon which are ambiguous at best. My point was directed towards a pillar of cultural pride for the Huana. I was accusing them of being frauds not worthy of admiration for their watershaping talents. Their power is not their own. They lost it like they lost Ukaizo. The only thing they cling to culturally is their ugly caste system, with haughty, fanned-by-servants, pet-tigers-possesing queen at the top and piles of bodies of the roparu at the bottom.

to answer the question o' the thread in one word: yes. am thinking folks is reflexive sympathetic towards real world indigenous peoples and the various tragedies such folks has faced throughout human history. huana is benefiting from such reflex. as have mentioned more than once in other threads, the huana is not a poster child for the plight o' native peoples. HA! Good Fun! ps having been thorough inoculated 'gainst colonial guilt as a child and young adult, am able to view the huana as the diseased and corrupt pastiche they really is. huzzah.

Wasn't a huge fan of the ending either. I felt like it ultimately didn't even matter if my character was there at all, seeing as how the same result comes of it regardless. For all the gods discussion on "kill Eothas!" and "He will only listen to you!", neither option really becomes available other than "what consolation will Eothas offer before he busts things up?". I can appreciate the emphasis on him being (literally) too big to stop, but it does mean that the players place in this story is ultimately meaningless. Heck, for that matter, the other factions place in the main story is pretty pointless. They spent most of the plot refusing to believe there's a giant stomping on their stuff, and when reality finally sinks in, they act like its a tactical advantage in a far lesser war. Ultimately, I was left confused as to what Berath was even expecting of me through the adventure. Being a god(ess) of DEATH, I thought she'd already be aware of what was going on down bellow, so she didn't need me to actually WATCH him. She said she wanted me to talk him out of stuff, but it becomes obvious early on that that won't likely bear fruit. She cannot possibly expect me to fight him, and if so, doesn't really help me with that. The other gods seem to regard me as an uninvited guest in their debate club meetings... The story also seems at odds with the big theme of POE 1; whether mortals messing with the soul in the name of science is good or bad. This was a VERY good, thought provoking argument that formed the basis of POE 1's stories, not just the main campaign. The idea that it could help, but that we were playing with fire that did more than just burn the flesh, that we were being extremely arrogant and trying to master a power that could go as wrong as it could well. We saw examples on both sides of the argument that showed the good and the terribly, terribly bad. ...then comes Eothas in POE 2, making the conclusion for us and saying "yup, Animancy is the way, go forth!", regardless of what anyone thought. The fact that that end was forced on us after an entire game encouraging us to think about it was a bit of a downer. Maybe the expansions will add to the ending. I do hope so. POE 2 was an otherwise excellent ride, and one of the few (quasi) open worlds that I really enjoyed enough to come back to for seconds and thirds. I would, however, be lying if I said the main plot was anywhere near as engaging as POE 1, or even Icewind Dale 1 and 2....

The best part is that it shows me stuff that I'm supposed download - but I have already done that, so what's the point...?

They definitely removed the option to have it off by default. I don't really give a flying fig newton about their "news" function because I spend entirely too much time online and probably already know about all the stuff the feed is telling me about. I just want to play the game, I don't need a huge frelling ad telling me about the DLC I already bought/downloaded.

Yeah, I know that, but I'd like to have it minimized by default. Ideally I would want to not be greeted by advertisements when launching a game...

I recall the same thing. Not to mention the Rauataians have two millenia of expertise weathering storms, so I imagine they simply rebuilt the huts in a way they know is better at weathering storms. You are both correct, that is exactly what they did. And they did it by completely disregarding what the indigenous population wanted, and completely ignoring their culture. Because Rauatai knows better. Truth. It's reminiscent of the British colonial rule over India and their "civilising mission". Exactly and that is why the Rauitai are the best long term benefit for the DeadFire. A civilized modern empire is better than stone age savages with oppressive cultures.

I like how I immediately knew who "Two Whoops and a Holler" is. EDIT: Oh, and also: You and me both. I may be a mindless dwarf fanboy, but Konstanten really seemed like a barrel of fun waiting to be unleashed... but nope, sidekick.

I recall the same thing. Not to mention the Rauataians have two millenia of expertise weathering storms, so I imagine they simply rebuilt the huts in a way they know is better at weathering storms. You are both correct, that is exactly what they did. And they did it by completely disregarding what the indigenous population wanted, and completely ignoring their culture. Because Rauatai knows better.

Where's the brainwashing? Which ending slides? Here's a few I found: It doesn't mention any actual, concerted effort to eradicate the Huana way of life - in fact, ten million people share that culture, so it would mean outright war. Rauatai simply offers an alternative way of life, one that doesn't consign millions of people to suffering in destitute hopelessness. You're keen on defending some strange concept of cultural purity, repeatedly failing to address the fact that Huana culture is founded on social stratification and ruthless exploitation of the Roparu with no social mobility.

Yes, and I've just double-checked the orlan peddler's dialogue and it's a lot more nuanced: 1. She mentions the older generations still telling stories about pre-Empire times and more than a few waxing romantic about it, which shows that Rauatai has no problems with people keeping history and culture alive. 2. She also mentions greatly improved infrastructure - granted, much of it is focused on Takowa, but that's to be expected. 3. She also emphasizes that she doesn't much care, because she's preoccupied with making sure she has enough cash to get by, which is the point I'm making - we are generally rich societies that can afford to worry about culture and history; much of Eora doesn't give two ****s because they're too focused on survival. 4. But still, she says that she's from Rauatai. Rauataian and Huana language are basically the same language. As for Sayuka, I have yet to explore it (sometimes documenting stuff goes slow), but it's a militarized outpost focusing on top secret research for the Empire, so it's a special case. Plus, I fail to see how that shows that Rauatai intends to destroy a culture maintained by ten million people. If a culture was predicated on condemning a broad segment of its population to ruthless exploitation, state murder, mass starvation, and only fed them scraps from the table in return - and as we see in Neketaka, it's sometimes not even scraps, but literal rotting trash - I'd have a hard time seeing them as ethically equal. But I guess I can't view ethically compromised practices endemic to a culture as bad because reasons ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have yet to see evidence that this is the end goal of Rauatai. The Huana would have to adapt, yes, but I don't see anything even remotely like a Kulturkampf you imply. Yes, because you're ignoring the realities of the setting and not looking at it from the contemporary perspective. You're basically passing judgement on the past without so much as trying to put yourself in their position. This kind of moral hardlining is indefensible - as is you assuming a position of moral superiority. In fact, it's quite ironic that you're indirectly condemning Rauatai and Vailian culture as inferior in the way they are poised to conquer the Deadfire, ignoring the possibility that the conquest of Deadfire would bring about reforms for the RDC - and the elimination of storms plaguing Rauatai would fundamentally alter the empire's culture, while exposure to ten million Huana, who are their cousins by culture and origins, would inevitably bring about further change. The conquest of Greece by Rome did not destroy Greek culture, did it? Plus, you are ignoring the fact that all cultures change and evolve constantly, sometimes through exchange, sometimes through conquest. Would you cordon off the Deadfire and turn it into a Huana reservation? Because that's the impression I get. That was exactly my point. Descending into the Gullet was gut wrenching, as was experiencing "All Aboard". The Roparu aren't just the lower class: They're the slave class, buoyed only by the promise of being reincarnated to a higher one and suppressed by the concerted efforts of the Mataru and Kuaru. They're basically 1984 proles.

An oversight by the ruling caste that is not defendable, sure, but this situation in the Gullet is not normal and wasn't like that before. It was caused by a recent influx of region's population gathering in the city, which clearly is unable to accommodate so many new people. It is clearly a major problem, which locals are unable to solve without outside help, and will continue to be so, because the influx does not stop. Funny thing is, the influx itself is caused by foreigners invading the region and now only with foreigners help this situation can be resolved. But I'm not gonna make any statements that the Roparu there are being mistreated out of malice or need to oppress them. On the contrary, generally it is expected that the Roparu are provided for by the ruling caste. Similar problem happened in Tikawara when the tribe was forced to relocate there, a barren island, where it is hard to grow food. For them there is also no other way but to scatter and leave the island or stay by accepting outside help. So yeah, these abnormal situations clearly show how the caste system is flawed and given more of these situations it's not hard to imagine something revolutionary could have happened on its own. Alas, with all the factions crap going on and discovery of Ukaizo it's probably not meant to be even if Huana are up top, as they probably will improve food shortage problem by making themselves rich and influential by ruling Ukaizo, while keeping the caste system as is. There's a real difference between Tikawara and Neketaka: In Tikawara, *everybody* is starving, the Roparu are just starving more. Even the Ranga is thin with a hungry, noisy belly. In Neketaka, *ONLY* the Roparu are starving, while the Motaru eat fat. The Roparu live in dilapidated vermin-infest huts in a crack in the ground; the Motaru live in estates on top of a mountain. The Roparu are regularly thrown into a monster-infested hole to be eaten alive for any crime major, minor, or made up; the Motaru are...not. And, again...the Roparu are *NOT OKAY WITH THIS*. The situation between the two islands isn't really comparable. The Roparu are not treated with malice, that's true; but malice isn't required to be oppression.

My view is not arrogant enough to think it is superior above all else and should be imposed on others. I'm not sure I would use the word arrogant but you certainly seem to think you know the right answer to this deliberately grey situation. You keep bringing that up but who's that? A known freeloader and offender from Tikawara? Knowing his past record the warrior had every right to suspect him being a culprit. And that torture you speak of is a variant of stocks, a common thing even in the real world not long ago. I'm not saying he should pay for the crime he didn't commit, but I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary of how he's handled for that world. I keep bringing it up because it is an injustice. He's a "known freeloader" because he isn't willing to work hard in order to give everything he has worked for to someone else - one of the many toxic elements of this culture. As a result, someone is able to frame him for crime he didn't commit and he is tortured to force him to confess. Yes, I call it torture because that's exactly what it is. If they can be falsely accused of crimes, tortured until they confess and then put to death for refusing to play their cultural role that might be the reason why they are submissive, no? Your point about sovereignty is reasonable, but you are, in fact, defending some of the worst things about their culture in the name of sovereignty. If you had been saying all along, "no, they really shouldn't be torturing the innocent person, but that's their problem to fix and no one else's" then that would sound like a pure argument about sovereignty.

I'd rather leave them alone and let them reform themselves, it seems inevitable anyway. And, btw, that bad situation in the Gullet can be perfectly solved by Huana themselves, if you convince the prince. Leaving the situation to be resolved by Rauataians only leads to them razing the whole district without solving any actual underlying problems. Fair enough, but we also see a Huana leader attempting to torture a confession out of an innocent Roparu. The Roparu are screwed in several ways in the Huana culture, not just the problems in the Gullet. On the other hand, you have the 'long house' where all of the Huana classes are treated equally. That was reason for my question. It is still consistent to believe that the Huana need to sort out their own problems, but let's not ignore that a large segment of their population is oppressed badly under their own rule and are treated more fairly by the Rauitai. The worst thing that seems to be happening in the Long House is that some of the upper class Huana are resentful that they aren't segregated from the Roparu and that isn't even the majority opinion. Here's another way to look at it, if you view the upper class Huana and the Roparu as two different peoples, which is a reasonable way to view things, why is it ok for one to oppress the other?

While I generally like your posts, this stood out to me: You are adopting a very modern approach, where the study of history is popular (if underappreciated) and access to knowledge is easy, completely ignoring the fact that Eora is at a different point in time. Most people won't remember or care for what was before regardless of whose flag flies over the ramparts of the local castle, because they're preoccupied with survival: Subsistence farming, back-breaking labor, and so on and so forth. Hell, the Huana can barely cobble together a version of their history that isn't 95% myth because of a lack of written sources. Rauatai might actually reinvigorate researhc, since that's where they all originate from. The Huana caste system is certainly terrifyingly regressive and lacks anything even remotely resembling humanity, but that's just me, I guess, being condescending and conceited to a culture that arbitrarily sentences entire populations to exploitation and starvation. Rauatai is an empire like the British Empire, news at 11.

Except that locals will lose their culture and self identity under RDC. Just look around, there are plenty of examples there already. Also, they did that with all other weaker nations whom they've conquered - Rauatai is a militaristic war machine that grinds everything into same looking apathetic "goo". Not true if you choose director Castol. They'll stay, establish permanent settlements, improve trade and build a research academy at Ukaizo for animancers all over the world to study it. Who cares if the locals lose their culture and identity? Not all cultures are equal and an oppressive caste system pales in comparison to a meritocracy like Rauitai. Castrol was OK with slave trading which is hard to spin as being good. The Valians also were down with terrorism (blowing up the powder storage). The Royal DeadFire Company just wants a coup and takes care of the DeadFire better.

And the only correct solution of this problem can and must come from inside of the Huana nation itself, regardless of how long it takes. Nobody can -- and should -- "fix" it for them, because it would only make things worse. RDC's, Vailia's, Principi's hearts do not bleed for the Roparu -- the Roparu is just an excuse for imperialistic greed; the three powers do not give a sh†t about them, as they're not there to fix the social injustice; they're just here for that sweet, sweet Adra/ land/ looting and pillaging. Why do you think outside influence will necessarily make things worse? In the real world, modern economies, scientific rationalism, rule of law and free(-ish) trade have had a net positive effect on poverty, disease, human rights and life in general even when they have been motivated by less than altruistic reasons. Why would the Deadfire be different? What would prompt the Huana fix their toxic culture unless they saw another culture working better (ie outside influence)?

Well, I roleplay around Huana's "sad puppy eyes" stance - my protag favors Galawain/Magran/Abydon's ideals, so them Huana always whining how they were so cool before they lost Ukaizo just sounds as being weak and seeking excuses for their backward way of life. In all these ages they couldn't even find its location, let alone reclaim some semblance of their former glory through other means. So my protag thinks they don't deserve Ukaizo anymore, let somebody more strong take it. And besides, they wish but Ukaizo doesn't belong to them alone, it belongs to all of Eora, just as the gods and the Wheel belong to all of Eora - Huana may have lived there, but it was the Engwithans who brought them the knowledge that allowed for the construction of animancy machinery.

from my perspective i see the mataru as corrupt, greedy, oppressive fascists. or are you forgetting the guards crushing the roparu under their boots in neketaka, while starving them to death at the same time?

I'd say the only faction with a high ground here are the Huana for the simple reason -- they live in Deadfire archipelago and they did not invite greedy fascists, greedy corporations and greedy marauders into their home. And justifying invaders with "Well their caste system sucks!" ... I don't know. Yeah, it sure sucks, but it does not make occupation justified. My ideal outcome would be with Huana as the dominant power, but a little more, well, cosmopolitan. All the other factions have presence, presence generates influence and maybe after a year or two Roparu look around, think "Seriously, why are we allowing those useless aristocrats disrespect us when we feed them?", learn the art of Molotov c0cktail making and voila! -- authentic social revolution, honest and genuine and not caused by meddlesome, assassination-happy arseholes. If Huana is my lesser evil, then the greater of lesser evils would be Vailian Republic. They're kind of like Electronic Arts of Eora -- everyone at the top is a horrible untalented profiteer only concerned with the bottom line, but they have genuinely talented, inspired people working for them who want to create and innovate. Education, universities, everything "For science!" -- yeah, even if the majority of profits lines pockets of a few selected disgusting, atrocious, stinking, loathsome capitalista swines (I hate corporations, if you couldn't tell), there still is some good in it. I probably would not side with RDC fascists even on my evil arsehole run, and the pirates with their "LOL hurr durr random murdurrr" 'tude ain't much better.

Curious thread. Surprised by how much different opinions regarding factions can be found here. I find it difficult to imagine allying myself with RDC, unless I create character specifically for that purpose (rauatai background, unquestioning soldier). They seem to be straight up evil, preferring violence and military control as a means of keeping populace under control. I can’t imagine them bringing anything positive to Deadfire and I didn’t see them do any good throughout the game. Huana - not a fan of them either. Not much against their motivation but competence. They get a lot of goodwill due to being native to Deadfire, but they don’t seem to know how to handle tradition and progress. It is impossible for them to continue living as they did before, yet they resist adapting. The result is a culture favouring few based on birth and hurting many. Not unique to this faction, but I feel that Huana cast system has a potential to be even more disasterous than let’s say Valian’s greed. The only benefit of them ruling is their protectiveness over adra and Ukaizo, however, with Eothas actions, it seems like a potential global suicide. However, if I were to side with them, screwing over both exploitative companies does bring some satisfaction. Principi - I considered them. They seem like the “I don’t care” option. All for themselves, without any greater plans and just screwing everyone else in the process. Once again, it doesn’t seem like the safest choice due to Eothas actions, but as discussed before it is removed far enough from politics, to not ask you do anything too immoral - though I doubt Principi itself brings anything good to the world. Valians - as much as I dislike corporations personally, I found it completely agreeable for my PC to ally with them. Profit is desirable, supporting animancy has been my no. 1 priority, especially with the destruction of the wheel. Blowing up powder reserve kills people, but it’s RDC we are talking about - group of brainwashed soldiers who murder and invade without questioning. Stopping their invasion of Deadfire seems like a good thing to do. I was much less happy about having to face Queen and Prince when taking over Ukaizo. While Valians did their share of shady things, I found Director Castols intentions to be well directed. I wanted him to work without having to resort to shady practices.

Well you can't really expect anyone to be "good" when piracy, forced colonization, imperialism and a rigid caste system are involved.

By the time i had to make my choice, i already knew it was either Rauatai or the Huana: I'm not giving control over Ukaizo and an entire archipelago to pirates, no matter how noble hearted they may be at heart, nor did i like the prospect of handing it over to a company selling soul dust as a youth revitalizer. It's sad for the animancers in their employ, but Ukaizo becomes the subject of animancy research in every ending: i doubt the actually driven researchers would stay with the vailians when they have a chance to study Ukaizo, no matter which faction holds it. I had my doubts about helping the Huana, since they seem to be stuck in their traditional ways quite badly, not to mention Onekaza would still need to force the other tribes to accept her leadership e.g. the Wahaki and the Port Maje tribe. When she made that foolish declaration that "no outsider would set foot on Ukaizo", basically forcing the factions to go to war if they want Eora to survive, my choice was relatively easily made. The Rauataians are imperialists, no doubt about it. But they also build up the places they conquer as seen in Sayuka, and seem to prefer a relatively bloodless takeover over a battleground, as evidenced by the assassinations. It's not moral by far, but it's the best i thought we got. However, I was mostly convinced by the way their leadership talks about ending the storms of Rauatai to allow their homeland grow: kudos to those voice actors, because you can really hear the hope in their voicework. Sure, those storms end in every ending, but I didn't know that at the time, and it's a very worthy goal. One thing I wonder about is this: most people here talk about how their choice is the right one by pointing towards the ending slides, which is more than reasonable. However, unless you're metagaming your choice or going for a "perfect playthrough" of sorts, you probably didn't make your choice because of what happens afterwards, and I wonder why people chose their endgame faction when they didn't yet know how it would end. PS: as for Aeldys' moral superiority, this is the same woman who hung defector skulls on the walls of her fortress to make a pun, no matter how great that pun may be. She's a loose cannon who happens to enjoy being aimed at slavers, and not being interested in ruling nor having a goal does help reduce your kill count. Which could probably use some reducing, her being a pirate and stuff.

I searched and there wasn't a single topic about this that came up. So excuse me for using the forums to find out information, so sorry to have inconvenienced you. Jesus.

I liked the combat in D:OS a lot more but PoE was easily my favorite of the two.

D:OS was fun at first, and the tactical combat was excellent. But I generally prefer cRPGs that take themselves seriously.

How are you so sure? Muck about with officials and put the right people as judges, you can do a lot. Long way to go, but the time needed to cover that distance isn't all that long. One helpful thing would be a crisis to scare people, for example. Americans like most are ok with a lot when worried about some boogeyman.

It took Hitler a couple of months to subvert the German democracy.