InsaneCommander

But do we know if 1 companion would take the same effort as what they put into sidekicks? Maybe they wanted to include as many companions as possible and once they set the number they decided to offer the sidekicks as something extra. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of upgrading them to companions, but Josh Saywer said in a stream that they are aware people want it, so if they could why wouldn't they do it?

Well, Konstanten's talents don't involve words, so who would care about how the romance is written? Unless it's described by the narrator, like in DOS2. But that may sound strange, since the narrator sounds like... Ydwin. Maybe she is the narrator and is using her cypher powers to help you understand your journey. Vatnir, being an Endings godlike, would probably be like a bdsm partner. So, maybe some people like that? Nobody has mentioned him specifically as a romance option, as far as I know, but rule 34 guarantees that someone is into it.

Is this really intended? I can't believe they wanted to "punish" characters with high int.

But... we already have the name for all sequels figured out!

I'd really appreciate if they upgraded even one sidekick to companion. But as people have said in other threads the devs already explained that creating a companion is a lot of work. Eight companions is a possibility, but nine is all but impossible.

I agree. Even a single comment of awe or annoyance would add a lot to them. You can always have a secret romance with her, without anyone else noticing. There is a good chance that will happen. See comment #6 here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105187-forgotten-sanctum-will-fassina-have-a-role-in-that-dlc/?do=findComment&comment=2089195

Writing with quality takes a lot more time than people think. I had to do it in a previous job and I had to re-read several times, once looking for mistakes, other to check the ideas, another to see if I could improve it... And after you do it a few times, you no longer see it in the same way. I'd show my texts to other people and they would often find mistakes that were obvious and I hadn't noticed.

It was longer than I expected, but I play slowly. For me it was about 15h, but that includes the time I left to do some shopping and scripted interactions in Neketaka. It is a cool setting (pun intended) with interesting encounters and characters. But what I really liked was that it was more difficult than what I've encountered so far in the main game (I haven't finished yet, but I'm at level 20 already).

I'm playing on veteran too and my first knockout was against Rymrgand. But I was careless. If you keep your distance and use summons wisely, like Elizer said above, you won't have problems. Even without DoT.

We can dream.

These are very nice and powerful rewards, but the "achievements" are very easy to get. A few hours playing and you can restart the game with 50000 copper and +12 points for your stats.

I think I'd really like it. Make a custom party with many spell casters and save some spells for the bosses (or use empower). It would give the feeling of saving spells like in PoE1.

"The question would be what god would make sense to associate with such a change?" Maybe Woedica? She is not in the timeline yet. My thought as well. Maybe Abydon as a Plan B? The idea is good enough that I wouldn't mind if they just made an extra challenge for Abydon or any other god that already has one.

Those are interesting ideas for an "evil" character. After meeting the "good" companions in Deadfire I wouldn't mind if PoE3 started with the protagonist escaping from a prison with a bunch of murderous psychopaths that would backstab or violently betray you depending on your choices.

Well, if the idea is to make a different type of game in Eora, maybe they can make a "Age of Empires: Eora" or a "Choose your own adventure" with scripted interactions. Just kidding, please don't kill me...

"The question would be what god would make sense to associate with such a change?" Maybe Woedica? She is not in the timeline yet.

There is a lot of truth here. But I didn't like some of the changes they made. I'm not sure I can explain why, but I actually had more fun with the first one.

This makes a lot of sense, but I'm still hopeful.

This is good to know when you are going to the DLC island. Unfortunately you need to satisfy some conditions to access Rekke's dialogue. I think you need to be a merchant or an aristocrat.

"A stinking den of evil. Cover your nose Boo! We will leave no crevice untouched!"

I think that's at least part of why they did them- having sidekicks who'll stay in your party no matter what means they can be strict with companions leaving you based on things you do, because no matter what you'll always have a full party available Makes sense. Imagine all the rage quitting if people played for dozens of hours and suddenly discovered that most of the companions abandoned them because of their choices.

Another example would be dealing with the Imps in Arkemyr's manor. You can lie to the imps and claim to be Arkemyr (or claim one of your companions is Arkemyr). This can avoid a ton of bloodshed shed (and Arkemyr will also note this later on). At the same time it's still Shady as all hell (Shady being defined, more or less, as "someone found out later you were lying about something"). Is it worth being slightly shady at times if it brings about a just end? Up to the Watcher in question, I suppose. But it does show that Shady is more like Aggressive than say Cruelty. Some folks might disapprove of it, but that doesn't make it 'bad' in and of itself. Unless the Watcher is one of the folks who disapproves of such behavior, that is. Well, some people really value honesty. It is not the case with Arkemyr, but maybe to the point that they'd prefer you to slaughter their servants than impersonate them. "You made a mess here, but at least you didn't offend me!"

For me the main difference is that I can have Vela with my two characters that didn't kidnap her.

"And then with The Forgotten Sanctum we’re going to build and provide the best dungeon experience. So it will be very dungeon dive-like and will really appeal to players who love Fort Deadlight, it’s going to have the same kind of feel. A big, cohesive dungeon." I'm really looking forward to this. Also: improvements to ship combat and new spells.