Yria

What is considered a locked in romance anyway? In my game Maia expressed pity that I was "already so chummy with the fishboy" (so I guess I was locked in the romance with another character?), but Xoti was still blowing me kisses and acting like she had a crush on me. And all I ever did was hold her hand after a nightmare. She later switched to Maia, but I'm still on alert and expecting some bizarre epilogue slides. Is this like Mass Effect all over again? Do I have to be openly rude to her to avoid this nonsence?

Her pro-Rauatai cheering does get a bit silly sometimes. I almost chocked on my tea when she told Biha in the Gullets that in Rauatai they will teach her how to do laundry properly or something like that.

Thanks. Isn't it the island where Onekaza sends us to negotiate with the isolationist huana tribe?

Speaking of Aloth, how do I make his quest progress? It's been ages since his initial "Let me check my notes" excuse, I've done Hasongo, half of the faction quests and explored like 3/4 of the map, but he still wouldn't tell me what to do next.

Is it even explained how Vela survived the destruction of Caed Nua when nobody else did?

In my game he is disliked by a whole bunch of people and still happily likes everyone but Maia himself (while Maia has him at +1). And he isn't the only one in such state, the lack of mutuality in my party is hilarious.

I know but that's kinda immersion breaking for me, so after he gave me the Thaos talk I just gave him the boot for rp reasons. My Watcher would be greatly offended to be compared to Thaos by the very person who used to be a Leaden Key agent and wouldn't come clean about it for about 3/4 of the first game. So... yeah. I guess my relationship with Aloth was fulfilling in its own way, if a bit melodramatic

Aloth was one of my favorite companions in PoE I, and I was looking forward to the whole relationship that is carried through a few games thing, be it romance of friendship. Especially since my Watcher was a nerdy wizard pretty similar to Aloth, so it felt like they should naturally connect. But here comes Deadfire, and Aloth just wouldn't approve of anything I do (but would gladly disapprove of my every joke), and my heart is a bit broken. Aloth why can't we be good friends dammit?

Aloth is our resident Luna Lovegood.

It's my favorite of all companions. I tend to get distracted when this animation starts playing during conversations, I just stop looking at the dialogue window and start watching Xoti instead.

Nope. She's an arbitrary party member (along with Jan and Keldorn) in my every playthrough. I really like how even without romance your character can develop a strong bond with her. Same, I very rarely ran a party without those three (and never without Jan). I also like how in the end of ToB tne narrator mentions "your closest companions", and Jaheira's portrait is one of the first to flash across the screen.

I agree. There is a small dialogue you can have with Tekehu after Hasongo where he asks why the hell would Eothas be interested in hearing your opinion, and I was like... I don't know man. Because the game plot dictates that? Or maybe he is just feeling bad for stepping on my castle?

Am I the only person in the world to genuinely like Jaheira? She can be quite an ass at times, but I really appreciated her no-nonsence attitude. Oh wait somebody wrote that they love Jaheira while I was typing. Nevermind

Most of them also seem to have different voices now. I think only Ondra and maybe Hylea and Rymrgand are still the same? Or at least similar enough to their old versions. And the only new voice I like better than the old one is Wael. Abydon's old manner of talking used to have that rhytmic, almost mechanical pace to it that was very in character. Skaen's voice was really, really creepy. But now they all just sound generic, and that doesn't help the overall impression they leave.

It only gets mentioned a couple of times, but apparently you can't stray too far away from Eothas because you start feeling worse. Your crew had to chase him while you were chatting with Berath in the prologue just to keep ypu alive. Also, when Eothas gives you back a piece of your soul at Hasongo, it is stated that you get some memories back with it. So yeah... I guess you do have memory loss but it's conveyed poorly in the game.

I'd recommend switching between faction quests (as in doing one quest for the Huana, than one quest for RDC, one for Vailians, one for the Principi, than back to the Huana again). There are overlaps between the faction stories, and if you do them one full questline at a time you might run into some weird bugs, like one faction sending you to talk to an NPC whom you already killed for another faction.

Must be a bug than. I def picked up the idol and passed the check to discover the curse, but I only had the option to give the priestess Beza's pages and tell her that she was right all along. So I, too, thought it was poor writing. Now it seems like poor scripting instead.

Why would they go to such lengths to ensure that nobody knows the truth (referring to the Leaden Key activities here) if they wanted people to remember though?

13? Yikes. Mine is somewhere around 9. I had druid Tekehu with me, but when I asked him if he could do anything about the situation he just noped out of it saying that the druids are right to oppose Rauatai. I must say I didn't really expect that.

Wait, are we talking about dozens or Dozens? Because the latter doesn't sound so bad.

In Tekehu's case it looked like it was the Watcher who decided not to stick around though. I mean Tekehu is still in the Deadfire doing whatever, but apparently the Watcher has some unspecified business in some other part of Eora. I guess they have a weird case of wanderlust

I admit one of the reasons I decided to go for Tekehu and not Aloth was exactly this. My Watcher's relationship with Ondra is the most fullfilling one she had in two games! I think it's pretty clear the answer is no one. Ondra is just that creepy kind of mommy.

I've seen screenshots of a moon godlike dumping him, Ondra's responce was the same. What's wrong with her anyway. At first she goes all "My boy deserves someone better than you!", but don't you dare to hold her to that and leave him alone, because than she will go into "YOU HURT MAH BOY! YOU UNGRATEFUL UNLOVING YOU" mode and try to kill you. Is this crazy fish of a goddess ever satisfied?

Do you need to pass some skill check for the druids to even ask you to kill the rauataians? I had one single option to try to talk this through, but when I picked it the druids responded with "Meh, think we'll just kill you since you are with them" and attacked.

What are the chances that a character becomes a watcher? What are the chances not only does he become a watcher but also a watcher with an awakened soul? And yet 100% of the main characters are a watcher with an awakened soul. Because that is the main plot hook of the game. I can also focus on how unlikely it was to have three Awakened people at once in our party in the first game, or how unlikely it was that we run into Aloth of all people on that particular island where we happened to crash, if you like. But that is not what this particular topic is about, and I don't see why we should discuss how unlikely all of these other things are here. Ummm... Yes, we of course are only looking at this game because this is a PoE II section of the Obsidian games forum, and it's this particular game's companions the OP has a problem with? Why would we even bring other subsets into this. That's my very point. The OP is focusing on one subset only. Namely on that one, of which the statement is true, that the majority of the people are not heterosexual. And you know OP that well to be sure this is his only gripe with the game?