Fardragon

But Durance himself says he is going to stay devoted to Magran until after you defeat Thaos so he can keep his powers and denounce her and start his quest for revenge later. Durance believes lots of things that may not be true. A mad faith in the need to destroy all deities should be quite sufficient to fuel some spells.

I'm kind of bored with long wall-of-text conversations with companions (and even more bored with fully voiced conversations, thanks to MA: Andromeda). So I'm looking forwards to using sidekicks.

Could you? In one of two of his endings, he commits suicide. And in the other, he forsakes his Magran completely (and i assume loses his priestly wiggity woo magic) The PoE manual is pretty clear that cleric spells do not come from deities, so a faithless clerics do not lose their spells. Not that a character would need to have spells to be an antagonist. Nor indeed, be alive.

Durance as main antagonist. I could see it happening.

The Secret of Monkey Island had the best pirate simulation game mechanics. "You fight like a cow!"

This thread does seem a little pointlessly fractious and childish... I haven't played the beta, but I do think that it is important that the ship crew mechanics should not be as involved than a game which has ship management as it's main focus (such as Sunless Sea), since it then becomes a distraction from the core game. If it's more complex than the old Pirates! game, then I'm concerned that it is too​ complex, and runs the risk of becoming a distraction, like the Stronghold in PoE1.

I think you underestimate the capacity of "non-artists" to subconsciously perceive effects that artistic training may make one consciously aware of. I would suggest that the alternative Pallegina portrait stems from someone feeling threatened by strong complex females, preferring a passive, biddable appearance.

No, the Crones' true forms are freaking disgusting. Like, revolting. I am not a native english speaker, so my intuition might be off, but calling someone "ugly" is quite rough, isn't it? Someone who is really unpleasant to look at. They don't sell intended character - thats what I am bother by (and by bothered by I mean: roll my eyes. I really don't care enough to have any strong emotional reaction). PoE is not a gym or a mall simulator. I find it just as absurd as I would an attempt to sexy up Durance. Just... why? Why can we have Humphrey Boghart or Jack Nicholson but every female character gets reduced to: "is she bangable or not". I think she looks spot on. Her skin seems a bit darker in the new portraits but thats about it. Same hard and proud expression. EDIT: I am sorry for messing up the thread. If I knew consequences of my snark I would keep it to myself. I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Why are "dolled up" characters less likely to be adventurers than less attractive ones? No way. PoE1 Pallegina looked like Rihanna with feathers. The Deadfire version looks like a man. If you are getting your face smashed in (burned/frozen/etc) on a regular basis you aren't going to stay pretty for long. And lightning bolts are terrible for the hair!

If Ondra's Mortar is in the east, why is it shown in the north north east of the official map? Is the compass rose a fake-out, with the big arrow indicating east rather than north?

In the expansion pack.

Good work! I was trying to work out which way was the top. The most distinctive feature is the dark mass at the top right (NE?) It appears to be surrounded by a reef(?) called Magran's Teeth.

I agree with insofar as restricting way-off main classes (Imagine being able to make Durance a non-priest, Aloth a non-wizard etc). However I don't see how it necessarily extends to subclasses since it wouldn't create the same lore problems if, say, Pallegina is a Paladin (two choices obv.) / vanilla Chanter or Paladin / Beckoner. No lore problem. Length of list problem. Pallegina should be a 1) Paladin 2) Paladin/Chanter 3) Paladin/Beckoner 4) Paladin/troubadour 5) Paladin/fighter 6) Paladin/blackjacket 7) Paladin/devoted Paladin/Unbroken Your dialogue choices would scroll off the page. And that is assuming paladin order is predetermined from PoE1. A free choice of paladin order would increase the number of dialogue options needed to 40!

Only if you're set on having companion multiclassing handled through dialogue trees. I can't see why this should be however. What's wrong with having the same character creation screen pop-up upon hiring a companion for the first time? 1) Because of the unique companion subclasses. Anything selectable by the watcher would have to be selectable by the companion, and visa versa, so you wouldn't be able to have subclasses unique to one companion, like shark spiritshifting. 2) Because it would make the companion's appearance, race, and attributes customisable. Eder as an Orlan anyone?

I find that hard to believe as well. It's all there for the main character but somehow breaks down for the companions? I suspect it's more a case of not wanting to overwhelm players and/or it being hard to balance the game around completely free multiclassing. The main character goes through a character creation screen. Companions do not. Originally, when multiclassing happened after first level, there was a separate screen for multiclassing which gave companions access to all the same options as the main character. Now multiclassing occurs at first level companions simply do not use that interface. Instead all of the available options (three) are handled through the dialogue tree. You could have more than three, but the dialogue tree can't support the 30ish potential choices, so there has to be an arbtary cut off.

Engine mechanics, not plot.

Is Discworld the only place where dwarves (well, some of them) have welsh accents?

It's a pirate game me hearties! Yar don't be likin ships yeal be keelhauled and sent to Davy Jones's locker! Arrrr!

The thing that always bothered my about shapeshifters in rpgs is they are almost always associated with spell casters. So, even if they could cast whilst shifted, they where almost always better using spells than ripping things to shreads with natural weapons. So Takehu as a shapeshifting chanter gets my vote!

Can Takehu still change into a shark if I make him a pure chanter? An can he continue to chant whilst sharking about?

I find it much easier to identify with short grumpy people with beards than skinny tree-hugging namby-pambies.

People don't play dwarves in PoE because they are a mechanically poor choice without any interesting special abilities. I play plenty of dwarves in other games. Although that might be to do with me being short and beardy in RL.

Moving the western end of Deadfire south of Dyrwood, closer to Old Vailia, and having it stretch into the far east (with a very much larger southern ocean) would resolve most of the contradictions. However it would be hard for it to stretch "to the equator" if is south of Dyrwood (I believe it is confirmed that Dyrwood is in the southern hemisphere). I think we need to accept that Obsidian don't have a secret map of Eora, and official statements are sometimes contradictory. In terms of Deadfire gameplay, it makes sense for the Watcher to be able to sail south from Dyrwood to reach Deadfire, without having to cross/sail round a large continental landmass to get there. The name Ixamitl PLAINS suggests an inland region with little or no coastline. This can be resolved if Rauatai is a costal strip along the northern edge of the Eastern Reach continent, cutting Ixamitl off from the sea to the north. Raedceras cuts Ixamitl from the sea to the south. The lack of coastline would help to explain why Ixamitl was never as expansionist as Vailia and Aedyr.

It's a pseudo-renaissance setting. In the real world much of the map was being uncovered by then (apart from Australia and New Zealand).

"The Deadfire, when we first conceived of it, I just thought it would be cool to have at the eastern edge of the known world, at least in this part of the world, the eastern edge of the known world is this huge chain of islands mostly made up of dormant volcanoes, which is where the name Deadfire comes from." Source: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2018/02/06/pillars-ii-director-interview.aspx "The Great Kingdom of Rauatai is an aumaua nation in the Rauatai Gulf north of Ixamitl Plains." "A powerful kingdom established by conquest centuries ago, Rauatai is a major naval power on the shores of the north-eastern continent." Source: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Rauatai Interesting that Rauatai is a nation, NOT a landmass. The wording there could even have the Rauatai gulf as part of the same continental landmass as the Eastern Reach and Ixamitl. This post from Sawyer is the one that puts Deadfire to the south: "- Deadfire Archipelago - Quite a ways south of the Dyrwood, a wide archipelago of small volcanic island nations. Naasitaq, home of many boreal dwarves and aumaua, is the biggest and most stable nation around. Various nations and empires fight over the islands, to the east of which are sea monsters that invariably annihilate any ships that attempt to go exploring (many of them dwarven)." https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64747-issues-with-npcitem-surveys/page-2?do=findComment&comment=1400302

You know, that is kind of an interesting question when you think about. I sort of like how games a couple decades ago were far harder to pidgeon hole. Like the original Deus Ex, where you can complete the entire game with maybe five combat encounters. The original Fallout was flexible enough to also accommodate a relatively pacifist playthrough. There is also The Longest Journey which, while not really an RPG, always felt to me like it should have been and sort of missed its calling. Only a rare few truly extraordinary titles allow sufficient freedom for a player to elect their own experience and still be satisfying without relying upon combat as filler content. My question was intended to be rhetorical. The term "action RPG" was coined specifically to distinguish games like Diablo from games like Baldur's Gate. Since PoE is a game like Baldur's Gate, not a game like Diablo, it's not an ARPG by definition. As for games like Deus Ex, it's not like Baldur's Gate and it's not like Diablo, so it belongs in a third category, alongside Mass Effect2 etc.