spardeous
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Posts posted by spardeous
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17 hours ago, wingedchocolatecake said:
Did you blow up the entire Powderhouse?
I think Maia is scripted to either leave or stay if you have a +2 reputation (possibly need romance, no idea), but since there was no quest, then yeah, that's probably what did it.
Variables that are tied to Maia are (to the best if my knowledge):
RDC reputation
Huana reputation
Her personal reputation with you, ie your options during her dialogue and whether or not your 'follow' what she likes
Her quest, The Courier's Calling or something like that
Romance
Whether or not you sacrificed Kana and Kana's outcome in POE1
No, I didn't blow up the Powderhouse. I just blew up a few barrels when I was sneaking around to kill guards. The guard outside goes hostile for some reason if I get too close, even though they never seen me. I seen in the global variable bundle that there are a couple variables that control the powderhouse state, but resetting them to 0 doesn't seem to do anything. Bear in mind, I did this before I even got her as a companion.
My watcher has +2 reputation with her.
I have high RDC rep and fair Huana rep.
Never been able to talk with her.
Didn't sacrifice Kana, haven't been able to romance her because I can't talk to her.
She still chimes in and talks to NPCs, but she just continually glares at me whenever I try to initiate dialogue. -
The Maia in my game seems to be bugged. She won't talk to me and only responds with a glare. I can't start her quest, but aside from when she joined at the palace, haven't talked to her at all.
I killed both the Bardettos and Valeros, but during negotiation when they jumped me. Other than that, I haven't done anything that I think could piss her off. I haven't joined any of the factions yet, and I didn't sacrifice Kana. I did sneak into the Powderhouse and did blow up a few barrels, but they didn't notice me. I blew them up cause it doesn't count as a kill if you do - I suspect this is what may have started the bug.
Been tryin to use Unity Console to fix whatever variables are messed up, with no success. -
6 hours ago, fYNX said:
That's Iselmyr who was a cool laid-back "dude", not Aloth.
Iselmyr was, by design, impulsive and unpredictable. I would not call it 'laid-back'. I don't remember a time in PoE1 when Aloth panicked about anything, even when you first meet him and he's about to get his ass kicked by those dudes at the inn.
But by the end of PoE1, he'd grown to the point that he doesn't really need her anymore and she just pops in when he's in danger. Also, in Deadfire, he talks as if he had successfully dealt with his weird family situation, so you'd think he'd be even more mentally liberated and stable than getting triggered at Serafen talking loosely about sex and puns.
I tend to go through as many dialogue options as I can that don't seem openly provocative, to get a feel for each character, and I can't be the only one who finds it weird that this strategy has led him, the most anti-religious person in the party, befriending the most hyper-religious person in the party and basically snubbing his day ones.
Also, forgot to mention that he gave me 'the talk' for going negative in relation - my Watcher's 3 highest traits are honest, rational, clever, so I really don't see how he's so pissy about traits that, based on his personality, he should cherish.
I mean, how is it that he doesn't like tradition but also has zero appreciation for non-traditional thinking? It really feels like his personality insofar as his likes/dislikes is only half-written. -
I played Deadfire partly through near launch(right past Deadlight) and just recently came back to it, with a fresh party and some Blessings... so I have to ask:
What is up with Aloth?
He was such a cool laid-back dude in the first game, but in Deadfire, he's never pleased by anything and constantly fighting with teammates. He's at 0 disposition with Eder and Eder is at +2 with him, and Eder's personality is a total mirror of his(extremely easy-going on the surface but very serious convictions down deep). You'd think they'd be getting along because of how long they've known each other. He's at 0 disposition with my Watcher, and my main gotos are Honest, Rational, and Clever.
SpoilerHe set out to destroy the Leaden key in the first game
, so he's anti-traditionalist, but he is far-and-above the most conservative party member I've met by a longshot. It's frankly absurd how crazy it is - he gets mad at Serafen for making stupid puns. His likes(of which he only has 2) don't make any sense. The only person he likes is Xoti, and
Spoilershe is a fanatical religious zealot who believes she was chosen by god.
How is that anti-traditionalist? One of these things is not like the other...
His personality(or at least his likes/dislikes) make no sense in Deadfire. It seems like all the growth he made personally in the first game has been walked back, and then some.
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He crushed your keep, killed your servants, killed you, stole your soul, and worst of all, stole your freaking statue!
There is no reason why the watcher couldn't have sopped up souls for himself and fought the 100m god. But hell, why stop at Eothas? Let's fight /all the gods/!-
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I posted this in another thread. It's really strange to me that the writers chose to overlook him since he is so much more integrally connected to the Eothas story than any other companion.
When Durance found out at the end of PoE that the gods
were basically just immortal Engwithans
, his natural response - given his spiteful nature and as someone who had sacrificed a great deal in the name of Magran as well as him hinting at the possibility that killing Eothas was a mistake - should have been to eradicate the gods.
If I were Durance, my first impulse upon hearing that Eothas had rose up out of the ground would be to track down the watcher(especially since it came from Caed Nua).
Except at that point I feel that Durance only cares about his vengeance on Magran. He doesn't give a damn about Eothas, since he is so obsessed with what Magran did to him.
I would have loved to see old coot, but I feel like he has even LESS reason to appear.
Aloth for me had the weakest reason. Pallegina was alright since there was a big thing in Deadfire and she was called by the Republics, Eder is affected directly because it was his own god that rose from the dead, so its natural for him to follow with you.
You seem to hold an overly-simplistic view of Durance's motives. My impression of him was that he truly believed that, by doing the bidding of the gods, they were looking out for humanity, therefore, he was helping humanity by following Magran's orders. He was acting as a soldier does, not questioning his orders, not questioning his beliefs, doing what he is told. His incredulity at Magran's seeming betrayal of him was such that, if you convince him to not give up his faith,
he kills himself.
Vengeance is definitely in there as a motivator, but I believe that, through certain dialogue choices(such as his reaction to you sacrificing companions to the blood pool, and his words about killing the wrong god) he hints at the idea that he really did feel morally responsible for what he did.
The major problem with the interpretation that Durance just "wanted vengeance for being used" is that, if he truly believed in Magran's leadership, he would not have felt like he had been used. If he had truly enjoyed what he had done, there would have been no crisis of faith, because he would have felt satisfied. The fact that he had a crisis is proof of that concept in motion. Waidwen's legacy and Magran's silence was proof that the gods were not looking out for humanity, thus the crisis of faith.
Coming to find out that the world was being run by what amounted to a clique of mean-girls-esque gods surely drove him over the edge about the gods. Remember, Eothas was the embodiment of what Durance wanted from Magran - the boy came down to end the wars and lead the Dyrwood to salvation.
Juxtapose Durance's anger at Magran for cutting him off with the fact that he was used to kill the god who truly represented the ideal of what he thought a god should be, and it's obvious why Durance would choose to pursue nu-Eothas.
I mention the weight of Durance's incredulity to point out how much he truly believed in what Magran had told him - his belief in Magran wasn't predicated on that it sanctioned him to act carelessly and without restraint. He was a deep believer in the most profound sense of the word. He's the one character whose faith is of central importance to his world-view. It goes to show the brilliance of Avellone's writing, and it's a hell of a shame that he never got to implement his "fix" quest on Grieving Mother and Durance.
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I posted this in another thread. It's really strange to me that the writers chose to overlook him since he is so much more integrally connected to the Eothas story than any other companion.
When Durance found out at the end of PoE that the godswere basically just immortal Engwithans
, his natural response - given his spiteful nature and as someone who had sacrificed a great deal in the name of Magran as well as him hinting at the possibility that killing Eothas was a mistake - should have been to eradicate the gods.
If I were Durance, my first impulse upon hearing that Eothas had rose up out of the ground would be to track down the watcher(especially since it came from Caed Nua).-
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Same issue here.
Fails during download with "Server problem" -
@spardeous- he wouldn't jump on the Eothasian bandwagon because, as he happily tells you, he got his jollies during the Purges torturing suspected Eothasians to insanity, death and the destruction of their souls.
He's about as tragic as the suicide of a genocidal maniac.
Have you heard what Magran has to say about humanity? lol, Abydon and Eothas were the only two gods who actually cared about humanity. And for that, they were both murdered by the other gods.
Durance was just following the dictates she laid out. Him saying he felt used is par-for-the-course with Magran's dictates. Eothas had to be eliminated "by any means necessary"; that's sort-of what the Godhammer represented. You think it was just Magran's followers who participated in those purges? lol, take look at the freaking Dyrwood, for christ's sakes. Hell, Woedica is the one who convinced a begrudging Magran that the Godhammer was a good idea - just let that sink in.
Durance is the most tragic of your companions - by the end of POE, he seemed to deeply regret his actions, not because "people died", but because Eothas represented exactly what he was asking of Magran, and why he despised his god. Magran sent them on a wild goose chase to snuff out Eothas's influence for less-than-noble reasons. Eothas may have used his followers, but he came down to personally LEAD them, at his own expense. Durance didn't even personally believe the man claiming to be Eothas was the real deal, but as you unfold his story, he tells you flat out that he "may have killed the wrong god".
That's his crisis of faith - if he truly believed that Magran's actions were just, then he would not have doubted his crusade against Eothas. When he finds out that the gods are actually just ancient Engwithian nobodies cut from the same cloth as the cast of the movie "Mean Girls", it's understandable why he is shocked - through that nature, the gods led the Dyrwood right into Waidwen's legacy, and he, along with the watcher, come to understand that in POE. The one god who could have stopped him - Eothas - was snuffed out by who? Woedica and Skaen, who were both working with Thaos, and Magran, who was "tricked" by Woedica.
Maybe Durance didn't feel sympathy for those he killed, but this is beyond splitting hairs. Does Eder sit around and twiddle his thumbs over every random pirate he kills? What about all the ships the watcher sinks? How many of those pirates would have begged for their lives if anyone on the boat had given a **** enough to fish them out of the water? Thousands died under the eye of Eder - you can balance it out and say 'yea but he helped saved the Dyrwood so it's ok' - but then so did Durance.
Which is my whole point.
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while I liked him..(Sorta)...he is dead in my game . So dunno if you can bring a dead person in this game .
Is he dead because you told him to renew his faith? Or because he actually died?
You kinda need to re-frame your view of him slightly to understand why he's relevant - he killed the ONE god(at great personal expense to himself) who actually took a stand for the mortals(besides Abydon). Eothas represented Durance's utopia, and Durance slowly comes to that conclusion throughout POE. Maybe it wasn't clear at the time, but his regret lies not just in the fact that he was used, but that he was instrumental in destroying the one (living)god who actually gave more of a **** about the mortals.
He is by far the most tragic character in POE, because he brought about the destruction of the one thing that he truly desired from his deity(direct intervention to benefit mortals) with his own hands.
And now, the mistake he made has been undone.
Why wouldn't he jump on the Eothasian bandwagon at this point, or the "lets just destroy heaven in general" bandwagon? Durance is highly relevant to what is going on in Deadfire, perhaps more than any of your ex-comrades, because Eothas is up marching around.
In POE, his whole story is him coming to terms with the fact that that his actions brought up the destruction of his ideals, including his personal connection with Magran. He was used and discarded.
He hated the idea of being used more than anything, so much so that he makes his position about the god's continued existence(if he had his way) well understood near the end of POE. The fact that Magran stopped commuting with him after the Godhammer messed his soul up, combined with that all of his brethren died mysteriously just adds fuel to the fire.
IIRC, he even hints at the idea that he blew up the wrong god. His redemption arc would be awesome, because he is the one character in POE who would gladly sacrifice himself for that vengeance. And I would personally not mind weaponizing that zeal. I feel like this is a missed opportunity, because in Durance, you have a character with a real chance at achieving his redemption and real motivation to do it.
He's the only one with the same sort of skin in the game that the Watcher has.
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Please tell me that he isn't. Can you imagine how horrible he would be fully voiced...?
lol, him and Eder were the best characters. He's the Archie Bunker of POE, except meaner and more intelligent.
His hatred makes so much more sense when you actually sit down and talk with the gods. I would probably turn into a cynical bitter old man too, If I devoted my life and sacrificed part of my soul to these louts -- with the exception of maybe Galawain, Abydon and Eothas(so far).
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After the "round table" scene, I so want to help him get his vengeance.
I would forge a cannon to launch his soul into into the cycle if I could weaponize his hatred towards this gaggle of bickering little bitches they call "gods". It's clear to me at this point why he hated them.-
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Is there a perception that level 8 and 9 spells suck so much that multi-class characters ride shotgun over basic classes?
Well, the reason why I picked a single class over a multi-class is this: I want to get access to my most powerful abilities as early in the game as possible. Builds which are great only at or near max level don't have the same draw for me as builds that are as powerful in the beginning and middle as in the end of the game.
Isn't this typically the opposite of how caster progression works? They start out weak and vulnerable, and by end-game they are head of the pack.
In Deadfire, they start out weak, but don't seem to improve enough (in comparison to other classes and multi-classed characters) to justify single-class. If the level 8 and 9 spells were truly great, maybe it wouldn't be such an issue. But to me, it seems like the advantages of being say, a Wizard/Fighter hybrid and getting all of those nice modal abilities and excellent survivability outweigh the small gains of full spell progression by a lot.
I'm playing a pure wizard right now, and have specced Aloth as a Battlemage, and so far -- compared to the durability and damage potential I have seen from Aloth -- not multi-classing my main has seemed like a huge mistake.
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I could appreciate the laid-back feel of the original POE OST, but honestly, it just feels kinda depressing in Deadfire, and not in a good way.
I think you guys should lighten it up a little bit in the expansions - make it sound a bit more adventurous and provoking, and less like something that would be acceptable to play at a funeral.
IMO, it's just feels.... flat. -
The thing is, caster 'utility' has already been nerfed with the shrinking of Grimoires from 4 to 2.
"Cooking the books" seems to be a largely unnecessary and overly limiting nerf. Spellcasters were not THAT much more powerful in PoE.
Is there a perception that level 8 and 9 spells suck so much that multi-class characters ride shotgun over basic classes?
I mean, even if you were to pick a specific theme(buffing, DD, CC, etc...) with 2 spells, you barely have enough room to cover that one category; you don't get the "for every occasion" utility from such a narrow range of spells.
Priests and Druids aren't as squishy as Wizards, and don't have the same issue because they were already physically versatile. -
I am largely in agreement with the OP here. Limiting the Grimoires to a "read-only" state by-and-large defeats the purpose of them in the first place.
Limiting Grimoires to 2 spells achieves the outcome of reducing a caster's situational utility by approximately half - there was no need to 'hard-roll' them.-
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For what it's worth there *ARE* ending slides regarding the Endless Paths
I realize that, but it's not really what I was asking in OP. My thoughts on the matter have basically been confirmed(since the statue had enough juice left in it to k'now, facilitate the resurrection of a god).
In the OP, back before PoE2 was announced, I was wondering why it was never addressed in PoE, since some of the ending choices have to do with the topic of diverting soul energy to "repair" the Dyrwood, and it also could have been potentially used to weaken Thaos. I mentioned it above, but the Adra Dragon said she could live off the statue for another couple centuries, even with the roots severed.
More obvious to that is that firstly, it's right underneath the keep you live in and lord over, and second, because certainly there are still beings capable of harnessing the power of the it, I mean that's what attracted the Vithrack and most of the critters that inhabit the paths, yea?
The machine in defiance bay should be(and lore-wise. most likely is) a pittance of soul energy compared to the statue.
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The outcome of the Endless Paths and its importance can be seen in PoE2 hehe....
PoE2 had not been announced when I wrote this post. Check the date.
As it turns out, my thought process seems to have been in line with the writers here.
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Well, I guess it did have a lot of potential.
Bwahahaha -
In terms of 'liking' the reasons for the quests, Zahua and Eder.
I was disappointed by the outcome of pretty much every side-quest aside from Sagani, Durance, and Grieving Mother - it felt like these were the only 3 outcomes that answered more questions than they raised.
Eder's in particular, I thought should have went much further. It set expectations much higher than it delivered on. -
Agreed with OP. The interjection system is too 'insert-dry/witty-one-liner-here' monologuish. It felt more like party members were dispassionate observers and less like actual people. I think the reason people liked Eder so much is because his style fit this narrative.
This is not to critique their personas, which I thought were pretty well fleshed out(though the quests were underwhelming).-
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You have gazillions of souls trapped in the Adra that makes it up, right?
Isn't the statue supposed to be like a giant soul battery?
Why doesn't Od Nua teach you how to use them? Isn't that why he built it to begin with?
Isn't that what made the Adra dragon so powerful, and why it chose the paths in the first place?
I feel as though this could have had a lot of potential.
I don't think there's anyone to teach you; the Fampyr in the middle killed all his friends to control the soul energy. Od Nua is stuck in the past, and probably doesn't want you eating what is supposed to be his son. There could be a neat souls leaching into the nearby land, making it stronger effect.
See, what I don't understand is - the Dragon wants to use the statue as a conduit to both transmit itself from one form to another, and perhaps to continue leeching the power from the statue itself, right? I mean, why else would you need to put the medallion in it's hand?
So why can't you just reverse the transfer and trap it's soul in the statue after defeating it? Surely our protagonist should have no trouble with soul manipulation given his proclivities so far. Isn't it poetic justice to a certain extent that you trap it there? That instead of leeching off of everyone else, it becomes a source of power instead? Even in death, it's soul should still be radically powerful. And I mean, it's not even cruel given that this thing has no qualms about ****ing over basically anyone who enters the paths, despite having enough juice to keep itself alive for several centuries.
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You have gazillions of souls trapped in the Adra that makes it up, right?
Not anymore, the Adra Dragon siphoned pretty much all of it.
???
She said she could feed off of them for another couple centuries, even with the roots severed. That's a lot of souls.
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You have gazillions of souls trapped in the Adra that makes it up, right?
Isn't the statue supposed to be like a giant soul battery?
Why doesn't Od Nua teach you how to use them? Isn't that why he built it to begin with?
Isn't that what made the Adra dragon so powerful, and why it chose the paths in the first place?
I feel as though this could have had a lot of potential.
Any idea which variables/quests are tied to Maia?
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted · Edited by spardeous
After tinking around with it for about 2 hours(and learning a great deal about Deadfire's scripting engine), I figured it out. Yea, it is a bug. For anyone wondering:
The n_FQ_VTC07_firemaker_escaped global variable is set whenever a firemaker in the powderhouse dies.
So, in my game, I snuck into the powderhouse before Maia had even joined, and killed some of them by blowing up barrels. Wasn't spotted, and none of guards went hostile. Wasn't even on the quest, was just exploring. They didn't technically die by my hand, either, since they were killed by the barrel explosions - no rep loss or anything like that.
The bug is that Maia reacts to these variables, regardless of when they were set. In this case, she somehow read my character's mind that he had been in the powderhouse prior to her joining the party.
If you happen to have this happen in your game, try resetting n_FQ_VTC07_firemaker_escaped variable back to 5. Should fix it.