molotov.

That is some explanation. You cant start epic journey for unlimited knowledge without spectacular robe, how else common folk will know you are The Animanceress? Maybe she borrowed some coin from Vallian traders, and they are not fully happy with love letter she left. She may (or not) give it back, once she succed and got famour and rich of course. Or she won the money in a duel, I read in some in game books that duels are really common in the Vailian Republics, one more point towards fighter. I'm just really sad that she is the 5 million stretch goal... if she was 4.25... or even 4.5... I'll only donate - with the PayPal - if we get close to 5 million. Animancy is just too interesting for me - I didn't killed a bunch of bad animancers in my PoE1 playthrought -, I just want to help someone with animancy...

"Ydwin, our eighth and final companion (we hope!), is a pale elf rogue/cipher with extensive training as an animancer. She was born in a remote, lawless settlement in the White that Wends, where she witnessed the cruelest extremes of kith and nature. Her observations fueled a fascination with animancy, and she eventually made her way to the Vailian Republics to study. She's since become an accomplished master in the field, and advances with luminous adra in the Deadfire have drawn her to the archipelago." Rogue/Cipher is a weird choice, she doesn't seem to have had a childhood without monetary power, a difficult childhood? Yes but not without money, maybe she had to crack some skulls but... she had money. Why she had money? Because she had the money to study animancy in the Vailian Republics! If the lore is correct that seems to be really expensive. So why rogue? She robbed the money? A animancer that has time to pick pocket people? Doesn't seem right. Maybe fighter/cipher, because she looks like a duelist and a fighter/cipher looks like a cool concept, and, let be honest, everyone will use Edér as a tank again... so a dps fighter would not be redundant. Her briefly introduction has shown once again that she is more interesting than both of the new companions that obsidian showed... really strange choice to have her in the 5 million stretch goal, why not at 4.25? Or maybe they know we liked her so that is why they are pushing her to the 5 million...

"And Deadfire is being balanced towards five, so presumably you're in favour of five for Deadfire." Why they had to change? The logic is that they are trying to make the combat simplier. "That's a list of three. Your list was six long. Also no, these archetypes are not universal. They came to prominence with the rise of MMOs." I don't need to make a response to that... "Because hard more really isn't very hard. Once you understand all the mechanics of Pillars even PotD is pretty easy with a party." So that means that the builds I'm using count for nothing? You are saying that I'm almost finishing the game without deaths because Hard Mode isn't very hard? So, I can make a party of only dps, oh... I'm sorry... that role doesn't exist right? I can make a party of rogues and select the abilities with a random dice and I'll finish the game without any deaths because hard is easy? "Casual is used to mean simplified, but it has negative undertones. When people say a game is casual they mean it's simplified in a bad way, and when they refer to other players as casuals it's obvious it's meant as a term of derision. That's why I don't like it." Because every single introduction of casual gameplay has led to a inferior quality of combat? Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Dark Souls II are some examples. I think that is why casual is a bad term... but hey... it's bad because of a reason... "I think it's partly because a lot of the companions in PoE were rather bland that Obsidian have decided to reduce the number in Deadfire. They want to make sure the ones they do have are deep and well written. Whether they manage remains to be seen I guess." Fair enough, that is a good argument. But why Xorti only needs 1.8 million stretch goal and Ydwin needs 5 million? Like I said in another post, ships are cool, sidekicks are meh, but an animancer companion is the best way to adress the error towards animancy, the error being that every single animancer we saw in PoE1 had only 2 archetypes, a lunatic or a poorly prepared academic.

My question is: Why we have to reach 5 million? PoE 1 didn't had this crazy stretch goal for more companions. Why they are trying to hold companions so much? Xoti was introduced in an early stretch goal and I suspect that she was introduced because there were no healers, If you watch some of the early gameplay the PC is always a priest... that is really strange...

"So why aren't you arguing in favour of eight?" Because the game already was balanced towards 6? "Your arbitrary list of roles isn't universal, and won't become so no matter how many times you repeat it." So you are implying that a tank, healer and dps is not a universal role in the RPG genre? Ok. " play almost exclusively on PotD, I've never come across this list of roles that "everyone" knows about. Oh also, I spend almost all my time here on the Strategies and Character Builds subforum and haven't come across the list there either. Nerdcommando's builds are pretty bad: he's far too tied up in the idea of min-maxing attributes, but the way attributes work in PoE, together with the changes in patch 2.0, make this a suboptimal way to play PoE. Trust me, go use some of the builds Strategy subforum here and realise just how much better they are than any of his. A side benefit of not min-maxing attributes is that the enemy is much less likely to bypass your front line (this is due to how their targetting works), which in turn makes it much less necessary to have three frontliners. But no, your list of roles is not universal, and if you know what you're doing (rather than following Nercommando's bad advice) you absolutely don't need to follow it." If they are so bad why I'm almost finishing Hard mode without a single death? To be honest I don't use a mercenary party full of min-max, my only min-max character is the PC which is a fighter tank, he is almost invencible, the only abilitie that almost killed him was that laser from the big sentinels from WM II ( I can't remember their names), but the others in my party Edér, Aloth, Kana, Durance, all of them have builds created by him, of course with some tweaks. "Well we'll see I guess. All I can say is that with a higher level cap, and all spells and abilities becoming per encounter, I am guessing there will be more, not less, to do in combat even with smaller parties. Combine this with multiclassing and subclasses (giving a total of 1007 class combinations) and I am not at all worried about Deadfire becoming simplified (I refuse to use the term casual as it's such a stupid term)." Casual is the same thing to say simplified... it's just a term used in video games. Dark Souls II pve is more casual than Dark Souls I pve to attract more players, that is fine for the company that created the game but bad for their old fans. I guess Obsdian is trying to do the same thing... but I really don't care about party size that much, I only made a response because I like to train my english. My biggest disappointment so far is that Ydwin will not be a fully companion, instead of her we got some boring sidekicks... here is a question for you... why PoE 1 can have 8 companions in the vanilla, but PoE 2 can't? Why we had to endure that boring grieving mother but we can't have a interesting necromancer?

You do realize that 1 class can fill almost all of the roles? For example, the fighter class can be a tank - and the best tank in the game in my opinion - a semi tank and a dps - even a ranged dps-, that is the beauty about this game. Yes, the roles are rigid but the classes aren't. It's something that the community realized pretty quickly, there are hundreds of builds, even I created one with the help of Nerd Commando. Josh talked a little about all of the builds we created and he told us that he used the builds to balance the game, I think that the Q&A he said that is on the youtube. The only role that is static is the healer, there are only 2 classes that can heal well, priest and druid, but priests are much better in healling. You played PoE1? You do realize that party centered RPG's tend to have rigid roles?

This is a pretty terrible reason. Firstly, there are going to be seven companions, so even with a party of six (and even with your arbitrary assumption that people won't want to bring Pallegina) that's going to mean one companion is left out. This means one of two things: either you're still going to miss out on companion interactions even with a party of six, or your logic extends and, in fact, seven in the best number (or eight for those of us who plan to bring Pallegina). But the argument is flawed on a more fundamental level in that a player isn't locked into a single party setup. You can cycle through your companions throughout the game and, in doing so, experience all their interactions. I've been doing this since Baldur's Gate 2. "Simplistic" "generic" "weird" and "casual". None of these words really means anything in this context*, they're all just ways of saying "I don't like it". As for your perfect party: that's an awfully specific set of roles that you must have. It's almost like you've gone out of your way to come up with six roles in order to support your view that six is the best number. Here's another role: support/tank. Now I have come up with this role I am afraid that seven is the best number, not six. Also I find comparisons to Dragon Age (or other games) bizarre. You do realise that there were other differences between PoE and Dragon Age than the size of the party, and that these might have had an effect on their differences? I'd focus your attention of getting used to the idea of five person parties, as Josh seemed pretty clear in the Q&A stream that they are not going back to six. *Well, that's not true, I agree that five person parties is "weird" in that it's unusual, but unusual does not mean bad. Well I don't know how to make that quote stuff, so this will be a ratter big post. "This is a pretty terrible reason. Firstly, there are going to be seven companions, so even with a party of six (and even with your arbitrary assumption that people won't want to bring Pallegina) that's going to mean one companion is left out. This means one of two things: either you're still going to miss out on companion interactions even with a party of six, or your logic extends and, in fact, seven in the best number (or eight for those of us who plan to bring Pallegina)."Arbitrary assumption? I've made that assumption because of her popularity in the forum and Steam forum, no one talks about her. And the populatiry of palladins, a lot of people love to use palladins and, therefore, it's logical that people don't want two palladins in the same party. Yes, of course that one companion is left out I'm not stupid, what I meant was: MORE OPTIONS. With 5 members we have less options and with 6 we have more, it's a pretty simple argument. "But the argument is flawed on a more fundamental level in that a player isn't locked into a single party setup. You can cycle through your companions throughout the game and, in doing so, experience all their interactions. I've been doing this since Baldur's Gate 2." No! REALLY? You can cycle through your companions? Wow! I've never thought about that! Again... I want more options, Josh is always talking about options in their Q&A in twitch, so I'm using this as an argument. "Simplistic" "generic" "weird" and "casual". None of these words really means anything in this context*, they're all just ways of saying "I don't like it"." Really? I thought that someone from a game forum would know their meaning, that is why I didn't explained, because of the context of the forum, but I guess I have to explain... 1- Simplistic, 5 companions is a small and weird number because there were a set of class roles that the community created to play the game, 3 melee characters - 1 tank, 1 semi tank, 1 melee dps - and 3 ranged characters - 1 healer, 1 dps, 1 cc, now that we have only have 5 slots someone is left out of the combat system, maybe it's the semi tank or maybe it's the cc - I don't imagin a RPG without a tank, dps or healer -, therefore the combat is more simple. 2 - Generic, same reasons, now we don't have some of the cool roles that we had before, the semi tank and the cc, those are roles that you can find in MMORPG games and old CRPG games, nowadays it's hard to find a party with more than 4 members because it makes the combat system more complex, that is why I said generic, because it's something that everyone is doing. 3 - Weird, because it's a weird number, because of the reasons I already said, but I'll explain once again, we had 3 melee 3 ranged, what happens now? 2 melee 3 ranged, it will be hard to control the enemy front, 3 melee 2 ranged, it will be hard to dps the enemy team. 4- Casual, because the combat was complex and the community loved it, now with less people to micro it will be more casual to play, simple. "As for your perfect party: that's an awfully specific set of roles that you must have. It's almost like you've gone out of your way to come up with six roles in order to support your view that six is the best number. Here's another role: support/tank. Now I have come up with this role I am afraid that seven is the best number, not six." Well, I thought that everyone knew about those roles, because it's used by everyone that plays on hard or PotD, just check the forum, or just search "pillars of eternity guide" on youtube you can find Nerd Commando he has a video with more than 30 k views explaining this. But let me help you, I'm playing the game on the hard mode trying to beat the game with 0 deaths, and in order to do that I had to make a balanced party, I realized that 4 melees and 2 ranged was bad because my front was too busy and my wizard/druid couldn't do a big AOE spell so easily, so I switched for 2 melees and 4 ranged, even worse, now the enemies are breaking my front and going after my squishes, so I switched for 3 dps 3 ranged, just perfect, now I have to balance out the roles, 1 tank of course and 2 melee dps, it's not working so well, the enemies are hittin hard and fast, my 2 dps are dying so fast, so let's switch for 2 tanks and 1 dps, not good, 2 tanks means little damage, so... 1 tank 1 semi tank 1 dps, perfect, want an example? 1 fighter (tank), 1 rogue (semi tank), 1 barbarian (dps) they can control the enemy front that is 6 or even more enemies in the hard mode. Now let's balance out the 3 ranged characters, those one were easier, 1 healer of course and 2 dps, well... it's working out but there are some crazy enemies that can break my front what sould I do? Oh... wizards have a lot of cc abilities... well guess what? I'll use an specialized wizard just to cc the enemy front and then my melee and ranged dps can make quickly work of the enemy front whilst the enemy mages are petrified! It's a pretty basic concept well known by the community. "Also I find comparisons to Dragon Age (or other games) bizarre. You do realise that there were other differences between PoE and Dragon Age than the size of the party, and that these might have had an effect on their differences?" Do you realize that I used Dragon Age just to compare the chaotic battlefield? I didn't compared the combat or anything like that, it was only the chaotic battlefield. "I'd focus your attention of getting used to the idea of five person parties, as Josh seemed pretty clear in the Q&A stream that they are not going back to six." Well I'm pretty good with micro, so I'm more worried about the fact that the game will get casual than worried about the idea of getting used to five.

I agree with everything, specially the part about the bad planning towards stretch goals, the obsidian team - specially Josh - seems to not want a 8th companion, but they introduced that strange sidekick stretch goal, why not a fully 8th companion? Why we have to wait until 5 million? Why not 4.25? Yes ships are cool, but a potential animancer companion? That is even better, seeing that animancy is such a big part of Eora, bigger than ships.

PoE1 had so many cool classes, Wizards could petrify and make a huge wall of flame and watch their enemies burn, chanters could summon two Ogres to fight alongside you whilst doing some nice dps with their phrases, priests could do anything, dps, cc, heal, rangers and rogues had crazy criticals and single dps, paladins were really good tanks with supportive abilities and I'll not even talk about Monks and Barbarians that could just destroy an entire enemy party alone and there were fighters... don't get me wrong they were one of the best tanks and semi tanks in the game but... they were so boring to play with, awkward abilities, a mediocre dps compared to the other classes, the only good thing was their deflection and that was it. I'm a huge fan of fighters and warrior type, I played with a fighter tank in PoE1 and I just want to have fun with whilst playing him. Fighters don't have any cool abilities and by cool I mean aesthetic and they lack dps abilities. So here you go some ideas: 1) Type of ability with bleeding, so a tank could do a little bit of damage. 2) More weapons to use, knights studied the HEMA introduce some of the concepts in the game. 3) Quick swap of weapons, a knight carried at least 4 weapons, an arming sword, pike, buckler and dagger why we can't carry that in the game? 4) More CC abilties, grapple is a big party of the HEMA. 5) Deflection with weapons, why fighters can't parry? 6) Make the abilities more aesthetic, you have a bunch of cool stances in the HEMA use some of them! 7) Stances, agressive stances ( + dps), defensive stances (+deflection), and so on. Those are some examples, I have a lot more...

Yes, PayPal please, I would like a physical copy.

6 is the best number, specially for this game. There will be 3 companions reintroduced, I'm quite sure that almost everyone will likely use Edér and Aloth again, so you will have to choose 2 of the 3 - hopefully 4 - new companions, to sum it up, you will not know the interactions between the old companions and the news ones in only one playthrough, that is the lore reason why 6 is the best number. Combat wise, 6 is by far the best number, 4 is really simplistic, generic and full casul, 5 is just weird and casul, PoE1 had the perfect party, 3 melees: 1 tank, 1 semi tank, 1 melee dps; 3 ranged characters: 1 healer, 1 dps, 1 dps/support. You could make a party with any of the classes without limitation, with 5 you will have a huge limitation, you will have to choose between 1 semi tank and 1 support/dps, both of them are great for CC and battlefield control, without them the battlefield will turn into a mess - just like Dragon Age. Please, go back to 6...

Hello, I'm a huge fan of the first game, although I haven't finished yet - my GPU died -, I have played more than 300 hours and watched 25 hours of gameplay on youtube and I have to say, animancy is treated quite bad in PoE1. We have quite a lot of terrible events caused by lunatics or good academics doing research without any proper preparation and one or maybe two examples of good events, but those have sparse details and nothing specific like the terrible events. So that being said, Ydwin is a good opportunity to show that a lunatic can do some good, make her quest interesting, let the watcher help her with the research, give us the choice to help animancy! If possible delay her, make her a new companion for a DLC, but don't waste the opportunity. And to be honest Ydwin seems more interesting than any of the new companions you guys showed so far...

After trying to use that amazing dragon's breath ability I realized that all of my soulbound bonuses were gone, even though the text in the shield says "All soulbound upgrades are completed" they are not there anymore, therefore it's a lie, I've never complained about bugs, for example that mob in Caed Nua keeps shouting at me even though they are not there but I can live with that, but live without that awesome fear aura or that even more awesome dragon's breath? Impossible, so some help would be appreciated.