Icesong

You might know more than me and I'm operating on retconned lore, but the PoE1 manual says wood elves live 200 minimum: Wood elves cover most of the western continent shared with the Aedyr Empire. In some pre-historical era, a large number of them migrated across the sea to Eir Glanfath. Today’s Glanfathan elves are physiologically identical to those from Aedyr, but share no culture in common. Their natural lifespan is typically 200-310 years.

I don't agree that's what he said in the article, but I'm certain that's along the lines of what he'd say if asked to elaborate(and I still don't agree with some particulars, but my disagreement isn't my issue here). I'm not at all certain that's the viewpoint of the residing anti-romance brigade, who seem more to think that not only are romances hard to do right, but that they're nigh impossible to do right, and anything less is masturbatory pandering. Since I was vague earlier, let me be clear now: I'm not mad at Obsidian for this, and I won't miss them in this particular game—I might not even play it, as I don't like the setting. I'm merely annoyed by the knee-jerk celebration, because I think even badly done romances are worthwhile. Even if you don't bother with them(which I didn't in Deadfire) you can use that to say something about your character.

Now try putting them back in context. He's not saying "Gosh, we just don't have the time to do romances"; he's saying not only are romances not a positive for roleplaying, but that they actively harm it. "Waters down your roleplaying...", what do you think that means? He's talking about people who compromise their character in pursuit of a romance — saying or doing whatever it takes to unlock them, even if it's not in keeping with who the character is*. And since they want to focus on enhancing roleplaying, they're not going to bother with romances. It's a design choice from the viewpoint that romances are bad, not a cost saving measure. *Bad roleplaying. You can keep your convoluted redefining of commonly understood words.

That quote says nothing about limited resources, and it's actually just about the worst reasoning I've ever seen. What other options would like they to take away to protect people bad at roleplaying? All the posts on the first page celebrating this weren't about that either, which was my post was mocking. You're the one actually spinning here. The anti-romance sentiment that dominates this forum is not about a concern for resources.

Yes! Reduced ability to define my character!

Souls aren't drawn to you because you're the Herald of Berath, they're drawn to you because you're a Watcher: There was absolutely a conflict with Xoti's motivations. She started out with the intention to keep them from the Beyond, she just couldn't bear the burden. It was weird you couldn't tell her you wouldn't stand for it.

Bug, huh? I wouldn't have sided with Aeldys if I had to do this. Guess I'll have no choice but to go it solo since everyone's asking for insanity.

I was wondering that myself. If I had to guess, it's based on your reputation level with them. The VTC were my second highest and they showed up in my Príncipi playthrough.

I don't want to criticize because it's not as if I'm lending a hand, but the Pillars wiki is one of the least fleshed out I've seen.

I didn't take the "no surge of innovation or prosperity" to mean progress was still going onward. That ending is slightly different if you sided with RDC too. Although, I find it interesting that empowering Berath results in a more stable seasons and less wars and/or natural disasters. That suggest the gods have an effect on Eora's ecosystem. It was this slide that makes me think progress is still happening. Sided with Aeldys in this playthrough.

I was under the impression that rapiers are as heavy or heavier than any other 1H sword, and even 2H swords.

Yeah, I was expecting to at least be able to suggest a god, whether he agreed or not. I would've liked to hear his thoughts on each of them.

I don't think it's fair to say things become stagnant under Berath. They become steady. There aren't any soaring periods of creative inspiration, but neither are there periods of despondency. Progress is still going ever onward, come what may. Highly appealing to my stoic sensibilities.

Souls are still going to the In-Between, they're just not going to the Beyond. Not that that changes your point.

Yeah. After you get your ship you can go right to the Ashen Maw and he'll be there, as you see.

I don't know about the rest of the questions but this one is answered in the game for the current situation (if the gods are to be believed) - kith have few generations at most, then the consequences will start to show. A few generations for the Beyond to empty of all souls now, yes, but I'm suggesting that there was a time when the Beyond was brimming with new souls that had yet to enter the cycle; that old souls and new souls used to pass from the Beyond and into Eora. This serves as a potential answer to his question of how populations could have grown without the fragmentation of a living soul dying. He seems to be approaching it from the viewpoint that all souls were just dumped into Eora at once, which would mean there'd be no waiting souls in the Beyond if anything on Eora gave birth.

I just read the ending slide for Xoti and Maia being in a romance. They sound happier with each other than they are with the Watcher.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but I think my answer is: the same way. I'm only suggesting that the gods are creating more of them than there used to be, or at the least that's their goal. They observed a decline in the strength of souls over time, recognized it as an inevitable crisis and went about trying to solve it. Strong souls are associated with strong character: Spiritual fracturing doesn’t contribute to a person’s negative disposition, but is believed to have a subtler effect on their life’s vibrancy and potential. Heroes, brilliant scholars, and charismatic leaders are generally considered to have old souls that are well preserved. It's my supposition that the Engwithans attributed the decay of souls to the decay of kith civilization. Immoral people, people weak of character, were creating weaker and weaker souls. Religion was identified as the problem and the solution, and we all know the rest. And just a reminder of why I brought this up, in case that's been lost: it reconciles everything we know about the Wheel and reincarnation without it being a retcon, and without the gods lying or being wrong. What I'm asking is how the original kith with those strong souls reproduced? Your answer presupposes that death proceeded reproduction; one of the beings with those strong souls must have died in order to allow its soul to be fractured before any of the other beings could have engaged in biological reproduction. Sorry, I'm still not getting it. These are the questions I'm answering: Was there reincarnation before the Wheel? Were the gods lying, or otherwise wrong, about the consequences of the Wheel's destruction? How do population levels of kith, wilder and animals continue to increase despite entropy's toll on the soul? I don't see what biological reproduction has to do with any of these questions or any of my answers. It's tangentially related to the third question, but it has no immediate bearing and doesn't need to be addressed to satisfy the original question. And I'm not trying to, so I'm not presupposing anything. It seems like you might be, though. You seem to be imagining a world where, say, there's only two souls in all the cycle, and were those two to mate they'd have a Hollowborn as no third soul exists. Not until one of the two fragments in the cycle. First of all, if you're suggesting this couldn't have been the case, I don't see why not. Why couldn't it be that there existed only one superstrong soul in the beginning that fragmented? Some would even call that god. Regardless, why even imagine such a world? Why presuppose life precedes death? Souls could have originated in the Beyond. It could have taken billions of years before the Beyond was emptied of new souls that had yet to live.

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/174058952291/so-is-the-idea-that-before-the-wheel

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but I think my answer is: the same way. I'm only suggesting that the gods are creating more of them than there used to be, or at the least that's their goal. They observed a decline in the strength of souls over time, recognized it as an inevitable crisis and went about trying to solve it. Strong souls are associated with strong character: Spiritual fracturing doesn’t contribute to a person’s negative disposition, but is believed to have a subtler effect on their life’s vibrancy and potential. Heroes, brilliant scholars, and charismatic leaders are generally considered to have old souls that are well preserved. It's my supposition that the Engwithans attributed the decay of souls to the decay of kith civilization. Immoral people, people weak of character, were creating weaker and weaker souls. Religion was identified as the problem and the solution, and we all know the rest. And just a reminder of why I brought this up, in case that's been lost: it reconciles everything we know about the Wheel and reincarnation without it being a retcon, and without the gods lying or being wrong.

Just so no one has any confusion, when I was saying "strong souls" in my post I was contrasting it to souls so weak that they've degraded beyond the point of viability. The "strong souls" that the guidebook and Caldara de Berranzi talk about are souls that haven't fragmented over time, but they're not immune to it. And, yeah, I think that's part of the regulation: After the soul’s temporary respite Beyond, their caretaking god delivers a set of instructions. The soul is tasked with finding a new beginning on Eora and acting on the will of its creator over the span of the next lifetime. The widely accepted notion that everyone carries in him or herself a seed of divine command is the pillar supporting organized religion. A balance struck between free will and the world-steering intentions of the gods offers hope that Eora is progressing toward an ultimate goal, even if the details are unknowable in their design. Those "instructions" are one of the ways the gods attempt to strengthen souls. The way I see it. As I think Eothas said(don't have a nearby save to check the exact wording) at the Ashen Maw, they don't know what makes a soul strong. Which is why there's so many gods with differing agendas: they agreed on what to do(become gods and establish control), but not how to go about it from there, so they're seeing what works. The godlike are probably another way they're attempting to strengthen souls.

The number of souls can increase because one strong soul can fragment into multiple viable souls, and over the course of a lifetime a soul can become stronger, so even weak souls can theoretically become strong enough to produce additional souls. It sounded to me like the gods were only taking small parts of souls essence that would have been cast off anyway(the little fragments you mortal kith shed like snake skin), so they wouldn't be hampering the generation of souls. Wael didn't ask for the souls to go to the Beyond. Wael asked for the souls to be set on a random course to who knows where.

My heart sank after fighting the Guardian when I saw Ukaizo had three more zones to it. I was happy looks were deceiving and it was short as it was, but the final conversation with Eothas certainly felt abrupt. I think I said two sentences and that's it.

The middle road is tying the story to exploration, directly or indirectly, and the appropriate placement of drama and mystery. Skyrim wanted you to go exploring, but the writing almost never told/allowed for you to. The main questline and all the faction questlines constantly ratcheted up the drama to a higher level than the previous step(The College of Winterhold was a particularly frantic storyline). Writing stuff like "There's no time to waste! You must leave at once or we all doomed!" isn't conducive for the immersive roleplayer to want to stop and help someone find their lost satchel. Morrowind was far better in this regard. The main thing is that major questlines need moments of downtime for players to veer off into other things. The form this downtime can take are many. For example, if you want the player to go to some town to kill some guy, don't provide them with the information of where in the town the guy lives. Maybe don't even tell them who he is, if you can. Maybe all you know is that there's someone in the town doing something you need to stop. The downtime in this example derives from your lack of knowledge of how to proceed. You're not dawdling by ingratiating yourself into the town. I'm also a big fan of just straight up telling the player to wait. Time is needed to make preparations, time is needed for events to unfold. Telling the player they might as well go do other things in the meantime can be perfectly fine.

Well, according to the game the In-Between is also part of the Wheel system - a soul sieve through which the gods take their share to sustain themselves. Some people here even speculate it's the gods fault that souls degenerate as they "nibble on souls". So with the Wheel broken the In-Between is broken too - gods will weaken unless this whole thing is fixed. Also, the lore about the In-Between says that it's a place into which the Watchers peer to speak with lost souls and that the gods cannot reach it. So I wonder, with it broken, can Watchers even still retain their abilities? Or is this another in-game lie? Because lore says gods can't reach it but here we had Berath right at the beginning of the game sitting in the In-Between (what for is the stupid lore cyclopedia if you can't even trust it...). My understanding of Berath's explanation was that the In-Between always existed, the Beyond always existed, but not the Wheel. And the In-Between still exists. Without the wheel to mediate the transfer and redistrubtion of souls, the souls of all who die remain in the In-Between. And without souls to fill it, the Beyond gradually empties, trapping all the remaining souls in existence in the In-Between. Also, you started out in the In-Between and heard Berath speaking to you, but when you actually meet Berath you were in the Beyond. The Wheel turns again.