Slotharingia

I wasn't suggesting he has a preference male / female for the Watcher, just making observations on his opinions of out buddies. Honeslty it would be ridiculous to make him prefer men or women at the same time as being available to both (on a relationship level).

How is Zahua not useful? As to your dilemma, obviously Durance is the "worse" person and less useful to your character, though I'm not sure someone who kills people for a stat boost is in any position to judge

Does Aloth have an issue with men? In Deadfire, a whole ton of his eyerolling is directed at Tekehu & Serafen, and Eder, who is the one who's actually mean to him stays at 0 (for me). All three guys are big fat softies, and all his interactions with them involve him being negative as far as I can remember. The women, on the other hand, cause him to gush with approval. What does this mean? Does he feel more comfortable around women because of his abusive father? Is he obsessed with duty because of his neglectful mother? What's your take on his comments on his father/mother depending upon whether he's pro/anti leaden key? Also, is Aloth defined by being OCD/neurotic? He makes multiple coments about tidiness/cleanliness, and his reactions also fit into that category. As in, he'll approve only if what you say fits into a very narrow spectrum of what he considers positive, and even if he doesn't agree with the principle, he'll still approve of things that match his criteria (duty is good even if he's skeptical about what your duty is to). He's also really uptight and can't relax. How does Iselmyr fit into all this? Is it kinder to supress her or to leave her as part of him (does he need her)? Aloth's been a permanent fixture on my team since Deadfire came out and I'm now on my third character trying to get his approval by legit means, so I've been thinking about him quite a lot and would like to read some opinions.

Um, just because the guy is blond and cracks jokes doesn't mean he is similar to Alistair/Cullen and attracts the same fans. I'd rather they wrote what made sense for the characters. I feel like too much catering to fans can ruin the game. Dragon Age suffered from that already. Planescape Torment was a beautiful game with a beautiful story because it was created exactly how the writers wanted to create it. I do agree with you that catering to the fandom can be detrimental, but would it really have affected anything negatively to make Eder a romance option?

I think I'd have made them give you mostly approval for things you do, like help x person gives + (or - if it's a pro faction zealot and the thing in question isn't in their interest), and only for what you say on a minor scale. They could have made the dispositions more homogeneous. Like Maia's "resourcefulness" seems to be the same as "skulduggery" and Tek's "progressive" overlaps with Aloth's "Anti tradition" (even if they trigger at different points). Additionally, the companions would benefit from approving one another's more meaningful behaviour. *shrug*

Pallegina is described as "rebellious" in the wiki. She has changed, there are probably reasons for her to change but all in all, I can't help feeling the new characters were given more love in their writing, if only because writing someone without baggage is much easier.

On my third pt attempting to get Aloth approval by legit means and I can report that it is possible without cheating, it's just ... boring/highly restrictive. My favourite character to play is a rogue that's an extremely nice person but covers it up with humour/deflection and uses lying/bluff get his way and to avoid conflict wherever possible, plus I really love that this is even possible. Playing someone like that I can get to max +1 at the end of the game with Aloth, and I still have to metagame (as in reload/avoid certain responses/kick him out of the party for x thing). I had to create this character that mostly picks the most "sensible" convo options. I'm not sure I like the concept of being judged mostly for what you say and not on what you do, not only in reference to Aloth. For instance, you can really upset Eder by robbing the Dawnstars at the beginning, and then he'll like you 10 min later for your jokes, and characters liking you just cos you crack jokes is as shallow as Aloth hating you for doing it xD

I don't really understand what Steam bestsellers even mean. Last time I looked there were 2! items on the first page @ around 400 EUR that seemed to be some kind of developer tools. Who buys stuff like that, and why would it be selling better than actual games? As for the DLC's aka "season pass" - it seems like some kind of marketing thing. "Season pass" suggests to me that there will be more than one of them. Then again, I might be stupid.

Sounds like a bug to be honest. If he tells the Watcher they are like Iselmyr at -2 (or Thaos), then the Watcher would probably be the last person he'd want to be with. Or some very convoluted idea of romance which is... strange. That would be a seriously fked up relationship. Mind you, you can get to -2 with Aloth while playing a super nice person who's like neither of those 2.

No I think my post was fine, and that wasn't much sarcasm it was general confusion at how many people think Eder should care more about his "bro" than his god, or his possibly estranged former girlfriend, or this sort of fanatical chick who has weird views of aforementioned god etc etc. He isn't Minsc, he actually has a personality and motivations beyond "go for the eyes boo, go for the eyes". Bear in mind other often overlooked facts. Eder is one of, if not the, oldest people in the party by experience and "age". Aloth might technically be older by years, but by elf standards he is mid-late 20's tops. Of course he isn't interested in Xoti romantically, she is early 20's and he is probably mid to late 30's. She literally looks like a child to him, non-withstanding her unusual feelings about his god. Also he clearly still has unrequited feelings for the estranged former girlfriend. He felt like a Garrus to me, a trusted long term friend character, not someone you hook up with or get romantic about. Ignoring the fact that they made it possible to romance Garrus in 3 ;p. Speaking of Xoti, does no one actually help her? Every post about her arc I see implies she becomes an insane murderer, or her and Eder end up hating each other. In my ending they became great friends, she worked out her issues, and started focusing on helping the living as well as the dead. I literally do not see the Xoti/Eder relationship every account I read online sees. Yes they started rough, cause they were both misunderstanding each other, but they can work it out. I can only assume the people seeing that Xoti intentionally don't help her, or give her terrible advice. Idk where you get the idea people don't like Eder in POE2? He's still the most popular character according to the recent poll. IMO *all* the characters from 1 are kind of diluted, maybe because the variables involved in their endings made it too complicated, or maybe because the writers were just more interested in writing new characters, and Eder definitely suffers the least from this. Fans want old characters back, but it's easier said than done in games where choices matter. Characters like Varric from DA, who are ultimately unaffected by the hero's actions are more suited for continuation in another game, but even he can look like a bit of an idiot in DAI if you played an **** Hawke. Talking of Hawke, s/he's another example of a character whose variables from DA2 are ignored and you get this generic creature in DAI that does nothing but spout "blood magic is bad" and crack one joke about the maker's bosom. Another example would be Anders, who's given an obvious reason to be different, but a lot of people didn't buy it. I do understand why people would be disappointed they cannot romance Eder because he has that archetype people like to romance, without being a person who would romance him myself. I also get there can be reasons to make a character unromanceable but at the same time when a character is that popular, it should be obvious, make sense, and not be left to speculation. It's also just really begging for people to complain and possibly above all, it just seems like a missed marketing opportunity, since I can imagine a ton of starved Alistair/Cullen fans buying Deadfire simply to romance Eder. As for Xoti, again idk where you get the idea from everyone gives her bad advice? In both my endings, she was Eder's friend at the end and both were positive endings, although I didn't even do her quest in one of them. However, in both playthroughs Eder pretty quickly brought up he has issues with her, but still approved of her all the time and they acted normally in banter apart from 1 convo.

That makes sense. I was wondering actually, how everyone in Deadfire knows that Eder is a farmer, and brings it up.

right click and select "copy image location", in most cases that copies a url with an image extension instead of ... idk what random gibberish. Thanks. Fingers crossed... Okay, apparently i'm either really bad at this, or my watcher's cursed. where did you upload it? This works for imgur, but not google (in my experience at least). As long as your image url ends in .jpg or .png it should display it.

right click and select "copy image location", in most cases that copies a url with an image extension instead of ... idk what random gibberish.

LOL. It's not the whitest white cos I felt it was too "loud", for lack of a better term, so it's prolly more like really light blonde.

Probably. He's supposed to have white hair though, haha.

Here's my current watcher whose portrait doesn't fit but w/e. He's loyal to Berath, but not really happy about it, or anything he feels obliged to do. The harshness of reality is all too overwhelming, so he drowns it out with toxins. His motto: If you get no joy from gin, here is the abyss, jump in.

AFAIK she's from the Vailian Republics and in 1 she questions the motives of her superiors if she thinks their decisions will be bad in the long run. In Deadfire all she seems to care about is bitching about godlikes/gods and has lost all ability to question the Republics. Maybe this is supposed to reflect her becoming embittered or maybe it's just because she could have different endings in 1 and it was too complicated to create one character with different personalities depending upon the POE ending. Aloth also seems to be designed to fit one POE outcome. Her dispositions of anti pro godlike and anti racist also seem a tad conflicting to me.

In POE she questions her orders, and I don't remember her being an anti god/godlike obsessive, but ofc the lack of approval system in 1 can change how one views characters as you possibly ignore a lot of comments. In 1 my impression of her was somewhat boring but sensible and capable of questioning authority, in 2 she just comes across as yet another type of inflexible, judgy, weird zealot, even if I am more on her side than says Xoti's when it comes to the gods if I play my favourite type of character.

we meet her outside of her land . Maybe that's the difference . The deadfire are her lands after all . And I guess..how you solve her quest may also be a factor... But if she wasn't like this before...(don't recall her being soo...bitchy to be honest)...then yeah , make you wonder . -- Personally , I think often the tone of a game set the Mood . Like for exemple : Koto 1 and Kotor 2 . Kotor 1 was more light where Kotor 2 was very dark and that set the companions being more....angtsy . They won't crack jokes as often and such . Oh? I thought she was from Vailia? Also idk about her quest. I solved it as she wanted although my own character was godlike and I did not agree lol. Didn't even get any approval from her xD

I wouldn't call them bland, but I do feel the POE1 characters could have been done better and would have made more sense with a new protagonist. Eder seems kind of watered down to pro animal squee (but still likes steak). Making him non-romanceable is an odd choice since he's the Alistair of Eora. I'm willing to bet a ton of DA fangirls would have bought Deadfire just for that hehe. However, at least he's easy enough to get approval with so you don't feel like you never knew him before so much, and he's not suddenly weirdly obnoxious. He's still an ass to Aloth, but that's not new, and I've always found his outright cruelty to Aloth to be oddly out of character. Aloth is very judgy. You have to play in a specific way to get him to like you and can be hardcore benevolent but stuck at 0 approval with him (or even get negative approval) simply for not picking the most boring / sensible convo options all the time. He judges companions on a similarly superficial level, and I expect a senstive and intelligent character like Aloth to be more discerning. Pallegina has also developed an extreme personality that's focussed on anti godlike and anti religion while being totally and unquestioningly devoted to the Republics. She wasn't like that in 1, and it feels like she's anti-matured.

I think there's enough combat on the whole, but what might make it feel like there's not enough is that you can spend days of gameplay in Neketaka, walking around mostly just talking and avoiding using your crap ship, while spending any cash you do get hold of in the shops. That also means your party can experience a massive level increase from one fight to the next, which is a bit odd.

This is actually a really great concept for replayability.

Feels shorter than POE1 + Whitemarches. My actual gameplay times suggest it's longer, which maybe means it's just less boring?

I don't think it's comparable to abortion irl. It's about aborting babies specifically because they are godlike, which godlikes who don't hate themselves like Pallegina, and / or anyone who's not racist (for lack of a better term) might think is a really bad idea. If I remember correctly, Skaen godlikes are the example, but that doesn't mean it won't be done to all godlikes. What I disliked about the quest was that in order to make Pallegina happy, you have to kill a bunch of godlikes who you might actually agree with. It made me feel not like I had to support or oppose abortion, but like I had to pander to Pallegina's self hatred in spite of my character and Tekehu being godlikes with no such issues, and it made Pallegina and her anti godlike obsession come acrosss as irrational zealotry. I think I convinced Giacolo to use the research responsibly or something, but it wasn't very satisfying.

I tried *SO MANY TIMES*. Literally like a *dozen* times, couldn't manage to do it. They run up to him to damn fast, I couldn't even get close. What I did was get the entire party to target the boss. The others don't seem to attack Giacolo on their own.