Taevyr

That was also the main reason i destroyed the pillar: to me, it was either A) leave the pillar standing only to leave it for the vailians to experiment on, which seemed especially bad considering it already got corrupted without animancy experiments; or B) destroy it and all the souls in it, as well as removing one of the routes towards reincarnation (not a pleasant choice either) but at least making certain the adra pillar, and the souls that would end up passing through it, don't get corrupted or abused by the Vailians, as well-intended as their research may be.

I understood that the situation with Tikiwara was basically RDC vs Vailians. Either VTC establishes their trade post there and helps the village survive, or RDC completely takes over, and THAT will be taking over the land. RDC basically conquers and subjugates, plus they employ assasination tactics to break the spirit of people instead of growth for everyne. Trading post doesn't give out territory, its just that - a trading post, the land in question still belongs to the Huana, unless there is a property contract in question (which we saw in another quest). VTC doesn't just come and take the land. The Trading Post does create some sort of dependency true, but usually these kinds of things are beneficial for everyone. Huana can buy food from trade and in return sell something else they can get/produce on the island, for example the... carpets? I don't remember what they were producing there. Or work in aiding vailians mine adra. The fact remains a fact - there is shortage of food on the island, and it would not survive without outside help. As for cultivating the fruit. Cultivating one fruit will not help in the larger scale and will not feed the entire village because the soil is not good enough. You can get that information from talking to villagers and to the ranga. So that little quest basically helps no-one. The only way the village can prosper is through trade, or if Onekaza decides to send more supplies on a regular basis there, but she doesn't have resources. The shortage of food is caused by the stoms of poko kohara, and the chieftain trusts that the vailians will swoop in and save them without taking into account the fact that they'll simply strip-mine the area for luminous adra, then leave them to starve again. When RDC take over in the ending slides they do it "divide and conquer"-style, as can be seen with Maia's quests and their general dealings in the Deadfire: they assassinate the ranga, then bring in the goods and support they need to survive the transition, also making them seem more trustworthy to other tribes. It's dirty as hell, but relatively bloodless and in my view benefits the natives more than being dependent on Vailian colonialism. Also, the chief's making his people build a huge trade post while they're actively starving, which didn't really endear the guy to me. Aside from picking sides, this whole discussion is a testament to the writers' work in putting actual meaningful choices in the game. All factions are a certain shade of awful.

Much prefer Ballrog Boogie myself. That's pretty good, though perhaps a tad too operatic at times for my taste. Here's some (trashy) freshly plundered pirate metal, since we're all sailing the Deadfire these days.

Nier Automata soundtrack = Best soundtrack EDIT: how do I link the video? EDIT 2 (Electric boogaloo): figured it out with earlier replies.

Beckoner/Wael priest is pretty good: First buff self with Mirrored Image/Displaced Image (no cooldown afterwards ), summon skeleton army/ogres depending on lvl, then rotate with buffing and new ogres. Since the only difference is in hp and defense, dropping 4 ogres on an enemy is usually enough either take him out immediately or follow up with a kill shot from Maia, and i can always wedge enemy groups between the ogres on one side and eder (basically a wall), xoti (self-buffing monk/priest) and myself on the other. Then i add a dire blessing/triumph of the crusaders/watchful blessing, and the stun invocation when it's a low-will boss, and they can happily smash away, healing themselves as they move along, distracting/flanking even krakens when necessary. I was looking forward to getting a free gaze of the adragan, but by the time I get it, it'll be moot. As for the skeletons: beckoner doubles summons, and ancient brittle bones makes them split in two upon death. So imagine dropping 6 skeletons on an enemy before hitting him with a fireball, after which he immediately finds himself surrounded by 12 tiny murderous skellies who each do equal damage as one of the troubadour's 6. And may or may not have been in range of one of my party buffs.

Restarted a game on the GOG patch 89 release: I picked two clever responses thus far and my disposition has yet to rise, so thanks to obs for fixing that one. Now to see whether companion dispositions are fixed as well, and i might just continue this playthrough

Ran a Beckoner/Wael priest until I put off further playing until the dispositions/relationships/import bugs are patched. Mainly because the combination seemed to fit me, but Wael makes for decent tanking, tiny skeletons are OP and hilarious, and i can even do some decent buffing. I doubt it's everyone's cup of tea, but as a "Control/Nexus"-type character, it plays quite well. Not to mention the free Gaze of the Adragan on the horizon.

At first, you're happily exploring the deadfire with your perky companions, drinking rum with pirates, naming every unknown island "India", and chasing a green giant filled with a lot of soul. Then you find the slavers, the "manifest destiny" imperialists, the soul-crushing colonialism and the Huana caste system. You're still happily drinking rum with pirates and taking in the atmosphere, but mostly because somewhere along the road you realized that not everyone's "Age of Discovery" comes with good findings, and you might as well have fun before the open seas become open season.

While I'm doubtful myself about releasing 3 DLC by the end of the year, the fact that these were planned during the fig phase of Eternity 2 does mean Obs' has probably been preparing and working on them for quite a while. I doubt they'll be "full" expansions in the vein of the Witcher or old school Bioware, but if sales are good enough we might just still get one of those down the line, and Obsidian's never disappointed with their DLC before, whether small or big. Though this time i'll hold off on playing until a few months post-release, before i get infected with Buggy-Launch Syndrome and forget about past decisions whenever i wake up

Honestly, the fact that the game manages to get a 85-90% score across review boards despite the sheer amount of bugs still present in the game is a small miracle, and reason enough to doubt those complaining about narrative/gameplay. If the latter two were worse than expected, alongside these bugs, the game'd been torpedoed as soon as it came out.

It's a bug: when continuing from my own save with "mayor Eder" using the hotfix, he talked about how he settled in dyrford, was attacked by the skaenite mayor, and thus became mayor after killing the old one. He then ruminates a bit on his mayoral skills and the burden of responsibility, the latter being the same as in his other endings.

I really hope we're missing something here, because retconning Pallegina joining the kind wayfarers, means they retconned one of the most common outcomes for Pallegina according to that poll they did. It's ridiculous. EDIT: just checked the return to Caed Nua poll results: 77.75% of players had Pallegina disobey her orders, and 21.13% distributed the hollowborn souls' essence across the Dyrwood. So even if every single player among that 21% had Pallegina disobey her orders, and leaving some statistic insignificance, that still means they retconned Pallegina's fate FOR ABOUT 50% OF THE POE1 PLAYERS. So, um, no offense, but what the hell Josh? Is there a chance to at least get some reference to her temporarily joining the wayfarers, or something else that makes the ending me and hundreds of other players got not completely irrelevant?

Actually for Paladin and Priest if you go into the Reputations page, your desired dispositions are highlighted with a blue outline and your opposed dispositions are highlighted with a red outline. True, but I think it might be useful if players can see their preferred dispositions before they finish creating their character. As for the dispositions, I have to agree with Sharmat: my ranger has every disposition except shady and cruel up to half, with two higher, and i have only just reached Neketaka (though i did complete the Benweth quest for the Principi first). So unless there's a way to decrease them through your actions, i can't help but think the rate of increase needs to be reviewed.

Since creating characters has become something of a hobby/stress relief for me, I always do multiple playthroughs, using the ones that feel "fit" for the setting/story. Aside from that, I also still do the whole "self-insert" thing (because let's face it: we all enjoy exploring those worlds ourselves). However, it's usually more like "So, if i take my general interests, personality and seemingly innate beliefs, and mix it with the given/available culture(s)/race(s)/background(s) given where applicable, who would i be in this setting?" than transplanting myself directly. Usually ends up with a diplomatic "nexus"-type of character with a cheeky wit, preferably a mobile combatant with mild magic-use, combining crowd control with keeping the party together: Chanter felt quite natural in both background and playstyle for me here, especially since i could tank as well. The best synergy I've felt with a certain playstyle was with my Jedi Shadow Tank in SW:the old republic, before EA screwed that one up completely.

The save import may be pretty bugged, and there've been a few crashes, but overall the game doesn't seem to have any severe bugs thus far, and i forgot how entertaining it can be when things don't entirely go the way they should yet, so there's that. The extra time was probably needed though. On the actual gameplay: It's way smoother than PoE1, if somewhat easier, and i'm really enjoying it thus far. My favourite moment has to be when i got into ship combat with a ship that obviously outclassed me, then somehow lucked out by hitting their powder storage or something. My crew went from dehydration-induced hatred before to singing sea shanties afterwards.

After finding that one of my characters received a boon from Hylea due to pledging to her in pillars one, yet another didn't for her pledge to Galawain, I tested whether Obsidian's pre-created Galawain history would receive a boon. Since I didn't receive on there either, I decided to waste some time testing every pledge to see which ones received a boon and which didn't. I used the pre-created POE1-histories for each god except Skaen, since it wasn't entirely clear whether that one involves actually pledging to him: for that one, I only filled in the Hollowborn Crisis choices, including pledging to Skaen alone, and sending the souls to Woedica. Results: only the Characters who pledged to Berath and Hylea received a reward, "Berath's Black Bell" and "Hylea's Bounty" respectively, available in the armoire in the cabin you revive in. The others choices either aren't supposed to grant a reward, or are bugged. Unfortunately, i couldn't attach the .savegame files here, and find myself unable to insert screenshots of the ones with boons without screwing this post up.

I've also found that it's impossible to choose a neutral stance at the animancy trials in Defiance Bay in the Editor, though that may be intentional. Zahua lacking an enlightenment option could be explained by his enlightening, and subsequent teaching of pupils, falling under "founds new monastic order", but Maneha's fate when convinced is clearly missing.

The way i understand all this is, Chris has a tendency to go all-out when working his magic into a project, seemingly without taking budget/time constraints into account (which can be seen from Kotor II, through Alpha Protocol up to Durance and Grieving Mother). This obviously causes tension when A) Obsidian got in trouble since his projects were either not finished on time or caused other employees to spend time finishing his content B) Chris had to cut into the content and characters he'd written/designed, which would piss off any writer, and obviously caught some flak from management telling him to "write differently", which would also piss off any writer. 1) Chris starts viewing management badly and allegedly does his "experiments" with coworkers (I can't help but find those hard to believe) 2) Management has to deal with his titles giving the company's games a reputation of being buggy and unfinished, no matter how brilliantly written 3) And meanwhile, as Fenstermaker said in regard to PoE, coworkers sometimes had to help finish Chris' work when the deadline neared => no way this wouldn't lead to a vicious cycle in which both sides start viewing the other worse over time, right? So Chris eventually ends up leaving Obsidian. However, Chris had expected the company to do the morally right thing: 1) The healthcare thing is, unfortunately, how those things work in the states, since companies would go down quickly if they had to pay American healthcare costs for former employees. It's awful, but Obsidian isn't really to blame, and neither is Chris. 2) The agreement not to work on RPG's is equally awful, especially for someone who loves his job and is considered the best writer in the business. However, temporary bans are also normal business practice: can't have former employees stealing your companies ideas. If it wasn't temporary, Obsidian's clearly in the wrong here. If it was, it's simply Chris not realizing this is an awful but necessary evil in the business. Most of the other stuff is pretty awful: Feargus' supposed nepotism, the deal with Chris' ownership and payout, etc. But it can all be summarised as Awful Management. I'm willing to believe Obsidian management played him a few bad cards, considering there was already bad blood between them, but i also don't think he's giving the entire story: some of the corporate manouevers that were supposedly pulled against him seem rather.... contrary to the organizational/economic mess Obsidian is according to him; not to mention the passed years influencing his recollection of events. And yeah, Chris venting this way is quite childish, but it's also understandable in my view: he's been able to write more freely than ever since going freelance, with major succes, and now sees Obsidian as the company holding him back. The Codex' influence (no insult intended, merely pointing towards your tendency towards strong, open-hearted opinions) is also clear: he started out simply mentioning his problems with Obsidian's management and environment using some anecdotes, before he opened up with what's causing the real ****storm. Saying he did this purposely to harm Deadfire sales is ridiculous, in my view: We're on the internet, most people will know how badly things can go when people are encouraged to vent, and being able to vent after years of bitterness can be pretty damn liberating, whether it's right or not. That the interview was recently might as well be a coincidence. As for blaming Obsidian for all this: Chris' recollection of events is pretty damning, but is clearly influenced by some degree of bitterness, and there're also his writing skills to consider. The fact that they were willing, eager even, to work with him on Tyranny also implies his side of the story isn't entirely true. And whether management is evil or not, the people working on Deadfire aren't, don't deserve any flak or cancellations for this debacle at all, and it's a shame the game and the people who worked on it may get dragged into this.

5 step plan for optimal use of the naming system Step 1: Create Vailian watcher named Christopher/christoforo Step 2: Name ship "La Santa Maria" Step 3: Name every Island you encounter in the vein of: "This is India, right?", "Isn't this supposed to be India" or "C'mon, this one just HAS to be India" Step 4: ??? Step 5: Profit I also can't wait to see Concelhaut's skull flitting around in the menagerie, constantly chased by dogs who want to use it as a chew toy.

Those firecrackers alone have convinced to have at least one explosive-proficient party member along for my first playthrough, hope there are various special types of explosive. Also, the talking blade gives me quite the Nightblood vibe... but pervy rather than morally challenged, which is probably a good thing. Thanks to all of you at Obsidian for doing such a great job! PS: Can't wait to see the inevitable "best Island/ship names" thread pop up.

I'm probably rolling a Devoted/Sharpshooter for my imported ranger. Even if the fighter skills end up largely useless for a ranged build, the bonus penetration/accuracy from base devoted could make a 4-arquebus alfa-strike even more devastating, though a blunderbuss devoted would easily wade through critter mobs. ....now i can't help but imagine a devoted/cipher with a blunderbuss, the focus gain against mobs would be crazy.