Taevyr

The Watershaper dragon helps in the battle before entering Ondra's Mortar, but i never saw the dragon at magran's teeth again.

Having read through this thread, I'm really looking forward to the discussions between college-age gamers in ten years, lambasting how "no action RPG since 2016 has come close to the ultimate glory and perfection of the witcher 3, and none ever will". I'm also surprised no-one's mentioned Planescape: Torment, which is far superior to BG2 in writing. Both those and BG2 are great games that were universally recognized as pinnacles of their genre when they came out, among both critics and players. They're unique and will always be dear to our hearts, sure, but ignoring their faults to preserve our perfect nostalgia-fueled memory of them is silly. Also, Baldur's had an entire setting, complete with mechanics, locales and character system, thrown into Bioware's lap to work with: Pillars and DOS had to design all that themselves, and still manage to reach a level where they're compared to, and often equalized with, an impossibly ideaized game. Makes the winner rather clear to me.

For those wondering: The areas you can visit in Neketaka are cleared by visiting an "exit" leading to them. Take Queen's Berth: the northernmost exit in Queen's Berth clears Periki's, and is apparently the natural choice for most players. The eastern exit clears the Brass citadel and possibly the gullet, though I'm not certain of the latter. There's no "gating' involved. Your character chooses a certain route to head up to Serpent's crown. Since you're not yet aware of the other routes to other areas of the city, you can't just head there before finding one .

Again, you're forced to go through Periki's Overlook. Forced. So no, your assertion that people ignore the game to go do their own thing and somehow this is "wrong" is just silly. All this besides the fact that Clario simply tells you that if you want to do business in the Deadfire, you'll need to see Onekaza. There's no particular urgency in that. You're not forced to go through Periki's Overlook: my first playthrough had my watcher visiting the sacred stair for Xoti and Eder's questline by way of the gullet/brass citadel (don't remember which, though i think it was gullet) first. He headed to the castle from there, never touching Periki's overlook. He also saw no reason to involve an outsider in a... sensitive investigation, never entering the watershapers' guild until the crisis involving the dragon.I found Tekehu's recruitment then quite well written, without any plot butchering involved. My second watcher recruited him while she investigated the gullet for prince Aruihi, which also made sense for her: he's shows interest in the investigation and was recommended by the prince. But that's all a moot point: even if we were forced to go through Periki's Overlook, nobody forces you to enter the Watershaper's guild. Nobody forces you to talk to Tekehu for more than a moment. Nobody forces you to say "yes" when he asks to accompany you. All that is your choice, which means you have to carry the in-game consequences: THAT'S WHY IT'S AN RPG. Sure, there're plenty of games where you can ignore the plot to do whatever the hell you wish for most of the game without throwing off said plot: Skyrim and the latest Bioware games come to mind, for example. The reason most of us love Obsidian is because they don't work like that. We can either have a linear plot with gated content where we happily trudge along with limited influence in choice and action, or we can have a damn role-playing game, meaning choice and consequence is in play for most of our actions. And while it does get wonky every now and then (e.g. Serafen in Crookspur depending on his personal quest), I'm pretty glad Obsidian went with the latter.

So, you are running around, doing quests randomly and as much out of order as you can in a game, where every reviewer mentioned necessity to follow the plot to keep it coherent, and you are surprised something does not make enough sense?! PoE was designed (from the beginning) to give you maximum freedom in a gameplay (so, if you want to test your skills you can do it ignoring everything but fighting and selected quests), but plot was very strict and demanding of attention from the first game - one misstep and you loose important pieces of story. Same in PoE2: you want to explore and shoot things - go ahead, but if you follow the plot - you do it in a scripted order or loose the plot line. If I have to explain why your Watcher is supposed to report back to the second in command of the Huana nation (yes, the Prince) after said Watcher accepted and finished the task Prince gave him - I do not see why any kind of motivation or role-playing in general might be important to you at all. Not sure why am doing Captain Obvious here, either, since all your complains are exactly as Yria said: you like character - you do not care about why s/he with you, you do not like character - everything is "wrong" in the story. Sorry have to say it, this is the most stupid apology for bad quest design. Before i play the game i am supposed to look up a rewiewer, to tell me in wich order i should do quests? No, this is not how good quest design works, ever. It's not bad quest design when you and your character are explicitly told, in-game, that certain actions/quests are highly important and thus should be prioritized, only to have the warning be ignored because you want to barge into every house in Neketaka before doing the time-critical thing you were there for in the first place. You're free to sail around willy-nilly discovering the deadfire on your own, randomly barging into every house on your way and ignoring the role-playing aspect beyond the conversational level. Nothing wrong with playing the game like that, since it was obviously designed with that option in mind; However, complaining that this derails the plot is ridiculous, since you're the one who chose to derail it in the first place. There's plot everywhere, and most of it is well-connected. Barging through without any care for plot and complaining about it's "lack" afterwards is rather petulant: you can't eat your cake and still have it as well.

Maia came on to me pretty quick in my first (post-patch) playthrough, and my key dispositions were diplomatic and clever, followed by benevolent/shady. Overall, she seemed to react well to clever and some of the more opportunistic shady options. If companions react to dispositions, it could explain Xoti taking her time coming on to me in said playthrough: she HATES shady.

So, after recruiting Maia in Neketaka with my ranger, you can talk to her about her brother, and, depending on the import, get some choices concerning his death, which is a nice bit of reactivity. I've also heard there's good reactivity if you sacrificed him, which is a very nice touch. However, in this particular playthrough, Kana died sacrificing himself to stop the Eyeless at the end of the White march expansion. A pretty heroic death, yet there's no way of telling Maia what happened, as there is no import for that particular situation in Deadfire. While I understand that it's not that important a choice to carry over, it still stings that there's no chance to inform Maia of her brother's sacrifice, especially since she's the one to ask for closure and the only other options are to lie, say nothing, or act like he just happened to die at some point with a varying degree of empathy. ̶I̶n̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶d̶s̶, ̶l̶i̶t̶e̶r̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶p̶l̶a̶y̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ It's nothing game-breaking and won't stop me from enjoying the playthrough, but it's still disheartening for that particular choice to lack impact on said conversation.

I think it's connected to either rep or level, as it didn't fire in relation to either story or entering a certain location for me. Just keep her around and she'll bring it up eventually.

This'd definitely help make godlikes more viable, and would also fit the lore/RP point of view. As it is now, playing godlike's a flavor choice at best, and the existing racials are rather lackluster aside from the nature godlike.

Eora has a heavy "age of discovery" feel to it, and mostly seems to correspond to our 1500's- early 1600's. Religious strife, general scientific advancements, colonialism, and gunpowder as a key war resource are all important parts of that. I loved the way Durance mentions gunpowder being developed to put "normal" people on equal footing with mages in PoE1, as it made it sound like a believable historical development; and the gods/animancy strife is a great fantasy equivalent to Europe's religious troubles in that age. When you rebuild Caed Nua, Pallegina also mentions that forts aren't built like that anymore as they're too vulnerable to cannons: in other words, the Vailians are now using the Eora equivalent to star forts, which equates to our mid-1500's. The eastern reach has an older feel to it because: 1) It's an underdeveloped, slightly backward colony in clear decline, and the farmer population opposes scientific progress as represented by animancy; and 2) the large presence of an less developed tribal society in Eir Glanfath gives the impression of a less advanced world. It was a good way to introduce the setting while still "playing it safe" by adhering to most classic fantasy tropes. Meanwhile, the Deadfire has colonialism in full swing when you arrive, which means the advanced empires have a far larger presence in the area. I imagine if we ever visit the republics/Rauatai we'll see an early modern nation in full swing. The colonial setting is one of the most unique I've seen in fantasy, similar to how Tyranny does a great job in presenting fantasy at the advent of the iron age. It's normal that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a welcome change from the horde of high medieval RPG settings out there.

So there's never been conflict between equality and personal advancement, or safety and freedom, or progress and preservation? And those discussions never turn out to be ridiculous flame wars when polarized? Now imagine that, but with those personified Ideals actually bickering over which is best, each believing they're objectively correct so the other's must be either stupid or evil. The factions in PoE1 all consist out of Ideals that largely overlap. The Gods in PoE are nothing like what you're describing. My example may not have been the best, true. Allow me to rephrase. They're "pure ideals" with a personality, but in my opinion it's pretty clear that their morality/worldview is solely based on what they represent. Authority/Justice wants to bring everyone, including her fellow gods, to heel. Rebellion/Betrayal helps her, since it means rebelling against/betraying the existing order. Mystery/Discovery wants to control secrets. Stillness/Nothingness wants to end everything. Progress, Trials and Natural Selection find common ground. etc. Sure, Justice has far more in common with Vengeance, but for someone who considers herself to be objectively right, Vengeance is Justice. Rebellion/Betrayal's into some really disturbing stuff and helping the ultimate control freak, but why should he care so long as he's rebelling? And of course Natural Selection doesn't want you to turn off the machine producing apex sea predators, they're literally his reason of existence. They're utterly annoying and stupid, and they should be, just like a first-year philosophy student in love with the works of Nietzsche or Marx is utterly annoying and stupid. And while I agree that they weren't written as well as they were in PoE1, I can't say they were written bad. Somewhat flanderized, but not bad

Wait, Berath is spiteful for sending you on to your next life, as you were supposed to, if you don't want to help her? You're literally dead at that time, what should she do? And an Ideal taken on it's own is very much a stupid thing: you can't even call them self serving as they blindly follow the ideal they embody, which means morality as we know it is out of the picture as well. The "spoiled children" facet comes in since they can't deviate from that course, and will stomp anyone who goes against it. Ideals don't bicker like spoiled children. So there's never been conflict between equality and personal advancement, or safety and freedom, or progress and preservation? And those discussions never turn out to be ridiculous flame wars when polarized? Now imagine that, but with those personified Ideals actually bickering over which is best, each believing they're objectively correct so the other's must be either stupid or evil. The factions in PoE1 all consist out of Ideals that largely overlap.

Agreed with most everything, except I think you're selling endless paths a tad short. It actually works as multiple expeditions if you try and push your party to the next master staircase area. I want to also co-sign the fact that long dungeons just aren't quite the same in Deadfire, even if they had them, due to the scrapping the old systems. The paths were certainly fun as multiple expeditions, and pushing your party's half that fun. However, it also broke up the few tidbits of story in each level of the paths even more and made it a lot less cohesive as a dungeon (insofar as it was cohesive). As i said, it's a good combat dungeon, but it missed the feeling of a single, cohesive expedition as it's simply not designed that way. I understand that many players dislike arbitrary attrition and nobody likes "thrash mobs", but I love seeing my party slowly get ground down by a dungeon as I progress deeper, while planning how to use my limited rests, especially when doing a dungeon for the first time. It's something I really enjoyed in Durgan's battery, and it's missing completely in Deadfire.

If they're sacrificing animals to a coven, they should really change covens as this one obviously doesn't give sound business advice. "Oh Great Lord, tell us how we'll make Deadfire a financial success" *ominous, gravelly voice* GIVE THEM FREE STUFF "Well that doesn't sound right, but who am I to disagree with the Great Nemnok..."

Half the fun of a good Dungeon crawl is planning your rests/resources so you can make it through in one run, so they'd need to add some mechanic to replicate that. It's also why Durgan's battery beats the Endless Paths: both have decent, on-going stories, but the first can be done in a single run, while the Paths were designed to be done in stages as you level, which also spread the story rather thin. I enjoyed the Paths as a combat dungeon, but they weren't the epic expedition you have in Durgan's Battery. Places like the underwater dungeon, the island with Wael's dungeon and Splintered Reef all give that same feel of an expedition into the unknown, but I'd like some more puzzles (Wael's was just the right combination of ingenuity and frustration) and resource management other than "stock some captain's banquet to steamroll fampyr's". If the choice is between several smaller dungeons or a single huge one, I'd pick the smaller ones. As for the combat-themed DLC, they could limit food availability during the DLC to dissuade constant resting, even if I'll still miss the old endurance/health system.

I have the same thing with Pallegina in one playthrough: I never recruited her with my ranger in POE1, and she never made an appearance in deadfire thus far, even if there's no reason for her to be absent. Also, Eder appeared in a different imported playthrough in which he left my party when I refused to find his brother, acting like he was there for the whole Thaos business, became mayor and left for Aedyr. I'd expected him not to appear, and eventually reloaded so I could leave him behind and play properly. It's doubly jarring since he acts like you're old friends either way, and there's no way to oppose that in dialogue either.

I think it depends on 1) Which faction you chose to support and 2) either which faction you help most or which faction has the highest rep with you. For example: in my playthrough, I helped out the Huana and RDC the most, did some work for the VTC (though it usually ended bad), and mostly ignored the pirates once i dealt with Benweth. After i sided with the RDC following the queen's "No outsiders enter Ukaizo even if it kills everyone", I ended up facing the VTC Canta Nicese at Ukaizo. While I did more to support the Huana, I never actually gave them anything that could help them reach Ukaizo and killed their leadership, which makes them reaching Ukaizo quite unlikely. Eliminating their leadership also threw my rep with them down the drain, so there's that as well. However, I did do what i could to help the VTC's animancy experiments, and even if their other errands failed to work out in their favor, i still finished them (which I found somewhat jarring, as they really should have dumped me after "failing" the first few). I also had higher rep with them than with the Principi. Rep would be the simple solution, and is easily proven/disproven should anyone with more spare time than me want to check. I hope it's more complicated that that though.

Does that make the Watcher Jon Snow? We've got - Death and resurrection - The gods telling us we know nothing - factions trying to use us in their (trade) war - A bunch of misfits as our surprisingly effective "army" Eder can be Hodor. He's loyal, always follows you around and is pretty good at holding doors.

LAZY WORM TRY LOOK FOR SHINIES IN FORT-TRESS, BUT GROUNDMEAT FIRE CANNON AT LAZY WORM. MUST HAVE MANY SHINIES TO PROTECT. WHY FELLOW IMPS EATING DUNG? ARKEMYR MAKE CLEAN CHAMBER POT WITH TONGUE?

To be fair the devs said the main reason they didn't do bi Solas was because they didn't want to have a bi evil guy. (What's Bull supposed to be in that case is anyone's guess). Didn't Gaider also say it's because they thought it'd be too much of a stereotype for someone with Solas' character to be gay? Definitely not the best of reasons, but understandable considering how toxic their fanbase could get at times. Audio files are often misleading; if I remember correctly, in the original mass effect they had the male voice for shepard record all lines of female shepard and vice versa to be certain nothing was missed, so it's possible have fully voiced same-sex romance with a few console tweaks. They could easily have had the Iselmyr-Eder thing voiced, tested by QA in-game, received the universal response "this is WAY more disturbing and invasive to Aloth than on paper, please don't", and cut it out, while leaving the voicework in for modders. Or they just like torturing Aloth, which is also quite likely considering his character arcs and his tendency to die without the watcher's help. Rick messing with the wheel to make a point about inept gods or selling adra as a drug/energy source two galaxies over seems perfectly in character tbh

LAZY WORM LIKE FIRE GROUNDMEAT. TASTE LIKE BARBECUE.

There is a large gulf on the side of the continent that's facing Aedyr, north west of Ixamitl, but indeed no archipelago. Are you certain there is supposed to be one? I was, but now that I haven't managed to find the reference in-game or on the wiki, I might have been wrong. That could definitely be the Rauatai gulf, though it'd mean quite a change from Rauatai supposedly being based around the gulf, unless they haven't expanded across their entire continent (and who'd believe that?). The inner end of the gulf'd make a nice location for Takowa and the Gate of Great Teeth as well. Very defendable, especially for a major naval power.

"You need not follow me, watcher. Something glorious is coming." plenty of source material, right there

If this is true, what devil did he deal with to be good at both? CAN I DEAL WITH IT AS WELL?! You guys talking about Brandon Sanderson made me think: do they have Highstorms in Rauatai? Does that mean Ukaizo's a conduit for Stormlight between the cognitive and physical realm? Is animancy the study of Investiture? THERE'RE SO MANY POSSIBILITIES HERE! also, inb4 the gods turn out to be some weird shard offshoot

While i agree that Obsidian built a really good, believable world in Deadfire, I wouldn't say they should focus on one aspect over the other. There's a reason a company like theirs hires various narrative designers: some will inevitably be better at one aspect than the other, and I wouldn't call characters like Tekehu or the faction leaders shallow. Hell, the "shallowness" of the gods only serves to strengthen the idea of them being personified ideals, which is a good thing in my book. I'd hazard to say good narrative design means knowing which writer does what best, and trying to work with that as much as possible; however, as they're a company on a deadline (moneyline?), this won't be possible most of the time. I'd also wait until they've taken a good look at the relation system, and the stock reactions they used for it. It's really "hit-or-miss' the way it works now: i.e. Xoti would definitely approve highly of properly burying some dawnstars, but she probably wouldn't laugh her ass off. Not to mention "Jokes make everyone like you" except Aloth. As for your examples: I haven't used Pallegina much myself, but she did seem somewhat ruined compared to her PoE1 characterisation. Xoti seemed like a badly executed Leliana expy: not necessarily a bad character, but she could've been more. If this is true, what devil did he deal with to be good at both? CAN I DEAL WITH IT AS WELL?!